coldhearted scientist وداد

This might be my favorite article ever. It is classic and should be required reading for everyone. I am going to teach it.

Spanish 402/502 — Summer/Fall 2013

Notes on José Piedra, Literary Whiteness and the Afro-Hispanic Difference
Article NLH 18:2 (1987): 303-332
Accessed from our library via JSTOR

Epigraphs: Unamuno, El lenguaje es la raza; anonymous song, Mexico, 19th century, on multi-huedness with a Spanish accent; slavery reference, race as a visual marker of difference, Nebrija, grammar of the Spanish language, 15th century. Themes here: the Hispanic race/language.

1492: publication of Nebrija’s grammar, foreshadowing unification of the nation; purification of infidels; launching of the New World adventure. Castilian is cast here as an imperial language, the language of Spain’s ethnic assertion, religious and racial bigotry; also the ultimate “civilized” weapon for political expansionism among the “illliterate.”

Spanish grammar assimilates otherness and others, and imperial grammarians established a test of literacy for Hispanic citizenship i.e., a grammatical contract of servitude. Nebrija emphasizes the ability of grammar to assimilate foreign words and also learners. Spanish will have the power of the letter and will Hispanize non-literate societies. It will seduce and dominate, and unify the different through grammar and rhetoric. The final result is an impure but unified empire; the fact that the impurity of the system was not officially accepted served to strengthen the imperial hold. It will offer outsiders a false sense of accessibility and a false hope of equality within Spain’s implicit, unofficial heterogeneity.

Nebrija’s example of synecdoche:

io compré un negro,
crespo los cabellos,
blanco los dientes,
hinchado los beços.

Axé.