The author examines race, language, and identity in Derek Walcott's poetry, reading Walcott's poetry as an extended meditation on the question of whether it is possible to exist within the English language and an Afro-Caribbean tradition, drawing poetic nourishment from each, or whether the attempt is a betrayal of both. Of mixed racial ancestry, a native speaker of French Creole who was formally educated in British colonial schools, raised Methodist on the Catholic island of St. Lucia, Derek Walcott occupies a peripheral place with respect to both English and Caribbean culture, it is noted. Throughout the course of his poetic career he has been criticized from both perspectives, either for "appropriating the Other" and putting it to use in the service of the dominant culture or for not assimilating that dominant (English) culture fully enough.;
Within sectors of North America's African-American community, the colloquial expression "being touched by the brush" describes a multi-ethnic individual that possesses subtle Negroid physical features which are only detectable by close inspection by a "trained eye." Here, Edison discusses the historical factors in Puerto Rico and Panama that make up the foundation upon which Francisco Arrivi's "Los Vejigantes" and Carlos Guillermo Wilson's "Chombo" were constructed.;
Examines the role of abolitionist and feminist ideals in Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda's novel Sab. Highlights the power and gender relations in Sab, suggesting that previous interpretations of the novel have not addressed the role of these relations as a function of race relations in the slave colony of Cuba. Discusses the themes of interracial relationships and personal identity.;
Zora Neale Hurston's 1938 book of Caribbean folklore, 'Tell My Horse,' indicates her cross-cultural interest in identity politics, Caribbean history and religion
