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<p>This essay explores the processes of Latinx identity formation in performance-based recollections of the nineteenth-century figure Loreta Velazquez. Velazquez has received increased attention as a figure of the Latinx past, a vexed affiliation due to her pro-Confederate leanings. To understand how Velazquez is imagined as Latinx, I introduce the concept of <i>Latinx reenactment</i>, which characterizes performance-based practices of summoning figures of the past to fill gaps in popular understandings of Latinx history for contemporary audiences. I examine a genealogy of these Latinx reenactments across various retellings of Velazquez’s life, from her 1876 narrative <i>The Woman in Battle</i> to two contemporary adaptations of her story: the 2013 docufilm <i>Rebel</i> and the 2017 play <i>Latin History for Morons</i>. These works, I argue, engage in a recuperative project of Latinx recognition that ultimately reinforces ethnic homogeneity at the expense of a true reckoning with racist dynamics in the category of Latinidad itself.</p>

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Reenacting Latinidad and remembering Loreta

  • 期刊论文

  • 出版模式：

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  • 发表日期：

    2025年10月13日

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  • Christofer A. Rodelo

摘要

This essay explores the processes of Latinx identity formation in performance-based recollections of the nineteenth-century figure Loreta Velazquez. Velazquez has received increased attention as a figure of the Latinx past, a vexed affiliation due to her pro-Confederate leanings. To understand how Velazquez is imagined as Latinx, I introduce the concept of Latinx reenactment, which characterizes performance-based practices of summoning figures of the past to fill gaps in popular understandings of Latinx history for contemporary audiences. I examine a genealogy of these Latinx reenactments across various retellings of Velazquez’s life, from her 1876 narrative The Woman in Battle to two contemporary adaptations of her story: the 2013 docufilm Rebel and the 2017 play Latin History for Morons. These works, I argue, engage in a recuperative project of Latinx recognition that ultimately reinforces ethnic homogeneity at the expense of a true reckoning with racist dynamics in the category of Latinidad itself.