Professional Documents
Culture Documents
* Os dados e conceitos emitidos nos artigos, bem como a exatido das referncias
bibliogrficas so de responsabilidade dos autores.
** Os artigos recebidos para publicao so apreciados por no mnimo 2 (dois) revisores,
escolhidos preferencialmente entre os membros dos Conselhos Editorial ou consultores
externos especializados.
Data de Circulao: Dezembro/2005
Copyright
Sumrio
Editorial
Brgida M. Pastor ................................................................... 07
PARTE I
1492: First Encounters, the Invention of America and the
Columbian Exchange
Luis Martnez-Fernndez ......................................................... 13
Womens Representation: Two Epochs of the Revolutionary
Cuban Cinema
Glenda Meja and Alfredo Martnez-Expsito ............................ 33
Justicia neoliberal en Cuba. Una lectura de El Rey de La
Habana de Pedro Juan Gutirrez y otras vainas
Daniel Noem Voionmaa ........................................................... 57
Brindo por mi mam: Eloy Machado Prez and the Celebration
of Afrocuban Motherhood
Conrad James .......................................................................... 85
Frente a la poesa cubana de hoy: dos textos de Dulce Pulls
Mara Zielina .......................................................................... 103
Muito alm das fronteiras do sculo XIX: poltica internacional
em Mart e Sarmiento no limiar do sculo XXI
Dinair Andrade ........................................................................ 119
PARTE II
El poder de la representacin: la identidad cultural en la narrativa
del Caribe (Siglos XX y XXI)
Nara Arajo ............................................................................ 145
Summary
Editorial
Brgida M. Pastor ................................................................. 07
PART I
1492: First Encounters, the Invention of America and the
Columbian Exchange
Luis Martnez-Fernndez ....................................................... 13
Womens Representation: Two Epochs of the Revolutionary
Cuban Cinema
Glenda Meja and Alfredo Martnez-Expsito ........................... 33
Neoliberal Justice in Cuba. A Reading of El Rey de La Habana
by Pedro Juan Gutirrez and Other Issues
Daniel Noem Voionmaa ........................................................ 57
Brindo por mi mam: Eloy Machado Prez and the Celebration
of Afrocuban Motherhood
Conrad James ....................................................................... 85
Cuban Poetry Today: Two Texts by Dulce Pulls
Mara Zielina ........................................................................ 103
Beyond Nineteenth Century Borders: International Politics in
Mart and Sarmiento at the Threshold of the Twenty-First
Century
Dinair Andrade ..................................................................... 119
PART II
The Power of Representation: Cultural Identity in Caribbean
Narrative (Nineteenth and Twentieth Century)
Nara Arajo .......................................................................... 145
Editorial
O presente nmero da Revista Brasileira do Caribe incorpora uma
rica e variada coleo de artigos que oferecem reveladoras perspectivas
sobre o Caribe a partir da tica da histria, da literatura e do cinema. Por
outro lado, todos os artigos selecionados encontram-se interligados pelo
fato de serem portadores de evidentes aproximaes temtica da identidade
cultural no contexto caribenho. Assim, o mrito principal do presente
volume consiste em ter reunido um importante grupo de autores de diferentes
pases e especialistas em inmeros campos disciplinares. Tais
investigadores oferecem novos e provocadores enfoques, conceitos e
marcos tericos que enriquecem consideravelmente a historiografia,
estimulando novos debates em vrios campos e perspectivas dos estudos
caribenhos.
Os artigos encontram-se ordenados tematicamente, ainda que essa
no seja a nica classificao possvel. A primeira parte deste nmero,
dedicada a Cuba, inicia com um ensaio historiogrfico de Luis Martnez,
no qual oferece uma reveladora interpretao de vrios temas relacionados
com o processo histrico de descobrimento de Cuba, destacando em
sua anlise a complexidade de tal processo a partir da perspectiva tanto do
europeu quanto dos grupos indgenas autctones. Em seguida, Glenda
Meja y Alfredo Martnez apresentam em seu artigo uma anlise crtica da
representao da mulher no cinema cubano, bem como as relaes entre
gnero e poder na sociedade cubana, caracterizada pela forte presena de
ideologias e prticas machistas. Daniel Noem Voionmaa, por sua vez,
oferece uma interessante leitura da obra El rey de la Habana (1999), do
escritor cubano Pedro Juan Gutirrez, na qual ressalta as transformaes
da sociedade cubana durante a dcada de 1990, no contexto de insero
da mesma no cenrio neoliberal. Na seqncia, Conrad James nos introduz
ao mundo da maternidade afro-cubana e sua representao por meio da
poesia de Eloy Machado Prez. Em seu artigo, o autor busca revelar a
imagem materna como uma fora determinante da vida afro-cubana no
contexto histrico de Cuba no perodo pr-revolucionrio. J o estudo de
Mara Zielina se prope a explorar o tema da identidade cubana a partir de
dois poemas da escritora Dulce Pulls, prestigiosa e popular representante
da literatura cubana e latino-americana. E, finalmente, fechando este primeiro
jul./dez. 2005
From Bomba to Hip-Hop. Puerto Rican Culture and Latino Identity (2000).
Nos ltimos anos verificou-se um verdadeiro boom na produo
acadmica sobre o Caribe, em particular sobre a dispora caribenha na
Amrica do Norte e na Europa. Desde o surgimento dos estudos culturais
voltados experincia da dispora caribenha no Reino Unido, passando
pelo crescente interesse pelas literaturas e histrias latino-caribenhas, e
indo at percepo do Caribe como exemplo de criollismo, mestiagem e
caos, que para muitos caracterizariam o perodo colonial, o Caribe se
converteu em objeto de profundos estudos e anlises. A crescente ateno
acadmica que tem sido conferida aos estudos do Caribe, porm, exige o
questionamento e a reflexo sobre as idias e conceitos de identidade,
literatura, cultura e poltica, que se encontram por detrs desses discursos.
O Caribeou os Caribesque emerge desses discursos neste ltimo
meio sculo parece revelar-se com uma identidade prpria e, em muitos
casos, transmitindo um vnculo mais autntico com a sua presente realidade
mltipla e diversa, de forma que os discursos e as idias desses arqutipos
caribenhos tm uma forte influncia na forma com que, atualmente, a regio
do Caribe se imagina a si mesma.
A histria, a literatura e o cinema nos contextos caribenhos sempre
tiveram que se enfrentar com economias frgeis e com uma constante
prtica da censura. Em todos esses mbitos o Estado desempenhou um
importante papel como estimulador, mas tambm como censor. Por isso,
tais discursos oscilaram, em relao liberdade de expresso, entre vises
liberais e autoritrias. Durante os ltimos cinqenta anos produziu-se uma
reavaliao histrica que viu nascer novas e revolucionrias expresses
artsticas, entre as quais se destacam os discursos histricos, literrios e
flmicos, como slidos canais dedicados denncia da injustia,
celebrao dos protestos sociais e autenticidade da identidade. Com as
vivncias da construo de uma sociedade nova, surgiu o questionamento
conflituoso de noes como identidade, nao, gnero e dispora,
descobrindo-se novos discursos transgressores e estratgicos em busca
de uma formulao ideolgica que gere sociedades mais justas e igualitrias.
Com este volume, a Revista Brasileira do Caribe pretende-se oferecer
como uma plataforma trilinge para estudiosos de diferentes instituies
acadmicas de diversos pases, por meio da participao de vrios
especialistas que pensam e estudam o Caribe a partir de outros espaos e/
ou contextos no caribenhos. O fenmeno massivo dos acadmicos e
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10
PARTE I
Resumen
Este ensayo interpretativo aborda varios temas relacionados con el llamado
descubrimiento de Cuba. Busca recrear el complejo drama de incertidumbres,
confusiones y sorpresas que acompao al proceso, a medida que tanto europeos
como indgenas cubanos intentaban entender los sucesos desde sus respectivas
cosmovisones, religiones y limitaciones lingsticas y conceptuales. Utilizando
documentos, mapas y crnicas de la poca, este ensayo discute los procesos de la
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Luis Martnez-Fernndez
Abstract
This essay is an interpretative approximation to various topics related to de socalled discovery of Cuba. It seeks to recreate the complex drama of uncertainties,
surprises and confusions that characterized the process, as Europeans and
Indigenous Cubans tried to make sense of it from their own cosmovisions, religious
perspectives and conceptual and linguistic limitations. Based on period documents,
maps and chronicles, the essay also discusses the encounter, using the Edmundo
OGormans concept the invention of America and Alfred Crosbys notion of
the Columbian exchange.
Keywords: Christopher Columbus, Cuba, Discovery
***
Al mismo tiempo que Coln y sus compaeros de Europa
descubrieron la Amrica, los hijos de sta descubrieron a
Europa.
Fernando Ortiz
14
1492 and in the city of Granada, after over eight years of incessant
lobbying, Christopher Columbus finally received the crowns sanction
and support to discover and subdue some Islands and Continent in
the ocean (COMMANGER y CANTOR, 1988, p. 1-2) The Capitulations
of Santa Fe, as the original contract between the Catholic Monarchs
and Columbus came to be known, granted the Genoese mariner the
titles of admiral, viceroy, and governor of all territories to be found
and conquered. Such titles were awarded in perpetuity to him and
his descendants. The agreement also included generous economic
provisions that entitled Columbus to keep 10 percent of the profits
derived from all goods found and traded in any territories to be
discovered and the right to invest up to an eight in any subsequent
enterprise and draw profits proportionately.
While the Capitulations vaguely referred to islands and a
mainland, Columbus was convinced that he was headed to the Orient
by way of the west. Basing his projected voyage on a mix-andmatch of existing estimates and calculations, he took China to be
much larger than it was and believed the earths circumference
was about a fourth smaller. Combining these and other
miscalculations, he believed that the Indies, as East Asia was known,
were reachable by sailing west from Europe. By no means a
recognized scientist or cosmographer, Columbus proposed a voyage
that generated scorn from Europes scientific establishment. Years
later Columbus reminisced with some satisfaction that everyone
laughed at and dismissed his plan. Undaunted, he pursued his plans
with the zeal of a crusader, believing that his new route to the Orient
would give him and the Spanish monarchs access to the fabled
riches and species of Asia and at the same time allow the expansion
of Christianity to remote corners of the world.
First encounters
On August 3, 1492 Christopher Columbus and eighty-six other
men boarded the Santa Mara, the Nia and the Pinta on the Port
of Palos in southern Spain. The latter two were caravels, newly
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Luis Martnez-Fernndez
developed small, swift, and easy to handle vessels that made long
journeys safe and feasible. Several weeks into the voyage, the ships
crews began showing signs of unrest and desperation; mutinous
conspiracies were spun which Columbus tried to avert by feeding
his men false information about the distance so far traveled. He
kept two daily records an accurate one for himself and a false one
to share with his fellow sailors: [September 10] went sixty leagues
only reckoned 48 (COLUMBUS, 1987, p. 62). Tensions were somewhat
diffused as birds and other evidence of nearby land were sighted.
On September 25 and again on October 7, false land sightings were
made. According to his grossly inaccurate longitude and latitude
calculations vessels were approximating present-day Nova Scotia,
an unwelcoming region, to say the least. On October 10, Columbus
reported that his men could stand it no longer (COLUMBUS, 1987,
p. 72). At last, in the early hours of October 12, after seventy days
of uncertain navigation, the convoy saw land; Columbus named the
island San Salvador. Later that day the explorers had their first
contact with frightened natives who fled in terror. As the vessels
headed south, the natives told Columbus of a large and bountiful
island located further south. On his log entry for October 21,
Columbus refers to it for the first time: they call it Colba
(COLUMBUS, 1987, p. 90). The Admirals preconceptions and the
natives description of Cuba, as Columbus refers to the island over
the next few days, led him to believe that it was Cipangu (Japan).
Indians tell me, he wrote on October 24, that it is very large and
has much trade, and has in it gold and spices and great ships and
merchants (COLUMBUS, 1987, p. 91). Three days later Cuba was
within sight.
On October 28 Columbus and his men landed in Cuba, the
island, that above all others, captivated his heart and delighted his
senses. The startled convoy spent the next five weeks exploring
the eastern end of Cubas northern coast, fathoming the inlets of
the jagged coastline. They made several landings along the way,
planting a cross and saying prayers at every stopping point; two
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Luis Martnez-Fernndez
On April 24, 1494 Columbus sailed toward Cuba on board the Nia,
still convinced that it was not an island but a projection of the Asian
mainland. He made reference to being by the Province of Mag,
not far from the Great Khans Cathay. This time Columbus coasted
Cubas southern shoreline for several weeks, making numerous stops
along the way. In his farfetched efforts to sustain the continentality
thesis, he sailed west until his convoy reached what later became
known as Corts Bay in Pinar del Ro Province. Rather than continue
west to prove or disprove Cubas insularity, he ordered his ships to
turn back, not before making his crew take an oath affirming that
Cuba was not an island; anyone who claimed that it was would be
punished by having his tongue amputated.
Viewing these events armed with over five centuries of
accumulated knowledge and the scientific capabilities of the early
twenty-first century obscures the fact that for the two sides involved
in these first encounters between the Old and New Worlds the
early contacts were bewildering, filled with uncertainty, fear and
wild speculations. Initial responses ranged from awe and admiration
to horror and hatred; they tested the far corners of European and
Amerindian imagination. European explorers and natives, alike,
scrambled to draw from their respective religions and cosmovisions
as they struggled to understand each other and their respective
worlds and the new world that both began to create together.
As Columbuss travel logs and other sources attest, he fell in
love with Cuba; it was a love at first sight and it was passionate: I
have never seen anything so beautiful (COLUMBUS, 1987, p. 93) he
wrote his first day on the island. The Admiral marveled at its
topography, its luscious vegetation and its bays and rivers which he
claimed were the finest he had ever seen. A month into his exploration
of Cuba he jotted that it looked like an enchanted land
(COLUMBUS, 1987, p. 119) and days later he wrote in his navigation
log that he did not want to leave the place. The weather seemed to
conspire along with Cubas enchantment as the convoy was forced
to wait several days for favorable winds for the departure. On his
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Luis Martnez-Fernndez
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Luis Martnez-Fernndez
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Inventing America
So, who discovered Cuba and America? When were they
discovered? Every Cuban school child knows the answers: Columbus
in 1492. But are those answers correct? It all depends on what one
means by discovery. The presence of Viking explorers and settlers
in northern North America has been established to date to about
1000 A.D. A recent provocative study by Gavin Menzies claims
that in 1421 a large Chinese expedition navigated throughout the
Americas including Cubas shores. The term discovery, itself, is
controversial and has in recent years fallen into disuse at the expense
of others such as encounter and first contacts. Did the first
landing on San Salvador on October 12, 1492 or the sighting of
Cuba a few days later constitute discoveries or were these just first
steps in a protracted process involving multiple actors engaging in
what Edmundo OGorman called the invention of America
(OGORMAN, 1972) and more recently Eviatar Zeruvabel termed the
mental discovery of America (ZERUVABEL, 1992).
Columbuss voyage of 1492-1493 shook the cosmological,
philosophical, and religious foundations of Europe as mariners,
cosmographers, cartographers, and theologians scrambled to make
sense of the puzzling information and strange artifacts and specimens
gradually filtering from half way around the globe. This prolonged
drama unfolded in a context of a Europe in transition between the
waning Middle Ages and the dawning Renaissance. Columbus was
essentially a medieval explorer. A deeply religious man and a
crusader at heart, he looked reverently to the Bible and cosmological
and philosophical authorities, whose knowledge he used deductively
as he tried to understand the world he unwittingly unveiled. Deeply
imbedded within his view of the world was the dogma of the
Ecumene, that the world consisted of three connected continents
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Luis Martnez-Fernndez
(Europe, Asia, and Africa), and likewise there were three oceans
(Atlantic, Mediterranean, Indian), three human races (Caucasians,
Africans, Asians), and three religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam);
all of this being earthly reflections of the Holy Trinity. Other
contemporaries, such as Amerigo Vespucci and Peter Martyr
dAnghiera, as Renaissance men, challenged the ancient authorities
and religious texts with scientific observations and experimentation.
In Vespuccis own words, experience was worth more than theory.
Europes scientists, scholars at Salamanca among them, were initially
skeptical about Columbuss project, insisting that his calculations
were inaccurate and that the existing naval technology would not
permit a voyage from Europe to the Indies. As seen earlier,
Columbus burdensome philosophical baggage did not allow him to
even consider that Cuba and the other lands he found were something
other than the Indies he had set out to reach by way of the west.
Meanwhile, Renaissance scientists the likes of Peter Martyr were
willing to engage in the mental discovery of a New World if
scientific evidence led them inductively to that conclusion. Martyr
was perhaps the first to scientifically embrace the notion that the
islands that Columbus had found were not Asia but in fact something
new. In a letter dated November 1, 1493 (only seven and a half
months after Columbuss return to Castile) Martyr referred to
Columbus as he who discovered the New World (ZERUVABEL,
1992, p. 71-72). For Martyr, Vespucci, and other scientists the budding
idea of a New World was not a dogmatic conclusion but rather a
hypothesis to be tested with subsequent voyages and explorations.
Over the next few years, Columbus, on the one hand, and Vespucci,
on the other, embarked in parallel explorations to determine the
nature of the lands that Columbus had taken to be the Indies. During
his third voyage (1498-1500) Columbus ventured further south and
came in contact with the mainland of South America, the first
European to do so. Still convinced that the islands found in his earlier
voyages were part of the Indies and Cuba was the Malayan
Peninsula, he scrambled to redraw the map of the world and to find
24
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Luis Martnez-Fernndez
and final voyage in an effort to find new evidence to fit into his
latest theory. Vespucci coasted South Americas east coast as far
south as what later became known as the Ro de la Plata, concluding
that since that landmass extended south that far it could not be
Asia, therefore it, along with the rest, had to be a new continent.
Columbus, meanwhile set out toward Central America in search of
an oceanic passage separating what he believed was Asia to the
north and the new continent to the south; having coasted Central
America and not finding the passage he was after, he returned to
his earlier thesis that everything was Asia. Unaware of the fact,
while coasting the isthmus he was less than one hundred kilometers
from the Pacific Ocean; a decade would pass before Vasco Nez
de Balboa discovered the Pacific Ocean. Columbus, thus, revived
the Ecumene and found yet another biblical landmark, the Mines of
Ophir in Panama, from which the gold to build Solomons temple
had been mined. On his way back to Europe, still thinking it part of
Asia, Columbus saw Cuba for the last time in mid-May 1503 as if to
bid his beloved Juana one final goodbye. A violent storm pushed his
vessels away: I lost, at one stroke, three anchors; and, at midnight,
when the weather was such that the world appeared to be coming
to an end, the cables of the other ship broke, and it came down upon
my vessel with such force that it was a wonder we were not dashed
to pieces (COLUMBUS, 1978, p. 187-188). This was a far cry from
that refreshing afternoon on the Day of Pentescost during his second
voyage amidst the aroma of flowers, the sweet song of birds, and
the shade of royal palms.
Was the discovery of America and Cubaif we may use
that termthe result of Columbuss medieval crusading zeal or was
it the result of the inductive science of Renaissance men like
Vespucci and Martyr. Arguably it was neither and it was both. The
invention and mental discovery of America required the mystic
zeal of a prodigiously stubborn Columbus, whose deeply religious
worldview allowed him to embark in explorations and theories
summarily dismissed by his learned contemporaries. Ironically, the
26
same mindset that pushed him to find Cuba and other islands and
continental masses to the west, prevented him from recognizing
them as new. While Columbus was the first European to encounter
the Caribbean, South America, and Central America, it was
Renaissance men of science and their navigators who eventually
accomplished the actual invention of America. It was a matter of
an unwitting collaboration between passionate medieval explorers
and detached Renaissance cosmographers. Such convergences of
primal passions and intuitions, on one hand, and skepticism and new
ideas, on the other, have been at the heart of many of the most
dramatic transformations and revolutions in human history. The
discovery/invention of America ranks high among these.
Sixteenth-century cartographers, beginning with Martin
Waldeseemller, credited Vespucci with the unveiling of a New
World, by naming it America instead of Columbia. His famous map
of 1507 portrayed North and South America connected to each
other and fully insular. In the year 1500, cartographer Juan de la
Cosa, one of the men Columbus had forced to swear that Cuba
was not an island, produced the first map in which Cuba appeared
as an island. Rather than the mighty continental tongue Columbus
still believed it was, de la Cosa portrayed Cuba as a curled-up shrimp
of an island about to be devoured by a gigantic, green continental
mass, the Gulf of Mexico its gaping mouth. Neither de la Cosa nor
any of his shipmates had their tongues cut off as their oath prescribed
if they ever said that Cuba was an island. As later maps attest, only
two of the names that Columbus gave as he sailed past Cuba stuck
(Jardn de la Reina and Jardinillos), as bays and capes reverted to
their Taino names or later settlers imposed names of their choosing.
Not even the name Juana stuck as King Ferdinand ordered it
renamed Fernandina soon after Prince Juan died. Fernandina did
not stick either; the island came to be known as Cuba, what the
natives had first said to Columbus or what he had understood them
to say. Havanas founders, perhaps unwittingly, honored Columbus,
when they named what would eventually become Cubas capital
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Luis Martnez-Fernndez
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Luis Martnez-Fernndez
Bibliography
COLN, Cristbal. Textos y documentos completos. Madrid: Alianza Editorial,
1978 y 1995.
COLUMBUS, Christopher. Four Voyages to the New World. Gloucester: Peter
Smith, MA, 1978.
COLUMBUS, Christopher. The Diario of Christopher Columbuss First Voyage
to America, 1492-1493. Edited by Bartolom de las Casas. Translated by DUNN,
Oliver; KELLY, JR. E., James. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1987.
COMMANGER, Henry Steele; CANTOR, Milton (Eds.). Documents of American
History. 2, V. 10 edicin. Englewood, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1988.
CROSBY, Alfred W. The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural
Consequences of 1492.Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1972.
MRTIR DE ANGLERA, Pedro. Dcadas del Nuevo Mundo. Buenos Aires:
Editorial Bajel, 1944.
MENZIES, Gavin. 1421: The Year the Chinese Discovered the World. New York:
Harper Collins, 2003.
OGORMAN, Edmundo. The Invention of America. Westport, CT: Greenwood
Press, 1972.
ORTIZ, Fernando. Por Coln se descubrieron dos mundos. Revista Bimestre
Cubana, 50 (2) Sept.-Oct., 1942, p. 180-190.
ZERUVABEL, Eviatar. Terra Cognita: The Mental Discovery of America. New
Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1992.
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33
Resumen
El objetivo principal de este estudio es hacer una crtica y anlisis de la precisin
con qu la (re)presentacin de la mujer en el cine cubano describe la relacin gneropoder en la sociedad cubana. Para esto se considera el argumento de Chanan quien
afirma que el pueblo cubano considera que lo que se ve en el cine cubano es lo que
se ve (o que hay) en el mbito pblico y privado de su sociedad. Se concluye que
el medio cinematogrfico aumenta nuestra comprensin del papel de la mujer y del
gnero en la experiencia diaria de la sociedad cubana ya que se le permite a la
audiencia interiorizar la historia, el humor, los cambios, las necesidades y la valenta
del pueblo cubano. Los filmes estudiados se agrupan en dos pocas. En la primera
los personajes de mujeres cubanas suelen describirse como heronas revolucionarias,
sin reflejar ni proyectar sus miedos, su sensualidad y sus deseos como mujeres, lo
cual s es tipificado en la segunda poca. Los resultados de este estudio sugieren
que el cine de posterior a 1959 refleja con frecuencia la historia social, incluida la
disolucin de clases, a travs de las mujeres. Conscientemente o por omisin, las
pelculas seleccionadas destacan la oportunidad de incorporacin de las mujeres en
el mbito pblico y las limitaciones de ese proceso, pero slo hasta cierto punto
puesto que an estn presentes las ideologas y prcticas machistas de la sociedad
patriarcal.
Palabras claves: Cine, Cuba, Mujer
Abstract
The main purpose of the study is to analyse and critique how accurately the
representation of women in Cuban cinema portrays the existing gender power
relationships in Cuban society, in the light of Chanans claim that Cuban people
consider that what we see in Cuban cinema is what we see on the public and
private spheres of Cuba. It follows that the cinematic medium increases our
understanding of women and gender issues in the daily experience of Cuban society,
and thereby allows spectators to engage in representations of the history, the
humour, the changes, the needs, and the courage of Cuban people. The films
examined here are grouped into two epochs. In the first epoch, Cuban women are
generally portrayed as revolutionary heroines, without fully exploring and projecting
their fear, their sensuality and their desires as women, as it is typified in the second
epoch. Taken together, the results of this study suggest that post 1959
Revolutionary Cuban cinema has frequently portrayed social historyincluding
the breakdown of social classthrough women. Consciously or by default, the
34
films chosen highlight both the opportunities for the incorporation of women into
the public sphere, and the limitations of that process but only up to a certain
point: the machista ideologies and practices characteristic of a patriarchal society
still remain.
Keywords: Cinema , Cuba , Woman
***
It is imperative to analyse the forms of representation of
women according to their experiences, beliefs, and cultural, social,
and political realities, that is to say, that although hegemonic ideologies
(capitalism, socialism, patriarchy) in diverse societies and epochs
may share much in common, these commonalities are undermined
by spatial and temporal nuances which affect the shape and form
artistic institutions (such as ICAIC1 in Cuba) take on, the position
women occupy in a society, and the way women are represented in
cinema. More specifically, pertaining to the feminist task of liberating
women from patriarchal behaviours and institutions, it is important
not to draw all-encompassing conclusions or observations regarding
womens experiences and thoughts through the use of the inclusive,
but ultimately indeterminable term of WE (CARBY, 1982, p. 233).
As Eisenstein (2004) states in her discussion of feminism and Afghan
women it is too easy to think all women should be free like me whoever the me is (EISENSTEIN, 2004, p. 153). In the end, the
crucial questions pertain to who is telling the story and how the
story is told. It matters profoundly who and what gets represented,
who and what regularly and routinely are omitted/permitted; and
how things, people, events and relationships are represented.
Therefore, what one knows of society depends on how things are
represented to her/him and that knowledge in turn informs what
one does and what policies one is prepared to accept (HALL, 1986, p.
9).
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36
into the process of the Revolution and the changes it has brought
about. Thus, this paper attempts to exemplify how machismo,
womens liberation, and images of women that construct diverse
discourses of femininity are presented in each epoch.
Two Epochs
In order to successfully explore and understand the
representation of women in Cuban cinema, it is necessary to first
outline the fundamental basis upon which Cuban cinema is built.
Solanas and Getino (1997) indicate that films produced in Cuba
after the triumph of the Revolution were clearly revolutionary in the
sense that although their starting point was just the fact of teaching,
reading and writing, they had a goal which was radically different
from that of imperialism: the training of people for liberation, not for
subjection (SOLANAS; GETINO, 1997, p. 48). Chilean film-maker
Miguel Littin claims that there are no such things as a film that is
revolutionary in itself, but that a film becomes revolutionary only
when it grips the masses (THESHOME, 1979, p. 42). On the other
hand, the Bolivian director Jorge Sanjins theory of revolutionary
film indicates that it is an outside force, an external power that
summons people to action (THESHOME, 1979, p. 42). Additionally
Ousmane Sembene, a Senegalese film-maker, claims that a film
can be revolutionary without creating revolution, and he defines
film more in political terms than in revolutionary ones (THESHOME,
1979, p. 43)2. Solanas and Getino (1997) define Revolutionary cinema
as not fundamentally one which illustrates, documents, or passively
establishes a situation: rather, it attempts to intervene in the situation
as an element providing thrust or rectification. To put it in another
way, it provides discovery through transformation (SOLANAS;
GETINO, 1997, p. 47). Drawing from this it can be stated that Cuban
cinema seeks to provoke the audience to self-reflect upon their
own role in their society and then to participate in finding a solution
rather than remaining passive. Given that the nature of Revolutionary
cinema is considered a means of communication with the masses,
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reactions from her sexual abuse. Similarly, whilst Lina shows her
disenchantment and pain resulting from Oscars indecision in leaving
his wife by hiding herself under her pillow, she never voices her
pain. Interestingly, in De cierta manera (directed by the only female
cineasta Sara Gmez), the representation of Yolanda, who is also
very strong like Lina and Teresa, differs greatly in that she is given
the opportunity to very clearly voice her frustration, her choices
and her dreams; she is depicted as a woman who does not accept
any machista behaviour that will prevent her from developing herself
as a professional and as an individual. Drawing from this we can
state that Teresa and Lina are women who struggle between the
revolutionary belief of equality and emancipation, and the traditional
patriarchal values and machista attitudes which inhibit exploration
and expression of their identities, fears, emotions and voices. The
experiences of Lina and Teresa give weight to Creeds (1987)
assessment that women do not speak in their own voice and thus
are represented only in terms of a male discourse about women.
However, Yolanda provides subversive and emancipatory
constructions of femininity due possibly to the personal experiences
of double-discrimination/double-subjugation of Sara Gmez and the
powerful influence these may have had on her representation of
Yolanda. Accordingly, Gutirrez Alea has indicated that Sara
[Gmez] was doubly oppressed, as a black and as a woman, so she
was very much moved on the question of how sexism and racism
could be dealt with after the revolution. So it is not surprising that
she, a woman, undertook the problem of machismo or was interested
in the secret societies [abacu], where the macho elements are so
well established (ALEA cited in RICH, 1998, p. 102). Thus, Sara Gmez
typifies machismo with the purpose of not just representing the
problem but to emancipate womens voices in order to find a solution
to the problem and act on it.
Machismo is a peculiar form of patriarchy that has to do
with public relations between men as well as between men and
women (LEINER, 1996). In addition, machismo stereotypes the female
40
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42
Cuba and how these changes were affecting women and men. Thus,
Gmez does not solely present the problem of machismo, but
continues with a presentation of both womens voice and the
possibility for men to change. In addition, by ending the film with a
full shot depicting an eclectic mix of materialist-based visions of
demolishing buildings to make way for new housing projects and
images of Yolanda and Mario discussing their relationship, the
audience can be seduced by the postulated imperative for change.
At the beginning of the second epoch, machismo was
presented in cinema but not discussed as a central issue, as illustrated
in Mujer transparente. Late in the same epoch, presenting a nontypical construction of masculinity becomes important. Underlining
this, Seungsook (2002) states, masculinity is not a fixed or pregiven identity but a position (or place) in gender relations that is
produced and maintained through culturally specific and continued
practices, such as certain ways of acting, dressing, or speaking
(SEUNGSOOK, 2002, p. 82-83). Thus, these traditional conceptions of
femininity and masculinity that have deep roots in culture and society
can be negotiated in order to transform the process of creation and
definition of masculine and feminine personalities and their
representation in cinema. This is achieved by Fernando Prez, in
La vida es silbar (1998), with the character of Elpidio by providing
the audience with a man who wants to express his emotions, failures
and fears because he is not afraid to be ridiculed by other men or
does not succumb to peer-pressure to be macho. This is clearly
seen in the scene when an old man asks Elpidio if the old man is
handsome. After being told by Elpidio that he is ugly, the old man
walks away crying. After realising what he has done, Elpidio runs
to the old man, embraces him and says to him that nobody is perfect.
Upon saying these words, he immediately realises the profundity of
his words, and thus being called a marginal by his mother no longer
affected him; his own differences did not signify failure. Through
Elpidio and other male characters in the film, Prez is sending the
message that the new man which the Revolution postulates, should
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44
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46
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Conclusion
This essay has provided some new insights pertaining to the
representation of women in Cuban cinema since the beginnings of
the Revolution (when women were represented as strong and
economically independent) through to the modern era (when women
continue to be represented as strong and independent, but finally
have been given opportunities to express themselves and explore
their individuality and identity). Drawing from the previous discussion
it is clear that first epoch films build upon a strictly Marxist materialist
base in the representation of women, which ultimately goes someway
in constructing discourses of emancipation from patriarchal
ideologies and institutions. However, through Marxisms lack of
conceptual tools to explore the self, and individuality, it is unable
to articulate the identities of a woman that lay beneath material
considerations and thus fails to emancipate women from patriarchal
discourses that silence womens free expression of identities.
Contrastingly, second epoch Cuban cinema presents a woman who
is in search of herself, she is tired of being invisible and she begins
asking herself who am I?, what is a woman?, what is an
individual?. Arguably one can trace this dramatic shift in the nature
of representation of women in Cuban cinema to the change of events
in the geopolitical arena. Whereby the Cuban identity has been
traditionally signified by Communism and the Soviet bloc, with
the demise of continental communism and the Soviet Union, questions
pertaining to individual identity became pertinent and pressing
48
there was no longer a big brother with whom Cuba and Cubans
could identify itself with.
Furthermore, the female power of leadership and professional
positions represented in the films from the first epoch is different
from the Cuban films from the second epoch. In Retrato de Teresa,
women work as textile workers leading only women, while Isabel
works as a manager leading women and men. Yolanda in De cierta
manera is a teacher at a primary school, whilst Julia is a university
lecturer. Whilst Lina, in Hasta cierto punto, is a dock-manager
student, Zoe is a liberal art student. This might signify that not all,
but some, aspects in relation to womens jobs position, from the first
epoch have changed in favour of women in the second epoch and
that their participation in a patriarchal society has been considered
further. Portrayal of women in terms of the interplay of their personal
and professional relationships is very important. For example, when
a woman is portrayed as working outside the home it should be
asked whether she is also portrayed as strong in terms of her personal
relationships, or is she depicted as weak, confused, in need of male
support (MEDIA ADVOCACY GROUP, 1995, p.8-9). Overall, the
underlying frame of references about the representation of women
in Cuban cinema, as well as more generally in that society, is based
upon the belief that women belong to the family and domestic life
and men to the social world of politics and work; that femininity is
about care, nurturance and compassion, and that masculinity is about
efficiency, rationality and individuality. And whereas womens
political, cultural and labour activities and participation try to
undermine just gendered distinctions between public and private, it
seems to remain the inevitable frame of reference to understand it
(SREBERNY AND VAN ZOONE, 2000, p. 17). That is why women from
the first epoch like Teresa and the second epoch like Isabel point to
a paradox in womens attempts to break down the public-private
division that characterises gender definitions and relationships in
social and political life because their participation in society is still
dictated by a male figure, in their case their husband. Sadly the
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to raise the question as to why they have not been included and
permitted to express their identity and subjectivity in any film by
male or female cineastas. However, on the 21st of December 2004
a group of lesbians and bisexual women started to meet at the Centro
Nacional de Educacin Sexual (Cenesex/ National Centre of Sexual
Education) to discuss issues vis--vis sexual diversity that until that
date included only men. Following meetings have taken place once
a week since then, and at the last meeting on the 11th of January
2005 these women discussed the possibility of future projects which
include videos, films and literature discussion and festivals7. Future
analyses of these projects would be invaluable in better understanding
the multiple faces of women in Cuba.
Ultimately, this essay views Revolutionary Cuban cinema as
a genuine cinema from a distinctive society in which Cuban women,
like women in any other society, still struggle against patriarchy and
biased gender power relations. The difference being that, throughout
both epochs of Revolutionary Cuban cinema, women have not been
represented in exploitative or objectified ways. Rather, women have
been consistently representedin distinctive manners that are
apparently informed by the vicissitudes of the Revolution and
geopolitical happeningsas strong and independent characters, and
as models for society. Furthermore, in post-1990 Cuban cinema to
this is added the liberating presentation of womens personal
experiences, thoughts, desires and opinions. Ostensibly these forms
of representations are diametrically opposed to those of Western
cinema posed over the same period of Revolutionary Cuban cinema.
Notas
1 The Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry.
2 Sembene marks the difference between political and revolutionary film: Its not
after having read Marx or Lenin that you go out and make a revolution [] All
the works are just a point of reference in history. And thats all. Before the end
of an act of creation society usually has already surpassed it. (PERRY;
MCGILLIGAN, 1971 p. 43)
52
3 Underlining the purported goals and purposes of Cuban cinema is the adherence
to a Socialist Realist style, which refers to the depiction of social and economic
circumstances within which particular echelons of society (usually working
and middle class) find themselves (HAYWARD, 2000, p. 331). Socialist Realism
was defined by Stalin during the 1930s as a true and historically concrete
depiction of reality and its revolution[ary] development (KUHN, 1994, p.
136). As Kuhn (1994) argues, this definition can be open to various
interpretations, but it certainly suggests two basic defining characteristics of
Socialist Realism: first, as an adherence to some form of Realism (true []
depiction of reality), and, second, that representations either deal directly
with history or inscribe historical specificity in some other way (historical
concrete) (KUHN, 1994, p. 136). More information about Socialist Realism
can be found in BAZIN, A. The Stalin myth in Soviet culture. Movies and
Methods. V. 2. (Ed. Bill Nichols). Berkeley: University of California Press, p.
29-40, 1985; CHRISTIE, I., Canons and Careers: The Director in Soviet
Cinema. Stalinism and Soviet Cinema, (Ed. Richard Taylor and Derek Spring).
London: Routledge, 1993; GROYS, B. The Total Art of Stalinism: Avant-Garde,
Aesthetic Dictatorship, and Beyond. Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1992; SHAPIRO, D. Social Realism: Art as a Weapon. New York: Ungar, 1973;
TERTZ, A. The Trial Begins On Socialist Realism. California: University of
California Press, 1982; TAYLOR, R. and SPRING, D. Stalinism and Soviet
Cinema. London: Routledge, 1993.
4 The result is a piece of art where the spectator is interested in the on-screen
history but, at the same time, is continuously obliged to reflect on the reality
that surrounds her/him.
5 Often the term propaganda is considered simplistically as negative. However
as Terence Qualter (1962) indicates one persons truth is all too often anothers
propaganda. Thus whether or not that which is being presented is true or
false, it is the way in which it is used (and not truthfulness) that determines
whether or not it is in fact propaganda (QUALTER, 1962, p. 122). As Nicholas
Reeves (1999) states propaganda is the deliberate attempt by the few to
influence the attitudes and behaviour of the many by the manipulation of
symbolic communication (REEVES, 1999, p. 11-12). Furthermore, culture,
like education, is not and cannot be apolitical or impartial [] Radio, television,
cinema and the press are powerful instruments of ideological education and for
creation of a collective consciousness []. The mass media cannot be left to
change or be used without direction (Final declaration of the 1971 Cuban
Congress on Education and Culture).
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53
Filmography
De cierta manera (One Way or Another). Director Sara Gmez. ICAIC, 1974/
1978.
Retrato de Teresa (Portrait of Teresa). Director Pastor Vega. ICAIC, 1979.
Hasta cierto Punto (Up to a Certain Point). Director Toms Gutirrez Alea, ICAIC,
1983.
Mujer transparente (Transparent Woman). Directrs Hector Veita, Mayra Segura,
Mayra Vilass, Mario Crespo and Ana Rodrguez, 1990.
La vida es silbar (Life is to Whistle). Director Fernando Perz, ICAIC-Wanda
Distribution Spain, 1998.
Comandante. Oliver Stone. USA/Spain, 2003.
Bibliography
ACOSTA, D. Cuba: Proyecto de Diversidad Sexual abre sus Puertas a Mujeres.
Servicios de Noticias de la Mujer.<http://www.rebelion/org, 2005>.
BAZIN, A.. The Stalin myth in Soviet culture. NICHOLS, B. (Ed.). Movies
and Methods.V. 2. Berkeley: University of California Press, p.29-40, 1985.
BURTON, J. Portrait(s) of Teresa: gender politics and the reluctant revival of
melodrama in Cuban film. CARSON, L.; DITTMAR, L.; WELSCH, J. R. (Eds.)
Multiple Voices in Feminist Film Criticism. Minneapolis/London: University of
Minnesota Press, p. 305-317, 1994.
BURTON, J. Film artisans and film industries in Latin America, 1956-1980.
Theoretical and critical implications of variations in modes of filmic production
and consumption. New Latin American Cinema. MARTIN, M. T. (Ed ). V. 1.
Theory, Practices, and Transcontinental Articulations. Detroit: Wayne State
University Press, 1997, p.157-184.
CARBY, H. The Empire Strikes Back: Race and Racism in Seventies Britain.
London: Hutchinson, 1982.
CASTRO, F. Discurso pronunciado [ ] en la clasura del VI Congreso de la UJC,
4 de abril []. Granma. April 7, suppl. 2-11, 1992.
CHANAN, M. Cuban Cinema. Minneapolis/London: University of Minnesota
Press, 2004.
54
jul./dez. 2005
55
RICH, B.R. Chick Flicks: Theories and Memories of the Feminist Film Movement.
Durham: Duke University Press, NC, 1998.
SEUNGSOOK, M. The production and subversion of hegemonic masculinity:
reconfiguring gender hierarchy. KENDALL, L. (Ed.). Contemporary South Korea
in Under Construction: the Gendering of Modernity, Class, and Consumption in
the Republic of Korea. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2002.
SHAPIRO, D. Social Realism: Art as a Weapon. New York: Ungar, 1973.
SOLANAS, F.; GETINO, O. Notes and experiences for the development of a
cinema of liberation in the third world. MARTIN, M. T. (Ed.). New Latin American
Cinema. Volume 1. Theory, Practices, and Transcontinental Articulations. Detroit:
Wayne State University Press, 1997, p. 33-58.
SREBERNY, A.; VAN ZOONEN, L., Gender, politics and communication: an
introduction. SREBERNY, A.; VAN ZOONEN, L. (Eds.). Gender, Politics and
Communication. Cresskill/New Jersey/Hampton Press, p.1-19, 2000.
TAYLOR, R.; SPRING, D. Stalinism and Soviet Cinema. London: Routledge,
1993.
TERTZ, A. The Trial Begins and On Socialist Realism. California: University of
California Press, 1982.
THESHOME, G. Third Cinema in Third World: The Dynamics of Style and Ideology.
University of California, Thesis (Ph.D.), 1979.
VILASIS, M. Pensar el Cine. Cuba: Ediciones Unin, 1995.
56
Resumen
A partir del concepto de Iustitium, para Agamben un vaco de y en la ley, leo El Rey
de La Habana, de Pedro Juan Gutirrez, una possible de-construccin de la nocin
de una identidad cubana. Planteo que la sociedad cubana durante la dcada de los
noventa devino una sociedad neo-liberal marginal. Intento alejarme de las
* Artigo recebido em julho e aprovado para publicao em outubro de 2005
57
tradicionales lecturas que emplean el paradigma del realismo sucio para acercarse
a la produccin de Gutirrez, centrndome, en su lugar, en el establecimiento del
periodo especial/estado de excepcin que deviene la norma y como ah es posible
advertir la presencia de fisuras que nos permiten pensar una resistencia al proceso
hegemnico presente. El texto funciona no como una crtica del proceso
revolucionario cubano, sino ms bien como un ataque frontal a la negacin y
rechazo de los ideales revolucionarios que lleva consigo la insercin en el escenario
neoliberal.
Palabras claves: Cuba , Justicia, Neoliberalismo
Abstract
Taking as starting point the concept of Iustitium, as the Italian philosopher Giorgio
Agamben explains it, i.e., as a vacuum of and in the law; I read in El Rey de La
Habana, by Pedro Juan Gutirrez, possible de-constructions of the idea of a Cuban
identity. I argue that the novel shows how Cuban society during the nineties
became a marginal neo-liberal society. I exclude the typical dirty realistic
readings, and attempt to look in the establishment of the state of exception/periodo
especialwhich has become the norm, some gaps and fissures that will allow
us to resist and revert the current hegemonic process. The novel works as a critique
not of the Cuban Revolution as it is normally considered, but rather it constitutes
a blatant attack to the denial of the very Revolution ideals that the insertion into
this new neo-liberal scenario has brought.
Keywords: Cuba , Justice, Neoliberalism
***
Leer la (im)posibilidad de hacer justicia en la novela, pensar
la historia del desastre en las culturas o desarmar las
coartadas del Estado y del capital global para borrar su
violencia, no implica una aceptacin pasiva de la derrota,
sino una apertura radical a un futuro diferente aqu y ahora.
Luis Martn-Cabrera
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60
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62
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64
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S.
Eso es panosotros. Cada vez que entre un camin hay que
cargarlo rpido y que se vaya.
Uhmm.
Si viene algn inspector de la empresa, t no sabes n ni has
visto ningn camin aqu (p. 131).
66
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68
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70
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72
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74
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76
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78
Notas
1 Josefina Ludmer en su artculo Ficciones cubanas de los ltimos aos: el problema
de la literatura poltica caracteriza la situacin cubana como una de desdiferenciacin. Este aspecto es una de las caractersticas propias de la
postmodernidad, de acuerdo con Jameson. Singular Modernity: Essay on the
Ontology of the Present, 2002, como a Lash. Sociology of Postmodernism,
1990.
2 Este dictum romano puede entenderse de dos maneras opuestas. Por una parte,
la necessit non riconosce alcuna legge y, por la otra, la necessit crea la sua
propria legge (Agamben, 2003, p. 34). Ahora bien, esta oposicin no implica la
anulacin de uno de los dos sentidos; por el contrario, ambos se refuerzan,
crean-destruyen, de modo permanente: la negacin de la ley lleva al surgimiento
de una nueva ley que es su vez negada, slo para ser reemplazada por una
nueva, etc.
3 Anke Birkenmaier habla de la superacin del realismo sucio en la produccin de
Gutirrez (Ms all del realismo sucio: El Rey de La Habana de Pedro Juan
Gutirrez), algo que se ubicara dentro de un proceso bastante lgico si
aceptamos el naturalismo como otro predecesor lejano, resulta que el trmino
realismo sucio no recoge, por lo tanto, una tendencia particularmente novedosa
que, sin embargo, vuelve a surgir peridicamente, anuncindose como ms realista
que la literatura establecida. (BIRKENMAIER, 2003, np). Birkenmaier
identifica el realismo sucio con una esttica de la violencia y agrega como rasgo
caracterstico el que las narrativas del realismo sucio tienen generalmente un
jul./dez. 2005
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80
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(p. 53) que ms que un homenaje a la novela de Cabrera Infante funciona como
parodia y desacralizacin de uno de los textos que se planteaba, a su vez, como
pardico por antonomasia.
11 Resulta notorio cmo el texto presenta un modo exuberante de acumulacin que
solamente puede ser entendido en trminos bio-polticos. Los cuerpos, el cuerpo
de Rey en este caso, pasa a formar parte, como un desecho ms, de la mquina
omnvora instaurada por el sistema. El ejercicio bio-poltico en Cuba ha sido
siempre notable, en particular desde la cada de Batista, mas ahora hay una
inversin en el sentido del uso de los cuerpos por parte del poder (un poder que,
reitero, no se equivale para nada con el gobierno de Castro; el poder surge
principalmente de las nuevas circunstancias histricas que se viven, la excepcin
y la consecuente implementacin de un neoliberalismo perifrico).
12 Virilio nos da como ejemplo de accidente original el del trasbordador Challenger:
Quand la navette Challenger, son explosion en vol la mme anne que le
drame de Tchernobyl, cest l accident originel dun nouvel engin, lequivalent
du premier naufrage du tout premier navire (p. 27). De un modo ms coloquial
podramos preguntar: Cundo nos fuimos al carajo?
13 Aunque sea redundante quiero repetir que lo que efecto en estas lneas es una
lectura de la novela, y desde ella infiero posibilidades para comprender y entender
la situacin cubana actual. Pero no hago el proceso inverso (partir de una lectura
de la realidad cubana). Obviamente esta divisin funciona, asimismo, solo de
manera metodolgica, y cuando es llevada acabo los entrecruzamientos son
mltiples; pues como sabemos la ficcin (o lo que antes denominbamos ficcin
y que hoy ya se ha tornado imposible de diferenciar de lo no-ficcional) resulta
muchas veces mucho ms productivo y nos permite una lectura ms rica en
matices y sugerencias que una lectura o visin de aquella siempre inasible
realidad o de sus supuestos documentos de primera fuente (? Por favor!).
14 En Nancy, la comunidad se define por la naturaleza poltica de su resistencia
contra el poder inmanente. La familia de Elena no puede ser entendida de ese
modo an, no obstante abre una puerta hacia un tipo de resistencia.
15 Para ver la relacin entre locura y afecto (o amor) y el surgimiento, a partir de
esa combinacin, de comunidades alternativas y alter-nmicas (poseedoras
de una ley otra), me parece interesante referir al texto escrito y fotogrfico de
Diamela Eltit y Paz Errzuriz. Asimismo, es muy sugerente y lcido el anlisis
que de l efecta WILLIAMS, Gareth. The Other Side of the Popular.
16 En NOEMVOIONMAA, Daniel. Leer la pobreza en Amrica Latina: literatura
y velocidad. Santiago de Chile: Cuarto Propio, 2004. En particular en las pginas
82
31 a 35.
17 El pasaje de la lluvia que arrecia en la ciudad y que provoca el derrumbe de
edificios se acerca, interesantemente, a lo que muchos crticos denominaran
realismo mgico (la escena de la lluvia, claro est, tienen reminiscencias
macondianas evidentes; por otra parte, creo que se pueden establecer conexiones
con el final de De donde son los cantantes, de Severo Sarduy).
Bibliografa
AGAMBEN, Giorgio. Stato de eccezione. Torino: Bollati Boringhieri, 2003.
ARENDT, Hannah. On Violence. San Diego: Harvest Book, 1970.
BIRKENMAIER, Anke. Ms all del realismo sucio: El Rey de La Habana de
Pedro Juan Gutirrez. Cuban Studies. V. 32, 2001, p. 37-54.
BIRKENMAIER, Anke.El realismo sucio en Amrica Latina. Reflexionres a partir
de Pedro Juan Gutirrez. Mayo de 2005. <http://www.miradas.eictv.co.cu/
print_version.php?id_articulo=139.
GUTIRREZ, Pedro Juan. El Rey de La Habana. Barcelona: Anagrama, 1999.
HERRALDE, Jorge. Pedro Juan en el ring. Mayo 2005. http://
www.pedrojuangutierrez.com/Ensayos_ensayos_Jorge-Herralde.htm.
LUDMER, Josefina. Ficciones cubanas de los ltimos aos: el problema de la
literatura poltica. Cuba, un siglo de literatura:1902-2002. Madrid: Colibr, 2004.
NOEM VOIONMAA, Daniel. Leer la pobreza en Amrica Latina: literatura y
velocidad. Santiago de Chile: Cuarto Propio, 2004.
PORTELA, Ena Luca. Con hambre y sin dinero. Mayo 2005. http://
www.pedrojuangutierrez.com/EnsayosensayosEna-Portela_1.htm
VIRILIO, Paul. Laccident original. Paris: Galile, 2005.
WILLIAMS, Gareth. The Other Side of the Popular. Durham: Duke UP, 2002.
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Resumen
Eloy Machado Prez es un afrocubano que ha publicado varias antologas poticas.
Este poeta trabaj como obrero de la construccin y no tiene estudios bsicos. No
obstante, su obra representa los sentimientos, miedos y anhelos de la poblacin
afrocubana, lo cual no suele verse expresado en la poesa cubana. En este ensayo
quiero presentar la obra de este escritor, prestando particular atencin a las
representaciones de la figura de la madre afrocubana y las relaciones madre-hijo.
* Artigo recebido em agosto e aprovado para publicao em outubro de 2005
85
Conrad James
Con respecto a las representaciones maternas, la madre aparece como fuerza que
rige la vida afrocubana, sin la cual vivira en un mundo condenado a la falta de
referentes vitales. El contexto histrico es el de la Cuba prerrevolucionaria
Palabras claves: Cuba, Negros, Maternidad
Abstract
Eloy Machado Prez (b.1940) is a black Cuban who has produced several anthologies
of poetry. A former construction worker with no formal education he chronicles
the thoughts, anxieties and aspirations of a black Cuban constituency which rarely
sees itself represented in their nations poetry. In this paper I introduce his work
paying special attention to his focus on the black Cuban mother and wider mother/
son relationships. The context is pre-revolutionary Cuba and the mother is
constructed as an afro-centric life force in an otherwise unrelentingly hapless
world.
Keywords: Cuba, Blacks, Motherhood
***
Ella era poeta, dicharachera, me ense a vivir en el barrio
de la vida. Era mi inspiracin, y est presente en cada libro
mo. Era mi todo. El que no quiera y aprecie a su madre, no
es capaz de querer a nadie. Era mi madre, pero a la vez mi
amiga. Su espritu an me baa.
Eloy Machado1
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Conrad James
90
of this analysis the mother usurps the position which Jesus establishes
for himself in the bible as the way, the truth and the life.7 The
ubiquitous aunt Felicia, a kind of othermother to the poet/persona,
is equally exalted in Razn y tiempo. 8 God's absence and
insensibility are also countered by the strength and urgency of her
presence: Felicia cuadro, / brazo, / empuje (p. 90).
By depicting an inseparable bond between mother, son, and
aunt these texts reverse traditional religious authority and establish
an alternative theology. The union parodies the concept of a Holy
Trinity establishing union in a secular universe and constructing the
indispensable influence as maternal rather than paternal: Tres vidas
/ una misma vida / bailando un tango / en tres menor (p. 90).
Simultaneously fraternity is located within popular as opposed to
official religious culture.
The social dispossession which is evoked in Pap Dios
and Razn y tiempo is communicated more starkly through much
more candid images in Qu horror, of book Camn Llor (p. 46-49).
Corro, corro, corro
y el aire me molesta, entra por los huecos
de mi camisa deshecha por el tiempo sin
cambio
cmo voy a cambiarla si vivo en Luz 4,
en la posada de la peseta? (p. 46).
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Jacinta and Felicia are the only sources of hope in this vast
terrain of hopelessness. It is mother and othermother who provide
the daily bread: Ayer, qu alegra sentimos todos, / comimos una
rica comida hecha por San / Jacinta / y forrajeada por Felicia la
caminanta (p. 46). Even though this rica comida is nothing more
than the dregs of coffee and stale bread, borra de caf.../ y pan de
San La de dos semanas (p. 46), the eating of it is constitutes a
celebration of the courage and arduous labour of Jacinta and Felicia.
In the consciousness of the poet/persona Jacinta thus becomes an
alternative deity, the source to which all faith is directed: Seguimos
con la fe en el bolsillo / y en el ajustador de mi madre (p. 48). More
importantly, along with Felicia, through dance she comes to signify
a mode of transcending social difficulty and perpetuating life force.
Through popular culture Jacinta and
Felicia create beauty out of a barren landscape while it
struggles against the tragic impoverishment of life:
Felicia guarachaba como si la vida que
llevara
fuera de pomarrosa
la Jacintada, empero, iba como si buscara
una solucin
a la lucha de la madrugada. (p. 46-47)9.
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94
Alguna vez
Alguna vez Jacinta buce para encontrar lo soado all en el
estircol de la vida, o vice versa, para que la vida la encontrara
a ella como un fenmeno natural en el hecho, o es que tambin
entr en un pajar buscando la aguja de la fortuna como un
requetesueo advenedizo, o es que esa es la pesadilla que
sabemos todos? (Jacinta ceiba frondosa p. 8).
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96
al son de mi voz,
arcoiris de mar
baaban mi ser.
Yo le hablaba, le hablaba
y la vea en la punta
de la ola del morro
dicindome con gracia
pdeme, pdeme,
mientras vuelos de mar
acrobaciaban en su corona.
No imagin que fuera a tener
un sueo tan bello
con Yemay.
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Conrad James
obfuscated and the disavowed and inscribing them once and for all
into the societys history. Defying anonymity, Jacinta is both
inspiration and agent. More importantly as poeta and
dicharachera she also has the power of the word. Thus in the
poetic universe of Eloy Machado language, dialogue and political
solidarity are not semanticized in terms that exclude women. Instead
they are imaged as emanating from a mother-centred/woman centred
culture.
Notas
1 Interview with the author. Havana, 2000.
2 Interview with the author. Havana, 2000.
3 Born in abject poverty, Machado's early life was extremely difficult and this led
him to commit several petty crimes for which he was jailed on a number of
occasions, both as a child and as an adult. Interview with the author op.cit. See
also Efigenio Ameijeiras Delgado's Prlogo to Camn llor and the introduction
to Machado's Poesa VI (1989).
4 See Granma N.7, November 20, 1977, p. 6.
5 Arache is a Yoruba term which is used to refer to ominous experiences. Fferes
is a cubanismo which means food.
6 The image of the mother with lpiz y libreta is probably a reference to the
massive literacy campaigns which were initiated, both in rural Cuba and in the
urban slums, soon after the revolution came to power. To a large extent, this
project involved young people teaching the older generation to read. See
PAULSTON, Rolland G. Education. MESA-LAGO, Carmelo (Ed.).
Revolutionary Change in Cuba. 1970, p. 375-97.
7 I am the way the truth and the life, no man cometh unto the father but by me.
St. John 3. 16.
8 According to Stanlie James othermothers are those who assist blood mothers in
caring for their children. They might be blood relatives but are also very often
friends or supportive fictive kin. This arrangement was prevalent in slave
society where children, often separated from their biological mothers, were
brought up by othermothers. See JAMES, Stanlie. Mothering. A Possible
Black Feminist Link to Social Transformation?. JAMES, Stanlie, and BUSIA,
Abena P. A. (Eds). Theorizing Black Feminisms.1993, p. 44-54.
100
Bibliography
BOLVAR ARSTEGUI, Natalia. Los orishas en Cuba. La Habana: UNEAC,
1990.
CHODOROW, Nancy. The Reproduction of Mothering: Psychoanalysis and the
Sociology of Gender. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978.
CLARKE, Edith. My Mother who Fathered Me. London: Allen and Unwin, 1957.
DESHAZER, Mary. Inspiring Women: Reimagining the Muse. New York:
Pergammon, 1986.
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102
Resumen
La presencia de Dulce Pulls en los diversos festivales de poesa hispanoamericana,
como el que se llev a cabo en Cartagena, Colombia en diciembre del 2003 hablan
del impacto y popularidad de esta escritora cubana. El propsito de este trabajo es
analizar dos de sus poemas de la corriente afrocubana, Con licencia y Dilogo
* Artigo recebido em julho e aprovado para publicao em setembro de 2005
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en cuyas tramas se entretejen la riqueza que prestan los patakines yorubas a los
sincretismos religiosos de Cuba con el deseo de meditar sobre los mecanismos de
la creacin. Estos poemas renen caractersticas propias del movimiento de poesas
afrocubanas, de la dcada de los cuarenta, como son las de incluir en la trama
elementos de identidad cultural y tnica, y jugar con la posibilidad de desalojar,
dislocar las proposiciones clsicas de lo que es poesa, asentndolos en los
espejos raciales y culturales que ofrecen las creencias sincrticas tan populares en
la isla.
Palabra claves: Dulce Pulls, Dilogo de amor, Identidad
Absctract
The purpose of this article is to analyze two of the poems of Dulce Pulles, a Cuban
woman writer who is practically unknown outside Latin America. However, her
presence in many poetry festivals such as in the VII Festival de Poesia, in Cartagena,
Colombia, reveals that her work has found many followers and admirers. Some of
the characteristics that we can notice in Pulles poetry are intimacy and a wish to
detach herself from some of the violence and despair that lately offers Latin
American literature. Both elements are present in these two poems, Con licencia
and Dilogo, written in the 1990s, in which the rich and diverse output of
Cuban identity, wonders of the Yorubas patakies, meditation on folk arts and
writer desire are revealed.
Keywords: Dulce Pulls, Dilogo de amor, Identity
***
Dinamismo y color en las imgenes, religiosidad simblica en
el atributo a las deidades africanas, orgullo ilimitado en su
ascendencia tnica, musicalidad en la introduccin de los rezos,
sencillez en los giros poticos, stos son sin duda algunos de los
rasgos que mejor describen la obra de Dulce Pulls Mndez. Ella,
es una nueva voz en la poesa cubana que se mueve con soltura
tanto dentro de la tradicin lrica como la ertica o afrocubana.
Naci en Santiago de Cuba y se confiesa gran admiradora de Cesar
Vallejo; vive apartada del bullicio de los que se dan a conocer a
travs de viajes y conferencias en el extranjero. Sus poemas nacen
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yo soy el abuelo
de tu bisabuelo.
Agrrate negra,
sintate ya
yo soy Francisco
pancho o Toms
Tu bisabuelo
lo tengo atrs!
Scame lasca
mteme raspa
ljame el cuero
amansa el pelo
yo soy el abuelo
de tu bisabuelo.
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116
Notas
1 Todas las alusiones a la obra de Pulls proceden de copia de sus poesas originales,
enviadas por la escritora y de las que dispongo. La escritora tomo parte en el VII
Festival Internacional de la Poesa que se celebr en Cartagena, Colombia en
2003. Toma parte con regularidad en el Festival del Caribe, que se efecta en
Santiago de Cuba, Cuba. En los Estados Unidos la obra de Pulls es totalmente
desconocida.
2 Utilizo la terminologa afrocubana con fines esencialmete metdicos para
compararlos con aquellos poemas que bajo tal terminologa aparecieron cuando
se publicaron los primeros poemas-sones de Nicols Guilln y otros escritores
cubanos.
3 Osan, llamado tambin Ossain, est sincretizado con San Antonio de Abad y
San Silvestre. Eleggu o Elegua se sincretiza con el Nio de Atocha, San Antonio
de Padua y el nima Sola. Tiene un perfil ambiguo que se presta a la magia, tiene
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Bibliografa
CABRERA, Lydia. El monte. La Habana: Letras Cubanas, 1993.
DVILA, Eliana. Jugando a juegos prohibidos. La Habana: Editorial Letras
Cubanas, 1992.
DOPICO ECHEVERRA, Ral. Tras la huella de lo imposible: antologa de nuevos
poetas cubanos, segn la tendencia de la agresividad. Guadalajara: Secretara de
Cultura de Jalisco, 1994.
FERNNDEZ OLMOS, Margarite; PARAVISINI-GEBERT Lizabeth. Pleasure
in the Word: Erotic Writings by Latin American Women. Fredonia, N.Y.: White
Pine Press, 1993.
FOWLER CALZADA, Vctor. La eterna danza. Antologa de poesa ertica
cubana del siglo XVIII a nuestros das. La Habana: Editorial Letras Cubanas, 2000.
LPEZ LEMUS, Virgilio. Poetas de la isla: panorama de la poesa cubana
contempornea. Sevilla: Portada Editorial, 1995.
MERINO, Antonio. Nueva poesa cubana: antologa 1966-1986. Madrid: Orgenes,
1987.
NOGUERAS, Luis Rogelio. Poesa cubana de amor, siglo XX. Cuba: Editorial
Letras Cubanas, 1983.
YEZ , Mirta. Album de poetisas cubanas. La Habana, Cuba: Editorial Letras
Cubanas, 2002.
118
Resumen
El cubano Jos Mart (1853-1895) y el argentino Domingo Sarmiento (18111888), adems de escritores, trabajaron en el mbito de la poltica interamericana y
buscaron explicitar, cada uno a su modo, distintas conexiones, finalidades,
* Artigo recebido em agosto e aprovado para publicao em outubro de 2005
119
Dinair Andrade
Abstract
Jos Mart, Cuban (1853-1895), and Domingo Sarmiento, Argentine (1811-1888),
were authors who both wrote and acted in the field of interAmerican politics.They
tried to make clear, each one in his own manner, the distinct connections, aims and
causes of international politics, among other subjects, with especial focus on the
relations between the United States and Latin America.
In their efforts to understand the true status of their motherlands in the
continental politics, these two thinkers offered reflections which underlie concepts
such as globalization, regionalization, integration, freedom, democracy, justice,
among others of great import at the turn of the XXI century.
Keywords: Mart, Sarmiento, International Relations
***
Jos Julin Mart y Prez (Cuba, 1853-1895) e Domingo Faustino
Sarmiento (Argentina, 1811; Paraguai, 1888) dedicaram parte de sua
atuao e de sua produo intelectual poltica internacional na
Amrica, dando inteligibilidade s distintas conexes entre os diversos
Estados americanos e, mais enfaticamente, entre os Estados Unidos
e a Hispano-Amrica. Neste particular, as relaes internacionais
do sculo XX revelaram, claramente, contedos temticos do pensar
martiano e sarmientino, motivando-nos a apresentar esta
comunicao no II Simpsio Internacional do Caribe no Brasil, na
cidade de Gois (GO), de 10 a 12 de julho de 2002.
Mart e Sarmiento perceberam, com nitidez, duas entidades
distintas, compartilhando a geografia do Novo Mundo: os Estados
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Dinair Andrade
122
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124
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questo colocada, na atualidade, pelo intelectual progressista norteamericano Walter Lippmann. Para ele, uma reduzida elite de homens
responsveis deve deter o poder decisrio. Apenas nestas condies,
assegura Lippmann, uma democracia poderia funcionar bem. O
pblico em geral no pode ultrapassar a sua condio de mero
espectador do processo poltico9. Ou deve apenas comparecer, em
algumas sociedades com carter obrigatrio, aos pleitos eleitorais
para legitimar, com o voto, o processo de escolha poltica. Mart
tambm acreditava que a sociedade deveria ser esclarecida a
respeito dos problemas que lhe diziam respeito. A propsito da
Conferncia Monetria das Repblicas da Amrica, reunida nos
Estados Unidos em 189110, mencionou que a sociedade norteamericana deveria estar ciente do que estava por detrs daquele
debate monetrio. E sentenciou: En la poltica, lo real es lo que no
se ve (MART, 6, 1963, p. 158).
No segundo caso, no se reserva ao pblico sequer o direito
de ser informado. Estamos diante do que se convencionou
denominar de extremo autoritrio. Aqui, no se admite nem que o
cidado seja informado do que fazem os seus dirigentes polticos.
Mantm-se o bloqueio da difuso das informaes sobre o governo,
inclusive de contedos referentes s dcadas anteriores. Nas
presentes estruturas de poder, entrevemos os dirigentes
aproximarem-se do extremo autoritrio, se tivermos por paradigma
a participao dos cidados na vida poltica do seu Estado. A despeito
da veiculao de um discurso em nome da transparncia, os
governos, continuamente, insistem no impedimento da participao
e conhecimento do pblico dos seus atos e decises. Tm sido muito
pouco esclarecidas as aes de personalidades polticas ou setores
do poder de diversos Estados, envolvidos em escndalos fartamente
divulgados por grandes peridicos latino-americanos. Para dar
eficcia a esta tendncia, a funo policial dos governos do Terceiro
Mundo amplia-se consideravelmente, controlando os trabalhadores
e outros segmentos da sociedade para permanecerem invulnerveis
s demandas sociais, enquanto as empresas estrangeiras obtm a
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Notas
1 Ao citar Domingo Sarmiento manteve-se a grafia dos textos produzidos durante
a vigncia da reforma ortogrfica do espanhol que ele props.
2 A poltica econmica empreendida pela administrao do presidente Carlos Sal
Menem, na Argentina e as orientaes econmicas sinalizadas pela administrao
do presidente Carlos Salinas de Gortari, no Mxico, so testemunhos do que
afirmamos.
3 Estes elementos culturais foram objetos da anlise de Mart no seu ensaio Nuestra
Amrica, publicado no t. 6, p. 15-23 de suas Obras completas. Na realidade
este intelectual examinou duas culturas: la del hombre natural y la del libro
importado, insistiendo en que la minora intelectual deba guiarse por la primera
ms que por la segunda. FRANCO, J. Historia de la literatura
hispanoamericana, p. 29. Recorda-se que a miscigenao tnica, o isolamento
das zonas rurais, as diferentes formas da vida social, a concentrao das minorias
ilustradas em aglomeraes urbanas dispersas etc, garantiram a sobrevivncia
de mundos separados por um grande abismo.
4 Sobre esta matria recomendada a leitura de MEINING, D. W. The Shaping of
America. v. 2, Continental America, 1800-1867, New Haven, Yale University
Press, 1993.
5 Uma avaliao mais aprofundada pode ser encontrada no trabalho de GRONDIN,
intitulado Haiti: cultura, poder e desenvolvimento.
6 Ver a reportagem intitulada Frana guina esquerda. Revista Veja, N. 23, So
Paulo, 11 de junho de 1997, p. 30-33.
7 Os movimentos ocorridos em 1968 procederam, na Europa, alteraes de ordem
poltica, sobretudo, nas administraes das universidades e, na Amrica Latina,
ensejaram guerrilhas rurais ou urbanas em alguns pases.
8 Sobre a mobilidade do capital financeiro ver DEZALAY, Y. The Big Bang and
the Law. FEATHERSTONE, M. (Ed.). Global culture.
9 Destacam-se duas obras de LIPPMANN sobre o tema: Essays in the Public
Philosophy e Public Opinion.
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Documentao
MART, J. Obras completas. 26 v., La Habana: Editorial Nacional de Cuba, 19631966.
SARMIENTO, D. F. Obras de D. F. Sarmiento. 53 v., Paris: Buenos Aires: Beln
Hermanos, Editores / Imprenta y Litografa Mariano Moreno / Establecimiento
Poligrfico Marquez, Zaragoza y Ca / Imprenta, Litografa y Encuadernacin
Borzone, 1895-1900, 1902-1903, 1909.
Bibliografia
AMORES, J. B. et alii. Iberoamrica en el siglo XIX: nacionalismo y dependencia.
Pamplona: Ediciones Eunat, 1995.
ASIMOV, I. La formacin de Amrica del Norte. Madrid: Alianza, 1994.
AZEVEDO, E. R.; HERBOLD, H. Caribe: o paraso submetido. So Paulo:
Brasiliense,1986.
BAUER, O. La cuestin de las nacionalidades y la social democracia. Mxico:
Siglo veintiuno, 1979.
BUNKLEY, A. W. Vida de Sarmiento. Buenos Aires: Editorial Universitaria de
Buenos Aires, 1966.
BROWN, L. (Org.). State of the World. New York: Norton and Company, 1993.
CARDOSO, C. F. S.; PREZ BRIGNOLI, H. Os mtodos da histria: introduo
aos problemas, mtodos e tcnicas da histria demogrfica, econmica e social.
Rio de Janeiro: Graal, 1983.
CARVALHO, E. R. de. Amrica para a humanidade: o americanismo universalista
de Jos Mart (1853-1895). Braslia: Universidade de Braslia, Tese de Doutorado,
2000.
CARVALHO, E. R. Nossa Amrica: a utopia de um novo mundo. So Paulo: Anita
Garibaldi, 2001.
CERVO, A. L.; DPCKE, W. (Orgs.). Relaes internacionais dos pases
americanos: vertentes da histria. Braslia: Linha Grfica Editora, 1994.
CHOMSKY, N. Poltica y cultura a finales del siglo XX: un panorama de las
actuales tendencias. Barcelona: Ariel, 1994.
CROZIER, M.; HUNTINGTON, S. P.; WATANUKI, J. The crisis of democracy.
Report on the Governability of Democracies to the Trilateral Commission. New
York: New York University Press, 1975.
FEATHERSTONE, M. (Ed.). Global Culture. London: Sage, 1990.
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Publicaes peridicas:
Anuario del Centro de Estudios Martianos. La Habana, N. 9, 1986.
Ciclos, Buenos Aires, N. 4, ao III, v. III, 1er semestre de 1993.
Revista Veja. So Paulo, N. 23, 11 de junho de 1997.
Sociedade e Estado. Braslia, Universidade de Braslia, v. XI, N. 1, jan.-jun., 1996.
Theory, Culture & Society. New York, N. 7, 1990, p. 2-3.
142
PARTE II
Resumen
En este ensayo se pretende una aproximacin a la identidad cultural en el Caribe,
concepto de difcil definicin, debido a la unidad diversa de las culturas que
conforman el espacio Caribe. Para ese propsito se estudian textos narrativos de
habla hispana, en el contexto de otras narrativas caribeas, para comprobar cmo
el fenmeno de la identidad encuentra un lugar en la representacin literaria.
Palabras claves: Identidad, Historia, Narrativa Caribea
145
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Abstract
Caribbean cultural identity is a difficult concept to define, due to the diverse unity
of the cultures grown in the Caribbean world. This paper tries to explore such a
definition through different narrative texts, mainly in Spanish, but also those in
other languages spoken in the area, to reach the conclusion that identity finds a
way of expressing itself in literary representation.
keywords: Identity, History, Caribbean Narrative
***
El son, la prietura y la errancia se postulan como la bandera
del Caribe entero. Una arropadora, histrica, facultada
bandera de tres franjas. Entraable la una, unitaria la otra
y la tercera amarga!
Luis Rafael Snchez
De un constante choque de culturas, en ese trpico naci la
cultura caribea, hija de gallegos, mayas, catalanes, tanos,
andaluces, bretones, celtas, germanos, galos, beros,
yorubas, congos, arars y yolofes, y hasta con envidiable
discrecin, chinos e indios orientales.
Nancy Morejn
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148
149
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150
151
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pueden ser deleznables y abyectos, el desideratum tericoguevariano del hombre nuevonegado en la prctica por los
nuevos hombres; as como los centros de enseanza, la televisin
informativa, los cuerpos armados, ciertos escritores nacionales,
cualquier forma de dogmatismo (aunque sea de bandera progresista
como el feminismo), la burocracia estatal, o los nuevos gerentes de
la etapa de la legalizacin de la tenencia del dlar y el turismo en
Cuba, posterior a la cada del Muro de Berln y a la prdida de los
socios comerciales del desaparecido campo socialista: la isla
endiablada es su propio confn.
La marginalidad de los personajes de Portela se definen por
su ignorancia de los centros de poder y saber, pues viven ignorantes
de aquellos discursos taxativos, normativos, como en una cpsula
en la que slo importan sus relaciones interpersonales:
heterosexuales, homosexuales o bisexuales. Como dice uno de sus
personajesun escritor a quien le reprochaban escribir sobre las
ideas y sobre la escritura, ignorando la riqueza de la realidad
cubana, para l, su amor por otro hombre era toda la realidad;
de la misma manera, para los restantes personajes de Portela, la
realidad es el otro y todos viven ignorantes de la poltica. La accin
de sus tres novelas se sita de manera explcita a mediados o finales
de los 90 y las referencias se corresponden con una Habana de
turistas y apagones, jineteras (prostitutas con extranjeros) y gays,
alquiler de casas en dlares y balseros en fuga, escasez de agua y
bienes de consumo, y recurrencia al alcohol, la droga y el sexo. Sus
personajes son jvenes marginales, a veces universitarios y cultos,
cuya marginalidad no se define en el sentido delincuencial, pero hay
una ausencia de retratos picos, sociolgicos y generacionales y un
apoliticismo explcito. Un clima de violencia (crmenes, sadismo),
de escatologa y teratologa, de voyeurismo y masoquismo, caldea
las escenas de una Habana profunda y nocturna, underground. La
bsqueda de los protagonistas es de identidad, pero no se trata,
como en las novelas contemporneas de la dispora cubana, de
encontrar una memoria perdida, de recomponer una vivencia anterior,
de recuperar lo que en algn momento se perdi al dejar la isla
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Bibliografa
ANDERSON, Benedict. Imagined Communities. Reflections on the Origin and
Spread of Nationalism. Londres/Nueva York: Verso, 1983.
BANGOU, Henri. Ensayo de definicin de las culturas caribeas. Anales del
Caribe. Nm. 1, 1981, p. 234-246.
BENTEZ-ROJO, Antonio. The Repeating Island. The Caribbean and the
Postmodern Perspective. Durham: Duke University Press, 1996.
CARPENTIER, Alejo. La cultura de los pueblos que habitan en el mar Caribe.
Anales del Caribe. Nm, cit, p. 197-225.
CARPENTIER, Alejo. La Habana vista por un turista cubano, II. Conferencias.
La Habana: Letras Cubanas, 1987, p. 186-187.
CORNEJO POLAR, Antonio. Escribir en el aire. Ensayo sobre la heterogeneidad
socio-cultural en las literaturas andinas. Lima: Editorial Horizonte, 1994.
GLISSANT, Edouard. Identidad como races, identidad como relacin. Identit,
culture, dveloppement. Pars: Edit. Caribennes, 1992, p. 211-216.
HALL, Stuart. Identity and diaspora. RUTHERFORD, Jonathan (Comp.).
Identity, Community, Culture, Difference. Londres: Lawrence and Wishart, 1990,
p. 222-237,
LPEZ MORALES, Laura. De la mordaza a la explosin polifnica. Las letras
antillanas en francs. El Caribe: regin, frontera y relaciones internacionales.
Tomo II. Mxico: Instituto Mora, p. 211-237.
MARIEZ, Pablo. Identidad cultural y desarrollo en las Antillas de colonizacin
espaola. Identit, culture et dveloppement. ob. cit., p. 529-541.
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Nara Arajo
168
Resumen
Este artculo compara dos filmes caribeos, Rue Cases-Ngres (1992) de Euzhan
Palcy, ubicado en Martinica en 1930, y Lumumba (2000) de Raoul Peck, cuya
accin se sita en la Repblica Democrtica del Congo en el momento de la transicin
de una colonia belga a un estado independiente en 1961. Los dos filmes revelan
praticas laborales que equivalen a prcticas esclavistas a pesar de que la esclavitud
* Artigo recebido em agosto e aprovado para publicao em outubro de 2005
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Lieve Spaas
ya se haba abolido. Este estudio tambin confronta la idealizada Africa, que los
antiguos esclavos idealizaron, con la autntica Africa donde la explotacin est
muy extendida y la lucha por una verdadera independencia es constante.
Palabras claves: Dispora, Esclavitud, frica Pos-colonial
Abstract
The article compares two Caribbean films, Euzhan Palcys Rue Cases-Ngres
(1992), set in the 1930s in Martinique, and Raoul Pecks Lumumba (2000),
located in the now Democratic Republic of the Congo at the moment of transition
from a Belgian colony to an independent state in 1961. Both films reveal labour
practices that are tantamount to slave labour in spite of the fact that slavery had
been abolished. The study also confronts the idealised Africa, which the former
slaves imagined, with the real Africa where exploitation is rife and the struggle for
genuine independence ongoing.
Keywords: Diaspora, Slavery, Postcolonial Africa
***
With the exception of Cuba, film-making in the Caribbean by
Caribbean people is mainly a phenomenon of the 1980s and beyond.
The very few films that emerged in that period did so without any
infrastructure of production or distribution. As in many other third
world countries, the Lumire brothers exposed the Caribbean to
cinema at a very early period following the invention of film. In
Haiti the exposure came in 1899, only four years after the new
medium had been invented. Like the other Francophone Caribbean
countries, Guadeloupe and Martinique, Haiti rapidly became a
consumer/receiver of film products from the Western world. Besides
being a consumer of Western films, the Caribbean was also used
(or misused) as a resource for Western films where the
representation of the beauty of the tropical islands was at odds with
the peoples daily lives. It was only in the late 1970s and the early
1980s that a shift occurred. Political events in the islands, such as
the movements advocating independence from France in Guadeloupe
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172
and Mdouze work in the sugar cane plantation for a meagre wage,
which barely allows them to survive, and in the case of Amantine,
to care for her grandson.
Through Mdouzes retelling of the past, Joss identity will
be grounded in an imagined, yet real place of origin: Africa.
Mdouzes story starts with Once upon a time and then tells
about his father, who was brought from Africa as a slave. Mdouze
now passes down the story to Jos, whose grandfather was also a
slave from Africa. The story refers to the loss of a homeland and
an identity that can never be recaptured. His father wept and wept
and never understood what happened when the white people came.
People were caught by lasso, then forced to march for days before
being loaded on to the ships, then unloaded in Martinique to work in
the sugar cane fields for white people, who stood over them with
guns. Mdouze is not very precise about the country; he speaks
simply of Africa. The first layers of identityfamily, village and
countryhave been lost; the descendants of slaves had all become
Africans. Africa, the lost land also has the aura of a promised
land for Jos: If you go to Africa, Ill come with you, he promises
Mdouze, who is too realistic for such a dream. While he is talking,
Mdouze is sculpting a small African figure in wood, which will
become the token of the cultural heritage from Africa and which is
now passed on to Jos. Mdouze then tells the story of the blacks
revolt against the white people: one day all black people came down
to Saint-Pierre, they burned the houses of the whites and that is
how slavery ended. The whites trembled with fear he explains.
The liberated slaves were now free to go all over Martinique but
then realised that they were nevertheless forced to come back to
the same place because the whites had all the land and paid very
little.
These words spoken by an emaciated black man, grandson
of an African slave, still forced to work in the sugar cane fields for
minimum wages, is a powerful indictment of neo-colonialism, where
free people remain economically dependent. Equally telling is the
representation of the grandmother who, like Mdouze, is old and
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tired and should not be working in the sugar cane fields. The ultimate
irony is revealed when the children are looking for sugar in Joss
house and search every possible place where Amantine might have
hidden it until they realise there is none: those who work in the
sugar cane fields cannot afford to buy sugar.
Where Mdouzes anger explodes when recalling his fathers
history, Amantines erupts when she pictures the future and refuses
to let her grandchild work in the sugar cane fields but vows that she
will not condemn children to misery like all these gutless black
people. Mdouze represents the African heritage; Amantine
embraces French values and transmits these to Jos. Education
becomes the means of giving him the freedom that was denied to
her and so she carries on with her excessively demanding work, not
even contemplating how she is going to find the obligatory contribution
to Joss tuition fees. For Amantine, the road to freedom is through
identification with French values.
Monsieur Mdouze and Amantine endow Jos with human,
spiritual and political values that form the foundation of his identity.
This, Stuart Hall suggests, consists of the names we give the
different ways we are positioned by, and position ourselves within,
the narratives of the past (HALL, 1992, p. 224). Mdouze provides
this narrative, while Amantine is instrumental in instilling Frenchness
in Jos. These two elements come together in a new cultural identity
that integrates the African past and the French future. However,
Jos will also develop a different sense of self through contact with
his own peers and other members of society. There is the group of
children, the little girl, bright like Jos, who is not allowed to continue
school but has to start earning money. There is Leopold, the nearly
white, second-generation mulatto boy, who is not allowed to talk to
the black children but who is not white enough for his father, a
French aristocrat, to recognise him officially: only white people
can inherit a name liked de Thorail.
The unwritten contract between Mdouze and Amantine
suggests both a balance and a dichotomy in identity formation: while
Mdouze conveys a black consciousness and an anti-colonial
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two juxtaposed openings offer the essence of the film: the first
preceding the credits recalls the colonial situation in the Congo, the
second the elimination of the Congos most promising hero.
The unfolding of Lumumbas fate is virtually sealed at the
ceremony of independence when Lumumba gives his famous
address to the nation in reply to King Baudouins eulogistic speech.
Peck gives a truthful account of the ceremony. First the King spoke
and stated that independence was the result of the undertaking
conceived by the genius of King Leopold II and, continuing in a
paternalistic mood, he urged the Congolese not to compromise the
future with hasty reforms and not to replace the structures that
Belgium hands over to you until you are sure you can do better.
Dont be afraid to come to us. We will remain by your side, give
you advice, train with you the technical experts and administrators
you will need.
After the King, it was Kasa-Vubu, the countrys first president
who spoke. His speech was formal and conformed to the style
expected at such an occasion. Then came Lumumba. His address
was one of the most powerful anti-colonial speeches ever made.
He did not address the King, instead, he opened his fiery speech:
Congolese Men and Women, fighters for independence, who are
today victorious.
In the frankest terms he described the colonial system that
Baudouin had just glorified:
We have known sarcasm and insults, endured blows morning,
noon and night because we were niggers. Who will forget
that a Black was addressed in the familiar tu, not as friend,
but because the polite vous was reserved for Whites only?
We have seen our lands despoiled under the terms of what was
supposedly the law of the land but which only recognised the
right of the strongest. We have seen that this law was quite
different for a White than for a Black: accommodating for the
former, cruel and inhuman for the latter. We have seen the terrible
suffering of those banished to remote regions because of their
political opinions or religious beliefs; exiled within their own
180
country, their fate was truly worse than death itself. And
finally, who can forget the volleys of gunfire in which so many
of our brothers perished, the cells where the authorities threw
those who would not submit to a rule where justice meant
oppression and exploitation? Belgium, finally understanding
the march of history, has not tried to oppose our independence.
jul./dez. 2005
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Lieve Spaas
but also their complete disdain for the Congolese: This is not a
people, these are members of tribes. They hang together thanks to
the Belgian administration is the comment of one colonial. Yet,
while expressing contempt for the entire situation, they also show
awareness of their failure to train and prepare the Congolese for
independence. Disbelief and denial prevail as revealed in the
reflections made among the Belgians. When the large picture of
Leopold II is taken off the wall in the Governors palace, a Belgian
addresses the King: Ils vont vous le cochonner votre Congo
(Theyll butcher your Congo), recalling for the viewer the butchery
that actually took place in the colony.
The butchery that is revealed is that of the murder of
Lumumba and his two companions which opened the film and now
closes it, repeating the same close-ups of Lumumba in the back of
the car, accompanied by the voice-over which now continues the
monologue from the beginning:
Dont tell everything to the children. Just tell them that I came
fifty years too early. I want my children to be told that the future
of the Congo is beautiful. Throughout the struggle for the
independence of my country, I have never doubted for a single
instant that the sacred cause to which my comrades and I have
dedicated our entire lives would triumph in the end. But what
we wanted for our countryits right to an honourable life, to
perfect dignity, to independence with no restrictionswas
never wanted by Belgian colonialism and its Western allies .
History will one day have its say; it will not be the history
taught in the United Nations, Washington, Paris or Brussels,
however, but the history taught in the countries that have rid
themselves of colonialism and its puppets. Africa will write its
own history full of glory and dignity.
182
Bibliography
DE WHITE, Ludo. The Assassination of Lumumba. London-New York: Verso,
2001.
HALL, Stuart. Cultural Identity and Cinematic Representation. CHAM, Mbye
(Ed.). Ex-Iles. Essays on Caribbean Cinema. Trenton, N.J.: Africa World Press,
1992, p. 221-36.
MENIL, A. Rue Cases-Ngres or the Antilles from the Inside. CHAM, Mbye.
jul./dez. 2005
183
Lieve Spaas
(Ed.). Ex-Iles. Essays on Caribbean Cinema. Trenton, N.J.: Africa World Press,
1992, p. 155-75.
Filmography
Lumumba. Director Raoul Peck, 2000.
Rue Cases-Ngres. Director Euzhan Palcy, 1992.
184
Resumen
Este ensayo analiza la manera en que el cuerpo femenino se representa en Las
memorias de Mam Blanca de la escritora venezolana Teresa de la Parra. Considero
esta representacin desde varios puntos de vista, principalmente desde la perspectiva
de la novela como alegora de la construccin de la nacin venezolana y tambin de
* Artigo recebido em julho e aprovado para publicao em outubro de 2005
185
Stephen M. Hart
la gran nacin latinoamericana en las primeras dcadas del siglo XX, basndome en
el estudio de Doris Sommer, Foundational Fictions: The National Romances of
Latin America (1991). Un examen del texto muestra que contiene muchos espacios
de tensin y ambigedad; son los espacios donde el sentido parece desaparecer. La
imagen de truncamiento se interpreta en este ensayo como una metfora de la
manera en que el cuerpo femenino se representa y se construye en la sociedad
venozolana de aquel entonces.
Palabras claves: Tereza de la Parra, Escritura femenina, Las memorias de Mam
Blanca
Abstract
This essay looks at the manner in the female body is portrayed in Las memorias
de Mam Blanca by the Venezuelan novelist Teresa de la Parra. I look at this idea
from a variety of vantage points, but mainly from the perspective in which the
novel is seen as an allegory of nation-building in Venezuela and by extension Latin
America in the early decades of the twentieth century, taking my lead from Doris
Sommer, Foundational Fictions: The National Romances of Latin America (1991).
Close inspection reveals that this literary text contains a number of gaps or spaces
of ambiguity and tension; there are junctures in the text where not everything
seems to add up. Truncation of the text at certain key junctures is read in this essay
as a metaphor of the ways in which the female body is portrayed in contemporary
Venezuelan society.
Keywords: Teresa de la Parra, Womens Writing, Las memorias de Mam Blanca
***
In this essay I want to address the notion of the symbolic
nature of the female body as presented in Las memorias de Mam
Blanca (1926) by the Venezuelan novelist Teresa de la Parra. I
want to look at this idea from a variety of possible points of view,
but mainly from the perspective in which the novel is seen as an
allegory of nation-building in Venezuela and by extension Latin
America in the early decades of the twentieth century1. It is
important to look at the Advertencia closely, since on inspection it
contains gaps or spaces of ambiguity and tension, junctures in the
text which not everything seemed to add up, which may explain
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Stephen M. Hart
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Stephen M. Hart
190
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Stephen M. Hart
Violeta contest:
No.
La autoridad de Evelyn pas de las palabras a los hechos.
Agarrando a Violeta por la mueca, con la mano que le quedaba
libre le quit el cuchillo en un segundo. Violeta, sorprendia y
desarmada, la mir con insolencia y en defensa propia y voz
muy clara:
!.....!
!Zas! Un calificativo inesperado, rotundo, soberbio, muy bien
acordado en cuanto a gnero y nmero; una sola palabra nada
ms (PARRA, 1982, p. 377).
Notas
1 In this I will be drawing on the research of SOMMER, 1991, MEYER, 1983, and
MASIELLO, 1985.
2 For further discussion of sor Juanas re-writing of the male canon, see HART,
1999, p. 48-51.
3 A similar argument has been made of Ifigenia as a truncated bildungsroman; see
AIZENBERG, 1985.
4 All references are to PARRA, 1982.
5 For further discussion of the symbolic role played by Sabs soul in Gmez de
Avellanedas novel, see DAVIES, 2001, p. 28: Although Sabs body is freed,
his body remains enslaved.
6 See HART, 2005, p. 347. The oil painting is reproduced at p. 344.
7 For further discussion of the role played by Paul et Virginie in Parras text, see
KING & HART, 2005, p. 60-61.
8 See MOLLOY, 1995, and 1999.
192
Bibliography
AIZENBERG, Edna, El Bildungsroman fracasado en Latino Amrica: el caso de
Ifigenia. Revista Iberoamericana, 51, 1985.
DAVIES, Catherine, Introduction. Sab. Manchester: Manchester University
Press, 2001, p. 1-28.
GAMBARINI, Elsa Krieger. The Male Critic and the Woman Writer: Reading
Teresa de la Parras Critic. The Feminine Mode: Essays on Hispanic Women
Writers. VALIS, Noel & MAIER, Carol. Lewisburg (Eds.). PA: Associated
University Presses, 1990.
HART, Stephen. Companion to Spanish American Literature. London: Tamesis,
1999.
HART, Stephen. Blood, Ink and Pigment: Simn Bolvar as Proteus. Bulletin of
Spanish Studies. LXXXII, 4-5, 2005, p. 335-52.
KING, Julia, and HART, Stephen. The Earth as Archive in Bombal, Parra, Asturias
and Rulfo. A Companion to Magical Realism. HART, Stephen and OUYANG,
Wen-chin (Eds.). London: Tamesis, 2005, p. 55-66.
MASIELLO, Francine. Texto, ley, trangresin: especulacin sobre la novela
(feminista) de vanguardia. Revista Iberoamericana. 51, 1985.
MEYER, Doris. Feminine Testimony in the Works of Teresa de la Parra, Mara
Luisa Bombal and Victoria Ocampo. Contemporary Women Authors of Latin
America: Introductory Essays. MEYER, Doris; FERNNDEZ OLMOS,
Margarite (Eds.). New York: Brooklyn College Press, 1983.
MOLLOY, Sylvia. Disappearing Acts: Reading Lesbian in Teresa de la Parra.
Entiendes? Queer Readings, Hispanic Writings. BERGMANN, Emilie; SMITH,
Paul Julian (Eds). Durham: Duke University Press, 1995.
MOLLOY, Sylvia. Of Quotes and Queers: Citation Scenes in Latin American
Literatur. Romance Languages Annual. V. 11, 1999, p. xv-xxi.
PARRA, Teresa de la. Obra: narrativa, ensayos, cartas, seleccin. Estudio crtico
y cronologa de Velia Bosch y Julieta Bombona. Caracas: Ayacucho, 1982.
SOMMER, Doris. Foundational Fictions: The National Romances of Latin America.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991.
jul./dez. 2005
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Resumen
Este articulo analiza el proceso de creacin discursiva sobre la naturaleza caribea
y latinoamericana a travs de un libro de viajes para adolescentes publicado en
Boston en 1885: Threee Vassar Girls in South America. El especio imaginado de la
realidad americana esta construido por la autora Lisie W. Champney, en la mirada
asombrada de las jvenes viajeras. As, la voz de la mujer es el narrador que se
asoma a la otredad del espacio geogrfico cuyo exotismo fascina a las jvenes
lectoras.
* Artigo recebido em julho e aprovado para publicao em novembro de 2005
195
Abstract
This article explores the narrative discourse through which the Caribbean and
Latin American nature is build in a travel book for teenagers. The book Three
Vassar Girls in South America, published by Lisie W. Champney in Boston in
1885 builds an imaginary reality through the surprised gaze of three young women.
Thus, the voice of women is here the narrator who glances at the otherness of the
American geographical space, this exotic regard fascinated the young readers at the
time.
Keywords: Travel, Women, Nineteenth Century
***
La vieja tradicin de la literatura viajera que en el caso
hispanoamericano se inaugura con la conquista misma, se vio
fortalecida en el siglo XIX con la inclusin de una nueva voz, la de
las mujeres viajeras. En efecto desde las muy conocidas cartas de
la marquesa Caldern de la Barca, (Frances Erskine Inglis) esposa
del primer embajador espaol en Mxico y publicadas en 18431, los
escritos de Maria Graham2 sobre Brasil y Chile, hasta las memorias
de Ethel Tweedy la incansable viajera y crtica social que viaj a
Mxico a fines del siglo XIX.3 Ambas son de los mejores ejemplos
de cmo la voz femenina gan un lugar importante en la literatura
de viaje de la poca. No era para menos, hacia el fin de siglo las
mujeres excepcionales empiezan a interesarse por otros pases, a
ampliar sus horizontes intelectuales, a enfatizar su instruccin. Para
aquellas mujeres de la clase alta, el manejo de idiomas y posibilidades
de viaje, les permite, asomarse a otros mundos, a espacios diversos
que superan el estrecho mundo de la domesticidad y la crianza de
los hijos. Ms aun, son este tipo de nuevas mujeres quienes
constituyen las principales lectoras de este tipo de literatura. Son
mujeres excepcionales para su momento histrico, dado que el
discurso prevalente sobre la conducta femenina presupone una liga
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cada uno de los personajes a bordo. Ser una de las jvenes viajeras
la primera en descubrir la falsa identidad del personaje.
Las tres mujeres jvenes son estudiantes del prestigioso colegio
Newyorkino de Vasaar College, hasta hoy uno de los mejores, ms
prestigiosos y caros colegios para mujeres en el este de los Estados
Unidos, que solo recientemente admiti la presencia masculina entre
sus aulas9.
El libro est dirigido a un pblico lector adolescente, o joven,
mayoritariamente femenino que puede fcilmente identificarse con
las viajeras, cuyas personalidades y temperamentos varan
enormemente. Todas tienen en comn un deseo de aventura y
exploracin, pero mientras una est invitada como acompaante de
las otras dos, los dos restantes: Victoria Delavan y Delight Holmes
son mujeres de familias pudientes que pueden fcilmente solventara
el gasto del viaje. El padre de una de ellas, el Prof. D necesita ir a
Amrica Latina para completar sus colecciones botnicas y
animales. Maud la invitada, se interesa por la pintura y pasa una
buena parte del viaje haciendo ilustraciones de los tipos fsicos de la
regin, o de los lugares visitados.
El ritmo de la narrativa viajera es tradicional, se inicia con la
invitacin al viaje y contina a lo largo de un recorrido que incluye
Las Islas Vrgenes, Brasil, en especial la zona de las amazonas y
cruzando la cordillera culmina en Cuzco y Quito.
El inters de esta curiosidad bibliogrfca, radica, a mi manera
de ver, en la posibilidad que nos brinda de conocer como se vea a
una regin tan vasta y tan variada como la Amrica del sur, desde
la perspectiva de tres jvenes norteamericanas a fines del siglo
XIX. Se trata pues de explorar como la autora construye la mirada
femenina de las jvenes, protagonistas de esta pequea saga y dirigida
a lectoras muy semejantes a las viajeras mismas. La autora prolfica
escritora de este tipo de literatura, fue una alumna de Vassar
College. El relato se apoya en la supuesta inocencia y naivite de los
personajes, femeninos, que sin embargo, son el eje de la construccin
de un imaginario sobre el territorio extico que significa la Amrica
del sur para el pblico joven de su pas.
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200
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201
Naturaleza y veracidad
La otra forma de justificar la credibilidad de la narracin es a
travs de la enunciacin y descripcin de los productos naturales
de la regin o de las variedades botnicas de las plantas
mencionadas. En este sentido esta mencionada la Jacaranda, la
Moraicoatida, la Palisades, que es, supuestamente el Palo santo,
una madera morada, que ser introducida en los Estados Unidos.
Esta es una caracterstica del libro que no puede pasarse por
alto, pues es la parte que ms cercanamente toca la realidad de lo
que era la Latinoamrica de la poca y la relacin entre los Estados
Unidos y Latinoamrica. En esta perspectiva el Caribe y
Latinoamrica parece como el sitio proveedor de materiales,
productos, exticos, nuevos, y que eventualmente significaran un
comercio importante con los Estados Unidos o Europa, los
compradores naturales. En ese sentido son varios los productos
que aparecen me mencionados tales como el caucho, el chocolate,
un cierto frjol misterioso que sirve para las dolencias de ojos, el
curare, cuya celeridad para matar no conoce antdoto. En el mismo
sentido se menciona el as, una palma de la que se hace una especie
de helado, que se dice, es sumamente refrescante (p. 39).
Un espacio especial de fascinacin son las frutas tropicales,
los montones de pinas, mangos, pltanos y naranjas resultan tan
exticos cuan apetecibles. La escripcin de los platos, sabores y
olores locales aade inters la narracin y sirve para difundir el
conocimiento sobre los productos.
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203
personaje central del libro, toma sus apuntes de las bellezas naturales
y los tipos fsicos de la zona, en una especie de interpretacin
personal de la regin.
Es la capacidad de observacin de la joven que le desarrolla
su facilidad para pintar lo que le permite descubrir la doble
personalidad de uno de los viajeros, El Sr. Silva quien es en realidad
un estafador huyendo de la polica. As, la observacin de la
naturaleza desarrolla en Maud, capacidades insospechadas de
autoafirmacin e intereses mas all de lo domstico, pues al fin del
viaje decide estudiar medicina. El libro supone una doble conquista,
la de las viajeras para superar los peligros que les plantean la
naturaleza y la de su propio autoconocimiento, que las lleva a la
aumentada confianza en sus propias capacidades.
Se trata pues de un libro que pretende ser formativo para sus
jvenes lectoras, en su momento, seguramente aspir a ser un
testimonio o, por lo menos, una visin que al describir una realidad
muy diferente de la de Vassar College y la clase acomodada que
all se educa, abra las puertas a una perspectiva ms amplia, ms
cosmopolita para las jvenes. Resulta as un instrumento didctico
para las jvenes y un espacio de autoafirmacin para la autora, una
de las pocas voces femeninas sumamente exitosa en la construccin
de un espacio de expresin propia. Sus numerosos artculos y libros
as lo confirman.
En su conjunto, como objeto material el libro anuncia, desde
su portada, el exotismo de su contenido, con las tres jvenes alrededor
de una hamaca. As, puede decirse que este pequeo relato
constituye un doble testimonio. Por una parte, se trata de una esttica
de la naturaleza tradicionalmente vista desde la feminidad. La
naturaleza es el especio de la otredad extica a la que muy pocas
mujeres tenan acceso en su momento. Otro testimonio acaso aun
ms importante, es el de dar voz a un imaginario femenino en donde
prevalecen la autoafirmacin, la aventura y la osada, frente a las
conductas, tan insistentemente prescritas de la sumisin y la
domesticidad.
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Notas
1 La edicin original no consigna el nombre de la autora, solamente las iniciales de
su nombre de casada. Mme. C de la B. Life in Mxico, During a Residence of
Two Years in that Country. Boston: Charles C. LITTLE and James BROWN,1943.
La edicin londinense dice Madame C. De la B. Life in Mxico During a Residence
of Two Years in that Country. London: Chapman and Hall, 1843. With a Preface
by William H. Prescott. En espaol la edicin mas completa es la de Felipe
Teixidor. Tampoco all se consigna el nombre de soltera de la autora. Madame
Caldern de la Barca. La vida en Mxico durante una residencia de dos anos en
ese pas. Mxico: Editorial Porrua, 1959. Traduccin, prlogo y notas de Felipe
Teixidor.
2 GRAHAM CALCOTT, Maria. Journal of a Residence in Chile During the Year
1822. Londres: Longman et al. /John Murria, 1824. Para una lectura interpretativa
de la significacin de sus escritos en comparacin con Flora Tristan ver PRATT,
Mary Louise. Ojos imperiales. Argentina: Universidad de Quilmes, 1997, p.275288.
3 Ethel Tweedie (Mrs. Alec Tweedie) escribi varios libros sobre viajes, con un
toque de crtica social. Sobre Mxico escribi: Mexico as I saw It. New York:
Mc. Millan, 1901. The Maker of Modern Mexico: Porfirio Diaz. New York L.
Lane, 1906, Mexico: From Diaz to the Kaiser. New York: G Doran, 1918.
Tambin public America as I saw It or America Revisited. New York: Mac
Millan, 1913.
4 Vease GORDON, Felicia. The Integral Feminist: Madeleine Pelletier 1874-1939.
Mineapolis: University of Minessota Press, 1990, p.20.
5 HUNT, Tamara y LESSARD, Micheline R. Women and the Colonial Gaze. New
York: Washington Square Press/New York University Press, s/d.
6 Said, Edward. Culture and Imperialism. London: Chatto and Windus, 1993.
7 La mayora de sus trabajos estn conservados en la biblioteca de la Universidad
de Cornell, en Ithaca, New York.
8 CHAMPNEY, Lizzie W. Three Vassar Girls in South America. A Holiday Trip
for Three College Girls Through the Southern Continent up the Amazon, Down
the Madeira, Across the Andes, and up the Pacific Coast to Panama. Boston:
Estes and Lauriat Publishers, 1885. El libro pertenece a la serie Three Vassar
Girls, una serie para adolescentes que registra 11 titulos: Three Vassar Girls
Abroad. Boston, 1883; Three Vassar Girls in England, (1884); Three Vassar
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Girls in South America (1885); Three Vassar Girls in Italy (1886); Three Vassar
Girls on the Rhine (1887); Three Vassar Girls at Home (1887); Three Vassar
Girls in France (1888); Three Vassar Girls in Russia and Turkey (1889); Three
Vassar Girls in Switzerland (1890); Three Vassar Girls in the Tyrol (1891);
Three Vassar Girls in the Holy Land (1892). Adems escribi la serie Witch
Winne entre 1889 y 1898. Como la serie de las chicas de Vassar, los personajes
viajan y visitan Espaa, Venecia, Holanda, etc. Su otra incluyo tambin biografas
de mujeres coloniales norteamericanas: Dames and Daughters of Colonial Days.
New York, 1900. Adems de numerosos artculos en revistas y publicaciones
peridicas. Vease <http:// readseries.com/auth-bc/champbio.html>.
9 Yo adquir el libro, prcticamente de desecho en Vassar College, en Pouquispee,
New York, en una barata de libros de su biblioteca, al celebrarse alli la Berkshire
Conference on Women.
10 PRATT, Marie Louise. Ojos imperiales: Literatura de viajes y transculturacin.
Argentina: Universidad Nacional de Quilmes, 1997.
11 Vox New Collage Spanish and English Diccionary. Lincolnwood Illinois: National
Textbook Company, 1992
12 Las Islas Vrgenes, descubiertas en 1500 pasaron a manos de la Danish West
India Company. Los Estados Unidos tuvieron un inters estratgico en la regin
desde la guerra Civil Norteamericana y finalmente las compraron a Dinamarca al
inicio de la primera guerra mundial.
13 Los grados fueron ejecutados por Champ, pseudnimo que se refiere al
nombre del marido de la autora, pintor y grabador de la poca, el ilustrador
oficial de los libros de su mujer.
14 Se trata de dos de los estereotipos femeninos ms importantes del fin del siglo
XIX. El ngel del hogar es la mujer hogarea, ocupada solo de su espacio
domestico, entregada a la crianza de los hijos y la complacencia del marido. La
Gibson Girl es la nueva mujer de la poca, el dial femenino hacia 1900. Vease:
The Gibson Girl, Eyewitness to history. <httpwww eyewitnestohistory.com>
que desempea un trabajo remunerado fuera del hogar y no ve el matrimonio
como nica meta de su vida
Bibliografa
CHAMPNEY, Lizzie. Three Vassar Girls in South America. A Holiday Trip of
Three College Girls. Boston: Estes and Lauriat Publishers, 1885
HUNT, Tamara; LESSARD, Micheline. Women and the Colonial Gaze. New
York: Washington Square Press/New York University Press, 2002.
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Resumen
El objetivo de este trabajo es reflexionar sobre las configuraciones que se tejen en la
obra de la escritora de origen dominicano, Julia lvarez, acerca de la identidad
nacional y sus enclaves en el pensamiento contemporneo de la multiculturalidad.
En este artculo deseamos resaltar los rasgos que convierten sus relatos en escrituras
* Artigo recebido em julho e aprovado para publicao em setembro de 2005
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Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to think about the configurations of Julia lvarez
literary work, a Dominican-American writer, linked to national identity and its
relations with the contemporary thought of multiculturalism. We want to remark
the hybridism of her writing because she puts together contradictory elements,
incompatible among them, apparently, and in despite of that, they could live
together. We would like to show that hybridism, as a literary strategy, is presented
in order to associate the narration resources with the image of multicultural
communities, in the same way that a metonymic figure. Inside those communities,
its no necessary to melt or disappear any of its different constitutive elements.
Instead, her stories propose cultural systems that interact continuously and,
therefore, they could probably change, due to the shared experiences of its members.
Keywords: Multiculturalism, Hybrid Writings, Anglo-Caribbean Literature
***
Introduccin
El objetivo de este trabajo es reflexionar sobre las
configuraciones que se tejen en la obra de la escritora de origen
dominicano, Julia lvarez, acerca de la identidad nacional y sus
enclaves en el pensamiento contemporneo de la multiculturalidad.
Sus narraciones redefinen los componentes tradicionales del
concepto de nacin, los cuales aluden a ciertos elementos
compartidos entre sus miembros como [...] una historia y una
ascendencia comn, una lengua y cultura y una socializacin
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Notas
1La movilidad de las fronteras entre los gneros literarios es tambin uno de los
rasgos de su poesa. La misma lvarez admite que en su libro Homecoming,
[...] the sonnets were not sonnets in the traditional sense... (1999, p. xiv).
2 Algunos de stos son: Before We Were Free gan en 2002, el Americas Award for
Childrens and Young Adult Literature y fue seleccionado por el Miami Herald
como uno de los mejores libros del ao. En el 2004, el Pura Belpr, concedido
por la Asociacin de Bibliotecas Americanas y su traduccin al espaol
seleccionado como uno de los mejores libros del ao por Crticas. Cuando la ta
Lola [...] obtuvo dos premios en 2001. A El cuento del cafecito se le reconoci
con el Nebraska Book Award 2002. La Biblioteca Pblica de New York consider
Finding Miracles como uno de los diez mejores libros de su tipo de 2005, al
igual que el Bank Street.
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Bibliografa
LVAREZ, Julia. How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accent. New York: A Plume
Book, 1992.
LVAREZ, Julia. Something to Declare. North Caroline: A Plume Book, 1999.
LVAREZ, Julia. Yo!. 1 reimp.. Mxico: Alfaguara, 1999b.
LVAREZ, Julia. The Secret Footprints. New York: Knopf Book for Young Readers,
2000.
LVAREZ, Julia. Cuando la ta Lola vino de visita para quedarse. Mxico: RBA/
Ocano, 2001.
LVAREZ, Julia En el tiempo de las mariposas. Mxico: Alfaguara, 2001b.
LVAREZ, Julia. En el nombre de Salom. Mxico: Alfaguara, 2002.
LVAREZ, Julia. Before We Were Free. New York: Knopf Book for Young Readers,
2002b.
LVAREZ, Julia. El cuento del cafecito. Mxico: Edicin Debolsillo, 2004.
LVAREZ, Julia. Finding Miracles. New York: Knopf Book for Young Readers,
2004b.
FUSS, Diane, Identification Papers. New York: Routledge, 1995.
GARCA CANCLINI, Nstor. Culturas hbridas. Estrategias para entrar y salir
de la modernidad. Mxico: Grijalbo, 1989.
GARCA CANCLINI, Nstor. Consumidores y ciudadanos. Conflictos
multiculturales de la globalizacin. Mxico: Grijalbo, 1995.
GIMNEZ, Gilberto. Apuntes para una teora de la identidad nacional.
Sociolgica. Identidad nacional y nacionalismos. Ao 8, N 21, enero-abril, 1993.
LPEZ SALA, Ana Mara. Comunidades de origen extranjero y ciudadana.
Migracin internacional e identidades cambiantes. Mxico: El Colegio de
Michoacn/El Colegio de la Frontera Norte, 2002.
LULL, James, The Push and Pull of Global Culture. Morley, David and Curran,
James. Media and Cultural Theory, sl., in press.
OLIV, Len. Multiculturalismo y pluralismo. Mxico: Paids/UNAM, 1999.
VILLORO, Luis. Estado plural, pluralidad de culturas. 1 reimp., Mxico: Paids/
UNAM, 1999.
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Resumen
Este artculo explora la imagen de la plantacin en textos narrativos del Caribe
Continental, especficamente en escritores yucatecos contemporneos. Mi anlisis
explora las novelas recientes del escritor Joaqun Bestard (1935- ) y revela cmo
* Artigo recebido em agosto e aprovado para publicao em outubro de 2005
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Abstract
This paper explores the image of the plantation in narrative texts from the continental
Caribbean area, specifically in contemporary Yucatecan writers. My analysis looks
at the recent novels of the writer Joaquin Bestard (1935- ) and explores how these
turn of the century texts weave a world of fragments, drawing on a multi-image
representation of our regional identity. These writings offer what I have come to
term simultaneous alternatives, different versions of the stories and histories
that coexist in time. I will concentrate on two specific aspects of Bestards narrative:
firstly, the construction of an alternative narrative space; secondly, the use of
fragmentation as both narrative strategy and as the concept behind his proposal
for regional cultural identity. Both strategies allow us to explore the limits that
determine and outline the national literary discourse and how it in turn articulates
with the needs and demands of the regions.
Keywords: Plantacions, Narrative Fragmentation, Yucatecan Literature
***
To take the straight path was not the best way of getting
to places, and if the traces twisted and turned through the
woods, you had to twist and turn with them You had to
take the traces, scramble their order with the irrationality
of a runaway.
Patrick Chamoiseau, Antan d enfance 1
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The Plantation is one of the bellies of the world, not the only
one, one among so many others, but it has the advantage of
being able to be studied with the utmost precision. Thus, the
boundary, its structural weakness, becomes our advantage. And
in the end, its seclusion has been conquered. The place was
closed, but the word derived from it remains open (GLISSANT,
2000, p. 75).4
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Notas
1Tomar el camino ms recto no siempre era la mejor manera de llegar; y si los
caminos se zigzagueaban por los bosques, tambin tenamos que
zigzaguear.Haba que seguir los trazos, revolverlos y desordenarlos con la
irracionalidad de un cimarrn. CHAMOISEAU, Patrick. Antan denfance.
Paris: Hatier, p. 109, 1990. (En sta y las siguientes citas, la traduccin del
ingls al espaol es ma.)
2 Ver. BHABHA, Homi. To that end we should remember that it is the inter
the cutting edge of translation and negotiation, the in-between, the space of the
entre that derrida has opened up in writing itselfthat carries the burde of the
meaning of culture [] It is in this space that we will find those words with
which we can speak of Ourselves and Others. And by exploring this hybridity,
this Third Space, we may elude the politics of polarity and emerge as the
others of our selves. The Commitment to Theory. New Formations. Vol 5,
1988.
3 Entonces, finalmente, se intensific el cimarronaje histrico en el tiempo, para
alcanzar un cimarronaje creativo, cuyas formas numerosas de expresin formaron
la base para una continuidad. Ya no era posible concebir de estas literaturas
como apndices exticos de un corpus literario francs, espaol o ingls; ms
bien, irrumpieron de repente, con la fuerza de una tradicin que ellos mismos
construyeron, en la relacin de las culturas (GLISSANT, 2000, p. 71).
4 La Plantacin es uno de los vientres del mundo, no el nico, uno entre muchos
otros, pero tiene la ventaja de poder ser estudiada con la mxima precisin. As,
el lmite, su debilidad estructura, se vuelve nuestra ventaja. Y al final, su
aislamiento ha sido conquistado. El espacio fue cerrado, pero la palabra que
naci adentro, permanece abierta (GLISSANT, 2000, p. 75).
5 Hay comunidades de lenguaje de uso que transcienden las fronteras de la
lengua de voz. Me siento mas cercano a los escritores del Caribe anglfono o
hispanfono (y por supuesto el Caribe de habla creole), que a la mayora de los
escritores en francs. Eso es lo que nos hace antillano. Nuestras lenguas son
diferentes, nuestro lenguaje de uso (empezando con la relacin con la lengua) es
el mismo. (GLISSANT, 2000, p. 214-215)
6 Ver HARRIS, Wilson. New Preface to Palace of the Peacock. BUNDY, Andrew
(Ed.). The Unfinished Genesis of the Imagination. London: Routledge, 1999, p.
53-57.
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7 Incluso, tan acostumbrada era la relacin con el Caribe, y tanto mas fcil moverse
haca Cuba que haca la capital de la Republica, que encontramos en la novelas
de la primera mitad del siglo XX, referencias detalladas de los viajes por mar, a
La Habana, Nueva Orlens y Nueva York. El viaje a Mxico, en contraste, no
era directo. Haba que ir por mar a Veracruz y despus por tren a Mxico. Es
hasta 1950 que el ferrocarril une Mrida y Mxico D.F, y 1970 cuando se
inaugura la carretera.
8 Ver ANTOCHIW, Michel, 1994, p. 98, citado en SHRIMPTON, M., 2005.
9 La construccin del imaginario nacional sobre las bases de un indgena inventado,
blanqueado como mestizo es evidente en la obra indigenista de Antonio Mediz
Bolio (1884-1957). El indgena (o su herencia cultural) que sirvi de fundacin
para el XIX, se transforma en un misterioso mestizo, en esta cita tomada de
La tierra del faisn y el venado, 1922: He pretendido [] hacer una estilizacin
del espritu maya, del concepto que tienen todava los indios [] he pensado el
libro en maya y lo he escrito en castellano. He hecho como un poeta indio que
viviera en la actualidad y sintiera, a su manera peculiar, todas esas cosas suyas.
[] Una poesa especialsima, autctona, misteriosa y de fuentes remotsimas,
hay de todo esto.
10 Ver SHRIMPTON, Margaret. Tejiendo historias en el Caribe. Narrativa
contempornea yucateca. Mxico: Editorial Arte y Literatura/Universidad
Autnoma de Yucatn, 2005 (en prensa). (Captulos 3 y 5).
11 Seala Abreu Gmez en el prlogo de la obra, As se escribi Canek: Por va
de juego en la historia de Canek va algo de mi vida y tambin de la vida de otros
sujetos (ABREU GMEZ, E., 1977, p. 17). Los juegos de tiempos han
continuado hasta las turbulentas dcadas a finales del siglo XX: el comandante
Marcos, del EZLN ha utilizado diversos fragmentos de Canek como epgrafes
para sus discursos.
12 BRATHWAITE, Edward, K. Roots. La Habana: Casa de las Amricas, 1986, p.
124-126.
13 Esta novela se public en la ciudad de Mxico en 1996, por la editorial Costa
Amic. Debido al empleo de muchos vocablos regionales, Costa Amic exigi la
supresin de todos los mayismos, y la consecuente modificacin de la obra.
Durante 4 semanas en Octubre de 2004, la novela fue re-editado y publicado en
entregas en el Unicornio, suplemento dominical de Por Esto!, (Mrida),
respetando el manuscrito original del autor y restaurando los mayismos.
14 GLISSANT, Edouard. Poetics of Relation. La memoria en nuestra obras. No
es una memoria de calendario; nuestra experiencia del tiempo no se marca
258
solamente con los ritmos de los meses y los aos: es agravado por el vaci, el
ltimo castigo de la Plantacin; nuestras generaciones estn envueltas dentro de
la gran familia extendida del devenir de nuestras races, y todos tienen dos
nombres, uno oficial y otro esencialel apodo dado por la comunidad. (2000,
p. 72)
15 Refiero a las siguientes obras: KINCAID, J. The Autobiography of my Mother;
MONTERO, Mayra. Como un mensajero tuyo; BESTARD, Joaqun. Ciento y
un aos Koyoc.
Bibliografa
ABREU GMEZ, Ermilo. Canes. Mrida: Editorial Dante, 1995 (1 Edicin,
Editorial Botas, Mxico, 1940).
BENTEZ-ROJO, Antonio. The Repeating Island. The Caribbean and the
Postmodern Perspective. (Second edition). Durham: Duke University Press, 1996.
BESTARD, Joaqun. De la misma herida. Mrida: Maldonado Editores, 1985
BESTARD, Joaqun. Ocasos de un mar de cobre. Mrida: Universidad Autnoma
de Yucatn, 1992.
BESTARD, Joaqun. El cuello del jaguar. Mrida: Universidad Autnoma de
Yucatn, 2000.
BESTARD, Joaqun. Balada de la Mrida antigua. Mrida: Ayuntamiento de
Mrida, 2000.
BESTARD, Joaqun. El coleccionista de otoos. Mrida: Universidad Autnoma
de Yucatn, 2003.
BESTARD, Joaqun. Ciento y un aos Koyoc. Mrida: Universidad Autnoma de
Yucatn, 2004.
BHABHA, Homi. The Location of Culture. London: Routledge, 1994.
BESTARD, Joaqun. The Commitment to Theory. New Formations. Vol 5,
1988.
BRATHWAITE, Edward, K. Roots. La Habana: Casa de las Amricas, 1986.
BUNDY, Andrew (Ed). Selected essays of Wilson Harris. The Unfinished Genesis
of the Imagination. London: Routledge, 1999.
CHAMOISEAU, Patric. Antan denfance. Paris: Hatier, 1990.
CLARKE, Austin. The Polished Hoe. Toronto: Thomas Allen Publishers, 2003.
DASH, Michael, J. The Other America. Caribbean Literature in a New World
Context. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1998.
jul./dez. 2005
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GHOSE, Zulfikar. Reading Wilson Harriss The Mask of the Beggar. Context. A
Forum for Literary Arts and Culture, N. 14. On Line Edition. <http://
www.centerforbookculture.org./context/no14/Ghose.html>.
GLISSANT, Edouard. Poetics of Relation. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan
Press, 2000.
HARRIS, Wilson. Jonestown. London: Faber and Faber, 1996.
KINCAID, Jamaica. The Autobiography of my Mother. London: Vintage, 1996.
MANZANAS, Ana Mara; BENITO, Jess (Eds.) Narratives of Resistance:
Literature and Ethnicity in the United States and the Caribbean. Cuenca: Ediciones
de la Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, 1999.
MEDIZ BOLIO, Antonio. La tierra del faisn y del venado. Mrida: Maldonado
Editores, 1989 (1 Edicin, Mxico, 1922).
MONTERO, Mayra. Como un mensajero tuyo. Barcelona: Tusquets Editores,
1998.
SHRIMPTON, M. Tejiendo historias en el Caribe. Narrativa yucateca
contempornea. La Habana/Mrida: Editorial Arte y Literatura/Universidad
Autnoma de Yucatn, 2005 (en prensa).
TORRES-SAILLANT, Silvio. Caribbean Poetics. Toward an Aesthetic of West
Indian Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
WALCOTT, Derek. The Muse of History. What the Twilight Says. Essays.
New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998.
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Kwasi Konadu
Resumen
En los ltimos, la dispora y los estudios sobre dispora, adems de centrarse
en las comunidades como imaginadas o inventadas han gozado de popularidad y a
la vez han sido objecto de crtica. An que hay una gran proliferacin de programas
acadmicos y de investigacin sobre la dispora africana, la exploracin de la
cultura de aquellos que son (supuestamente) los objectos de tales esfueros sufrem
interpretaciones inexactas de la cultura . Por tanto, las narrativas y la identidad de
los africanos son a menudo versiones de plagios presentadas a travs de expresiones
de hibridismo, criollismo y sincretismo. Los temas tratados en este artculo tratan
de la interpretacin de la cultura como um concepto polismico o eje definidor de
la definicion e interpretacin de un habitat temporal. Reevaluando principalmente
fuentes secundarias y materiales de archivo junto con investigaciones realizadas en
las regiones caribeas y del oeste de frica, este estudio pretende ofrecer una
exploracin conjunta sobre la cultura como individuos en el mundo africano (y no
como dispora) en el contexto de estrategias socio-polticas y culturales
dominantes utilizadas tanto por los africanos como por aquellos que controlan el
orden social dentro del que se encuentran los africanos.
Palabras claves: Mundo africano, Teora de la cultura, Dispora
Abstract
In recent years, diaspora and diaspora studies, as well as thinking about
communities or identities as imagined or invented, have become popular even
fashionable as these imprecise notions have received their share of widespread use
and some criticism. While there have been a proliferation of research and academic
programs in African diaspora studies, the approach to the culture of those who
are (supposedly) the subject of such endeavors suffer from inappropriate
interpretations of culture. Therefore, the narrative and personhood of Africans are
often plagiarized versions presented through the conceptual idioms of hybridity,
creole-ness, and syncretism. The issues addressed in this essay are concerned
about the interpretation of culture as a multilayered concept or axis around which
temporal life is organized and interpreted. By reassessing mostly secondary and
some archival materials in conjunction with research in the Caribbean and West
Africa regions, I argue for an composite approach to culture as people in the
African world (rather than diaspora) in the context of dominant socio-political
and cultural strategies employed concurrently by Africans and those who manage
the social order within which Africans find themselves.
Keywords: African world, Culture theory, Diaspora
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***
We are not a people of yesterday We are not a stagnant
people, hating motion Our fears are not of motion. We
are not a people of dead, stagnant waters. Reasons and
promptings of our own have urged much movement on us
expected, peaceful, repeated motion Then the time
and our need for continuation called for motion. The flow
of our warmest blood answered the call. We spread
connected over an open land.
Ayi Kwei Armah, Two Thousand Seasons
Introduction
In recent years, diaspora and diaspora studies, as well
as thinking about communities or identities as imagined or invented,
have become popular even fashionable as these imprecise notions
have received their share of widespread use and some criticism.
African diaspora studies programs, departments, and scholarship
have grown exponentially within the last fifteen years, a growth
which witnessed the establishment of academic journals and
discussion groups that regard the cumulative nature of these efforts
as constituting a field distinct from Caribbean or African(a) studies.
International initiatives such as the UNESCO Transatlantic Slave
Trade Education Project, which is under the broader Breaking the
Silence project, are engaged in related and overlapping work as
those found at York University in Canada and analogous efforts by
Pennsylvania State, Yale, and Tulane University in the United States.
While there have been a proliferation of research and academic
programs in African diaspora studies, the approach to the culture
of those who are (supposedly) the subject of such endeavors suffer
from inappropriate interpretations of culture and, therefore, the
narrative and personhood of Africans are often plagiarized versions
presented through the conceptual idioms of hybridity, creole-ness,
and syncretism.
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Kwasi Konadu
Research Perspective
Using Mintz and Price (1992) as paradigmatic of a large body
of literature, since many have either embraced their assumptions
and/or their conclusions, we find several, yet crucial limitations in
the study of African culture. Mintz and Price employed a narrow
conception of culture restricted to institutions regulating private
and personal spheres of cultural expression, and, in their academic
focus, neglected the knowledge of those enslaved and supported
the misconception that solidarity was systematically and successfully
undermined by the plantocracy through the separation of those who
spoke the same language. Due to the preference of European
traders for specific ports and sources and that Caribbean planters,
for instance, sought particular ethnicities, Africans of the same
speech communities persisted on plantations and neighboring
plantations functioning much like a constellation of villages (WARNERLEWIS, 2003, p. xxvii). These historical realities not only affirm bonds
between so-called ship mates, but, more significantly, brings into
focus the work of Mintz and Price as characterized by a reductive
urge to codify... carried out to such an extreme of rigidity that the
unruliness of reality is too often forced into neat, mentally manipulable
categories, as if such constructs can account for all emotional,
physical and psychic data (WARNER-LEWIS, 2003, p. xxviii). Using
the culture zone concept advanced by Warner-Lewis (2003), a
composite approach to African culture in the Americas, Africa, Asia,
Europe, and other parts of the world transcends some of the real
and artificial limitations of the specific island or country approach
since the concepts of particularity and commonality are not mutually
exclusive (WARNER-LEWIS, 2003, p. 29 xxix). In identifying a specific
culture zone, one has to identify the specificity of the culture, isolate
patterns which appear to characterize the area, whether by
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Kwasi Konadu
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Conclusion
The African confrontation with European attempts to construct
a European world outside of Europe or the European expansion
and conquest of the Americas correspond to African communities
which reside in this part of the world, and these communities express
the very real and historically situated challenges of being African
outside of Africa in the form of an ongoing contestation between
African cultural core and a foreign one. In probing some of the
more notable sources relevant to the study of culture as people in
the African word, it is clear to me several prior, simultaneous, and
overlapping processes were involved in the patterns of African
cultural autonomy and consolidation as these efforts confronted
patterns of de-Africaniziation rather than nebulous processes called
creolization and syncretization. An examination and re-appraisal
of those processes through the African experience in Brazil case
jul./dez. 2005
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Kwasi Konadu
Notas
1 MWALIMU, J. Shujaa. Personal Communication, 2005, shared some of the
ideas presented here on the topic of studying the African world. Dr. Shujaa is
Director of the African World Studies Institute at Fort Valley State University,
Fort Valley, Georgia.
2 Some would argue that African(a) studies scholars, such as myself, who write
about African culture are essentialist (whatever that means) as if, in their own
disciplinarily backyards such as history or anthropology, the work of Europeans
who propagate Europe in aesthetics or the like are not essentialists. In other
280
words, if one can speak of European dress, food and culture, despite ethnic
divergences, why then can one not speak of similar African applications
(WARNER-LEWIS, 2003, p. xxix).
3 Some regard the caboclo as indigenous Brazilian spirits, and others view them
as ancestors indigenous to Brazil.
Bibliography
ABRAHAM, W. E. The Mind of Africa. Chicago: The University of Chicago
Press, 1962.
AGORSAH, E. K. Ethnoarchaeological Consideration of Social Relationship and
Settlement Patterning Among Africans in the Caribbean Diaspora. HAVISER, J.
B. (Ed.). African Sites: Archaeology in the Caribbean. Princeton: Markus Wiener
Publishers, 1999, p. 38-64.
ARMAH, A. K. Two Thousand Seasons. Nairobi: East African Publishing House,
1973
ARROYO, J. Racial Theory and Practice in Panama. MOORE, C; SANDERS
T. R.; MOORE, S. Africans in the Americas: A History of the Black Diaspora.
Trenton: Africa World Press, 1995, p. 154-162.
CASTRO, H. M. M. de. Das cores do silncio os significados da liberadade no
Sudeste escravista Brasil sculo XIX. Rio de Janeiro: Arquivo Nacional, 1995.
CHIRIMINI, T. O. Candombe, African Nations, and the Africanity of Uruguay.
WALKER, Sheila S. (Ed.). African Roots/American Cultures: Africa in the Creation
of the Americas. New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2001, p. 256-274.
SILVA, F. C. T da., Abolio e crise na province do Rio de Janeiro: um balance das
principais perspectives de pesqjuisa. Acervo. V. 3, N.1, 1998, p. 61-70.
DIOP, C. A. A Critical Analysis of the Criteria or Parameters Used to Define
African Cultural Area. Distinctive Characteristics and Common Features of the
African Cultural Areas South of the Sahara. Paris: UNESCO, 1985, p. 43-56.
DIOP, C. A. The Building Blocks of Culture. UNESCO Courier. May-June,
1986, p. 58.
EASTMAN, R.; WARNER-LEWIS, M. Forms of African Spirituality in Trinidad
and Tobago. OLUPONA, Jacob K. (Ed.). African Spirituality: Forms, Meanings
and Expressions. New York: The Crossroad Publishing, 2000, p. 403-415.
GARCA, J. C. Demystifying Africas Absence in Venezuelan History and
Culture. WALKER, Sheila S. (Ed.). African Roots/American Cultures: Africa in
the Creation of the Americas. New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2001,
p. 284-290.
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282
THORNTON, J. Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 14401680. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
THORNTON, J. The Coromantees: An African Cultural Group in Colonial
North America and the Caribbean. Journal of Caribbean History. V. 32. N. 1 e 2,
1998, p. 161-178
VIANNA, A. de R. B. O onal que se adivinha: polcia e menoridade no Rio de
Janeiro, 1910-1920. Rio de Janeiro: Arquivo Nacional, 1999.
WARNER-LEWIS, M. Central Africa in the Caribbean: Transcending Time,
Transcending Cultures. Kingston: University of the West Indies Press, 2003.
Arquivos e fontes
Arquivo Nacional. Guia brasileiro de fontes para a histria da frica, da escravido
negra e do negro na sociedade atual. Fontes arquivsticas. V. 1. Alagoas Rio
Grande Do Sul. Rio de Janeiro: Arquivo Nacional, 1998.
Arquivo Nacional. Guia brasileiro de fontes para a histria da frica, da escravido
negra e do negro na sociedade atual. Fontes arquivsticas. V. 2. Rio de Janeiro
Sergipe. Rio de Janeiro: Arquivo Nacional, 1998.
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Resenha
Eugnio Rezende de Carvalho
Universidade Federal de Gois
PASTOR, Brgida. El discurso de Gertrudis Gmez de
Avellaneda: Identidad femenina y otredad. (Cuadernos de
Amrica sin nombre, Centro de Estudios Iberoamericanos Mario
Benedetti, 6). Alicante: Universidad de Alicante, 2002, 158 p.
***
A emergncia das mulheres condio de objeto e sujeito da
histria um fato relativamente novo entre aqueles que se dedicam
ao estudo e compreenso do passado humano. O recente e
progressivo interesse pelo estudo das mulheres, nessa dupla acepo,
enfrenta, entretanto, um grave desafio, representado pela escassez
de fontes e vestgios acerca do passado feminino, produzidos pelas
prprias mulheres, na medida em que as representaes que dispomos
sobre elas tm sido histrica e majoritariamente oriundas de fontes
e discursos masculinos. Diante de tal quadro de escassez de fontes
e de uma crescente preocupao interdisciplinar capaz de dar conta
das diversas e complexas dimenses desse objeto, destacam-se,
como uma das poucas e privilegiadas formas de expresso desse
* Resenha recebida em julho e aprovada para publicao em setembro de 2005
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286
Resenha
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Resenha
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290
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Resenha
Brgida M. Pastor
University of Glasgow
FLORES, Juan. From Bomba to Hip-Hop. Puerto Rican Culture
and Latino Identity. NewYork: Columbia University Press, 2000,
265 p.
During the first part of the 1990s, a considerable number of
publications on the Hispanic or Latino experience emerged,
but Juan Flores book, From Bomba to hip-hop is one of the few
scholarly studies to reveal the complexities of Latino identity. In
addition, it is a homage that constitutes one of the few pioneer pieces
of research on Puerto Rican culture and artistic expression. The
title of this book, From Bomba to Hip-Hop, is one that catches the
readers attention and is more than a phonetic and musical
juxtaposition of words. I will try to define this phrase, adopting the
authors definition: A celebration of the continuity of Puerto Rican
Culture (p. I). Juan Flores study lucidly traces the evolving
distinctiveness of Puerto Rican culture in both New York and Puerto
Rico and the title attempts to combine these locations. Thus, bomba
refers to the folkloric origins of Puerto Rican popular dance and
music, which is the ancestor of the hip-hop music that emerged in
* Resenha recebida em junho e aprovada para publicao em setembro de 2005
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Brgida M. Pastor
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Resenha
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Brgida M. Pastor
296
Os autores
Luis Martnez-Fernndez Doutor em Histria da Amrica
Latina pela Duke University, U.S., e atualmente trabalha na
University of Central Florida, onde dirige o Programa de Estudos
Latinoamericanos e Caribenhos. Foi editor da Enciclopedia of
Cuba. Alm de inmeros artigos publicados em vrias revistas
acadmicas especializadas, em sua produo destacam-se os livros:
Protestantism and Political Conflict in the Nineteenth-Century
Hispanic Caribbean; Fighting Slavery in the Caribbean; Torn
between Empires.
Alfredo Martnez-Expsito doutor em literatura hispnica pela
Universidad de Oviedo, Espanha, e professor de estudos hispnicos
na University of Queensland, Austrlia, onde leciona estudos culturais
e cinema espaol e latino-americano. Tem publicado extensivamente
sobre a temtica homosexual em cinema e literatura hipnicos,
destacando-se os livros: Los escribas furiosos:configuraciones
homoerticas en la narrativa espaola contempornea; Gay
and Lesbian Writing in the Hispanic World; Escrituras torcidas:
ensayos de crtica Queer.
Glenda Meja Mestre em Letras pela University of Queensland,
Austrlia, com uma dissertao no campo da scio-lingstica,
intitulada Language and Identity: The Second Generation of
Hispanic Adolescents in Brisbane. Acaba de concluir sua tese de
doutoramento na mesma universidade, na rea de Cinema e Estudos
Culturais, intitulada The Representation of Women in
Revolutionary Cuban Cinema. Atualmente, leciona lngua
espanhola nas universidades australianas de Queensland e Griffith.
Daniel Noem Voionmaa realizou seu doutorado na Yale University,
U. S. Recentemente publicou o livro intitulado Leer la pobreza en
Amrica Latina: Literatura y velocidad. especialista em
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298
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300
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no mesmo ano, devero ser diferenciados com uma letra aps a data, a partir da
letra a. Exemplo: (CASTILLO, 1940, p. 18-19). Com mais de cinco linhas devem
ser transcritas em pargrafo distinto, sem deslocamento da primeira linha, em
corpo 10 normal, com recuo esquerda e sem aspas; Uma citao dentro de outra
indicado por aspas simples. Estas citaes abreviadas enviam bibliografia no
final do artigo, a mesma deve vir com citao de autor, ano e pgina como a anterior;
7. NOTAS DE RODAP: breves, sucintas e claras, podem ser de
esclarecimento ou explicativas, usadas para a apresentao de comentrios,
explanaes ou tradues que no caberiam no texto. Devem vir em corpo 8, em
ordem crescente de numerao;
8. BIBLIOGRAFIA: deve vir ao final do trabalho e contemplar as obras
efetivamente citadas e referenciadas ao longo do texto e nas notas de rodap, bem
como apresentar indicaes completas, conforme os modelos abaixo:
Livro: SOBRENOME, Letra inicial do nome do Autor. Ttulo do livro:
sub-ttulo. Local: Editora, ano de publicao. Exemplo: LARRAN IBEZ, J.
Modernidad razn e identidad en Amrica Latina. Santiago, Chile: Editorial Andrs
Bello, 1996.
ARTIGO OU CAPTULO DE COLETNEA: SOBRENOME, Letra
incial do nome do Autor. Ttulo do artigo ou captulo. : SOBRENOME, Letra
inicial do nome do organizador. (org.) Ttulo da Coletnea. Local: Editora, ano,
pgina inicial-pgina final do artigo ou captulo. Exemplo: AINSA, F. Reflejos y
antinomias de la problematica de la identidad en el discurso narrativo latinoamericano.
UBIETA GOMEZ, E. (org.) Identidad cultural latinoamericana. Enfoques
filosficos literarios. La Habana: Editorial Academia, 1994, p. 53-72.
ARTIGO DE REVISTAS OU PERIDICOS: SOBRENOME, Letra inicial
do nome do Autor. Ttulo do artigo. Ttulo do peridico, Local de publicao,
nmero do volume, nmero do fascculo, pgina inicial-final do artigo, data. Exemplo:
GIRVAN, N. Reinterpretar el Caribe. Revista Mexicana del Caribe. V. 4, N. 7, p. 634, jul./dec. 1999.
9. CRITRIOS DE REVISO: os artigos enviados Revista Brasileira do
Caribe sero remetidos a pelo menos dois pareceristas escolhidos entre os membros
dos Conselhos Editorial e Consultivo que podero recomendar ou no a publicao,
ou ainda recomend-la com modificaes. O Conselho Editorial se reserva o direito
de sugerir ao autor modificaes de forma com o objetivo de adequar o texto s
dimenses da revista e a seu padro editorial e grfico. Os demais tipos de textos,
que no os artigos, sero apreciados pelo Conselho Editorial, a quem cabe a deciso
referente oportunidade da publicao das contribuies recebidas;