Una cubana in the Borderlands: Teresa Dovalpage’s La hija de la Llorona

Abstract

In La hija de La Llorona, Teresa Dovalpage ushers in the latest development in Cuban theater written in the US. Lacking in the nostalgia and politics characteristic of exile theater, Dovalpage represents an emerging transnational identity through her protagonist Caridad that more accurately mirrors the relationship of recent Cuban émigrés to their homeland and adopted country. To this end, the Llorona folktale is re-envisioned and the Southwestern US becomes a contact zone where a Cuban balsera, her traditional Mexican-American mother-in-law and a liberal Puerto Rican friend bond in their shared experiences as women and mothers despite their divergent cultures and histories. (CC, Article in English)