Cultural and Migrant Identities in Cristina Henríquez's Novel "The Book of Unknown Americans": Using Homi Bhabha’s theories, a Postcolonial study

Abstract

Through the theoretical framework of Homi K. Bhabha’s postcolonial concepts of culture, the imitation, hybridity and Third space, this study takes up the themes of cultural hybridity and migrant identity in Cristina Henríquez’s The Book of Unknown Americans. This novel provides a view of how Latin American immigrants do the murkiness of cultural adaptation and their alienation and belonging in the U.S. Alma, Arturo etc. become the key characters who personify the such struggles and transformational potential of hybrid identities who build between the cultural heritage and the norms of host country. The adjacency to Bhabha’s work on identity as a fluid, dynamic thing constituted by ambivalence and negotiation is brought out in the analysis. In between spaces see Alma’s struggles to remain ‘Mexican’ while adapting to American culture, Arturo’s struggling with economic exploitation, and Mayor’s multi-cultural identity as a second generation immigrant. The novel, further, brings to light larger, social and more political aspects, such as systemic discrimination and marginalization and solidarity among migrant communities. The theoretical framework used in this study is in a postcolonial perspective that allows the reader to understand migration and identity through the analysis of Henríquez’s novel from the point of cultural hybridity by Bhabha.