“Da pa' lo' do' ”: Rita Indiana's Queer, Racialized Dominicanness

Abstract

This essay attends to José E. Muñoz's influence on hispanophone Caribbean studies through the work of Dominican lesbian performance artist Rita Indiana. Jaime argues that in the music video “Da pa' lo' do',” or “There Is Enough for Both,” Indiana uses Muñoz's theory of disidentification to critique the prevalent narrative in the Dominican Republic that positions Haiti as the black other against which a “white” Dominican nationalism is created. Attending to Indiana's appropriation of the moniker La Montra, or female monster, alongside her usage of drag and black-/brownface in order to reimagine the historical relationship between Haiti and the Dominican Republic, the author ultimately argues that Indiana signals a move toward a different way of being in the Dominican Republic, one in which the literal and figurative borders are porous enough to allow for the queer, for the female, for the black, and for the other to coexist.