Sirena canta boleros: travestismo y sujetos transcaribe os en Sirena Selena vestida de pena

This essay provides an analysis of Mayra Santos-Febres s novel Sirena Selena vestida de pena (2000) by way of investigating the economic and subjective transformations of a Caribbean subject. My reading of the text addresses the failure on the part of the critics to notice the representation of Dominicans in the novel, as well as the construction of a transcaribbean subject whose borders are articulated in the transvestite stance through the migratory, economic, and subjective crossings that occur in these relations. By looking at these migratory crossings in the Hispanic Caribbean (between Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic and vice versa), the uses of the body, voice, and sexuality, as well as how they move towards the formulation of a new identity, I propose a reading of the subject best defined as postnational , since it breaks away from the traditional definitions of the Puerto Rican or Dominican nation. This transcultural gesture, the cultural drag , characteristic of all contexts where colonial relations exist, offers an interesting approach for the reading of many contemporary and modern narratives in the Hispanic Caribbean that cannot be read as postmodern in the strictest sense since, due to their historical reality, they include transnational cultures and communities that participate in and are afected by the global economy. In the novel, both Puerto Ricans and Dominicans are part of this circuit that articulates new identities. How is a new subject constructed through these exchange economies and migrations?