The hyphenated existence is always looking for a place – usually settling for the margin, the borders of existence. Hyphens are difficult to define because they lay within two spaces, too much of one side to belong to the other. They are neither Cuban – for they have either been exiled out of their own country, forced to learn new languages and customs, or they have never been to the island but long to know it – nor are they American – because they are always viewed as the outsider, never truly fitting in. This begs the question – where can the Cuban-American find itself in literature? What lineage can it look to, to fulfill the desire of belonging, even if it never fully can?
Severo Sarduy, in looking for an ancestry for Cuban existence
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outside of the colonizer, turned to the baroque aesthetic. It was a time where the periphery was valued, where the dominant discourse was parodied, where the self was fragmented, overdone, bombastic. The baroque time period offered Sarduy new entry points into the dominant discourse that allowed transgression, liminality, and off-centeredness. Cubans have had a particular connection to the baroque – with Sarduy explicitly embracing it in the 1960s and – with a telling analysis by Roberto González Echevarría – Nicolás Guillén in the 1930s. In this paper, I mean to explore what place the Cuban-American identity – and literature – has in this baroque ancestry.
Looking at two novels by Ana Menéndez – In Cuba I was a German Shepherd (CGS) and Adios, Happy Homeland! (AHH) – I am searching for baroque characteristics that can explain new ways of thinking about how the Cuban-American exists in the context of the United States. I specifically look at themes that are the crux of baroque aesthetics: the Other, monstrosity, and parody. These themes can be looked at separately but it is important to mention that they are mutually constitutive as well – one cannot exist without the other. Menéndez, although her style is unlike Sarduy’s and Guillen’s, she uses different techniques to achieve the same results that these two men …show more content…
do. What is to be said of the baroque and its Cuban connection González Echevarría, in the chapter “Guillén as Baroque Meaning in Motives de Son” from his book Celestina’s Brood: Continuities of the Baroque in Spanish and Latin American Literature, makes clear that Nicolas Guillén, a prominent Cuban poet, “has as a foundation a rewriting of the Baroque” (3651). González Echevarría explains that many Latin American authors looked to the baroque because “it was thought to be a species of Spanish malady, a penchant for excess, for ornamentation, that broke away from mainstream European aesthetics” (3629). The (neo)baroque Latin American writers split from the classic aesthetics of the center, clear, unambiguous writing because they were viewed as this ‘Spanish malady’ – the break from classic European aesthetics – themselves. The baroque was an appealing form for many writers in Latin America who existed on the margins of society – not fitting into the dominant white discourse. The baroque became a common source for these writers – even creating a new movement in the 1960s dubbed the neo-baroque (more on this movement later). Góngora, seen as one of the first of baroque writers, was viewed negatively by his contemporaries because his language was to too ‘excessive’, ‘obscure’, ‘artificial’. But González Echevarría makes the claim that it is these exact qualities that help the “tradition subverts itself by nurturing forces that negate its mainstream ideology” (3643). Using these aesthetics as the foundation of these writing gives voice to those who had been previously unheard. This means that new ways of existing were given value. González Echevarría states “Everything can be a part of beauty, even that which is not altogether comprehensible” (3657). The baroque allowed for ambiguity and constant shifting as a viable technique for literature. With that, came characters that didn’t have to give Meaning, but could create meanings as new readers read. Guillén, like Góngora before him, made visible the African element of Cuban existence. González Echevarría makes clear that this making visible was a key aspect of the baroque movement in all sectors of art: “The speech of blacks in Góngora’s poetry is like the presence of Inca or Aztec deities on church friezes” (3657). González Echevarría solidifies Guillén’s position in the trail being blazed from Góngora to his time. Later, we will see that Menéndez parallels this visibility with the inclusion of Spanish into her English text. She makes clear the inextricable nature of the two languages to the hyphenated existence of the Cuban-American. “The new American sensibility found in the Baroque an avenue for the different, the strange, that is to say, the American” is how the strange of the baroque makes its stretch from the sixteenth century, to the 30s, to the 60s, and now into the generation of the Cuban-Americans (3657). Moving from Guillén to Sarduy, César Augusto Salgado clarifies in “Hybridity in New World Baroque Theory” that the neo-baroque theorists “achieved [a] redefinition [of the baroque] by focusing on the hybrid refigurations that European baroque paradigms have undergone when transplanted into the colonial arena” (316).
Cuban scholars like José Lezama Lima, Alejo Carpentier, and Severo Sarduy are vital theorists that define what the baroque has to offer as the ancestry of their writing. These theorists were writing at the time known as ‘El Boom latinoamericano’ – a resurgence of Latin American writing and writers. Suzanne Jill Levine writes, in the article “Jorge Luis Borges and Severo Sarduy: Two Writers of the Neo-Baroque” that “text as ‘tejido,’ as texture, of a text as an infinite weaving of texts appears” is an important aspect of the baroque aesthetic that Sarduy embraces during this time (30). This corresponds with what Salgado describes “the baroque function as a trope or adjective for the region’s complex ethnic and artistic mestizaje (‘racial mixture’)” (316). The mixture of race parallels the weaving of different stories or text within one text – the constant uncovering of new understandings within a text. In this movement the neo-baroque becomes explicitly about hybridity and postcolonial
survival. According to Levine, Sarduy finds parody to be one of the key ways of making this ‘texture’ and ‘mestizaje’ visible. She clarifies that “Sarduy speaks of parody as the implicit genre or form of the Baroque” (29). With influences from both Mikhail Bakhtine and Jorge Luis Borges, Sarduy states To the extent that it [the baroque work] permits a reading of the page’s filigree, in which it hides, lying below the text—below the architectonic work or works of art ect.—another text—another work—which it reveals, uncovers, allows to be decoded the recent Latin American baroque does participate in the concept of parody. (30)[1] The parody Sarduy illustrates is one of transgression – it pushes against traditional story to create new discourse that shows the story of the marginal. Because of this, the concept of absolutes of Truths is done away with. For Sarduy’s conception of the baroque to work, the logic is one where “the fundamental principle of the baroque, it is anti-functional, anachronical” and “the reader is the writer of each text he touches since that text becomes something original when the reader contaminates it with his interpretation” (26). This, for Sarduy, means that there is no absolutes in reality, only little t truths that shift and transform constantly. The truths of the silent can now be heard in this neo-baroque tradition. We will examine parody throughout both of Menéndez’s texts to find moments of truths for the characters affected by the liminal state of the hyphenated. Parody – whether that is in the form of jokes, fictional characters, or the plea for emptiness – makes evident the counter-stories underneath the everyday living of the characters in the text. These counter-stories, where we find parody, is also closely connected to how González Echevarría explains the monstrous – another fundamental part of the baroque. González Echevarría states that “The Baroque assumes the strangeness of the Other as an awareness of the strangeness of Being. Being is being as monster, as once one and the other, the same and different” (3671). The being is a remaking of self that is constantly in motion. The other is the state of inbetweenness. ‘Once one and the other’ parallels the hyphen. The monster is the being which is never absolute, for the baroque. In the book Writing Monsters: Essays on Iberian and Latin American Cultures, editors Adriana Gordillo and Nicholas Spadaccini write an introduction describing the history of the ‘monster’ in literature, at large, and its place in Latin American literature specifically. In this introduction, they explain that the term monster comes from two Latin roots: monere and monstrum. Monere means “‘to advise,’ ‘to warn,’ [it] has often been represented as a deformed, disabled, or hybrid body” (2). The Cuban-American is a hybrid body – it lives within two states that are never fully complete. The hyphen creates a space that is neither one nor the other. Although not considered deformed or disabled by the traditional sense, my analysis develops from the standpoint that an identity that lives in a liminal state is already deformed and disabled. Monstrum, Gordillo and Spadaccini explain, “derives frommonstrare, that is, ‘to show,’ ‘to display’” (2). This display of mixture is what causes that feeling of strangeness that González Echavarría uses to identify the baroque in Guillén’s work. With González Echevarría’s analysis of Guillén as baroque, we have the grounds for the otherness of the Cuban-American. With Levine’s examination of Sarduy, we have the tenets to uncover parody in the text, and with González Echevarría, Gordillo and Spadaccini’s account of the monster, we can delve into the monstrous Cuban-American.
In the eighteenth Century, Colonial European and Mexican artists were fascinated with the emergence of racial blending within the Spaniard bloodline. Works of art began displaying pieces that portrayed three major groups that inhabited the colony— Indians, Spaniards, Africans and other ethnicities. This new genre of painting was known as Casta painting and portrayed colonial representations of racial intermarriage and their offspring. Traditionally Casta paintings were a pictorial genre that was often commissioned by Spaniards as souvenirs upon their arrival from New Spain (Mexico). And yet, why would such works have so much fascination despite its suggestive theme? It is clear that Casta paintings display interracial groups and couples, but they seem to have a deeper function when it comes to analyzing these works. These paintings demonstrate that casta paintings were created to display racial hierarchies within the era. They depict the domestic life of interracial marriages and systematically categorized through a complete series of individual paintings. It is clear that the fascination of these works reflected the categorizing of new bloodline that have been emerging and displays these characters in a manner that demonstrates the social stereotypes of these people by linking them with their domestic activities and the items that surround them as well. Despite the numerous racial stereotypes that are illustrated in these works, casta paintings construct racial identities through visual representations.
Torres used specific words to convey the emotions of how the boys felt concerning their heritage; the boys felt as if they were outside of the loop. Therefore, they did not know what they belonged to or where they fit in. Their physical traits did not match up with the culture that they were trying to identify with –the Hispanic heritage. Yet, they wanted to find a way to belong. Furthermore, the theme also contributed to the identity aspect of the characters. Through their diction, readers, like myself, were able to draw important subject matters. In addition to word choice and themes, Torres applied various amounts of literary devices to drive his messages home, consequently enabling readers to understand the point of the passage, without giving up more information than needed. Close reading this particular passage gave me a better appreciation for what authors write, how they interpret their emotions, and how they execute their
The Afro-Cuban struggle for equality essentially began after the emancipation of the slaves in 1886. This struggle would continue until 1912, when a brutal government massacre ended their hopes of real equality. The Afro-Cuban struggle for equality was a key issue in Cuba’s fight for independence, as well as, Cuba’s fight to find its identity and character.
Mariachi has become the face of Mexican culture, and truly represents the music of Gonzales’ people. It is played in almost every occasion including funerals, weddings, quinceneras, parties, and marches. Gonzales explains this by saying, “Our art, our literature, our music”; He elaborates by naming mariachi under these categories. The author recognizes the significance of this music in his background. In one article, Collins states that “the only thing more Mexican than tequila is the mariachi” (Collins 1998). These words capture how immersed mariachi is in the author’s mores, therefore giving him purpose in mentioning it. Not only does mariachi define Mexican culture, it defines the beauty and soul of tradition.
As Ernest Hemingway significantly expresses his affection for baseball in the book Old Man and the Sea, Cuban-culture similarly displays the strong feelings towards the sport as well. Baseball first played an important role in the late nineteenth century and continues to show the same impact today. It created a substantial amount of influence on the culture and also played an important role in the political view-point. In order for one to completely acknowledge the impact baseball had on the twentieth century, they must first assess the history of Cuban baseball. Next, one must learn how baseball played an acknowledgeable role in the political system. Lastly, they must interpret how significantly the sport changed the culture of Cuba.
With assertive shouts and short tempers, the prominent character, Ricardo, is characterized as a feisty townsman, doing nothing except trying to protect his town and its members from the judgments of the western world. For example, the characterization of the “‘…quaint’” man is exemplified through the simplicity of his life and the fact that he is “‘…employed’” and is full of knowledge, not a “‘cow in the forest’” (55, 29, 32). Ricardo desperately wants to establish the notion that he is not a heartless, feebleminded man, only an indigent, simple man striving to protect his friends and family from the criticisms of callous cultures. Incessantly Ricardo attempts to make it clear to the photographer the irritation elicited by his prese...
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Since before I was born, my Hispanic heritage played a huge role in who I am and what I have achieved. My great-grandfather immigrated to this country with the desire to provide his family with a better future than his own. My grandpa grew up in Texas on the boarder of Mexico and traveled to Blue Island, Illinois as migrant crop worker. This desire passed down by my grandparents and my great-grandparents has played a tremendous role in propelling me to where I am today. Each generation sought to make the the lives of their children better than their own. My grandma received the opportunity to live in the country of opportunity from her father, and my grandpa paid for my mom to get an education. My mother pushed me to do my best in school and
Erika Lopez’s Flaming Iguanas addresses various constitutions of American identity, including ethnicity, gender, and sexuality. The protagonist, Jolene, is illustrative of how these constitutions of identity are complicated as she travels west. In particular, traveling westward typically consists of white men who reject the constraints of middle class life and decide to get on the road in hopes of finding selfhood. Flaming Iguanas demonstrates that gender, class, and ethnicity tie into the ability or inability to finding one’s self of self. Therefore, Jolene is unable to find her true sense of self because she is a woman. Lopez directs her readers’ attention to situations in her protagonist’s life where her mixed ethnicity, and ambivalent
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Latinos who were raised in the United States of America have a dual identity. They were influenced by both their parents' ancestry and culture in addition to the American culture in which they live. Growing up in between two very different cultures creates a great problem, because they cannot identify completely with either culture and are also caught between the Spanish and English languages. Further more they struggle to connect with their roots. The duality in Latino identity and their search for their own personal identity is strongly represented in their writing. The following is a quote that expresses this idea in the words of Lucha Corpi, a Latina writer: "We Chicanos are like the abandoned children of divorced cultures. We are forever longing to be loved by an absent neglectful parent - Mexico - and also to be truly accepted by the other parent - the United States. We want bicultural harmony. We need it to survive. We struggle to achieve it. That struggle keeps us alive" ( Griwold ).
In the 1940s, a group of Latin American writers published works which incorporated new techniques. ...