The last paragraph here neither acknowledges nor responds to the concerns raised in the comments on those posts. Indeed, to dismiss those questions about using “miscegenation” as born out of emotional pain is condescending and simplistic. My discussing consensual miscegenation as a trope of this hemisphere’s culture of necessity requires me to address a subject so painful for many that even the word itself is anathema to them. It’s also wrong. I’m pretty sure the set of people pained by the thought of Tom and Sally or Malinche and whomever are not the same set of people who are offended by the word miscegenation.

Okay, setting that aside, some free-response. 1) I was really interested to hear about new people and a new culture until that question was dodged and a big chunk of Bhabha dumped on me. 2) Me, if I were arguing that the Americas is still struggling with the race-mixing that lays at the heart of what it means to live in this hemisphere (and wanted to catch the reader’s attention) I’d start with Obama. 3) Alternatively, perhaps start with the oppositions—the familiar American Narrative vs. the New World Narrative that you want to propose; being inside History vs. removing oneself from it (still not explained what this means, but very intriguing). 4) I like the baby as a hook, and the question of where the baby comes from as a metaphor for what you are doing, but I’m not sold on the allegory of the baby looking sideways. 5) I think if you are going to be so personal (my dissertation, my reaction to a painting), then you need to go all the way and explain how it is that you can consider yourself a citizen of the western hemisphere. The hint that Bhabha can’t understand the Americas because he is Indian puts someone who is trying to bring together the US and Latin America on shaky ground. 6) I don’t understand what this means “yet all cultures that we know of attempt in some way to escape the gravity of that history” and the Poirier discussion does not illuminate it for me (this may be because I am a historian, not a literary academic). 7) What does heterotopic mean and why is it critical to your discussion?

Cheers.