Adrian Kane, professor of Spanish in the Department of World Languages, recently published the article “U.S. Central American Identities in Roberto Quesada’s ‘Big Banana’ and ‘Nunca entres por Miami’” in Hispania, the official journal of the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese.
This article offers readings of Honduran-born author Roberto Quesada’s novels “Big Banana” (1999) and “Nunca entres por Miami” (2003). Written in New York City, where Quesada has resided since 1989, both novels highlight issues of Central American identity, migration, and immigrant experiences. Kane writes that “these readings of Quesada’s novels focus on the ways in which these construct cultural memory and identity by providing critical historical context that is absent from most mass media coverage of Central American migration to the United States. By engaging with theoretical constructions of Latinidad, this article also analyzes the ways in which Quesada’s characters represent the multi-layered and intersectional nature of U.S. Central American identities.”