Mulata Mothers: Gender Representation in Oscar Hijuelos' Novels

by Dillon, Karen Lee

This thesis focuses on gender representation through the figure of the mulata mother in the novels A Simple Habana Melody, The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, and The Fourteen Sisters of Emilio Montez O’Brien by Oscar Hijuelos. These novels and their representations of women and hybrid identities are studied by historically contextualizing the texts and their fictive content, and by viewing them through the perspectives of Cuban and American mulatez, tropicalization, cultural hybridity, and feminist critique.