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- Title
This Ain’t Paris Sweetie: Exploring West African and French Identity in the Southern United States.
- Authors
Cruz, Joelle
- Abstract
This autoethnography explores West African and French identity in the Southern United States. Seven short poems trace back a journey from West Africa and France to the American South and flesh out the contours of a transient and suspended self. A brown immigrant woman, my text reconstructs the embodied experience of racism and sexism in a small conservative community. Poetic prose helps to capture the elusive nature of a narrative, best expressed through fragmentary impressions. These bits written in half-dream state bring to life the folding and unfolding of identity/ies in a foreign land. They also offer a political and cultural reflection on racism, sexism, and immigration. Finally, because they open many windows to other narratives, they shed light on intertextuality in autoethnographic practice, through what I call the “Russian Dolls” metaphor.
- Subjects
UNITED States; ETHNOLOGY; POETRY (Literary form); MULTIRACIAL people; FEMINISM; FRENCH people; WEST Africans
- Publication
Qualitative Inquiry, 2010, Vol 16, Issue 10, p792
- ISSN
1077-8004
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1177/1077800410383125