Abstract
The rise of bordering processes within urban spaces underscores the need to re-evaluate a politics of space that reveals ethical lapses in hospitality as ethnic-bordered migrant sites expose host-centric restrictions and trigger identity dilemmas among ethnoracialized populations. Focusing on the politics of space and its influence on urban segregation and hospitality ethics, this chapter sheds light on the emergence of migrant sites marked by ethnic borders as well as the intricate interplay of host-guest relationships in the public sphere. Central to this analysis is Raquel Cepeda’s Bird of Paradise (2013), which unravels the multifaceted mechanisms employed by the host country to categorize and classify individuals based on race and ethnicity. By investigating the interplay between citizenship, belonging, and the selective inclusion of marginalized communities, the study elucidates the differential inclusion frameworks that shape urban social spaces. The article also explores how Cepeda’s work challenges conventional notions of inclusion and exclusion by highlighting the nuanced gradations of citizenship and belonging that exist within these spaces. A key objective of this research is to examine the bordering processes that contribute the hierarchical structuring of social space in New York City, as portrayed in Cepeda’s memoir. Through a meticulous analysis of Dominicans and other Latinx communities’ struggles to negotiate and contest their (non)belonging in an often-inhospitable environment, the study contributes to a deeper understanding of the contemporary diasporic experience. Ultimately, this chapter offers insights into the ways identity, citizenship, belonging, and agency intersect within the complex urban landscapes, enriching the discourse on diaspora studies, social geography, and cultural identity.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Works Cited
Agamben, Giorgio. 2000. Means Without End. Notes on Politics. Minneapolis, MN: U of Minnesota P.
Anthias, Floya. 2018. Identity and Belonging: Conceptualizations and Reframings through a Translocational Lens. In Contested Belonging: Spaces, Practices, Biographies, ed. Kathy Davis, Halleh Ghorasi, and Peer Smets, 137–160. Bingley, UK: Emerald Publishing Limited.
Balibar, Étienne. 2004. We, the People of Europe? Reflection on Transnational Citizenship. Princeton: Princeton UP.
———. 2017. Reinventing the Stranger: Walls All over the World, and How to Tear Them Down. Symploké 25 (1–2): 25–41. https://www.muse.jhu.edu/article/685016.
Bishop, Karen Elizabeth. 2016. The Cartographical Necessity of Exile. In Cartographies of Exile. A New Spatial Literacy, ed. Karen Elizabeth Bishop, 1–22. New York, NY and London, UK: Routledge.
Cañas, Tania. 2020. Creating Sites of Resistance. Journal of Cultural Analysis and Social Change 5 (2): 10. https://doi.org/10.20897/jcasc/8377.
Cepeda, Raquel. 2013. Bird of Paradise: How I Became Latina. A Memoir. New York, NY: Atria Paperback.
Davis, Kathy, Halleh Ghorasi, and Peer Smets. 2018. Introduction. In Contested Belonging: Spaces, Practices, Biographies, ed. Kathy Davis, Halleh Ghorasi, and Peer Smets, 1–15. Bingley, UK: Emerald Publishing Limited.
Dikeç, Mustafa, Nigel Clark, and Clive Barnett. 2009. Extending Hospitality: Giving Space, Taking Time. Paragraph 32 (1): 1–14. https://doi.org/10.3366/E0264833409000376.
Friese, Heidrum. 2009. The Limits of Hospitality. Paragraph 32 (1): 51–68. https://doi.org/10.3366/E0264833409000406.
González Rodríguez, Luisa María. 2021. Digging into the Past to Reconcile Race and Latinx Identity in Dominican-American Women’s Memoirs. In Latinidad at the Crossroads: Insights into Latinx Identity in the Twenty-First Century, ed. Amanda Ellen Gerke and Luisa María González Rodríguez, 46–65. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill.
Grosfoguel, Ramón, and Chloe S. Georas. 2000. ‘Coloniality of Power’ and Racial Dynamics: Notes toward a Reinterpretation of Latino Caribbeans in New York City. Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power 7 (1): 85–125. https://doi.org/10.1080/1070289X.2000.9962660.
Kandiyoti, Dalia. 2009. Migrant Sites: America, Place, and Diaspora Literatures. Hanover: Dartmouth College Press.
Lee, Charles T. 2010. Bare Life, Interstices, and the Third Space of Citizenship. Women’s Studies Quarterly 38 (1–2): 57–81. https://doi.org/10.1353/wsq.0.0224.
Mezzadra, Sandro, and Brett Neilson. 2012. Between Inclusion and Exclusion: On the Topology of Global Space and Borders. Theory, Culture & Society 29 (4–5): 58–75. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276412443569.
Pérez, Gina M., Frank A. Guridy, and Adrián Burgos Jr. 2010. Beyond El Barrio: Everyday Life in Latina/o America. New York, NY: New York UP.
Pratt, Geraldine. 1999. Geographies of Identity and Difference: Marking Boundaries. In Human Geography Today, ed. Doreen Massey, John Allen, and Philip Sarre, 151–167. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
Soja, Edward. 1996. Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real-and-Imagined Places. Cambridge, UK: Blackwell Publishing.
Viddler, Anthony. 2002. A City Transformed: Designing ‘Defensible Space’. Grey Room 7: 83–85. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1262588.
Walters, Williams. 2008. Acts of Demonstration: Mapping the Territory of (Non-) Citizenship. In Acts of Citizenship, ed. Engin F. Isin and Greg M. Nielsen, 182–207. London, UK: Zed Books.
Yuval-Davis, Nira. 2006. Belonging and the Politics of Belonging. Patterns of Prejudice 40 (3): 197–214. https://doi.org/10.1080/00313220600769331.
———. 2011. Power, Intersectionality and the Politics of Belonging. FREIA Working Paper No. 75. Aalborg: Aalborg University.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2024 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
González Rodríguez, L.M. (2024). Cartographies of Inclusion/Exclusion and Contested Belongings in Raquel Cepeda’s Bird of Paradise: How I Became a Latina. In: Barba Guerrero, P., Fernández Jiménez, M. (eds) American Borders. American Literature Readings in the 21st Century. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30179-7_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30179-7_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-30178-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-30179-7
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)