"queer for Uncle Sam": Anita's Latina diva citizenship in West Side Story

Abstract

This essay addresses West Side Story's enduring legacy among Latinas/os through a queer, feminist reading of the character Anita, informed by Latina/o performance and dance studies. Rita Moreno's bodily migrations in her portrayal of Anita in the 1961 film and the character's narrative mobility within the musical embody a kinesthetic model for the ways Latinas/os enact queered relations to dominant conceptions of citizenship in the United States. In particular, Anita captures and catalyzes the affective ambiente central to Latina/o assertions of cultural citizenship and queer utopian visions.