From Alienation to Revolution: Puerto Rican Coloniality and the Decolonial Option in J.L Torres’ The Accidental Native

• In Event: Coloniality, Postcolonial, and Decolonial Caribbean: Contributions, Productive Intersections and Challenges

Abstract

In Colonialism/Postcolonialism Ania Loomba ponders, “What does it take for colonial subjects to move from alienation to revolution, from a recognition of injustice to resistance?” (185). This same question functions as the axis of J.L. Torres’ fictional novel, The Accidental Native. Born in Puerto Rico but raised in the USA, Rennie finds himself moving back to the island after the death of his parents. There, he will work at a university campus famed both for being a former U.S. military base, and for the numerous faculty members it has lost to cancer. This paper presents a decolonial reading of the novel, in which Rennie’s learning of the island’s past (and present) as a U.S. territory pre-configures the birth of a colonial consciousness that leads to activism and protest. The presentation will also question the narrative’s links between nationalism and anti-colonial sentiments, and its portrayal of symbolic as well as literal ways of decolonizing the island.

Author

• Consuelo Martínez-Reyes, Australian National University