Translocas : the politics of Puerto Rican drag and trans performance / Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

La Fountain-Stokes, Lawrence.

Series:

Triangulations: Lesbian/Gay/Queer Theater/Drama/Performance

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Female impersonators--Political activity--Puerto Rico.

Female impersonators.

Trans people--Political activity--Puerto Rico.

Trans people.

Female impersonators--Puerto Rico--Social conditions.

Trans people--Puerto Rico--Social conditions.

Gender-nonconforming people--Puerto Rico.

Gender-nonconforming people.

Performing arts--Puerto Rico.

Performing arts.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (351 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Ann Arbor, Michigan : University of Michigan Press, 2021.

Summary:

Translocas focuses on drag and transgender performance and activism in Puerto Rico and its diaspora. Arguing for its political potential, Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes explores the social and cultural disruptions caused by Latin American and Latinx "locas" (effeminate men, drag queens, transgender performers, and unruly women) and the various forms of violence that queer individuals in Puerto Rico and the U.S. are subjected to. This interdisciplinary, auto-ethnographic, queer-of-color performance studies book explores the lives and work of contemporary performers and activists including Sylvia Rivera, Nina Flowers, Freddie Mercado, Javier Cardona, Jorge Merced, Erika López, Holly Woodlawn, Monica Beverly Hillz, Lady Catiria, and Barbra Herr; television programs such as RuPaul's Drag Race; films such as Paris Is Burning, The Salt Mines, and Mala Mala; and literary works by authors such as Mayra Santos-Febres and Manuel Ramos Otero. Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes, a drag performer himself, demonstrates how each destabilizes (and sometimes reifies) dominant notions of gender and sexuality through drag and their embodied transgender expression. These performances provide a means to explore and critique issues of race, class, poverty, national identity, and migratory displacement; and at times posit a relationship between audiences and performers that has a ritual-like, communal dimension. La Fountain-Stokes also analyzes the murders of Jorge Steven López Mercado and Kevin Fret in Puerto Rico, and invites readers to challenge, question, and expand their knowledge about queer life, drag, trans performance, and Puerto Rican identity in the Caribbean and the diaspora. He also pays careful attention to transgender experience, highlighting how trans activists and performers mold their bodies, promote social change, and create community in a context that oscillates between glamour and abjection.

Contents:

Intro

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

One. Theorizing la Loca: Feminist and Queer Debates

Two. Transloca Epistemologies: Nina Flowers, Jorge Steven López Mercado, and Kevin Fret

Three. Diasporic Welfare Queens and the Transloca Drag of Poverty

Four. Freddie Mercado and the Ultrabaroque Drag of Rasanblaj

Five. Javier Cardona and the Transloca Drag of Race

Six. Bolero, Translocation, Performance: Jorge B. Merced and the Pregones Theater of the Bronx

Seven. Adoring Lady Catiria, Knowing Barbra Herr

Epilogue

Notes

Works Cited

Index.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 259-321) and index.

Description based on information from the publisher.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9780472126071

0472126075

OCLC:

1225197954