Pamela Cappas-Toro will present “Pelo Rebelde”: Race, Dominicanidad, and the Contested History of Natural Hair on Monday, February 2 at 4:30 p.m. in the Holy Cross Lounge on the third floor of Franz Hall.
Cappas-Toro, a candidate for the position of Assistant Professor of Spanish, scholarship explores the historical legacies of blackness and national belonging through the contested meanings of hair in the Dominican Republic, from the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo (1930-1961) to the present. “Pelo Rebelde” argues that hair has been a central element in the construction of anti-black aesthetics and ideologies that inform Dominican national identity.