Talking trash: Performing home and anti-home in Austin's salsa culture

Austin, Texas, has long been recognized for its racial and ethnic segregation. Policies created in 1927 officially segregated the city, and the public landscape has remained divided. How does a cosmopolitan community of difference constitute itself against the dominant Anglo culture of this Texan city? Analyzing the speech genre of "trash talk" in salsa-club culture, I demonstrate how affect is created in language and how this speech genre co-occurs with other aesthetic practices to produce a sense of belonging across boundaries of race and class. The tension between "home" and "anti-home" creates affective and discursive engagement, mitigating paradox in spaces of alterity.