Transnational Identity, the Singing of Spirituals, and the Performance of Blackness among Mascogos1
This chapter takes capeyuye [spiritual singing] as a point of departure to study the Mascogos’ continuous struggle to define themselves as binational people, as Afro-Seminoles living in Coahuila, Mexico. By reflecting on the intersections of race, nationality, and the body within the specificities of Mascogo border culture and history, the chapter problematize Anne Anlin Cheng's notion of “racial melancholia,” suggesting that self rejection might be a more strategic move than Cheng acknowledges it to be. In the end, the author coins the term “dialectical soundings” and propose that the singing of spiritual among the Mascogos in fact operates as such, rendering Blackness visible in the context of the Mexican border essentialist racial discourse
Keywords: Afro-Mexicans, Afro-Seminoles, identity, race, diaspora, cultural citizenship, dialectical soundings
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