Hybridizing Puerto Ricanness

Abstract

Frances Negron-Muntaner's Brincando el charco is a film that brings up suggestive questions about the n truction and reconfiguration of the cinematic modalities of fiction and non-fiction.1 The fact that the film blurs the lines between documentary and (melo) dramatic narrative aligns this text with the political projects of cinematic practices and academic frameworks such as the New Latin American Cinema (particularly through the concept of Imperfect Cinema), the New Queer Cinema, Teshome Gabriel's specific iteration of Third Cinema, and Hamid Naficy's Accented Cinema.2 However, the task at hand is to review Brincando el charco and propose how it dialogues with the Caribbean. Elsewhere, I have argued that Caribbean film and video need to be understood as part of larger creolization processes that involve the configuration and constant reinvention?that is, in the imaging and imagining?of transnational cultural communities emerging from or historically connected to the geopolitical area known as the Caribbean (Blasini 2008). These cinematic creolization processes become apparent in the characterization of historical revisions, narrative constructions and cinematic representations that engage the social, political and cultural processes of Caribbean syncretism. In this sense, the formation and constant transformation?in other words, the hybridity?of Caribbean cultures could be traced through different narrative and representational tactics, particularly those connected to rescuing and giving voice to the stories and cultural manifestations that have been suppressed, erased or forgotten by Eurocentric and normative versions of the region's history. In the case of Brincando el charco, Negron-Muntaner opens up cultural spaces for the expression of distinct versions of Puerto Ricanness?par ticularly in terms of race, ethnicity and queerness?that have emerged as a result of migrations to the U.S., especially those that have been taking place since the 1980s. In addition, she suggests the possibility of creating alliances with other groups (e.g. certain sectors of the African American community) who share cultural affinities stemming from larger collective historical experiences common to the Caribbean region.