Johanna X.K. Garvey (Fairfield University)
Both Ana-Maurine Lara and Mayra Santos-Febres explore “being Caribbean” in narratives that both illustrate and challenge the violence born of borders, whether those of nation, of race/ethnicity, of class, of gender and sexuality, of faith, of language. Both authors employ the figure of La Sirena to invoke multiple passages across the Caribbean, from the Middle Passage to contemporary travel into, out of, and especially within the geographical and cultural spaces termed “Caribbean.” Their texts demonstrate the damage wrought by adherence to prescribed boundaries, illustrate the subversive potential of “queer” identities, and suggest the healing that non-normative affiliations can initiate. Santos-Febres’ Sirena Selena defies the boundaries of conventional categories of masculine and feminine, even as the characters travel between Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, dreaming of New York City as magical destination and of an elsewhere unconfined by national borders. In their “wanton Caribbean,” we encounter a dizzying slippage of nouns, names, and pronouns, watching the fluid performances of these “tranformistas.” In the face of assault, rape, and other trauma, La Sirena is the singing voice that offers stories, connects the seemingly disparate, and suggests a potential healing through resistance. In Erzulie’s Skirt, Lara interweaves the narrative of a long-term relationship between Haitian Miriam and her Dominican lover Micaela, with dream sequences linking their lives in the Caribbean back to roots in African, the Middle Passage, and enslavement. We witness the violence of borders, including that of the Massacre River between Haiti and the Dominican Republic, and of another middle passage when the women unwittingly pay for a boat trip that takes them not to a better life in New York, but into the hell of sex trafficking in Puerto Rico. Erzulie and La Sirène, loas of the sea, counter the trauma of this contemporary passage, and offer spiritual power to survive the extended violence of sex slavery.
