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Continuities and Discontinuities Between Home and School: Toward a Multi-layered Understanding of Social Spaces in Esmeralda Santiago’s When I Was Puerto Rican and Almost a Woman

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Geographies of Girlhood in US Latina Writing

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Abstract

In this chapter, Fernández-García analyzes how Negi, the protagonist of When I Was Puerto Rican and Almost a Woman, constitutes and reconstitutes her identity in and through the microspaces of the home and the school, with special attention to the complicated tensions and connections between both environments. Drawing mostly on spatial theory and decolonial and border thinking, Fernández-García lays emphasis on the way the gaps between these settings are sometimes acutely felt and sometimes blurred, which involves a consideration of the multiple (and often conflicting) elements that coalesce into personal identities and social spaces.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Oviedo, Oviedo, Spain

    Andrea Fernández-García

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  1. Andrea Fernández-García
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Correspondence to Andrea Fernández-García .

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Fernández-García, A. (2020). Continuities and Discontinuities Between Home and School: Toward a Multi-layered Understanding of Social Spaces in Esmeralda Santiago’s When I Was Puerto Rican and Almost a Woman. In: Geographies of Girlhood in US Latina Writing. Literatures of the Americas. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-20107-4_6

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