Notes taken early on in the process - return to clean this up.
Themes: LGBTQ, Borderlands, Frontier
Geographical Scope: Greater Miami, Spanish Caribbean (distinguishes Miami from traditional studies of the urban U.S. South as well as from mainstream borderlands due to its international framework. Thus, it complicates "inward-looking" urban studies - see p.7)
Chronological Scope: 1890s-1940s (useful because it begins with territorial expansion and empire and ends with economic diversification/expansion that negatively impacts the enclave economy)
Summary of Thesis:
Capó emphasizes a transnational, intersectional+ (includes, for example, age and “(dis)ability”) approach to developing histories of gay relations in Greater Miami. Ultimately displacing the dominant “Cuban exceptionalist” narrative by developing the story of immigrant Bahamanians who played a central role in its development through both their labor as well as their conceptualization of themselves. Using court records that develop narratives in concert with traditional tools of social histories, Capó depicts a “Fairyland” that straddled a “resort” appeal with an enclave of transgressive behavior. This required coordination with boosters who promoted “slumming” in a “demimonde.”
Chapter Outlines:
Queer Frontier
Vice as an integral piece of urban design—Fairyland as a transgressive pleasure enclave
Bahamanians and Miami's Queer Erotic
“Bachelor societies” in Miami skew sexual demographics in Bahamas, making room for less “traditional” family structures
Making Fairyland Real
Racialized tourism
Miami as Stage
Marketing of Fairyland by boosters
Passing through Miami's Queer World
Maps the movements of queer men through the city through their criminalization.
Women and the Making of Miami's Heterosexual Culture
“Normative” heterosexual society created through differentiation from queer behavior.
Queers during and after Prohibition
Commodification of queerness
Epilogue
Economic diversification and crackdown on vice
Methods:
- Transnational approach
- Novel lens by focusing on the Bahamanian immigrant laborers (vs. "Cuban Exceptionalism")
- Intersectional approach that includes "ethnicity, age, and (dis)ability" (5)
- "Queer" as analytic tool
- "Community Study" approach
Sources:
- *"Queer" as method and archive argues that these sources form that body of resources. "Queering" the archive, then is the amplified voice the silenced voices receive in Capo's book (19)
- Mental hospital records
- Court cases
- Census records
- Municipal records
- Advertisements
- Newspaper articles
- Published papers
- Songs
- Correspondence
- Immigration logs
Historiographical Connections:
- Pushes back on the concept of "Cuban Exceptionalism" viz. Miami
- References below drawn to deal with a wide battery of transnational, urban, economic, labor, borderlands, tourism and "slumming," and ethnicity, while Capo's work centers on the intersectional + lenses he mentions. Limited bibliography:
- Wade, The Urban Frontier
- Cronon, Nature's Metropolis
- Goag, Re-dressing
- Sears, Arresting Dress
- Duany, Blurred Borders
- Sheller, "Mobility History"
- Connolly, A World More Concrete
- Rose, The Struggle for Black Freedom
Keywords:
Transnational Colonial State
Borderland
Frontier
Resort Town
Queer
Promoter
Booster (includes speculators and paid advertisers)