Revolutionary or Terrorist? Fiction as Counter-Archive in Giannina Braschi’s United States of Banana

• In Event: Radical Repositories: Archives, Artists, and Political Potentiality

Abstract

My paper examines Giannina Braschi’s 2011 novel United States of Banana in tandem with 1960s FBI files on “terrorist” Black and Puerto Rican groups in New York City and NYPD surveillance files on Muslim communities after 9/11. I juxtapose NYPD/FBI documents with fiction to consider how “official” archives criminalize populations of color and “work to justify policing practices, deportation policies, and increased incarceration” (Cacho 2012). I analyze Braschi’s re-appropriation of the language in these state-sanctioned documents to explore protagonist Giannina’s struggle for Puerto Rican independence and transnational solidarity with those affected by the War on Terror.

Presenter

• Samina Gul Ali, University of Miami