La Ciudad de la Mujer: Solidaridad y Resistencia en el Salón de Belleza

Authors

Radost A. Rangelova, Gettysburg CollegeFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

Summer 2013

Department 1

Spanish

Abstract

The paper explores the relationship between gender, sexuality, and the construction of the space of the city in Puerto Rican short stories set in beauty salons. I argue that, through the relationships that develop between women in the beauty salon, and through the interactions between the beauty salon and other city spaces like the street, the strip club, the church and the family house. The protagonists of stories like “Milagros, call Mercurio” and “Pilar, tus rizos” politicize the space of the beauty salon, both gendering and queering it. In this way, they challenge some of the spatial tropes associated with Puerto Rican cultural nationalist discourse, and propose axes of feminist and queer alliances and solidarity that form the basis of new models of community.

Comments

Original version is available from the publisher at: http://letrasfemeninas.org/

Copyright Note

This is the publisher's version of the work. This publication appears in Gettysburg College's institutional repository by permission of the copyright owner for personal use, not for redistribution.

Recommended Citation

Rangelova, Radost. “La Ciudad de la Mujer: Solidaridad y Resistencia en el Salón de Belleza.” Letras Femeninas XXXIX.1 (2013): 107-122.