XVII Congress of the Brazilian Studies Association

Neither Here nor There: The In-Between Spaces of Migrant Memories, Sexual/Racial Identities, and Dreams of the Return

• In Event: Entre-Between Book: Six Brazilian Immigrant Women Tell their Stories

Abstract

Neither Here nor There: The In-Between Spaces of Migrant Memories, Sexual/Racial Identities, and Dreams of the Return

AUTHOR: Cecilia MacDowell Santos

Studies of memory, migration, and identity (Creet and Kizmann, 2010; Zavella, 2011) have showed that the sites of migrant memories and identities are plural, unstable, and constantly moving. Reflecting on my memoir texts included in the book Entre-Between (Kotter Editorial, 2023), my presentation will address how my memories and sexual/racial identities as an immigrant have evolved, and how they are linked to a third site or place that is neither simply here (in the receiving country) nor there (in the sending country). They are situated in the ‘space in-between’ (Santiago, 1971) of migrant memories, i.e., in mixed places and cultures on the move. My memories in movement play a crucial role in my shifting identities as a middle-class, educated, white (there), Latina/of color (here), cis lesbian, who migrated from the Northeast of Brazil. I have been living in California since 1991 as a documented immigrant and have also travelled back to Brazil over the years. Along with my migrant memories and changing identities, I also reflect on the ‘myth of the return’ beyond a melancholic, nostalgic memory. The geography of the return is envisioned as a ‘dream’, an imaginary and real site of memory/language invoked to cope with the adversities of displacement and belonging facing a migrant who is between here and there.

Author

• Cecilia MacDowell Santos, University of San Francisco