Among diasporic indentities and "argentinidad": afroporteña poetry and nation in Argentina by late 19th century

Abstract

In this paper, I intend to address the ideas of a group of Afro-descendant poetsof Buenos Aires, Argentina, regarding their inclusion in the nation-buildingprocess by late nineteenth century. To do so, I depart from which I considerthe two main investigations on the subject (Lewis, 1996 and Solomianski,2003). From these studies draws a debate about two possible readings of thewritings of Afro-argentine poets: on the one hand, if this literature shows asense of an Afro-diasporic conscience, or, on the other, if it provides evidenceof a sense of “argentinidad”. In the paper, I revisit some of the poems quotedby the researchers indicated above, and I include other poems which weren’tanalyzed by them and were published in newspapers, books o pamphlets fromthe period between 1865 and 1882.