Unbecoming Blacknessis a stunning tour de force: it serves as a call for those critically engaged in the African diaspora work with a focus on Latin America to return to the archive and to study the wealth of information that remains there, unnoticed....Lopez forces readers to rethink notions of blackness so that these ideas are specific to place, yet also to consider the fluidity of these discourses in relation to physical movement and their reestablishment in new locations. His study also demands fluent interdisciplinarity: Lopez analyzes texts, photographs, sound recordings, and film, all of which challenge readers to expand beyond their comfort zone as scholars. This text is an extraordinary addition to Cuban studies, Cuban American studies, US Latina/o and Latin American studies, American studies, African American studies, and African diasporic studies.–Vanessa K. Valdes "MELUS: The Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States"