| Chapter I: | Essay I: Aesthetic Blackness in the Creative Literature of the Latin/Hispanic Reality |
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of his or her reality. For example, Diaz's fictional world leads to an admission of an African presence in his Dominican milieu. This reality is, of course, shaped by a cosmovision that the author may or may not share with other members of the macrocosmic national group or microcosmic social subgroup. For the average Dominican, for example, an assertion of having an African base, physically or spiritually, can be a cause for heated debates or absolute denial. Considering this, one often finds that for some authors, reality is the result of a reaction to the norms and cultural traits of the group's cosmos. This concept, used as a basis or hypothesis for the presentation of the Afro Latin reality that follows, helps to focus the understanding that writings about or by the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking African descendant will not be aesthetically uniform or even psychologically of one accord. It is determined that sensitivity to his or her sociocultural atmosphere can be, and often is, an element of motivation for the artist and consequently helps to formulate his or her aesthetic theory.
In a pioneering study on the concept of black aesthetics as seen in selected works of a representative sampling of nonwhite Latin American authors, it was determined that
It was further concluded that the concept of black aesthetics is a reaction to being sealed in black in opposition to being sealed in white. In these terms, one sees artistic reactions as stimuli. The stimulus becomes a motivator under the guise of self-evaluation within a given society (1). In Latin America, it should never be overlooked that self-evaluation as an African descendant is either an act of commission or of omission based solely on precedent or prescribed social norms. Working within these boundaries one adjusts to the fact that an Afro Latin reality remains