Intersectionally Aware Urban Re-mappings of Self and Belonging after Postmodernism: Reading Angie Cruz’s Dominicana

Contemporary female writers of diasporic, racialized backgrounds are offering narrative re-mappings of American urban space in the twenty-first century. The study of such resignifications of metropolitan American urban space brings the racialized, ex-centric female bodies to the center, claiming their active role in the construction of N. American urban fabric. New appreciations of urban belonging and relationality emerge that challenge postmodernism’s earlier emphasis on fragmentation, alienation, and individuation. Through a selective reading of Angie Cruz’s Dominicana, the current essay illustrates some of the ways in which the space of the literary city offers the context for a grounded intersectional appreciation of the complexities of belonging for female, diasporic, racialized urban dwellers. The practice of reading the city after postmodernism becomes imbued with an intersectionally aware complexity that challenges any straightforward celebration of belonging, inclusion and citizenship in the twenty-first century.