Research Catalog

Title

Performances of suffering in Latin American migration : heroes, martyrs and saints / Ana Elena Puga, Víctor M. Espinosa.

Author

Puga, Ana Elena

Publication

• Cham : Palgrave Macmillan, [2020]
• ©2020

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

Espinosa, Victor M.

Description

xv, 372 pages : illustrations, maps; 22 cm

Summary

"This book questions the reliance on melodrama and spectacle in social performances and cultural productions by and about migrants from Mexico and Central America to the United States. Focusing on archetypal characters with nineteenth-century roots that recur in the twentieth- and twenty-first centuries - heroic saviors, saintly mothers and struggling fathers, martyred children and rebellious youth - it shows how theater practitioners, filmmakers, visual artists, advocates, activists, journalists, and others who want to help migrants often create migrant melodramas, performances that depict their heroes as virtuous victims at the mercy of evil villains. In order to gain respect for the human rights that are supposedly already theirs on paper and participate in a global market that trades in performances of suffering, migrants themselves sometimes accept the roles into which they are cast, or even cast themselves. Some express their suffering publicly, often on demand. Others find ways to twist, parody, resist, or reject migrant melodrama. Timely, beautifully written, and deeply researched, Puga's and Espinosa's study captures the complex nuances of how performance scholars and ethnographers grapple with telling stories of and bearing witness to trauma. They invite scholars to re-imagine the narrative genres into which histories of migration are often coerced. They question how familiar forms such as melodrama can empower or dis-empower individuals struggling to share their stories and change their circumstances. Their thoughtful work offers a compassionate and erudite model for performance ethnographers."--

Subject

• 1900-1999
• Immigrants in literature
• Latin American literature > 20th century > History and criticism
• Suffering in literature
• Latin American literature

Genre/Form

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (pages [337]-354) and index.

Contents

Chapter 1: Introduction -- Part 1: Rescue -- Chapter 2 : Heroic and Empathic Rescuers in Foundational Migrant Melodrama -- Chapter 3: Rescuers as Saints and Martyrs in Contemporary Migrant Melodrama -- Part 2: Mothers and Fathers -- Chapter 4: Madre Dolorosa: Casting Competitions in Mother Activism -- Chapter 5: Wounded Warriors: Corrective Castings in Male Activism -- Part 3: Children and Youth -- Chapter 6: Unaccompanied Migrant Children: Orphan-Martyrs in Motion -- Chapter 7: DREAMer Youth Artist-Activists: Queering Migrant Melodrama -- Chapter 8:Epilogue.

Call Number

JFD 21-2249

ISBN

• 3030374084
• 9783030374082

OCLC

1127664904

Author

Puga, Ana Elena, author.

Title

Performances of suffering in Latin American migration : heroes, martyrs and saints / Ana Elena Puga, Víctor M. Espinosa.

Publisher

Cham : Palgrave Macmillan, [2020]

Copyright Date

©2020

Type of Content

text

still image

cartographic image

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages [337]-354) and index.

Chronological Term

1900-1999

Added Author

Espinosa, Victor M., author.

Other Form:

Electronic version: Puga, Ana Elena. Performances of suffering in Latin American migration. Cham : Palgrave Macmillan, 2020 9783030374099 (OCoLC)1151183896

Research Call Number

JFD 21-2249