Abstract
The Great Migration of African Americans and La Gran Migración of Puerto Ricans enabled socio-political affinities and tensions to develop in reaction to racial formations in spaces that became Black and Puerto Rican dominant. I link these racial formations to Muñoz’s nomenclature “Brownness,” which describes a shared experience of marginalization from existing outside of White and sexual normativity. I show how affective solidarity and tensions are operationalized within the exotic dance setting, “Divine Dancers.” Divine Dancers are a Black and Puerto Rican collective of women who convene to perform in exotic dance shows for other women. I analyze the disciplining of Puerto Rican masculine-presenting women through a racialized lens. As the most prized gendered sexuality among Divine Dancers, dom identity reflects racialized, gendered, and sexualized discourses that participants draw upon to position themselves as “authentically” masculine.
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