Tropicalizing East Harlem: Rhetorical Agency, Cultural Citizenship, and Nuyorican Cultural Production

Abstract

By critically engaging various forms of cultural production/material culture in El Barrio/East Harlem, New York, this article challenges communication scholars to explore the relationship between agency and identity, expanding our theoretical understandings of rhetorical agency in Latina/o contexts. This article argues that everyday spaces evidence a tactical, tropicalized rhetorical agency that underwrites cultural citizenship in El Barrio. Casitas, gardens, flags, and murals “make do” with the fissures of the built environment to craft literal and figurative spaces for/of a diasporic and unofficial Nuyorican culture. The rhetorical production of culture enacts a kind of tropicalization—a troping that imbues rhetorical scenes with an indelibly Latina/o ethos—which accents everyday material forms in East Harlem and demonstrates productive forms of cultural citizenship.

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