Challenging European Identity: Representations of Female Transnational Experiences in Marrón by Rocío Quillahuaman

Abstract

This paper examines how the representations of female experiences in Marrón, a transnational Life Writing text written by Rocío Quillahuaman, challenge a hegemonic European identity. This European identity was forged after centuries of cultural productions, especially narratives, that vouched for its superiority. In our globalized world today, transnational subjects, who mobilize for varied reasons, face discriminatory legislations and unfair bureaucratic procedures based on their backgrounds and affiliations. Although identities may benefit a sense of belonging and camaraderie that are part of living in societal structures, the fact that a hegemonic European identity has been used to discriminate needs to be contested. To accomplish this contestation, the research’s method encompasses a close reading of the text with a thematic deductive analytic approach to bring forth the importance that transnational narratives, especially those written by Brown women, have in the new modes of identity construction. Through the representations of female transnational experiences, which I referred to as: 1) the monolingual transnational female subject, 2) the displaced transnational female subject, and 3) the unrepresented transnational female subject, this paper argues in favor of a fluid transnational identity construction that is context dependent and malleable through one’s lifetime and physical (dis)placement.