Bridging Sonic Borders

Sharina MaÍllo-Pozo is an assistant professor of Latinx studies in the Department of Romance Languages at the University of Georgia. She is the coeditor of Embodiment and Representations of Beauty.

• Introduction. Bridging Sonic Literary Borders between the Dominican Republic and New York CityChapter 1. Merengue Makes It to los Países--with a TwistChapter 2. From Santo Domingo to New York City: The Sonic Tales of Luis "Terror" Días and Other "Pendejos Anónimos"Chapter 3. Reframing Afro-Latina Narratives of Girlhood and Womanhood: Bridging the Borders between Fiction, Nonfiction, and Hip-HopChapter 4. Storytelling from the Borderlands: The Journeys of a Dominicanyork Writer and PerformerEpilogueAcknowledgmentsNotesBibliographyIndex

Bridging Sonic Borders delves into the vibrant intersection of popular music and Dominican literature. Sharina MaÍllo-Pozo introduces the concept of "sonic literary texts," illustrating how sound weaves together the insular and diasporic Dominican experiences. Through the lens of "sonic archives," she highlights how collective histories and cultural expressions are embedded within key works of Dominican literature. This pioneering study invites readers to explore the transformative role of music and sound in shaping Dominican identity and culture, offering a compelling new perspective on the cultural dynamics that inform the Caribbean imagination. - Yolanda Martínez-San Miguel, University of Miami, author of Coloniality of Diasporas: Rethinking Intra-Colonial Migrations in a Pan-Caribbean Context Moving beyond traditional divisions between Dominican culture on the island and in the diaspora, MaÍllo-Pozo’s broad-reaching and much-needed study argues convincingly for the transnational nature of dominicanidad. Highlighting the links between popular music and literature, she ably compiles a diverse archive of sonic narratives to show how recent cultural production deconstructs hegemonic narratives of national identity even as it centers music as a social institution intimately connected to Dominican ways of being. - Emily A. Maguire, Northwestern University, author of Racial Experiments in Cuban Literature and Ethnography