A Linguist’s Night at the Ball

About this episode

Since its emergence in 1960s Harlem, the LGBTQ+ “ballroom scene” has expanded into a transnational subculture. For outsiders, understanding how a ball functions can take time.  Join linguistic anthropologist Dozandri Mendoza as they “walk” us through a night at a kiki ball in Puerto Rico. They introduce us to DJs, commentators, performers, and the Boricua Ballroom children who are refashioning the techniques of their trans-cestors. Dozandri guides us through both the expectations of those on the sidelines of the ballroom runway and the anticolonial political meanings behind the Puerto Rican ballroom scene.  Dozandri Mendoza is a Ph.D. candidate in linguistics at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). Their doctoral research focuses on trans forms of creative expression in the Puerto Rican ballroom scene. Dozandri explores the representation of Puerto Rican linguistic practices in the archive of ballroom history. They also examine what verbal and embodied art forms such as reading, throwing shade, commentation, and walking a category teach us about diasporic memory, decolonial critique, and trans survival. Their work centers around a multimodal and performance-based e