Vindicating Dominican latinidad through Pedro Henríquez Ureña’s First New York Stay

Abstract

Pedro Henríquez Ureña is arguably the most influential Dominican thinker of the 20th century and one of the most esteemed Latin American and Caribbean intellectuals. He spent almost ten years in the United States where he engaged in literary and intellectual activities and has been deemed by many critics as one of the precursors of the Caribbean intellectual diaspora. Yet, since his legacy predates the consolidation of Latina/o studies in the late 1960s, his vast body of work has been regarded as valuable contribution exclusive to the Latin American and Caribbean intellectual archive rather than as testimony of the long-standing presence of Latina/o writings in the United States. The seminal works of scholars such as Alfredo Roggiano, Silvio Torres-Saillant, Victoria Nuñez, and Danny Méndez have shifted the dialogues on Pedro Henríquez Ureña’s trajectory considering his life in the United States and his experience in the New York metropolis. Situating him in a “Latino continuum,” to borrow Carmen Lamas’s term, within United States latinidad, engages with early 21st century scholarship on Latina/o studies that challenge the limitations of nationalist US literary and intellectual history and regionalist Latin American studies. The case of Pedro Henríquez Ureña sheds light on the important contributions of Spanish-speaking Caribbean-Latina/o writings in the early 20th century and highlights the intellectual activity of Dominicans, an ethnic group within the Latina/o umbrella that has remained obliterated in general discussions on latinidad. Thus, Pedro Henríquez Ureña’s trajectory in the United States, and most specifically New York, underscores the cultural dynamism of Latinas/os in early-20th-century New York with a special focus on pre-diasporic Dominican latinidad.