Hemispheric Blackface: Impersonation and Nationalist Fictions in the Americas

by Danielle Roper

Overview

In Hemispheric Blackface, Danielle Roper examines blackface performance and its relationship to twentieth- and twenty-first-century nationalist fictions of mestizaje, creole nationalism, and other versions of postracialism in the Americas. Challenging both the dominance of the US minstrel tradition and the focus on the nation in blackface studies, Roper maps a hemispheric network of racial impersonation in Peru, Bolivia, Colombia, Jamaica, Cuba, and Miami. She analyzes blackface performance in the aftermath of the turn to multiculturalism in Latin America, the emergence of modern blackness in Jamaica, and the rise of Barack Obama in the United States, showing how blackface remains embedded in cultural entertainment. Contending that the Americas are linked by repeating nationalist fictions of postracialism, colorblindness, and myths of racial democracy, Roper assesses how acts of impersonation mediate the ongoing power of these narratives and enable people to comprehend advancements and reversals in racial equality. Rather than simply framing blackface as liberatory or oppressive, Roper traces its emergence from a shared history of slavery and the varied politics of racial enjoyment throughout the hemisphere.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781478060871
Publisher:	Duke University Press
Publication date:	04/18/2025
Series:	Dissident Acts
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	248
File size:	59 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Danielle Roper is Neubauer Family Assistant Professor of Languages and Literatures at the University of Chicago.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments  ix
Introduction. Scenes of Racial Enjoyment in the Hemispheric Fold  1
1. Blackface and Racial Scripts at the Andean Fiesta: Staging the Slave Past in the Andes  26
2. Doing Antiblackness in the Hemispheric Fold: Blackface Performance in Miami in the Age of Obama  59
3. Flipping the Racial Script: Blackface Performance as Resistance in Colombia  87
4. The Postcolonial Below: Roots Theater and Black Enjoyment in Jamaica  136
Conclusion. Hemispheric Blackface and Its Afterlives  172
Notes  181
Bibliography  213
Index  233

Editorial Reviews

By considering the Americas as an expansive geographic unit, Danielle Roper demonstrates how a black studies methodology cuts through the foundational fictions that obscure or romanticize the structural and cultural implications of the afterlives of slavery and colonization. In so doing, she disrupts what otherwise might be considered area studies or nation-centered models by showing how multiracial societies rely on practices and tropes of antiblackness. An outstanding and timely book.

Fictions of Feminine Citizenship: Sexuality and the Nation in Contemporary Caribbean Literature - Donette Francis

Most studies of blackface privilege the nation and its history to understand the rise, popularity, and aesthetics of blackface performance. What makes Danielle Roper’s book so special is how it looks across spaces in the Americas to think about blackface comparatively in places many readers might not expect. It helps chart a new course for understanding the contemporary uses of blackface as well as the broader political currents in the Americas regarding race and multiculturalism. This major work will come to be seen as a model for hemispheric approaches to the study of cultural production in the Americas.

Diversión: Play and Popular Culture in Cuban America - Albert Sergio Laguna