"Locating the Origin of Being: Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa’s Daughters of the Stone.”
Presentation
Overview
Overview
Description
Dhalma Llanos-Figueroa’s Daughters of the Stone (2009) is a narrative of an Afro-Puerto Rican’s search for self-identity as a “one-and-half-generation” immigrant in New York in the 1960s. The narrative suggests that descendents of Africans brought to the Americas as slaves, make a problematic choice—either to hold onto their ancestral way of life, or assimilate into the master’s culture by adopting the Euro-centric way of being. US Latino identity, non-homogenous despite its label, is largely dependent on the circumstances of displacement from one’s original culture and resistance faced in the new culture. The dynamics of a cultural clash often gives rise to a fragmented notion of self. Race adds an extra layer of negotiation in the whole question of self-articulation, especially taking into account the history of violent displacement and subjugation of the African race.
Carisa, the narrator of Daughters of the Stone, also the one in search of her identity, traces back her history to the first female ancestor to be brought to the Americas as a slave. Remembering and narrating the history of four generations, and a journey to Puerto Rico proves to be inadequate and at the end of the narrative, and Carisa embarks on another journey to Africa. This gives rise to the question as to how far back in history must one go to recover one’s identity, and if it is even possible to recover that history, which no longer exists. This paper looks at the problems of a multicultural identity given the complexities of temporal and spatial displacement, and the choice to hold on to the ancestral way of being or to adapt to the newer ways.
