Jaime Alejandro Ashby

From the production of visual arts and literatures such as the work Streetwalkers: LGBTQ Lives in Protest in the Dominican Republic by: Ana M. Lara, the script Quíntupules by: Luís Sánchez, and the play Cecelia Valdés o la loma del ángel by: Cirilio Villaverde, gender and sexuality in the Black Spanish-speaking Caribbean can be seen through the bodily intersection of la mulata trágica (tragic mulata). Through this Afro mixed-raced, feminist, and queer perspective Ashby aims to illuminate new forms of psychic and spatial resistance to white supremacy, globalization and blanqueamiento through mulatez. Within this realm of studies, they position la mulata trágica as the negotiator of space between the binaries of Black and white, becoming a historical and social artifact encapsulated by the white voyeurism, sex trafficking and sexual tourism. As of now, they have traveled to Africa, Spain and the Caribbean to investigate new methodologies to resistance studies such as drag shows, experimental film with no visual coherency, fashion, and most importantly literatures that aid in the process of decolonization and modern-day slavery. Their studies advance the investigation of the combination of Black futurity and pessimism by highlighting the traumas of slavery but extracting the cultural and artistic productions rendered through slavery as a means of resistance to blanqueamiento in the Caribbean and the USA.