‘I don’t want to be an American idiot!’ The construction of identity in the writings of US Cuban, Puerto Rican and Dominican authors Master thesis American Studies University of Amsterdam Under supervision of Dr. Herman Beliën Student ID. Number: 5836654 Joan Gebraad [email protected] 2
Preface This paper is a Master Thesis for the American Studies Program of the University of Amsterdam. I would like to thank Herman Beliën for his supervision and suggestions. Further, I would like to express my gratitude to my parents who have always supported and believed in me and finally everybody else who has backed me up while writing this thesis. 3
Introduction ‘Who is an American?’ is one of the most frequently asked questions in American Studies. In 1908
Israel Zangwill’s play The melting pot was performed in New York and became an enormous success.
The protagonist, the Russian Jew David Quixano is determined to compose a symphony that will
celebrate the divinity of America as a place where people of all ethnicities melt together in a unified
brotherhood of men. Yet, during the play Quixano expresses two concepts of ‘the American’.
America is the great crucible, the great Melting Pot where all races of Europe are melting and re-forming! (…)
Here you stand with your fifty languages and histories, and your fifty blood hatreds and rivalries. (…) Germans
and Frenchmen, Irishmen and Englishmen, Jews and Russians- into the Crucible with you all! God is making the
American! 1
Later on, his song of praise has changed. America is no longer presented as a pure European product;
it has become an amalgamation of all races and nationalities imaginable.
Yes, East and West, and North and South, the palm and the pine, the pole and equator, the crescent and the
cross- how the great Alchemist melts and fuses them with his purging flame! Here shall they all unite to build
the Republic of Man and the Kingdom of God. 2
The second description is an even more idealistic concept of the United States. However, nearly a
century later the first concept still seems more suitable to describe the idea of an American.
Obviously, Zangwill was not a prophet: he could never have imagined that so many people of
countless varying ethnicities would come to the United States. Ergo, he also did not foresee the
following developments.
During the 1960s, the American nation was confronted with the arrival of big amounts of
migrants who had to say goodbye to their home country, mostly for political and economic reasons.
Amongst them were many Latin Americans. However, also after that period Latino immigration to the
United States continued. 3 Many politicians and scholars noticed the impact of Latinos on American
society. Among the interested scholars were sociologists. Fascinated by immigrants, they aimed at
1
Israel Zangwill, The melting pot (New York 1909) 39.
Zangwill, The melting pot,109.
3
Susanne Jill Levine, ‘The Latin American novel in translation’, Cambridge companion to the Latin American
novel (Cambridge 2005)310-311
2
4
demonstrating and explaining their adaptation to American mainstream society by drawing upon social
theories.
On the other hand, immigrants themselves always have documented their experiences and
ideas about American society. Some of them turned their experiences into literature in order to share
them with the American audience. The ultimate outcome of this process was the birth of a complete
new literary genre: immigrant writing or so-called ethnic writing. These types of works are written by
American immigrants or their descendents and often deal with themes as identity, their relationship
with the United States and their homeland and immigrant experiences.
Also many Latinos documented their experiences. However, it took also until the 1960s that
publishers and audiences started to value Latino perspectives. The consequence was an explosion of
Latino literature. For this reason, many scholars mark this period as the true birth of Latin American
literature in the United States. This increasing interest in Latino narratives must be seen in the light of
political and cultural developments at that time, like the rise of the Civil Rights Movement, feminism
and environmentalism. 4
Almost fifty years later, the present president of the United States, Barack Obama, emphasized in The audacity of hope: thoughts on reclaiming the American Dream (2006) the growing number of Latin Americans and their increasing impact on American society. 5 Making up 14,8% (44,3 million) of the total American population (306 million), Spanish Americans or Latinos, form indeed the largest minority group in the United States. Further, fifty percent (1.4 million) of the national population growth of 2.9 million citizens between July 1, 2005 and July 1, 2006 was a result of Latino immigration and the birth of many Latino children 6 Obama also noted the fear of some Americans that this so‐called Hispanicization will destroy ‘American culture’. 7 Harvard professor Samuel P. Huntington noticed in Who are we: America’s great debate the same developments and pleaded for an Anglo‐protestant American culture in order to stop the Hispanicization. 8 He concluded that Latin Americans are not seen as Americans and have a different culture. Nevertheless, this idea contradicts the perception that the United States is a melting pot of ethnicities. Naturally, the recent fear for Hispanicization has increased academic attention for Latinos. These data intrigued me, because as a cultural historian I am particularly interested in 4
Susanne Jill Levine, ‘The Latin American novel in translation’, Cambridge companion to the Latin American
novel (Cambridge 2005)310-311.
5
Barack H. Obama, The audacity of hope: thoughts on reclaiming the American Dream (New York 2006).
6
2006 American Community Survey. http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/DTTable?_bm=y&-context=dt&ds_name=ACS_2006_EST_G00_&-mt_name=ACS_2006_EST_G2000_B03002&-CONTEXT=dt&tree_id=306&-redoLog=false&-all_geo_types=N&-_caller=geoselect&-geo_id=01000US&currentselections=ACS_2006_EST_G2000_B03002&-search_results=01000US&-format=&-_lang=en.
7
Barack H. Obama, The audacity of hope, passim.
8
Samuel P. Huntington, Who are we: America’s great debate (London 2004).
5
the construction of collective and individual images and identities. I wondered if Latinos consider themselves American. How do they define American? What is their cultural background? How is their identity constructed? Do they consider themselves to be Americans, heirs of their parents’ cultural heritage or perhaps both? In which manner do they adapt themselves to American society? Are there differences among several kind of Latinos? Aiming at providing an answer to these questions, I have studied sociological theories considering the acculturation of immigrants. One of these theories functions as the framework for this research. This framework will be explained in the first chapter. Further, I used secondary literature to gain more insight in the cultural background of Latinos and the way their collective identity is constructed. In order to find out how Latino identity is constructed on the individual level I have investigated twelve literary works of well‐known Latino authors written between 1960 and 2009. Literary writings are well‐suited sources, because like mirrors they reflect elements of society. Although one has to bear in mind that writers are often intellectuals, they have expressed the Latino ethical and aesthetic issues in America. They function as cultural interpreters, recorders and interlocutors of the real or imagined past and their very own cultural history from the countries they once called their homeland. 9 Naturally, I could have researched other cultural forms of expression, like movies or songs. In that case, my research outcomes could have been different. Yet, I have chosen to investigate literary writings, because I consider them the most attractive sources. Thus, I have selected four writings of three ethnic groups which are identified as Latinos: Cuban Americans, Puerto Rican Americans and finally Dominican Americans. My choice for these groups is based first, on the fact they are the most widely discussed groups in secondary literature. Second, academics like William Luis and Alicia Borinsky, who study American literature and Spanish culture, time and time again emphasize the importance of the authors of these four groups. 10 Third, for a couple of years, Latinos have made up the second largest percentage of the American population. Latinos can be divided into several nationalities. Mexican Americans with 63% are by far the largest group, while Cubans and Puerto Ricans in comparison only count for 9 and 3.5%. Dominican Americans form the fifth largest group after Salvadorans (2.9%), with 2.7%. 11 However, Dominican Americans seem to have more success in the literary field than Salvadorans 9
Carlota Caulfield and Darien J. Davis, ‘Pluralism in US Latino literature: a historical perspective’, A
companion to US Latino literatures (Woodbridge 2007) 2.
10
For example: William Luis,‘Latin American (Hispanic Caribbean) literature written in the United States’, The
Cambridge history of Latin American literature, vol.2, Roberto Gonzalez and Enrique Papo-Walker ed.,
(Cambridge 2002). Alicia Borinsky, ‘Latino/Latina fiction in America’, The Oxford Encyclopedia of American
literature, vol. 2, William Faulkner and Mina Toy ed., (New York 2004).
11
Latino National Survey 2006, University of Washington. http://depts.washington.edu/uwiser/LNS.shtml
6
do. For several reasons I have chosen not to include Chicano writings in this research. First and foremost, Mexican Americans are the most widely studied Latino group and the same can be said for Chicano literature. Next, I had to make choices in order to limit the length of this thesis. However, how to decide which books to research? Before I made a selection of literary works, I read many literary overview works and articles. Thus, my selection of writings is based on the judgments of literary scholars who wrote contributions for reference works like The Cambridge history of Latino writing and The Oxford Encyclopaedia of American literature. Next, all selected authors and their works have been highly celebrated by literary journalists working for well‐established American newspapers as the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune. Besides that, many writers have earned prizes or fellowships as an appreciation of their talents. Surprisingly, certain literary works and authors were discussed by all experts. Therefore I was able to make a list of relevant authors. Although the multitude of works has been written by female authors, gender has never been a selection criterion. Nine of the selected writings are novels, two can be labeled as autobiographies and one of them is a collection of essays. In order to study these writings I have applied close reading. It was my intention to approach these novels as primary sources, since I am particularly interested in the original voices of Latino authors, not the interpretations by literary critics. The reason for this is that, in my opinion some scholars have a tendency to come up with too farfetched interpretations, which authors never have thought of. For this reason, I have read the writings and afterwards tried to draw direct conclusions without using secondary literature. However, in certain cases I felt obliged to call in the help of secondary writings, especially in the case of postmodern or more complex works. Now I have discussed my research approach, I will finally formulate the main research question of this thesis: To which extent second generation Latino authors consider themselves to be American and which explanations can be found in their literary writings written between 1960 and 2009? Of course, every scholar is faced with research limitations. Since I had to execute this research in the Netherlands, the amount of primary sources was not abundant and I was bound to the materials available. Further, my lack of specific in‐depth knowledge of the Spanish language makes that I had to use primary sources and secondary literature mostly written in English. Despite these limitations, I hope to increase the Dutch academic attention for Latinos and questions of identity in the United States. Further, my study will combine different disciplines: my research questions are historic, while I will use literary research tactics and literary fiction as 7
primary sources. Besides that, Dominican, Cuban and Puerto Rican Americans have, in contrast to Chicanos, a relatively young literary history. This is especially true for Dominican Americans: the more reason to pay attention to them and to compare their experiences with those of other Latinos. In the first chapter I will introduce the sociological framework for my research and I will provide information about how the cultural identity of Latinos came into existence. In the three chapters that follow, I will research the writings of Cuban American, Puerto Rican American and Dominican American authors. In the final chapter, I will present the outcomes of my research and draw some conclusions. 8
Chapter 1: The creation of an identity Scholars have researched the identity of Cuban, Puerto Rican and Dominican immigrants living in the United States. All state that Latino immigrants attempt to maintain part of their native culture. However, the ways in which these groups to give shape their collective identity seem to differ. 1.1 Cubanidad Maria Christina Garcia, associate professor of history and director of the Latino program at Cornell University, states in the article ‘Exiles, immigrants and transnationals: the Cuban communities in the United States’ that it was crucial to maintain a sense of cubanidad for first generation immigrants. Primary, this meant the preservation of those traditions, customs and values that were associated with Cuban culture. In order to reinforce these values, a multitude of organizations was brought into existence. The easiest places to preserve a sense of cubanidad were South Florida and Miami, as most Cubans resided there. Especially during the 1960s and 1970s, the reinforcement of their cubanidad almost became an obsession. The exile life made them nostalgic and depressed: they longed for home and missed the good old days, which would never return. Desperately, they sought ways to affirm their identity and to remember and rejoice the past. The first generation knew the island from experience. However, members of the second generation, arriving in the States as children knew very little about the island and its legacy. In order to give them a sense of where they came from, special courses about Cuban history, literature etcetera were constructed. Monuments, parks, streets and business were named after Cuban heroes. Their past was celebrated in parades, festivals, concerts and rallies. Besides that, Cubans set up their own (news) media in Spanish. These are only a few illustrations of initiatives. Cubanidad provided Cubans with a cultural as well a political identity. They regarded total assimilation as denial of their legacy. In the long run their cubanidad helped them to adapt to US life. It functioned as s psychological element to make it through another day when ‘life just sucked’. The exiles took comfort in the fact that their struggle had a larger (political) meaning. 12 Near the 1970s, changes took place in Cuban self‐perception. Around this time they realized that Cuba would never be the same again. Many decided to transform their temporary stay into a permanentl one. Events like the Muriel boatlift in 1980 made them even more realize how much Cuba had changed. 12
Maria Christina Garcia ‘Exiles, immigrants and transnationals: the Cuban communities of the United States’
The Colombia history of Latinos in the United States from 1960, David E. Gutierrez (New York 2004) 172-174.
9
According to Garcia, two varying political generations could be discerned around the 1990s. The first generation identifies strongly with Cuba. They consider themselves as Cuban and prefer Spanish as their principal language of communication. They are more likely to participate in exile politics than the second generation. This generation, also known as the one‐and–a‐half‐
generation, is born or raised in the United States. They regard themselves as both American, both Cuban, can speak both languages and are familiar with both cultures. Members of the second generation feel a connection with the island because of their parents’ and grandparents’ stimulation. However, they will never be as emotionally bound to the island as their forbears are. Research made clear that most of them are more likely to identify themselves as ‘American’ than as ‘Latino’ or ‘Hispanic’. English is the language in which they interact in business and personal affairs. Nevertheless, 36.9 percent uses both tongues. 13 1.2 Puertoricannidad Jorge Duany, professor of Antropology at the University of Puerto Rico, states in ‘Nation and migration: rethinking Puerto Rican identity in a transnational context’ that the Puerto Rican nation did not integrate into American mainstream culture. Instead, as a result of the growing self‐awareness within the Puerto Rican community in the 1940s cultural nationalism developed as the dominant discourse. Cultural nationalism turned out to be better attuned than political nationalism to imagine Puerto Rico as a community. In Duany’s view Puerto Ricans live in a trans‐national nation, because transnational migration strengthened long distance nationalism as the persistent claim to national identity by people residing away from their homeland. During the past five decades, there has been a decline in public support for the idea that Puerto Rico should become an independent nation, because through time, diasporic communities have become part of the Puerto Rican nation. Immigrants feel connected with the island due to back‐and‐forth travel, family ties and modern communication channels. Puerto Ricans in the United States keep their culture alive throughout the celebration of typical Puerto Rican symbols and rituals, such as the jibaro’s pava ( this is a straw that is typically worn by highland subsistence farmers). Another well‐known cultural expression is the casita, a typical Puerto Rican small wooden house, which can be found in Manhattan. 14 This strong expression of island culture finds its origin in the 1950s’, when the Cultural Institute of Puerto Rico started to promote their culture. The myths, symbols and rituals endorsed by the cultural institute over time transformed into Puerto Rican icons and became diffused throughout the island and the United States. Beside the fact that they contributed to the creation of a 13
Garcia, ‘Exiles, immigrants and transnationals’, 174-175.
Jorge Duany, ‘Nation and migration: rethinking Puerto Rican identity in a transnational context’, None of the
above: Puerto Ricans in the global era, Frances Negrón-Mantaner ed. (New York 2007) 51-54.
14
10
transnational culture, they strengthened the sense that ‘being a Puerto Rican’ was opposed to being an American. 15 However, Puerto Ricans residing in the States do not consider the Spanish language as something typically Puerto Rican. Perhaps, this can be explained by the large cultural impact of American culture on the islet. After the capture of the Puerto Rico in 1898, the Americans introduced Americanization programs, which included learning the English language. 16 Ergo: Puerto Rican national identity is firmly entranced among Puerto Ricans. Research of Puerto Rican Studies once again confirmed that Puerto Ricans see themselves as a part of a distinct nation and share a specifically Puerto Rican culture. This view cuts across a broad spectrum of social classes, political affiliations and racial groups. These results are quite interesting if compared to those of other groups. Where other South and Latin Americans identify themselves as ‘Mexican American’ or ‘American’, Puerto Ricans stress their national origin and adamantly reject the concept of a hyphenated identity. Even more intriguing is the fact that during the sixties also the second generation of Puerto Rican immigrants insisted on being called Puerto Rican. 17 Being born or raised in the United States, one would assume they would consider themselves multi‐ethical. On the other hand, one should not forget that Puerto Rico is officially a part of the United States: Puerto Ricans are Americans. The promotion of typically historical island symbols creates the opportunity to distinguish them from American mainstream culture and to protest against American discrimination, because many writings reveal that they feel themselves treated as second rank Americans. 1.3 Dominicanidad The Dominican independence in 1844 led to the invention of a Dominican identity which differed from the people of the black Haitian republic. This partition became a major focus in Dominican national discourse. Dominicans refused to call themselves 'black' (negro). Instead, they were said to be ‘lightbrown to darkbrown’ (moreno) 18 , simply ignoring the historical fact that since 1502 the Spaniards had been importing African slaves, due to a lack of labor forces. 19 Instead they created a mullato‐myth: all Dominicans were said to be the offspring of a Spanish conquistador and a native Indian woman. This story proved that they were not black. Now Dominicans were better than Haitians, being a creolization of 'white' (Spanish) and Indian blood. 15
Duany, ‘Nation and migration’, 57.
Ibidem, 54.
17
Silvio Torres-Saillent and Ramon Hernandez, The Dominican Americans (Westport 1997), 57-59.
18
Torres-Saillent and Hernandez, The Dominican Americans, 4-5.
19
Ibidem, 3.
16
11
However, in the United States Dominicans were forced to reflect on their cultural identity and to reshape their ideas about race, class and gender. Their presence in North America offered them a chance to come to terms with their racial identity. Some of them might find it practical to admit their blackness, because they are aware of the fact that larger white society does not make a racial difference between them, Haitians and other dark‐skinned Caribbean people. As a result, Dominicans have become accustomed to speak of themselves as ‘people of color’. Some Dominican American artists, like the author Junot Diaz, try to dismantle the false discourse that denies Dominican blackness, hoping to free Dominicans from their racial shame and denial. Due to migration, their psychological and existential mobility has also increased. They have a larger mental habit within which they give shape to their identity. In addition, migration offers the opportunity of creating new models by reshaping the existing ones. A Dominican American for instance can talk English at work and Spanish at home, dance the merengue at noon and rock like a Rolling Stone at night. 20 1.4 Identities compared When comparing the various immigrant stories a link can be found between Cuba and the Dominican Republic. Both countries (have) suffered from cruel dictatorships and were confronted with economical crises. In both cases, immigration rates increased tremendously during the 1960s and again saw an increase during the 1980s. Nevertheless, the Commonwealth position and the granting of American citizenship marks the uniqueness of the Puerto Rican situation, as well as the strongly dominant stress on the fact that they are Puerto Ricans instead of Puerto Rican Americans. This negative attitude toward the United States is a result of ongoing discrimination and disadvantages. They feel like they are American citizens –officially they are‐ who are treated like dirt. Like Puerto Ricans, many Dominicans are confronted with severe economic conditions, however they are not provided with American citizenship in the way Puerto Ricans are. Cuban immigrants however, have often been welcomed by the American government, probably because of the long existing economic ties between the two countries. By unifying themselves in strong (business) communities Cubans were able to gain economic success. The establishment of their own schools and cultural traditions helped them to maintain their Cubanidad. When it became clear that Cuba would be governed by a dictator for a long time, Cubans began to change their attitude and searched for ways to become Americans and at the same time to preserve their Cubanness. Their economic success in the States and anti‐
communistic sentiments toward Castro might have contributed to a more positive attitude toward the United States as a country. 20
Ibidem, 145-147.
12
Scholar Jorge Duany has put it this way: ‘transnational migration transforms social relations and generates a new identity that transcends traditional notions of psychological and cultural space. Among other changes, the diaspora calls into question the immigrant’s conception of ethic, racial and national identities as defined in their home countries.’ 21 Nevertheless, the ways in which this new identity is shaped differs through the existence of diverse national political and economical circumstances and discourses. In addition, the various ways of treatment in the United States and their different experiences have created different identities and ideas about the ‘new mother country’. 1.5 Toward a sociological framework about shaping identity These academic assumptions are fascinating, but to what extent are they true (on the individual level)? Luckily, sociologists have been studying immigrants for years and have developed methods to investigate how immigrants adapt themselves to American society. In the upcoming section I will introduce the leading theories in the field of sociology and some leading scholars. The academics and theories mentioned in the following section are selected after a study of literature. In addition, their names are frequently mentioned in sociological academic writings. The ethnogenesis of the American population is the outcome of a long history of annexation, conquest, enslavement and immigration. Over time, the United States have been transformed into one of the most ethnically varied countries in the world. A typical feature of American history is what scholar and activist W.E.B. Dubois had called the so‐called ‘colorline’: a strict and clear distinction between black and white people. This colorline has historically defined the border between two modes of ethnic integration to American society. The first one, the so‐called assimilation theory, has dominated the sociological field for years. Although it can still be identified as the leading trend in sociology, theorists have redefined and extended it. The Encyclopedia Britannica defines assimilation as: the process whereby individuals or groups of differing ethnic heritage are absorbed into the dominant culture of a society. The process of assimilating involves taking on the traits of the dominant culture to such a degree that the assimilating group becomes socially indistinguishable from other members of the society. As such, assimilation is the most extreme form of acculturation. 22 Acculturation can be defined as: 21
Jorge Duany, Quesqueya on the Hudson: the transnational identity of Dominicans in Washington Heights
(New York 1994) 46.
22
http://www.search.eb.com/eb/article-9009936
13
the processes of change in artifacts, customs, and beliefs that result from the contact of two or more cultures. The term is also used to refer to the results of such changes. Two major types of acculturation, incorporation and directed change, may be distinguished on the basis of the conditions under which cultural contact and change take place. 23 The concept of assimilation can be closely identified with the concept of the ‘melting pot’. Once a name of a play performed in New York at the beginning of the twentieth century, it became known as a term to refer to the ideology of immigrant’s adaptation to white Anglo European American dominant values and the English language. 24 Thus, assimilation can not just said to be a theory, but also an ideology. Various American institutions, especially public schools, have supported the ideology of Americanization (read: assimilation).This way of thinking was popular in several periods of American history, particularly during the Interbellum period. 25 In the article ‘The sociology of immigration: from assimilation to segmented integration, from the American experience to the global era’ Barbera Schmitter Heisler, professor emerita of sociology at Gettysburg College, sketches an extended overview of the development of the current state of sociological immigration theories. Assimilation once intended to explain how millions of cultural and national heterogeneous European immigrants were absorbed into white mainstream American society and how their identities eventually became more or less symbolic and died away into a ‘twilight of ethnicity’. During the 1920s and 1930s, immigration and its outcomes were at the heart of the research of the Chicago School of Sociology. Members of this school were profound advocates of assimilation. The Chicago School became one of the leading institutions in the field of sociology. Even today, its research methods are still used. During the following decades other scholars redefined this theory, which would remain the dominant paradigm until the end of the 1960s. Though scholars as Reeves Kennedy and Glazer and Moynihan criticized the Chicago School for its optimistic outlook concerning assimilation, it was not until the late 1970s and early 1980s that assimilation theory was seriously questioned. 26 According to Werner Sollers, a Harvard professor of African and African American Studies, many researchers of American culture use the ‘concept of generations’ in order to 23
http://www.search.eb.com/eb/article-9003494
24
Encyclopedia of multicultural education, Bruce M. Mitchel and Robert E. Salsbury ed. (Westport 1999) 209.
Richard Alba and Victor Nee, ‘Rethinking Assimilation Theory for a New Era of Immigration’, International
migration review vol.31, no4. Special Issue: Immigrant Adaptation and Native-Born Responses in the Making
of Americans (1997) 832.
26
Barbera Schmitter Heisler, The sociology of immigration: from assimilation to segmented integration, from
the American experience to the global era’ Migration theory, Caroline B. Brettell and James F. Hollifield ed.
(New York 2007) 77.
25
14
27 In ‘The problem of generations’ (1928) sociologist Karl Mannheim recommended to focus on ‘generation units and their inherent potentials in the context of social and historical forces by examining the ‘social location’ of presumptive members of a generation’. In Mannheim’s view, it was only possible to speak of a community of location when a generation of people was able to act as an integrated group. He presented our world as the opposite: ‘developed by individuals who come into contact anew with the accumulated heritage’. The phenomenon of ‘fresh contact’ is … of great significance in many social contexts; the problem of generations is only one among those upon which it has a bearing. Fresh contacts play an important part in the life of the individual when he is forced by events to leave his own social group and enter a new one‐ when, for example an adolescent leaves home, or a peasant the countryside for the town, or when an emigrant changes his home, or a social climber his social status or class. 28 In many American stories several themes of ‘fresh context’ are combined. These themes include adolescence, ethnogenesis (the collective and the individual ‘coming of age after leaving a parent/country), urbanization, immigration and social mobility. In the United States, the imagining of several generations has provided a mental map for immigrants and their offspring. 2 9 In general, the American discourse distinguishes three generations. Sollers stated that the most famous formulation of immigrants’ generational succession was developed by Marcus Lee Hansen in 1938. He implied that the second generation is marked by a rejection of their parents’ culture, language and traditions. Due to this suggested behavior, Hansen despised second‐generation immigrants and put his hope on the third generation. This generation represented a new opportunity and a new force: members would be able to achieve more than the generations before them could ever have accomplished. Hansen phrased his belief in the following words: ‘what the son wishes to forget the grandson wishes to remember. 30 Yet, scholars have criticized this so‐called ‘Hansens Law’. The historian and sociologist, Herbert Gans, has argued that Hansen’s hypothesis can only be applied to intellectuals, writers and academics. However, his statement is very weak, because according to Sollers, Hansen clearly pointed out that: 27
Werner Sollers, Beyond ethnicity: consent and descent in American culture (New York 1986) 208.
Sollers, Beyond ethnicity, 211.
29
Ibidem.
30
Ibidem, 214-215.
28
15
Among the leaders of this society are men of the first generation and of the second generation but they are the proverbial exception, or it may be better to say that they are third generation ‘in spirit’. 31 Years later, scholars Vladimir Nahirny and Joshua Fishmen (1965) refined ‘Hansens Law’, implying that the first generation is attached to a specific place (their former homeland). The second generation, born or raised in the United States, in most cases, lacks this connection. Despite this shortcome, Narhirny and Eishmen held the view that the second generation is more aware of their cultural heritage than their forbears are. Though their theory highly resembled Hansen’s Law, their view became the standard understanding of assimilation: 32 The erosion of ethnicity and ethnic identity experienced by most, (but not all) American ethnic groups take places in the course of three generations. Ethnic heritage, including the ethnic mother tongue, usually ceases to play a viable in the life of the third generation 33 Also noteworthy is the name of the sociologist Milton Gordon (1964), one of the most important names in the sociological field. He took the assimilation of all immigrants for granted, believing they were following American middle class cultural patterns. He was convinced of the idea that individual adaptation to American mainstream culture and upward social mobility went hand in hand. He never imagined the possibility that ethnic boundaries might modify over time or that complete groups might be moving. 34 On the other side of the spectrum, we find the process of segregation; resembling a resistance against being absorbed into mainstream society no matter the level of socioeconomic attainment or acculturation. This process is characterized by particularly high social distances in intergroup relations and discrimination. 35 Already in 1915, Harvard philosopher Horace M. Callen published a series of essays in the newspaper The Nation titled ‘Democracy versus the Melting Pot’ in which he criticized the use of Americanization programs, the idea of Anglo‐Saxon superiority and misguided efforts to promote racial mixture. 36 In Idealists, scoundrels and the lady, scholar Francis Ross Holland, noted that the theory implied the opposite of assimilation, stating that among certain waves of immigrants assimilation did not take place. Instead, it was suggested that immigrants maintained certain characteristics and were unable or unwilling to adapt to mainstream American society. Despite the critique of Callen, the assimilation theory did 31
Ibidem 216-217.
Ibidem
33
Alejandro Portes and Rúben G. Rumbaut ‘Ethnogenesis: coming of age in immigrant America’, Ethnicities:
children of immigrants in America, Alejandro Portes and Rúben G. Rumbaut ed. ( Berkeley, New York, Los
Angelos, London 2001)5.
34
Schmitter Heisler, ‘The sociology of immigration', 80.
35
Portes and Rumbaut, ‘Ethnogenesis’ 5.
36 Assimilation in American life: the role of race, religion and national origins(New York 1964) 141‐142 32
16
not begin to loose its dominant position until the rise of the Civil Right Movement near the 1960s. 37 During that decade the theory of ethnic pluralism, more commonly known as the ‘saladbowl theory’, became popular. Holland stated that during the mid‐sixties most historians and sociologists started to see the American nation as a construction of different ethnicities. They regarded US society as a metaphoric salad, consisting of ingredients of various textures, shapes and sizes. In addition, the growing interest of scientists in other racial groups further demolished the authority of the melting pot. Also the increasing emancipation of social and ethnic minority groups contributed to this development. Naturally, these new perspectives must be seen in relation to the rise of the Civil Rights Movement during these decades. 38 1.6 A model of segregated assimilation Alejandro Portes, professor of sociology at Princeton University and Rúben G. Rumbaut, professor of sociology at Michigan State University, stated in the article ‘The forging of a new America: lessons for theory and policy’ in Ethnicities: children of immigrants in America (2001) that neither theory offers a just framework to explain the faith of second generation immigrants, because immigrants’ experiences are far more complex than these two theories imply. Portes and Rumbaut offered an alternative theory which is more able to explain the complexity and variety of their experiences. Their theory is often used and discussed by academic scholars. 39 In order to explain the complexities of second­generation acculturation, Portes and Rumbaut developed a new framework, which is based on the assumption of segmented assimilation. The outcome of their assimilation can highly vary: rapid integration and acceptance into mainstream American society is just one possible outcome. Several decisive factors are responsible for this result ‘(1)the history of the first generation immigrant, including the human capital and acceptance of the parents; (2) the differential pace of acculturation among parents and children, including the development of linguistic gaps between them, and bearing on normative integration and family cohesiveness; (3) the cultural and economic barriers confronted by second‐generation youth in their quest for successful adaptation; and (4) the family and community resources for confronting these barriers.’ 40 37
38
Francis Ross Holland, Idealists, scoundrels and the lady (Urbana and Chicago 1993)158.
Holland, Idealists, (Urbana and Chicago 1993)158.
39
Alejandro Portes and Rumbaut ‘The forging of a New America: lessons for theory and policy’ Ethnicities:
children of immigrants in America, Alejandro Portes and Rúben G. Rumbaut ed. ( Berkeley, New York, Los
Angelos, London 2001)301.
40
Ibidem, 6.
17
Figure I: A model of segmented assimilation Source: Portes and Rumbaut, ‘The forging of a new America: lessons for theory and policy’ Ethnicities: children of immigrant in America, Portes and Rumbaut ed. (Berkeley, Los Angelos, London 2001) 307. The model above suggests the existence of three ways of acculturation. The first possibility is called consonant acculturation. This type of acculturation takes place if parents learn the culture and tongue at more or less the same pace as their children and thus adjust their behavior. Parents who are more fluent in English and with higher levels of education are more likely to follow this path, because they are better able to understand and deal with changes in the lives of their offspring. However, other scenarios are also possible. Clashing expectations of parents and children and growing awareness of racial discrimination can lower children’s self‐esteem and can enforce a reactive ethnicity. Dissonant acculturation takes place when children’s knowledge of the English language and embedding in mainstream American cultural values surpasses that of their parents so much that the latter are left behind. Features of this path are the high amounts of family crises and the decrease of parental authority. This situation is the outcome of children’s diminishing respect for their own cultural values and the contrary expectations of parents and their offspring. Many parents dealing with such a situation complain that their attempts to discipline their children have failed. They simply cannot control them anymore. Immigrants without the back‐up of strong co‐ethnic communities and working class people have a greater chance of moving along 18
this trail, due to the fact that their own poverty reduces the authority of their orders. The power of their orders is even more weakened by the lack of external support. The third alternative is called selective acculturation. Normally, it is associated with second generation’s fluent bilingualism. Portes and Rumbaut note that: Bilingualism preserves channels of communication across generations even when parents remain foreign monolinguals. In other situations, partial loss of parental languages is compensated by supportive networks in the immigrant community. In every instance, the key element in selective acculturation is the absorption by second‐generation youths of key values and normative expectations from their original culture and concomitant respect for them. 41 In most cases, this type of acculturation is based on tightly connected networks, capable of supporting parents’ expectations and cultural views. On the base of the results of several studies, Portes and Rumbaut also remark that fluent bilingualism is far more common for children who attend private school. This has to do with the fact that public schools in general are assimilation‐
orientated. Further, fluent bilingualism would significantly increase one’ self‐esteem, increase educational expectations and reduce symptoms of depression. 42 Naturally, this theory has its limitations. The strength of the theory is at the same time its weakness. In comparison to the assimilation and salad bowl theory, the theory of segregated assimilation provides a wider range of assimilation possibilities and takes into account various relevant factors such parental influences and capital resources. In addition, the theory specializes in second generation immigrants, whose identity construction is far more complicated than that of their forbears, because they were born or raised in the United States, but are nevertheless confronted with another culture by their parents. Thus the theory of segregated assimilation offers a framework for second generation immigrants, but what about their parents? Although the general assimilation theory has been criticized, it remains the most dominating theory in the field of immigration studies. Therefore, I suggest that in the case of second generation immigrants I will appeal to the theory of segregated assimilation. In the case of the first generation characters I will try to draw upon the theories of assimilation and ethnic pluralism. Their results are included in order to underline the differences between the two generations. I have selected a set of criteria in order to define if characters show more characteristics of assimilation or ethic pluralism. 41
42

Language skills (ability to speak Spanish and/or English) 
Social status (neighborhood, sort of job, signs of poverty or richness) Portes and Rumbaut, ‘The forging of a New America’ 307-309.
Ibidem, 309.
19

Appreciation of mother culture (emphasis on original culture, values, longing for ‘home’) 
Attitude toward American society (negative/positive opinion, extent of interaction with (general) society, adaptation to ‘modern’ American cultural standards) In the upcoming chapters I will investigate twelve literary works of second generation Cuban, Puerto Rican and Dominican authors living in the United State. It is my intention to find out to which extent they adapt to American mainstream culture. Further I am curious about the causes. I hope to illustrate the validity of Portes’ and Rumbaut’s theory of segmented assimilation. In addition, by testing the theories of assimilation and ethnic pluralism on first generation immigrants, I hope to demonstrate that the identity construction of second generation members is far more complex and that their degree of assimilation differs from their forbears. 20
Chapter 2: Dreaming in Cuban In the upcoming chapters I will research twelve literary writings in order to test Rumbaut’s and Portes’ theory of segmented assimilation. Before coming up with a selection of works, I have studied many literary encyclopedias and overviews. Further, I read book reviews of established newspapers as the New York Times. Certain names of authors and works were mentioned time and again, so I was able to make a list of suited works. Next, I have selected the works that seemed most interesting to me and most useful for the purpose of my research. This chapter is devoted to the writings of several Cuban authors. Is it possible to dream in a culture? The writings of Christina Garcia, Oscar Hijuelos, Pablo Medina and Virgil Suarez assume that this can be done. Though American culture has found a way to their real hearts and the imaginary ones of their characters, they also cherish Cuban culture and wander the shores of this exotic island at night, when they are dreaming in Cuban. 2.1 Dreaming in Cuban 2.1.1 Christina Garcia Christina Garcia was born in the city of Havana, Cuba, on July 4, 1958. Two years later, she and her parents migrated to the United States. Garcia tried several occupations before becoming an author. At the start of her career, she worked two years as a reporter (1983‐1985), then as a correspondent (1985‐1990) and finally as Miami bureau chief of Time magazine. In 1996 Garcia was awarded a Hodder Fellowship and a Cintas Fellowship. Besides that, Garcia won the Writing Writers Award and the National Book Foundation Award and was nominated for the National Book Award. 43 2.1.2 Dreaming in Cuban (1992) Dreaming in Cuban tells the story of three generations of women of the Cuban del Pino family, geographically and politically divided by the Castro revolution of 1959. Garcia portrays their different views on Cuba, the 1959 revolution and the world. All these elements have a profound impact on the shaping of their identity. Pilar Puente, the main searcher for identity, was born in Cuba, but her family had left for New York, because of the revolution. The arrival of the Puente family in New York, was not exactly the typical arrival of poor immigrants, who had nothing to lose and who were in search of the American Dream. 43
Alvina E. Quintana, Reading US Latina writers: remapping American literature, Alvina E. Quintana ed. (New
York, Hampshire 2003) 92.
21
I remember when we first came to New York. We lived in a hotel in Manhattan for five months while my parents waited for the revolution to fail or the Americans to intervene in Cuba’. 44 Events however, turned out quite different: Fidel Castro, ‘El Lider’ gained control of the island and succeeded to remain in charge until today. The temporary stay of the Puente family becomes permanent. In comparison to other immigrants, the Puente family is successful. Lourdes Puente owns a pastry shop in New York and is able to hire employees. She represents the way in which a certain group of Americans deals with newcomers: suspicious, impatient and negative. When Pilar is able to win a scholarship of an art school in Manhattan, Lourdes is not pleased. Art reminds her of Castro and his comrades, whom she loathes so much. To her, America is her new homeland. 45 Lourdes considers herself lucky. Immigration has redefined her, and she is grateful. Unlike her husband, she welcomes her adopted language, its possibilities for reinvention (...) She wants no part of Cuba, no part of his wretched carnival floats crocking with lies, no part of Cuba at all, which Lourdes claims never possessed her’ 46 Pilar however, is dreaming of Cuba. Our house is a cement plot near the East River. At night, especially in the summer when the sound carries, I hear the low whistles of the ships as they leave New York harbor. They travel south past the Wall Street skyscrapers, past Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty, past Bayonne, New Jersey and the Bay Ridge Channel and under the Verrazano Bridge. They make a left at Coney Island and head out to the Atlantic. When I hear those whistles, I want to go with them 47 Where the Statue of Liberty must have represented the escape from the communists and the embrace of liberty in the United States for Lourdes, for Pilar it represents the freedom of leaving America and returning to the land of her ancestors. The girl makes it clear that she definitely doesn’t agree with her mother. 48 When Lourdes requests her daughter to make a wall painting for her new bakery shop, Pilar artistically rebels against Lourdes and the United States. Lourdes asks her to paint something typically American like the Statue of Liberty. Pilar complies with her mother’s wishes: she decides to paint the Statue of Liberty. However, her rebellious nature makes her portray the symbol of freedom with a safety pin though her nose. Lady Liberty looks like a real punk girl. At the 44
Christina Garcia, Dreaming in Cuban (New York 1993) 33.
Garcia, Dreaming in Cuban, 29-33.
46
Ibidem, 73.
47
Ibidem, 31.
48
Ibidem, 26.
45
22
background, Pilar paints black stick figures, pounding in the air around her: they are like thorny scars that look like barbed wire. Besides that, Liberty’s torch is floating in mid‐air, and she is being unable to reach it. Liberty’s right hand is near her heart, as if she is singing a national anthem. Pilar signs her artwork with the text: I’m a mess. When the artwork is revealed, during an American opening ceremony, with a band playing When the saints go marching in, people are disgusted. Nevertheless, Lourdes puts her disappointment aside and like a true American and a good mother, she defends her daughter: Pilar is an artista, and unlike in Cuba, artists have freedom of expression in the United States. 49 Pilar’s portrayal of Liberty can be explained in the following way: by putting her hand on her heart, she seems to be pledging allegiance to the flag. According to William Luis, the painting should be placed in a historical context. During the 1960s and 1970s, the emphasis was on leftist politics, liberty and justice. Lady Liberty’s caressing of her breast can be seen as a reference to the women’s movement. The barbed wire reminds of sacrifice and suffering, perhaps even of the passion of Christ. Yet, it can also refer to imprisonment. In the past, European immigrants were warmly welcomed. During the sixties and seventies however, immigrants were not welcomed with great enthusiasm. In this case Liberty indicates a prisoner of a community, who has been denied his or her identity. Pilar feels restricted in the way she can express herself, although living in ‘the land of freedom’. She is disappointed: in her eyes, there is a contradiction between what the United States is supposed to represent and what the country in fact is. 50 During a family holiday, Pilar is reunited with her beloved grandmother, her abuela Celia. Abuela used to stare over the sea, on the outlook for enemies who want to get rid of the Castro regime. During their long separation, Celia and Pilar communicated through telepathy. Pilar seems to think that Cuba is the place that will make her happy, the place where she belongs. During her stay on the island, she realizes the following: I’ve started dreaming in Spanish, which has never happened before. I woke up feeling different, like something inside me is changing, something chemical and irreversible. There is a magic here working its way through my veins 51 (...) I’m afraid to loose all this, to loose Abuela Celia again. But sooner or later I'd have to return to New York. I know now it’s where I belong –not instead of here, but more than here. How can I tell my grandmother this? 52 This paragraph is open to multiple interpretations. According to Luis, Pilar is viewing Cuba from a romantic perspective, the one of a temporary visitor. Cuba is a part of her: she dreams 49
Ibidem 139-144.
William Luis, Dancing between two cultures, 218-219.
51
Ibidem, 235.
52
Ibidem, 236.
50
23
about it, but she will never be able to fully understand the Cuban experience. Her grandmother gives Pilar a box of letters which she has written to her long lost love, the Spaniard Gustavo. In these letters, she tells Gustavo about her life and (historical) events on the island between 1935 and 1959. Luis states that the letters are like Pilar’s Cuban experience: they are images and pieces that revive her family’s history. 53 Nevertheless, they also teach her about historical events on Cuba, seen from Celia’s communistic viewpoint. Abuela chooses to give the letters to Pilar, because in her view her granddaughter will be the best one to ‘remember everything’. None of her own children, Lourdes, Felicia and Javier supported her beliefs. Her daughters can not understand her commitment to El Lider. Lourdes sends her snapshots of pastries from her bakery in Brooklyn. Each glistering éclair is a grenade aimed at Celia’s political beliefs, each strawberry shortcake proof ‐ in butter, cream and eggs‐ of Lourdes success in America, and a reminder of the ongoing shortages in Cuba 54 By passing the letters on to Pilar, Celia, in my opinion, not just transfers her cultural memory, but also symbolically tries to pass on her political views to her granddaughter. Celia seems to believe that her and Pilar’s thoughts are similar as a result of their strong bond. 55 Literary critic Andrea O’ Reilly Herrera notes that Pilar refuses to choose a political side, although she recognizes that she feels more connected to New York than to Havana. As a result, she is caught between two cultures. 56 Luis further focuses on another character, Ivanito: Pilar’s cousin. Being his mother’s (Felicia) favorite and being despised for this by his twin sisters, Milagro and Luz, he is seduced into fleeing to the United States by his aunt Lourdes. He is the only remaining male figure of the Del Pino family, which makes him the future pater familias. Ivanito’s choice to head for the United States represents the rejection of the Cuban political system and in a way also a refutation of his abuela. When the boy is lost, Pilar finds him at the Peruvian embassy, waiting for an opportunity to escape the country. Pilar decides to leave him there and returns to Celia, lying to her that Ivanito was already gone. 57 Near the end of the story, Celia commits suicide. According to Luis, Ivanito gave her a reason to live. 58 Now he has left, she feels there is nothing left to live for: his departure must have felt like an act of betrayal. However, that which Luis and O’Reilly Herrera fail to mention, is that Pilar’s lie to Celia is in fact the true act of betrayal. Unlike O’Reilly Herrera, I think Pilar does take a 53
Luis, Dance between two cultures, 235.
Garcia, Dreaming in Cuban, 117.
55
Ibidem, 235.
56
Andrea O’Reilly Herrera, ‘Christina Garcia, Dreaming in Cuban’, Reading US Latina writers: remapping
American literature, Alvina E. Quintana ed. (New York, Hampshire 2003) 95.
57
Garcia, Dreaming in Cuban, 236-242.
58
Luis, Dance between two cultures, 233.
54
24
political stand. I consider the lie and her support to Ivanito as a proof of that: otherwise she would have convinced him to stay. Conclusion Although Pilar feels connected to Cuba, she will never be able to fully capture the island’s culture, she will never be truly part of it. Her help to Ivanito, the lie to her grandmother – and thus the rejection of her communistic views‐ and her statement that she feels more connected to New York, makes her more American than Cuban. However, the island will always have a special place in her dreams. In matters of immigrant success, Pilar has done well, just like her mother. Unlike some immigrant children, she received a good education. Her ability to win a prestigious art‐
scholarship is another example of her success in American society. When it comes to Lourdes, her position seems to be clear. She detests Castro and Cuba, but she embraces American culture: everything about her screams Americanness and she totally rejects her cultural roots. She has been able to fulfill the American Dream, something that not all immigrants are able to achieve. Nevertheless, her dislike of the island and anything Cuban is explainable. In the past, Lourdes was raped by communist soldiers. The place (Cuba) she considered to be her ‘safe home’, turned out to be a nightmare. As her ‘home’ is ‘destructed’, she turns into exile in order to deal with the psychological pain and to find mental restoration. Her embracement of ‘American culture’ and anti‐communism are ways reshaping her identity and distancing herself from her former homeland. Lourdes’ new self‐created identity as a self‐made successful businesswoman is however a lie: the trauma inside her keeps haunting her. 59 Before undertaking the trip to Cuba, Lourdes had promised the spirit of her father to tell her mother about the rape, as a way of dealing with her trauma. All the same, the island brings her horrible memories back to life and in the end, she does not have the strength to face her mother. 60 Scholar Fatima Mujcinovic holds the opinion that the trauma will always disrupt Lourdes present. Nevertheless, in my opinion her sufferings are relieved, since her dead baby would have been a boy, just like Ivanito. He represents the immigrant‐to‐be, who heard nothing but good about America 61 . His aunt promises him: ll come pick you up, mi hiijito ‘I’ll bring you back to Brooklyn. We’ll go to Disney World this summer.’ 62 Her referring to Ivanito as ‘my little son’ might suggest that she retraces her ‘lost son’ in him. The motherless boy will be the son she never had. 59
Fatima Mujcinovic ‘Multiple Articulations of Exile in US Latina Literature: Confronting Exilic Absence and
Trauma’, MELUS, Vol. 28, No. 4, Speech and Silence: Ethnic Women Writers (2003), 175-179.
60
Mujcinovic ‘Multiple Articulations of Exile’,178.
61
Garcia, Dreaming in Cuban, 74.
62
Ibidem, 239.
25
2.2 Our house in the last world 2.2.1 Oscar Hijuelos Oscar Hijuelos was born in New York, 1951, as the son of Cuban immigrants. His work includes the novels: Mr. Ives' Christmas, The fourteen sisters of Emilio Montez O'Brien, Our House in the Last World, A simple Havana melody and The mambo kings plays songs of love. The Mambo kings is the most famous and successful one and has been turned into a movie. Hijuelos' work has been awarded with various prestigious prizes as the Pulitzer Prize and the Rome Prize for literature. 63 2.2.2 Our house in the last world (1983) Our house in the last world tells the story of the Cuban Santioni family who immigrates to the United States. Hijuelos describes how each of the family members experiences their new life in the United States. In comparison to the Santioni family, Lourdes and Pilar from Dreaming in Cuba have a far better life: the Santioni’s not just suffer from internal family problems, but also from mistreatment, alcoholic abuse, poverty and extreme violence. Hijuelos’ drama covers the period between 1929‐1975. Though his novel The mambo kings plays songs of love is more recent, more well‐known and more successful, Our house in the lost world provides a deeper and more complex inside in the process of immigrants’ identity shaping, the struggles of daily life and their perspectives on both Cuba and the United States. Mercedes Sorrea is the daughter of Theodoro Sorrea, a highly respected and cultivated Cuban with a talent for writing. Mercedes is blessed with the same artistical talent as her father. After his passing , her family has to life in poverty. One day, she meets Alejo Santioni who will become her husband. The years in Cuba after their marriage are happy ones. The only factor which ruins Mercedes’ happiness is her sister in law, who behaves herself as if she is one of Cinderella’s stepsisters: Buita. She despises everything about Mercedes, calling her a good‐for‐nothing, a lunatic etcetera in front of everybody and especially in front of her beloved brother Alejo. In 1944, Alejo and Mercedes decide to leave everything behind in order to begin a new life in New York. They move in with family of Alejo: Margarita and Eduardo Delgado. The Delgado family lives in upper Manhattan, which is near the University and the sinister streets of Harlem. The neighborhood is a melting pot of cultures and social classes: whores, workers and immigrants were living together in the same neighborhood. 64 63
64
http://www.harpercollins.com/authors/4476/Oscar_Hijuelos/index.aspx
Oscar Hijuelos, Our house in the lost world (1983) 1-36.
26
In 1945, Mercedes gives birth to her first son: Horacio Wilson Santioni. He is named after Woodrow Wilson, because Alejo admires him. 65 A year later, Buita and her husband Alberto come to the Big Apple. A year long Buita transforms Mercedes’ life into a complete hell: she orders her around, calls her names and beats her. In addition, she spreads rumors about Mercedes to her family and friends. At night, she, Alejo and some friends go out or party at the apartment, while Mercedes is left alone with Horacio. 66 There is nothing she can do about it: She was constantly afraid of eviction from the family…from American life…from this world into the next. How could she live without Alejo, and without knowing the English language? As it was, when she went out Mercedes would go down the street quickly, afraid that someone would stop and speak to her, as if there was a law against her not being able to speak English. She answered most questions with nods and shakes of her head and found her way around the neighborhood with single words: “Church?” “Store?” But that was not enough to take care of herself. 67 At night, Mercedes tries to teach herself some English with the help of some phrases she had written down in a notebook. It included sentences as: ‘I am alone and afraid’ and ‘please, don’t hit me’, indicating the desperation of her situation. Also, she attempts to escape from this world into old dreams of Cuba. However, she only remembers the good things: the bad aspects of her Cuban life, like the beating of her father, she suppresses. 68 In 1951, Mercedes gives birth to her second son, Hector, named after Alejo’s deceased brother. The death of his brother, a year before, increased the amount of alcohol he used to drink. 69 Three years later, Mercedes and her children take a plane to Cuba in order to visit her family: Mercedes feels homesick. Horacio nevertheless, does not consider Cuba to be as romantical as his mother does. He could see under and through things. He saw Luisa’s and Rina’s nice houses on cobble‐stone streets. A farm of pigs, sheep and flea‐ridden dogs. Thick festering bushes of full of tiny, red‐legged spiders, red ants and thick‐shelled beetles that sounded like hurled stones when they fly out and hit the walls. Termites with bodies like embers swarmed in the rotted tree stumps of the farm.(…) He saw the ditches, pools of stagnant water, thick clouds of flies and mosquitoes. He saw the clogged‐with‐shine stone toilets that were made tolerable only by the strong fragrances of the fruit trees and blossoms. 70 65
Hijuelos, Our house, 41.
Ibidem, 51-58.
67
Ibidem, 45.
68
Ibidem, 45-46.
69
Ibidem, 66.
70
Ibidem
66
27
The only thing Horacio truly likes about Cuba are the ghost of his grandfather and the kisses of his aunt Luisa. 71 His brother Hector only remembers flashes of Cuba, though beautiful ones. He loves his aunt Luisa’s mysterious and delicious Cuban drink. However, Cuba is the place, where Hector becomes ill, because of bad bacteria. This fact confuses him, because he loves the island so much. 72 Mercedes remarks about her son: When we left Cuba, Hector was sick but so happy and fat that we didn’t know anything. He came back saying Cuba, Cuba and spent a lot of time with Alejo. He was a little Cuban, spouting Spanish. 73 Yet, things change. Back in the States, Hector’s disease is discovered. At a certain moment, he is forced to remain in hospital for almost a year. Then he started to speak to Hector in Spanish, and Hector nodded and listened but he did not speak back. When Hector finally spoke, he used English, which surprised Alejo. Alejo asked him all kinds of questions, “ Why don’t you speak in Spanish?” and Hector, feeling ashamed and afraid, became silent. Alejo looked at Hector, wondering if this was his son. There he was, a little blondie, a sickly, fair‐skinned Cuban who not speaking Spanish. 74 Hector’s father blames Mercedes: if she had taken better care of their son, he would have been ‘more Cuban and less American’. When Alejo’s friends are around, they make jokes in Spanish and ignore Hector. As a result of his blond hair, people had always been surprised that Hector’s parents are of Cuban origin, but now, not being able to speak Spanish anymore, makes people definitely believe that he is an American. Now he looked American and spoke mostly American. Cuba had become the mysterious and cruel phantasm standing behind the door. 75 One day in 1958, Hector and Mercedes walk through the streets of New York. Kids hear her speaking Spanish and then stare at her son: How can he possibly be Spanish? Also at the hospital, people are surprised about Hector’s roots. An old, flabbergasted lady, remarks that he looks healthy, ‘so Americano’. That year Mercedes also states that Cuba is not Cuba anymore. She hopes the violence on the island soon will be over. 76 71
Ibidem
Ibidem, 78-82.
73
Ibidem, 84.
74
Ibidem, 96-97.
75
Ibidem, 98.
76
Ibidem, 109-110.
72
28
Mercedes teaches herself and Hector Spanish. Due to his disease, Hextor is not allowed to go to school. ‘And the words forced their way into Hector’s head. English words, not those in Spanish. English words from books, English words from the streets, from opened windows, from stores. Fuck you, suck my cock! Good morning! Be quiet down there! How many? English words were long lists of medicines and snippets of books that added up to confusion. She taught him, but without any sense of order, priorities. And Spanish? Spanish was the language of memory, of violence and sadness. 77 In his teenage years, Horacio’s education founders and he is expelled from several schools. Only music seems to have his interest. And stabbing: he likes to stab things with knives. Only the visit of his Cuban family springs a light. 78 As for Hector, the prospect of seeing his aunt Luisa again, brings back sweet memories of Cuba. He makes an attempt to become more ‘Cuban’, though the idea also scares him (because of the bad bacteria). He wants his home to be more like the time he visited Cuba: full of sunlight, happiness and without troubles. He was sick at heart for being so Americanized, which he equated with being fearful and lonely. His Spanish was unpracticed, practically non‐existent. He had a stutter, and saying a Spanish word mad him think of drunkenness. A Spanish sentence wrapped around his face, threatened to peel of his skin and send him falling to the floor like Alejo. He avoided Spanish even though that was all he heard at home. He read it, understood it, but he grew paralyzed by the prospect of the slightest conversation. 79 Additionally, he becomes sick and tired of being seen as the son of a Cuban cook and hearing people say that he shows so much resemblance with his dad. He feels like a nobody, a hunchback and completely alone, while his father has his comrades: the Cubans. Hector always felt as if he were in costume, his true nature unknown to others and perhaps even to himself. He was part “Pop”, part Mercedes; part Cuban, part American – all wrapped inside a skin in which he sometimes could not move. 80 Conclusion Thus, in the end Hector is faced with an identity crisis. The quotes above indicate his desperateness. Interesting about Hector is the change that takes place as the years pass. Being just 77
Ibidem, 118.
Ibidem, 124-125.
79
Ibidem, 160.
80
Ibidem, 175.
78
29
a little child during his first visit to the island, he remembers Cuba as a romantic place of happiness. Paradoxically, this islet of happiness is responsible for the disease which will contribute to his misery. Hector returns home developing the Spanish language, but that does do not change anything about the fact that people do not consider Hector Cuban. As a result of to his light skin color and blonde hair he is identified as an American. As time floats by, Hector starts associating Spanish to misery: his parents yell and scream in Spanish. But it is also the language of his forbears, of Cuba: it is considered to be part of his cultural heritage; of his Cubano (especially according to his father and his Cuban friends). Due to his inability to speak Spanish Hector is not just excluded by Alejo and his friends, but also from his neighborhood, where everybody seems to speak Spanish. How else can he give expression to his Cubanness than by his tongue, not having the looks of a Cuban at all? The long‐term stay at the hospital and the lessons of his mother taught him the English language. Hector’s ability of expressing himself properly in English and his light skin tone, which makes people think he is American, many people would regard as a privilege. However, Hector appears to detest these features of his personality. He longs to be Cuban, but the Anglo American culture has already left a permanent mark on him. On the other hand, people probably will never accept Hector as a Cuban, as a consequence of his looks and his inability to speak Spanish. All these elements, but even more important, his controversial relationship to Cuba, keep him captured between two cultures. Mercedes on the other hand, transforms Cuba into an imaginary romantic paradise: it was there where she was happy with her family, kids, Alejo and her father. She surpasses the awful memories of her father in order not to demolish her happy picture. Like many immigrants, she is excited about America in the beginning. Several chances are offered to Alejo, but he does not take them. Instead of making money, becoming successful and fulfilling the American Dream, he destroys himself by partying and using alcohol, providing his family with a life in poverty. Mercedes resembles the powerless immigrant who is unable to speak the English language (though she tries to learn it) and who is not capable of participating in society. Further, she is also economically dependent on her husband and chained to traditional gender roles. She could have gained success as a poet, but for the last part, she is nothing more than a Cuban Cinderella. Her life is a range of missed opportunities. Tragically, Mercedes wants to be part of American society, but she will never be. US life became a living hell to her, Cuba her heaven rescuing her from everyday misery; nevertheless only in dreams. Horacio the eldest son, at first instance seems to embrace Cuban culture. Unlike his brother, he is able to speak Spanish and looks Cuban. At a certain point, he even admits that he feels ashamed of his little brother, who is considered a strange figure in their neighborhood. With the passing of the years, he nonetheless changes. He goes to England, and returns looking 30
European and decides to study European culture. Unlike his younger brother, Horacio does not seem to have problems with his dual identity. 2.3. Exiled memories 2.3.1 Pablo Medina Pablo Medina was born in Cuba and moved to the States at the age of twelve. He is a versatile author who has written several works of prose, fiction and non‐fiction. His works include The Return of Felix Nogara, The Marks of Birth (1994), the poetry collections The Floating Island (1999) and Arching into the Afterlife (1991), and the autobiographic Exiled Memories: A Cuban Childhood (1990). 81 During his writing career he received numerous awards, like from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Lila Wallace Reader's Digest Fund and the National Endowment for the Arts. He is currently working as a professor of English at the University of Nevada. 82 2.3.2 Exiled memories (1990) In Exiled memories Pablo Medina reconstructs his childhood in order to come to terms with his hyphenated identity. In the prologue Medina compares himself to Ulysses who returned to Ithaca after ten years of war and ten years of wandering. His narrative distinguishes itself from other writings: a large part of the story takes place on the island of Cuba and unlike other authors Medina sharply criticizes the way the Americans treated Cuba. Another remarkable feature is that he was Americanized before going to the United States, because Medina went to an American private school and also many of his childhood heroes were American. Yet, he never felt fully American and the same is true for his Cubanidad. This book is a record of my Odyssey, my return to Ithaca. Life in the United States for me has not been a search for roots (that would presume their loss), but rather a quixotic attempt to become a creature I never was nor never can be: an American as I understood, or misunderstood to it to be. I thought that changing nationalities was as easy as changing clothes, speech patterns, books to read. Twenty years (well, twenty‐
four) of wanderings taught me that nationality is in the soul, if it is anywhere, and to change that requires much more than window dressing of one’s body or tongue, or mind. The Americanization I sought for so long required the annihilation of memory, that tireless iday who is forever weaving and unweaving her multicolored tapestries. I don’t believe anyone can do that by natural means. 81
82
http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/medina_pablo.html
http://www.pmc.edu/solstice-faculty-staffz
31
Nor do I wish to delude myself that I am immaculately Cuban. I left the country of my birth at twelve, too young an age not to be thoroughly influenced and changed by a new environment. 83 Pablo Medina received his education at Robert F. Wagner Junior High, on East 72nd Street. According to Medina, the school was typical for New York, being ‘a microcosm of the city where all races mingled and fought and, on occasion learned’. At his first day at school he was surprised to see a girl being slapped in the face by a teacher and hearing her scream ‘mother fucker, mother fucker’. The indifference of the children surprised him. However, Medina would learn that indifference is the key to survival in New York. When a teacher compliments him on his beautiful complexion and asks where he comes from, for the first time in his life Medina becomes aware of his skin color. I had never thought of my skin, let alone considered it as a mark of foreignness. 84 In New York, Medina also had to say goodbye to his Cuban life of luxury. The building where he and his family lived, varnished the poverty of the families that lived in it. Medina often went to the city center in order to escape the sight of so many exiles who were swallowing in self‐pity and who suffered from stagnation. His family had expected that their stay in New York would be temporary. Nevertheless, after a few months it became clear that they would not return to the island. However, the family was determined to make the best of the situation. 85 Six months later the family moves into a humble apartment in the Upper Bronx at 236th Street. Medina notes that they were suddenly part of middle class mainstream America. His parents were able to buy china, new furniture and even a stereo set. They formed friendships with their neighbors. Living in Bronx style was not bad at all, especially in comparison to the livesof the black people at Fifth Avenue. Medina points iut the bad living conditions of blacks and the way they are treated by American society. The text does not give any hints that Medina feels connected to them. Probably he identifies himself as white. Black you are and poor you shall remain; black you are and dammed you shall be. The Avenue begins in Paris and ends in hell. The happy new life makes Medina somewhat forget where he comes from: ‘the past released its grip and ebbed far enough away so that only memory could reach it’. 86 83
Pablo Medina, Exiled memories (Austin 1997) x.
Medina, Exiled memories, 2-3.
85
Ibidem
86
Ibidem, 4.
84
32
Because of the strong economic ties between Cuba and the United States, English became the second most important language of Cuba. Consumer goods, movies and sports introduced the language into daily life. The American cultural and linguistic influence was most powerfully illustrated in Americanized nicknames. 87 Further, the knowledge of English became a mark of culture and status and who transacted business in English was able to gain a good place in the business community of Havana. For this reason, Medina and his sister were sent to an American school in Vedado. At school they had to read American classics, such as novels by Mark Twain and Harriet Beecher Stowe, English grammar and Cuban as well as American history. Thus, from a young age he was familiar with the English tongue and the American culture. 88 What I do know now is that I learned my second language better than anyone expected and was exposed, if indirectly, to a great deal of American culture, from the game of football to the obsession with holiday decorations to Americans’ inborn optimism an generosity, evident to me in the fairness of the American teachers and their concern for their students, no matter what social class they belonged. 89 Another result of Medina’s education was that all of his heroes were American. In his eyes, Cuba had nothing that could compete against Marilyn Monroe, Disney World, cowboys and Indians and Porky Pig. And most important of all: in America freedom still existed. The young Pablo Medina dreamt of an idealistic American life, based on images of fiction: More than anything I wanted to be an American and live in a suburb (where I now write from) and have a pretty blond wife who waited on me as Doris Day waited on Rock Hudson. And I wanted to have children like those spoiled brats of American television and I wanted to own a Buick and have martinis at lunch in a wood paneled bar surrounded by women dressed in black, and I wanted to be Eliot Ness, self‐righteously ridding the world of gangsters and booze; most of all I yearned for the reality of celluloid, truth of fiction. 90 However, he did not forget Cuba’s heroes completely. Besides Porky Pig and Rock Hudson, he admired Jose Marti, the Cuban freedom fighter. His exile life in New York taught Medina that life was hard. Having grown up protected him against the enemies of the outer world and after having lived a life as a pampered prince, he believed that everybody was loved by somebody else. Love was the force that made the world turn or was it not? 91 87
For example: Antonio becomes Antony
Ibidem, 55.
89
Ibidem, 58.
90
Ibidem, 59.
91
Ibidem, 59-60.
88
33
Exile taught me otherwise. The world was barren and cold outside, and although I learned to survive … lovelessness in New York quickly enough (one must in New York) and to appreciate my newfound privacy and independence, I often pined (still do) for that little world by the Quibú River, where everything and everyone fit without ever a need for parentheses. 92 Conclusion On Cuba, Pablo Medina grew up in a wealthy family. As a consequence his parents could afford to send him to an American private school. Thus from his first years, Medina was confronted with aspects of American culture like the English language and American history. In addition, a lot of American consumer goods were available on the island, due to the strong economic ties between the States and Cuba. It can be said that Medina was ‘Americanized’ before going to the United States. For him America was the country of his dreams. In the States, he was nevertheless confronted with his Cuban background. In New York, life turned out to be hard. Medina also observed the fate of others, for example the African American. Exile life taught Medina that the United States is not a wonderland where dreams come true. Just like Cuba, the States have a dark side, especially for those who are not (considered) white. As a consequence, the memory of Cuba becomes one of nostalgia. However, like Medina stated in the prologue, he has been so long away from the island that he can barely remember it. As a result he never fully be able to think of himself of as Cuban. And due to his (negative) experiences in New York, Medina would never been able to feel totally at home in the States. When Ulysses returned to Ithaca, he did not recognize his homeland, but after getting rid of the suitors of Penelope, he regarded Ithaca as his home again. Medina will never be able to make the American and Cuban suitors disappear. The only option left for him is to create an imaginary Cuban American identity and a fantasy Ithaca by writing about it. 2.4 Spared Angola: memories of a Cuban­American childhood 2.4.1 Virgil Suarez, Virgil Suarez was born on Cuba January, 29, 1962 as Vergilio Suarez. Between 1964 and 1967 the Castro regime arrested his father three times. Suarez wrote a novel about the experiences during this period, titled The cutter. In 1970 the Suarez family moved to Madrid. However, in Spain the family was once again confronted with a dictator. The family had to flee again for years and later headed for Los Angeles. In the United States Suarez learned that people had to pay a high price for achieving the American Dream. Learning the English language proved quite a challenge for the young author. Suarez tells that he became Virgil when his teacher proved to be unable to 92
Ibidem, 58.
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pronounce Vergilio. They automatically translated his name into English. Yet, when they tried his name sounded so funny, that he felt embarrassed. So Suarez was pleased with Virgil. This Cuban American author merely writes about the nature of exile and the struggles between American and Cuban society. The writings of Suarez also are laments about the loss of Cuba. His works represent his restless search for identity, but Suarez can only find his true home is his imagination. Although he has written prose, Suarez is primarily known as a poet and this aspect is greatly reflected in his novel Spared Angola, because he has incorporated poetry into his prose. 93 2.4.2 Spared Angola: memories of a Cuban­American childhood (1997) Spared Angola takes off with the arrival of Abuela Tina at Miami. She has not seen her family for twenty years. As she notices her grandson, Virgil Suarez, she says: You are a lucky young man. Your parents did the right thing. When they took you out of Cuba, your parents spared you. Yes, you were spared. Spared Angola. 94 The title, Spared Angola, refers to events in 1975. After being granted independence by Portugal, the former colonial ruler, three factions struggled for power: UNITA, (National Union for the Total lndependence of Angola) the NFLA( National Liberation Front of Angola)and the leftist MPLA(the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola). Cuba sent troops to support the MPLA. The aim was to defend the MPLA against invasions of apartheid in South Africa or Zaire, which were supported by the United States. A guerilla war erupted between the three factions. This seemingly endless conflict lasted until 1988, when an agreement was reached. Cuba and South Africa redrew their forces. The war cost a lot of money and (Cuban) lives. In order to avoid the possibility that Suarez had to fight in the war against Angola, his parents took him to the United States. Eventually, the war between Angola and Cuba became Cuba’s Vietnam. Suarez was confronted with American culture for the first time by translated American classics such as Moby Dick and The legend of Sleepy Hollow. Further, he received four years of education in Spain. Though born in Cuba, he experienced difficulties with the Spanish language. 95 Even to this day, I cannot understand the concept of accents or when to use v instead of b, as in vaca and y or ll, as in lluviia. Perhaps these problems were the reason why switching over to 93
Roberto G. Fernandez, ‘Virgil Suarez’ Latino and Latina US authors, Alan West-Durán ed. (New York 2004)
760.
94
Virgil Suarez, Spared Angola: memories of a Cuban-American childhood (Houston 1997) 10-11.
95
Suarez, Spared Angola, 81-82.
35
English, as a language within which to think and write, was so easy. I learned early not to get hung up with so much language stuff. 96 Only at high school Suarez begun to get the hang of English. While his Spanish teacher taught him that writing can be fun, his English teacher Mr. Goldstock helped Suarez with his second language. Young Suarez experienced difficulties with the speed in which he had to pick up his new mother tongue. However, he learned English soon, because on the playground he had to be able to defend himself verbally against bullies. As a result, he mastered the language within seven months. Suarez tells that it was in Mr. Goldstock’s class that he switched from thinking about writing in Spanish to thinking about writing in English. 97 Suarez’ love for the new language was so big, that he decided to make his living out of teaching English. Now working as a teacher himself, he tells his students: We share the beauty of English, and my job is to prop myself up as an example to them. My job is to make them proud of this beautiful language they were born into, but somehow come to take it for granted. 98 In Spain, people had asked him about his background, but the same happened in the United States although now in English. People expected him to answer Cuba, even though Suarez had only vague ideas about Cuba. I was exposed to these same ideas in English in this new country where I was to continue being an exile, where my accent, my awkward, foreign ways would always give away where I was from. The question was and is always presented to me: “where are you from?” The reply (though it has caused me some trouble) is always the same. Cuba, the land – whether reconstructed in my memory and recreated in films‐ that runs through my veins. 99 After his high school graduation, Suarez attends college at California State University at Long Beach. One day someone asks him where he is from and suggests that Suarez might start writing about Cuba. Shortly after this incident, Suarez begins his writing carrier. In order to find inspiration he makes a trip to the library in search of some books by Cuban American authors. To his amazement, there is not a single Cuban American novel to be found. Instead Suarez turns to the works of several famous Chicano writers, like Pocho and Bless me, Ultima. However, the books told 96
Ibidem, 82.
Ibidem, 84-85.
98
Ibidem, 84.
99
Ibidem, 85.
97
36
him about what it meant to be a hyphenated American. Suarez notes that 1989 saw an explosion of Cuban American novels. This provided him with examples for his own writings. 100 As said before, Virgil Suarez has included several poems in Spared Angola. In the poem First love he tells about his love for a girl named Tana B. She is the image of the ‘all American girl’ –
or Barbie‐ who looked down on him and put all black people in the same category, forgetting that not all black people are Afro Americans. Even though she looks down on him, Suarez learns to love her in a certain way. Tana B represents American (white) society, which looks down on immigrants like Suarez and pigeon‐holes them on the base of stereotypes. Due to the way Suarez is treated by American society, he has developed a love‐hate relation with the United States. First love Tana B‐ my fist love. She was blond and beautiful & she’d have nothing To do with me, the wetback, freshly arrived immigrant. To her we, all of us brown people, were from Tijuana. She let the word hiss out of her mouth. I loved her nonetheless, learned to love her the way a foreigner loves America with a bittersweet pain/pang of hate love 101 Another poem, English As A Second Language reveals the reason why Suarez managed to learn the English tongue so quickly. Like many children of immigrants, he was bullied at school. At first instance he was unable to defend himself, due to his inability to speak the language. Learning English became a matter of defense and necessity of survival. English As A Second Language 100
101
Ibidem, 86-87.
Ibidem, 104.
37
Learned it fast. Had to, for this was the language of survival. Knew I had to learn it when I squirted ink on Watkins and Tommy Laveer’s Hawaiian shirts. They chased me around cornered me & beat me up‐ all along I tried to explain. They told me to speak English, that if I didn’t they’d rip my tongue out of my mouth. & so I learned it, learned it in six months, & English would never again sound like the bark of mad dogs.102 While living in California, Suarez’ parents decided to learn English in order to defend themselves. His father had some arguments with Mexican Americans (pochos) who refused to speak Spanish. He had become furious: how could they not know Spanish? However, after a while they dropped out of classes: learning the language took too much time and trouble. 103 He recalls himself a conversation (in the seventies) with his father about the conditions of Latin America. Suarez’ father talks about cocaine dealers and wheelers in Colombia and Bolivia, about dictators like Castro ‘who know how to break down the opposition by crushing their families first’. Things are bad, father says, everywhere. Be thankful to live in the USA. My turn comes and I think of all the hatred & violence on the streets. The way people die quickly in 8‐to‐5 jobs, like Thoreau said, living lives of quiet desperation….Father gives me his best you’re full‐of‐shit look. I may not know what I’m talking about, but I know what I see and I don’t like it. 104 The various generations disagree. Suarez’ father, having fully experienced living under the Batista and Franco dictatorship, is glad to live a life of freedom in the United States, while his son, notices the dark side of the States. 102
Ibidem, 105.
Ibidem, 111-113.
104
Ibidem, 120-121.
103
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Conclusion In the case of Suarez being American is highly associated with the English language. A remarkable aspect is the fact that he seemed to have more trouble learning Spanish than English. In the text of Spared Angola the author constantly expresses his big love for the English language. In high school he finally begins to get the hang of that ‘difficult’ Spanish and learns to appreciate it. The remark of Suarez that it always took him some trouble to say Cuba, if people asked about his origins, indicates that he feels more connected to American society. Besides that, he notes that to him Cuba is nothing more than imaginary memories. However, due to his accent, skin color and other features people consider him automatically as foreign, although Suarez might identify himself as an American. This attitude makes that Suarez begins to question his identity. What does he know about Cuba? What does it mean to be Cuban? His writing career is based on a quest for identity. In order to find models for his quest, he is surprised to be unable to find books of Cuban Americans. Instead, he uses Chicano narratives as a role model. The fact that he does, might suggest that Suarez thinks that Chicano and Cuban experiences are interchangeable. In the end, he decides to be a ‘writer of two cultures’, writing in English but about Cuban experiences. The conversation between father and son functions as a general illustration of first and second generation immigrant perspectives. First generation immigrants in general tend to be more grateful and less critical of the United States (a guest country) than the second generation, which tend to criticize the evils of society (their home country) more. 39
Chapter 3: ‘All I want to say is that they really don’t care about us’ The title of this chapter might ring a bell, especially seen in the light of the recent death of Michael Jackson. However, in this way I intend to express the Puerto Rican general attitude towards the United States. Officially, Puerto Ricans have American citizenship which should imply that they are Americans. Many Puerto Ricans feel treated as second‐rank citizens, being confronted with racism and unequal treatment. For this reason‐ and unlike other Latinos‐ Puerto Ricans label themselves as Puerto Ricans instead of Puerto Rican Americans as a sign of protest. In this chapter, I will discuss the works by Piri Thomas, Judith Ortiz Cofer, Esmeralda Santiago and Giannina Braschi. 3.1 Down these mean streets 3.1.1 Piri Thomas Piri Thomas was born as Juan Pedro Tomás in Spanish Harlem, New York, 1928. He is the offspring of a Cuban mother and a Puerto Rican father. In Harlem he led a life full of crime, drugs and violence, until he was sent to prison after a shooting incident. After his stay in jail, Thomas decided to better his life. By writing about the horrible conditions in the ghetto he hoped that conditions in this part of New York would improve. In 1997, Thomas states that little had changed since the appearance of his famous novel Down these mean streets in 1967. 105 3.1.2 Down these mean streets (1967) Down these mean streets can be considered a true classic when it comes to immigrant stories. Although written in 1967, the tragic story about a dark Puerto Rican from Spanish Harlem, struggling with his identity, destroying himself by drugs and ending up in prison, remains up to date. For this reason and as a tribute to Thomas, the book was republished in 1997. The young Piri grows up in Spanish Harlem, New York, where he lives together with his parents, his sister Miriam or Sis and his brothers Jose, Paulie and James. Although the family is poor, Piri is highly attached to the barrio. In the second chapter ‘Puerto Rican Paradise’ it is 1941 and the family is plagued by poverty and immense cold. Piri’s mother complains about the coldness and tells her children about Puerto Rico, where everybody was poor but happy. ‘Moms,’ I asked ‘did everybody love each other‐ I mean like everybody was worth something, not like if some weren’t important because they were poor‐ you know what I mean?’ 105
http://cheverote.com/bio.html#write
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Bueno hijo, you have people everywhere who, because they have more, don’t remember those who have very little. But in Puerto Rico those around you share la probreza with you and they love you, because only poor people can understand poor people. I like Los Estados Unidos, but it is sometimes a cold place to live‐ not because of the winter and the landlords not giving heat but because of the snow in the hearts of the people. 106 When Piri’s father returns from this work, he is starving. He curses their miserable life and the Depression, while his wife Lolita searches comfort in her Puerto Rican daydreams. At this very moment Piri understands the big sacrifice his father had made for his family. And Poppa looking at Momma and us, thinking about how did he get trapped and why did he loves us so much that he dug the damn snow to give us a piece of chance? And why could’nt he make it home, maybe, and keep running? And Miriam, Jose, Paulie, and me just looking and thinking about snowballs and Puerto Rico and summertime in the street and whether we were gonna live like this forever and not know enough to be sorry for ourselves. 107 Poppa takes his ukulele and the entire family enjoys themselves by making music, forgetting their hardships for a moment and having a good time, even while not residing on the islet. Instead, they create their own Puerto Rican paradise in the barrio. The next day, the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor and Poppa is able to find a better job at an airplane factory. 108 In 1944, the Thomas family moves to Long Island. Piri describes the district as a foreign country, where everything is clean, pretty and full of whites. He hates Long Island, because of the white people. 109 The way Piri sees himself, is one of the most intriguing aspects of the novel. At a time, when Afro Americans were still considered second rank citizens and were discriminated against, he feels black and wants to be a Negro. One day a stranger asks him about his background. ‘Oh‐ er‐ do Puerto Ricans‐ er‐ consider themselves‐uh Negro?’ ‘I can only talk about me’ I replied. ‘but como es, es como se llama’ Gerald thought for a second and translated, ‘like it is, is how it’s called. Am I right?’ ‘Word for word, amigo’ I said. ‘I’m a Puerto Rican Negro’. 110 106
Piri Thomas, Down these mean streets (New York 1997) 10.
Ibidem, 11.
108
Ibidem, 12-14.
109
Ibidem, 88.
110
Ibidem, 173.
107
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However, the most remarkable aspect about his answer is the fact that Piri is black for only one‐
eight. The people he encounters are surprised about his answer. Brew, one his friends, tells him that he is the only black Puerto Rican he ever met, who longs to be a Negro. 111 Piri further despises his family before ‘denying’ their African blood. In the chapter ‘Brothers Under the Skin’ Jose and Piri argue about their background. Jose associates being a Puerto Rican with whiteness: their mother is white and their father has mingled blood. He explains the somewhat dark shin of his father by stating that his father has Indian blood running through his veins. Besides that, he notices his blond hair, his blue eyes and his lips which are nothing like a ‘baboon’s ass’. Piri points out that there used to live black people in Puerto Rico long before the coming of the Spaniards. He also notices the fact that they brought blacks slaves over from Africa. Still, Jose is not convinced and Piri beats up his brother, as a result of of his ‘denial’. Next, their father shows up to check what is going on. Piri tells him about their quarrel and confronts the whole family with his statements. While speaking to his family, Piri feels the pain of being a Negro inside him. 112 In the next chapter ‘Funeral for a prodigal son’ Poppa and Piri have a conversation in which Piri accuses his father of loving his other children more than him because of their (lighter) skin color. Poppa cannot provide his son with a clear answer. Yet, Poppa comes clean: he admits that he has been denying his African blood for years I saw the look of white people on me hen I was a young man, when I walked into a place where a dark skin wasn’t supposed to be. I noticed a cold rejection turned into an indifferent acceptance when they hear my exaggerated accent. I can remember the time when I made my accent heavier, to make me more of a Puerto Rican than the most Puerto Rican there ever was. I wanted a value on me, son. 113 Nevertheless, he never changed his name, John Thomas, in order to sound more Puerto Rican. He always told people that his father was so proud to be an American that he gave all his children American names. He also admits that he used to tell people that he had Indian blood. Concluding, he did everything to prevent people from thinking of him as a Negro. To Piri’s amazement, his father bursts down into tears, because he is obviously ashamed of his lies, stating that every time he felt like a’ puta’ and a ‘damn nothing’. 114 In the end, Piri leaves home to travel to the South, wanting to find out if he’s really a ‘nigger’. When Piri and his Negro friend Brew arrive in New Orleans, Piri is determined to hire a room and a white call girl. Together with a Mexican friend, he enters a hotel. Piri acts like he cannot speak English, attempting to pass for a Puerto Rican instead of a black man. His plan 111
Ibidem, 159.
Ibidem, 143-148.
113
Ibidem, 153.
114
Ibidem, 153-154.
112
42
works and after having enjoyed himself with a white girl, he tells her she had intercourse with a Negro. As the girl begins to scream, Piri flees the hotel, because back people are not allowed to enter. 115 His trip to the South can be seen as a quest with the purpose of finding out if he is really a Negro. Of course, there is no better place to find out than the American South with its history of slavery and racism. Southern people indeed consider him a black man: his experiences confirm his feelings about being black. Throughout the story, it also becomes clear that Piri possesses a violent nature. Combined with a profound hate for white people this turns out to be a fatal combination. After the trip to the South, he travels further. I learned more and more on my trips. Wherever I went‐ France, Italy South America, England ‐ it was the same. It was like Brew said: any language you talk, if you’re black, you’re black. My hate grew within me. Dear God, dear God, I thougt, I’m going to kill, I’m going to kill somebody. If I don’t kill, I’m going to hurt one of those paddies. 116 He comes back to New York with a big hate against anything white. 117 Back in New York, Piri immediately runs to his beloved Harlem. He finds himself a home and is soon sucked into the barrio life: he gets addicted to heroine (his aunt helps him to get clean), gets involved in the criminal circuit and gets himself into all sorts of trouble, like making a girl pregnant. When Piri and his friends intend to rob a bar, the situation gets out of hand: in the establishment they start shooting. Eventually Piri shoots a white police officer and is hit himself. Although the cop stays alive, Piri is sentenced to prison for five up to fifteen years. 118 During his stay in prison Piri tries to improve himself. Jail life is tough, but Piri manages to endure it and attempts to behave. As a result, he is released on probation seven years later. 119 Again Piri returns to Harlem, where he is going to live with his aunt. Nevertheless, after just a short period of time, he is destroying himself again: drinking too much, having sex with married women and smoking pot. This time however, Piri is determined to better his life. I was a grubby‐faced Puerto Rican man. I wasn’t a grubby‐faced Puerto Rican kid anymore; I am an hombre that wants to do 120 better. Man! I don’t want to be nuttin’. I want to be somebody. I want to laugh clean. I want to smile for real, not because I have to… 121 115
Ibidem, 187-189.
Ibidem, 191.
117
Ibidem, 192.
118
Ibidem, 195-237.
119
Ibidem, 241-298.
120
Ibidem, 319-331
116
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He realizes that yesterday is gone. It is today that counts and there will be many tomorrows to come. Tomorrows that will be better than his past. Piri is sure he is going to make it right this time, with the help of God. When he bumps into an old barrio friend he informs him that he is clean. Conclusion What can be said about Piri in conclusion? Piri’s relatives –except his mother‐ who are all less dark than he, associate being a Puerto Rican with whiteness. In addition, they consider themselves as whites. Nevertheless, Piri discovers that he feels black, even though he hates this fact in the beginning. According to his beliefs, being a Puerto Rican has nothing to do with skin color. Unlike his father, Piri refuses to lie about his African blood. His journey southwards confirms his identity: he is a Puerto Rican Negro and he is proud of it. The more he experiences problems with white people or paddies, the more he detests them. The shooting accident can be seen as the ultimate manifestation of this deep‐rooted hatred. That Piri considers himself a Puerto Rican probably has to do with his parents’ origin, because he has never been to the island and only knows it from stories: he does not have any connection to the island himself. Surprisingly, Piri keeps referring to himself as a Puerto Rican man, although born in the United States. Throughout the novel he constantly expresses his deep love for Harlem. Piri obviously considers the barrio as his home. This sentiment is expressed in several chapter titles like ‘Home, Sweet Harlem’ and ‘Hey Barrio – I’m Home’. Despite the fact Piri can speak Spanish, he expresses himself in English most of the time, or better: the street language of the barrio. Further, he addresses his parents as Poppa/Pops and Momma, instead of calling them papi and mami. Spanish is definitely not his first language. Further, he does not associate the language with being Puerto Rican, like Cubans for instance see speaking Spanish as a part of Cubanidad. One would assume that Piri would feel American, but the words American or America are scarcely uttered. Piri considers himself a Puerto Rican Negro born in Harlem. However, does that mean he feels American? We will never know. Nevertheless, it is clear that US society definitely has left his mark upon Piri. Maybe it had to do with the time : before the rise of the Civil Rights Movement American society was far more focused on the distinction between black and white. Perhaps the identity question of that day was: am I black or white, instead of am I American and/ or Puerto Rican? 121
Ibidem, 322.
44
Piri’s father came to the United States in order to try to provide his family with a better future. Ultimately he is able to improve his social position, being able to move from Harlem to Long Island. His son nevertheless, is highly attached to the barrio, although it is a place full of danger, drugs and poverty. Time and time again he returns to the neighborhood, even if its evils destroy him and suck him into a circle of poverty, drugs addiction and violence. What is the attraction about such a life, besides having certain friends? Escaping the hardships of life this way is easy, fighting and make something better of you life is the hard way. Near the end of the story, Piri is willing to struggle and make something out of his life. 3.2 The line of the sun 3.2.1 Judith Ortiz Cofer Judith Ortiz Cofer (1952) was born in Puerto Rico and raised in the United States after 1956. Although her family migrated to America, she has spent many extended periods at her grandmother on the island. Ortiz Cofer is known as one of the most widely published Latina poets. Yet, she is also famous for her novels, like In the line of the sun and silent dancing: a partial remembrance of a Puerto Rican childhood. 122 3.2.2 The line of the sun (1989) The line of the sun tells the tale of a Puerto Rican family, moving to New York in search of a better life, during the 1950s and 1960s. Marisol, the daughter of the family, recounts their story. Marisol’s mother Ramona, leaves the island with her husband Rafael and her brother Guzman. However, Guzman and Rafael represent different migrant ambitions: Guzman dreams of becoming rich and returning to the Puerto Rico afterwards, whereas Rafael intends to build up a whole new life in the United States. When Guzmán and Rafael shook hands after that conversation, they felt that they were finally men, discussing plans for a future that did not involve their parents or the town of Salud. They would come back someday as successful, maybe even rich men. They would point out to their children the humble place where their fathers were born. What they did not consider were the years likely to pass between that day when they were standing on the dirt floor of the 122
Carlota Caulfield, ‘US Latina Caribbean women poets: an overview’ A companion to US Latino literatures
Carlota Caulfield and Darien J. Davis ed. (Woodbridge 2007).
45
cockfighting pit, and the day when the long black car of their dream would pull up in front of Doňa Amparo's little store, blocking almost all of the streets. 123 Rafael is able to find a job in the US navy, while Guzman is engaged in seasonal labor. Ramona, Rafael and Marisol end up living in a crowded flat in Paterson, New Jersey, ‘El Building’ in a Puerto Rican neighborhood with Jewish landlords. Marisol's parents both have a totally different perspective of their residence. Two years in the Big Apple taught Rafael that street‐tough Puerto Ricans differ from island inhabitants: the latter are friendly and hospitable. He regards himself lucky because he ‘had escaped the brunt of racial behaviors only because of his fair skin and his textbook English, which sounded formal as European’. The same cannot be said of his wife and daughter, who both have olive skins. He decides his family will have a better life in Patterson, New Jersey, than in New York. Rafael sees the barrio as threatening to his loved ones and desires only to live temporarily in El Building. Ramona on her turn becomes highly attached to her new living environment. ‘It was easy for Ramona to become part of the ethnic beehive of El Building. It was a microcosm of Island life with its intrigues, its gossip groups, and even its own spiritist, Elba who catered to the complex spiritual needs of the tenants. Coming in from shopping, my mother would close her eyes and breathe deeply; it was a sign of relief, for the city streets made her anxious, and a taking in of familiar smells. In El Building women cooked with their doors open as a sign of hospitality. Hard‐to‐obtain items like green bananas from the Island, plantains, and breadfruit were shared. At the best of times, it was as closely knit a community as any Little Italy or Chinatown; the bad times, however, included free‐for‐all domestic quarrels in which neighbors were called into witness for a scorned wife’ 124 Year after year, Rafael tries to talk his wife into leaving El Building. Financially, they can afford something far better than a tiny apartment in El Building. Further, their screaming neighbors, the lack of privacy and the bad influence the neighborhood has on their kids, annoy Rafael. However, Ramona constantly refuses. She is afraid to leave her comfort zone. She fears other (unknown) neighborhoods, because life taught her that safety is in numbers: here she will never be completely alone when her husband is out for working. Besides that, she points out that in El Building, she is surrounded by others of their kind. 125 When El Building burns down due to an accident, Ramona is inconsolable. 123
Judith Ortiz Cofer, The line of the sun (Athens 1989) 148.
Cofer, Line of the sun, 170-171.
125
Ibidem, 172.
124
46
Ramona's grief had now settled into a quiet state melancholy. It was a tristeza that she would barely hold at bay for the rest of her life. The deconstruction of El Building had been her initiation, her rite of passage, and she was slowly accepting the fact that life would never be the same. 126 During the absence of Guzman and Ramona, the world of Marisol, Rafael and her brother Gabriel changes completely as Rafael fulfils his dream by buying a house in suburban West Patterson. No more screaming neighbors, privacy, room and a green lawn. The home is decorated in the best middle‐class American style. They are also the first Puerto Rican family to live in a middle‐class Italian neighborhood. The three of them love their new humble home. 127 All the same, when they show Ramona the house after her return from the island, she does not express much enthusiasm. Marisol notes that her mother must have felt like a stranger in the new house. Where were her plaster saints, the ones who got her through her lonely, difficult times when Rafael was at sea? What about the brilliant reds and greens and yellows that reminded her of her lost Island Paradise? 128 She notices as well that Ramona looks like a typically Puerto Rican woman. It hurts Marisol that her mother thinks so negative about their new home, while the rest of the family enjoys it so much. To Ramona however, the new house is a cage, isolating her from the world. Happiness is the ability to imagine something better for yourself. Ramona’s dreams of going back in style to her homeland had been her way of dealing with the drab reality of everyday life in a foreign land. Instead, she had lost what little she had and had come back from her real home to a place that threatened to imprison her. In this pretty little house, surrounded by silence, she would be the proverbial bird in a gilded cage. 129 Marisol tells that she is ‘lonely and fearful of life in a place where each house is an island’. Ramona hardly ever leaves the house. When Marisol attempts to comfort her by stating that by a year she will own a car and shall drive her wherever she pleases, Ramona asks her daughter if she can drive her to Puerto Rico. In her confusion, she wonders if next year there will be a bridge between the United States and her beloved island. 130 126
Ibidem, 280.
Ibidem, 282-285.
128
Ibidem, 284.
129
Ibidem, 285.
130
Ibidem, 285.
127
47
Thus ends the sad story of Ramona. Puerto Rico is her true home. She does not mind living in the United States as long as fellow countrymen surround her. For this reason, she feels so much at home at El Building. Departing El Building is like leaving the island all over again. The fire in which the building is demolished, not just smolders Ramona’s life and her material possessions that remind her of Puerto Rico, in a way the flames also destroy her cultural identity. Her trip to the islet gives her the opportunity to re‐establish her identity as a Puerto Rican woman. Back in the United States, it becomes clear that she will remain the strange immigrant, who keeps dreaming of home. Ultimately, after the death of Rafael, she returns to Puerto Rico for good. Home at last. Conclusion In a way, Ramona’s tale is comparable to that of the Cuban Mercedes. Both live in tiny apartments in a crowded multiethnic environment, both cherish happy memories of their island, both do not really participate in American life. They just sit in their apartments, without being able to talk the language. However, Mercedes is eager to adapt herself to American society, where Ramona is not. The only reason that she doesn’t mind living in the States, is that the life in El Building is almost the same as on Puerto Rico. While Mercedes complains about the poverty of her family and their social economic status, Ramona’s family climbs up the economic ladder. Ironically, she rather lives in an overcrowded and dangerous urban neighborhood than in a big house with a garden. Mercedes on the other hand, probably would have been very happy with a house like that. Both women will never become ‘Americans’. The nostalgic memory of their island is kept alive in dreams (especially in the case of Mercedes) as well as by objects. In their eyes, Puerto Rico and Cuba are a paradise lost. The story of Guzman represents that of the failed immigrant, who returns home with disillusionment. As mentioned earlier, Guzman intends to travel to the States, get rich and return home as a winner. Nonetheless, since his birth it has been clear, that he was cursed. Women came to tend her. It was, they say, like a funeral and a birth at the same time, with Mama Cielo holding her great belly distended by her last pregnancy and wailing for her niňo del Diablo: Guzman the demon child. 131 Guzman becomes the shame of Salud, because of his relationship with Rosa, a whore and medium ánd twice as old as he is. 131
Ibidem, 5.
48
Above all she had found one person who loved her without qualification: Guzman, the wild boy, the complex child who was loved by his mother with a passionate fierceness. Yet Mama Cielo’s inability to convey this love to Guzman with the words and the closeness that he longed of had created a deep chasm between them. The mother’s desperate search for a way to her son’s heart had brought them to Rosa’s house. But instead of mediating, the medium had fallen under the boy’s spell. 132 Eventually, Rosa sees no other option than to flee, because some women threaten to take her daughter from her. Guzman starts dreaming that their pads will cross each other again in New York. He is sure about that. Guzman’s first job in New York is picking strawberries. After some time, he escapes and works in the subway. After many years, he has saved barely enough money to return to the island. His dream a big car has vanished into smoke. When Guzman brings an unexpected visit to his sister Ramona in New Jersey, Marisol encounters her legendary uncle for the first time. However, by time she learns that he is just a man with a nose for trouble: his affairs with women had often made him flee and got him into trouble. The fire in El Building means not just a turning point for Ramona, but also for Guzman. While residing in the hospital, he comes to the decision of returning to Puerto Rico. 133 After fifteen years of absence, Guzman returns to Puerto Rico as a heartbroken man. In Salud he is confronted with the spitting image of a young Rosa. The young woman turns out to be Sarita, her daughter. Sarita is the opposite of her mother, being a pious Catholic. Of course, Guzman becomes enchanted by her beauty. The two of them end up getting married. Marisol notes that life has no happy ending for them in store. Yet, who would be surprised: since when do a demon and an angel form a good match? Even though Guzman ends up broken in a literal and a figurative sense, also Rafael has to pay a price for the American Dream. His job with the navy causes him to be separated from his family for long periods. After nearly fourteen years in the navy he had risen only to the rank of noncommissioned Officer, petty officer they called it. His job on an old World War II cargo ship was to watch the boilers. He spent ten to twelve hours a day below the water line, watching dials, alone. He learned silence there. He practiced it for hours, days, and months until he mastered it. When he came home to us, he found conversation difficult and the normal noise of life disturbing. 134 132
Ibidem, 94.
Ibidem, 273-280
134
Ibidem, 179.
133
49
Ergo, after working hard for years, Rafael has not raised much in rank. He does not experience the joy of seeing his children grow up and leads a life of such loneliness that in the end he finds it even difficult to communicate with people. As a consequence he becomes a stranger to his wife and children. On the other hand, one could state that he has improved his family’s standard of living (better than that of the average Puerto Rican in El Building). He eventually buys a home in suburban Patterson. Rafael has accomplished the American Dream of becoming rich, but he paid a big price. One could wonder if his efforts were worth it. Where does he belong? To the island which he left or to the United States, where he doesn't participate in general society? Last but not least, there is Marisol, the storyteller who was born on the island but grew up in the States. Judith Ortiz Cofer once remarked in an interview that her mother tried to secure their cultural heritage. Her father on the other hand, encouraged her to assimilate by learning English and adopting the American way of life. The characters of Ramona and Rafael reflect their various views. Marisol provides the author herself with a voice. 135 According to academic Carmen Haydée Rivera, in the epilogue an adult Marisol attempts to put the scattered pieces of her uncle’s life together, because at the same time the reconstruction enables her to come in tune with her own life. She notes that Guzman's story ' is not, nor will ever be finished'. The same is true for Marisol: she understands that her life as a bilingual immigrant is also an unfinished tale. Again and again her experience is renewed by the negotiation between the loss of her old culture and the struggle with a new culture, living environment and language. 136 However, just after the fire in El Building Marisol realizes: ‘I learned something during those days: though I would always carry my Island heritage on my back like a snail, I belonged to the world of phones, offices, concrete buildings and the English language. 137 Unlike her mother and uncle, Marisol feels more connected to the United States, the land where she grew up. She does not suffer like Ramona, who still after many years misses Puerto Rico and desperately tries to maintain her island identity, neither is she like Guzman, who longs for returning to the island, although being a failed immigrant who is bankrupt and ashamed. She is the immigrant child who benefits from her father’s sacrifice: due to his hard work Marisol and her little brother will have a better future. Ortiz Cofer’s novel demonstrates the ‘shadow side of the American dream’: in order of accomplishing the American dream one has to suffer and make 135
Carmen Haydée Rivera, ‘Judith Ortiz Cofer’, Latino and Latna writers, Alan West Duran ed. (New York
2004) 919.
136
Carmen Haydée Rivera, ‘Judith Ortiz Cofer’, 923.
137
Cofer, Line of the sun, 273.
50
sacrifices. Further, one is forced to ponder questions of identity: Who am I and who I do want to be? To what extent does one assimilate? Shall I embrace my new culture? 3.3 When I was Puerto Rican 3.3.1 Esmeralda Santiago Esmeralda Santiago was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico. At the age of thirteen her family moved to the United States. In New York she attended City’s Performing Arts High School, where she chose dance and drama as her majors. She spent eight years studying part‐time at community colleges before being offered a Harvard scholarship. In 1976, Santiago graduated magna cum laude. In the following years she wrote several celebrated and successful novels, such as América’s Dream, The Turkish lover, Almost a woman and When I was Puerto Rican. Nowadays Santiago lives in New York. 138 3.3.2 When I was Puerto Rican (1993) In When I was Puerto Rican Esmeralda Santiago tells about her Puerto Rican childhood and the challenges she faced when she eventually moved to New York. Her life is a chain of moving, poverty, fights between her parents and having to take care of a growing number of sisters and brothers. The first part of the novel deals with Santiago’s experiences on the island. Apart from the detailed description of Puerto Rican daily life, she provides a good insight in how the Americans tried to ‘Americanize’ the island and its inhabitants. 139 After years of bearing and taking care of her children, living in poverty with a man that comes home and goes as he pleases and who keeps chasing after other women, Santiago’s mother decides to take a job as a sewstress at a Puerto Rican factory. To make some extra money in order to provide for her extended family, consisting of Esmeralda, Delsa, Hector, Norma, Alicia, Raymond and Hector. By doing so, she is one of the first women in the island to break with traditional values and people start gossiping about her, but she does not care. Eventually, Momín decides to travel to New York on her own to visit some relatives. After her return, Esmeralda notes that her mother looks better than she ever did before. Besides that, suddenly she is trying to convince the father of her children to marry her. He refuses: is recognition of their kids not enough? In addition, he has provided her with a home and they had always had enough to eat (just enough). Next, Momín takes a drastic decision: she and her children will move to New York. If he does not care for them, she will do it on her own. 140 138
http://www.esmeraldasantiago.com/bio/bio.html
Esmeralda Santiago, When I was Puerto Rican, (Cambridge 1993) passim.
140
Santiago, Puerto Rican, 105-208.
139
51
When Esmeralda and her mother are sitting in the plane that will fly them to the United States, she notes their varying feelings. Neither of us could have known what lay ahead. For her it began as an adventure and turned out to have more twists and turns than she had expected or know how to handle. For me, the person I was becoming when we left was erased, and another one was created. The Puerto Rican jibara who longed for the green quiet of a tropical afternoon was to become a hybrid that would never forgive the uprooting. 141 The quote echoes the feeling the title of the book evokes, since the phrase ‘When I was Puerto Rican’ suggests the closing of a period of (Santiago’s) life and the (nostalgic) abandonment of an old identity. In the plane, Esmeralda announces she does not want to live in New York. She would rather travel to Mongolia and Timbuktu. At the airport Momín and three of her children are picked up by relatives. They are taken to an apartment in Brooklyn. Esmeralda’s first impression of New York is quite different from what she expected. She did not expect the streets to be paved with gold, but: 142 I expected them to be bright and cheerful, clean, lively. Instead, they were dark and forbidding, empty, hard. 143 The next days, Esmeralda, her sisters and brother accompany their mother on a bargain hunt. The first days in New York, they see mostly shops and markets. However, Esmeralda is impressed by the variety of people she encounters. Her mother tells her that Jews do not like Puerto Ricans , just like Afro Americans. Esmeralda notes that her mother tells her that Afro Americans are no foreigners, but black Americans: morenos. Although they are black, she considers them different from Puerto Rican negros, due to their way of walking and dressing. She is surprised to hear that they detest Puerto Ricans (according to her mother they think that Puerto Ricans steal their jobs): the island has many black inhabitants including herself. 144 There is a good reason why her nickname is Negi, an abbreviation of Negrita, meaning little Negro girl. 145 141
Ibidem, 209
Ibidem, 213-218.
143
Ibidem, 218
144
Ibidem, 222-225.
145
Ibidem, 19.
142
52
Naturally, Esmeralda has to attend school in New York. She notes that schools in Brooklyn had the habit of keeping immigrant children a grade back until their English was considered sufficient. Yet, when the school wants to put Esmeralda in the seventh grade for this reason, she protests. Her Puerto Rican rapport card is full of A’s! Esmeralda manages to convince Mr. Grant to place her in the eighth grade for six months. If she is unable to master the English language sufficiently she will be placed in the seventh grade. Nevertheless, she is placed in a ‘special class’: in this class full of children with learning problems etc. she stands out. Little Esmeralda keeps her promise: after six months she is able to write and understand the English language perfectly, only English conversation is sometimes difficult for her. Near the end of the year, her hard work is even praised. 146 Everyday after school I went to the library and took out as many children’s book as I was allowed. I figured that if American children learned English through books, so could I, even if I was starting later. I studied the bright illustrations and learned the words for the unfamiliar objects of our new life in the United States: A for Apple, B for Bear, C for Cabbage. As my vocabulary grew, I moved to large‐print chapter books. Mami brought me an English‐English dictionary because that way, when I looked up a word I would be learning others. By my fourth month in Brooklyn, I could read and write English much better than I could speak it, and at midterms I stunned the teachers by scoring high in English, History, and Social Studies. During the January assembly, Mr. Grant announced the names of the kids who had received high marks in each class. My name was called out three times. I became a different person to the other eight graders. I was still in 8‐23, but they knew, and I knew, that I didn’t belong there. 147 In the meantime, Momín starts working as a thread cutter. As a result of her hard work, she soon moves up to the stitching department. She tells her children that she labors so hard in order to make sure that they will end up in college instead of factories. Nevertheless, one day she takes Esmeralda with her to social welfare in order to gain governmental support. Like so many other first generation immigrants, her English is very bad and her daughter needs to translate for her. Social welfare turns out to be anything but a great help, because the welfare workers cannot believe that a strong looking woman like Momín can have difficulties in finding a job. To Esmeralda and her family, their neighbors are strangers or gente mala. 148 The family can only rely on their extended family, who every now and then provide them with clothes, food etcetera. Nevertheless, sometimes their help is not sufficient, but Momín is so proud and stubborn that 146
Ibidem, 227-237
Ibidem, 236-237.
148
Bad people
147
53
she never asked them for more help. The whole situation makes Esmeralda doubt her mother’s optimistic ideas. 149 Since we’d come to Brooklyn, her world had become full of new possibilities, and I tried very hard to share her excitement about the good life we were to have somewhere down the road. But more and more I suspected Mami’s optimism was a front. No one, I thought could beat down so many times and still come up smiling. Sometimes I lay in bed, in the unheated rooms full of beds and clothes and the rustle of sleeping bodies, terrified that what lay around the corner was no better than what we’d left behind, that being in Brooklyn was not a new life but a continuation of the old one. That everything had changed, but nothing had changed, that whatever Mami had been looking for when she brought us to Brooklyn was not there, just as it wasn’t in Puerto Rico. 150 In the chapter ‘A shot at it’ Esmeralda’s life finally is beginning to look successful. At school, her intelligence has not become unnoticed. One day the guidance counselor calls her to his office and asks her what she wants to do with her life. After a period of thinking, she answers that she wants to be an actress. Next, the guidance counselor arranges an audition at the School of Performing Arts. On the day of the audition Esmeralda thinks she failed. She fears that her dream will vanish into thin air. 151 I had dreamed of this moment for several weeks. More than anything, I wanted to impress the panel with my talent, so that I would be accepted into Performing Arts and leave Brooklyn every day. And I hoped, one day I would never go back. 152 Yet, Esmeralda’s fear turns out to be unnecessary. In the epilogue, it is revealed that after her graduation at the School of Performing Arts, she was awarded a scholarship and went toHarvard in Boston. 153 She thus succeeded in achieving her dream. Conclusion Momín can be seen as a typical example of a woman who desperately wishes a better future for her children. Both in Puerto Rico and the United States, she constantly moves with her children, in search of better opportunities. Her breaking with traditional Puerto Rican rule patterns shows her commitment to her ‘mission’. Her next step, moving to New York alone with seven children requires even more courage. Like other female character, as the Cuban Mercedes, 149
Ibidem, 246-254.
Ibidem, 247.
151
Ibidem, 256-263
152
Ibidem, 263.
153
Ibidem, 269-270.
150
54
she is unable to speak the language properly, although she speaks some English. Momín also dresses herself in an American way. Like Lourdes from Dreaming in Cuban she does not seem to miss ‘her island’: the United States brings her family progress. However, she does not have a husband who provides her with money. In addition, she does not allow her partner beating her up all the time. In general, she can be considered a tough woman. Even though she does not seem able to achieve the American Dream for herself, at least she creates a change for her children. All together, it can be said that Esmeralda’s life is a success story. She seems to be the embodiment of the idea that you can make it in life by working hard. In addition, she is blessed with a good intelligence and working ethos. Throughout the story, there are many signs of discrimination, or perhaps the fact that the school wants to put her in another grade. She does not seem to experience difficulties because of her skin color at all and does not seem to mind the fact that she is black. The big question about her is if she regards herself more as a Puerto Rican or an American or perhaps as both? Throughout the story, Esmeralda admits that she hates Brooklyn: the neighborhood is unsafe and in the beginning they live under horrific circumstances, just like in Puerto Rico. Her words while sitting in the airplane provide the best answer to this question: she thinks of herself as a hyphenated person whose Puerto Ricanness has been messed up against her will. Nevertheless, in ‘A note to the reader from Esmeralda Santiago’ she describes her situation as follows. When I returned from Puerto after living in New York for seven years, I was told I was no longer Puerto Rican because my Spanish was rusty, my gaze too direct, my personality too assertive for a Puerto Rican woman, and I refused to eat some of the traditional foods like morcilla and tripe stew. I felt as Puerto Rican as when I left the island, but to those who had never left, I was contaminated by Americanisms, and therefore had become less than Puerto Rican. Yet, in the United States, my darkness, my accented speech, my frequent lapses into the confused silence between English and Spanish identified me as foreign, non‐
American. In writing this book I wanted to get back to that feeling of Puertoricannes I had before I came here. Its title reflects who I was then, and asks, who am I today? 154 154
Ibidem, 278.
55
3.4 Yo­Yo Boing 3.4.1 Giannina Braschi Giannina Braschi was born on February, 5th 1953 on the island of Puerto Rica in the city of San Juan. Her parents took her to live in Rome, Paris, London, Madrid before settling in New York in 1975. Although she has been living in New York for many years and gained acceptance in the Nuyorican writing movement, she considers herself foremost a Puerto Rican author. ‘We’ve never felt American’, she stated about the island. In 1980 she received her Ph.D at the State University of New York. She states that all her works should be considered as one large work. Braschi gained success with El emperio, a collection of poems, in 1988. 155 However, the novel Yo­
Yo Boing! can be said to be her most celebrated and famous work. After its publication in 1998, reviews were positive and her achievement was awarded with a Pulitzer Prize. 156 3.4.2 Yo­Yo Boing (1998) At first, the choice to discuss Yo­Yo Boing might appear strange, because this postmodern novel does not tell a detailed immigrant experience. Instead it is a post‐modern exploration of Puerto Rican American identity. According to postmodern philosophy, the world is uncontrollable and for that reason postmodern artists often mix various styles and techniques. Ergo: they do not care about rules. Giannnina Brashi for instance, mingles poetry with prose and stage dialogues. Hitherto, the most remarkable feature that makes this novel so special is the use of language: Yo­
Yo­Boing is namely written in English, Spanish and a mixture of both: Spanglish. This mingling can be explained as an illustration of strong hybridism. On the other hand, Braschi’s work can be seen as a political statement when it comes to the future of Puerto Rico. Puerto Ricans have been asked about the future of their island. They could choose between independence or staying part of the United States. Another option was ‘none of the above’. Many Puerto Ricans choose the latter option, as if they do not want to choose their destiny. Like other Latinos, Puerto Ricans must manoeuvre between two languages. Sometimes Spanglish is the outcome of bilingualism. In the Yo­Yo Boing, the author considers this language‐
issue and ultimately she prefers Spanish to English and Spanglish. By choosing Spanish, Braschi is making a statement: she refuses to adapt, because she demands to be accepted the way she is. America should not be a society where immigrants should acculturate and blend into one uniform society. Instead it should be a pluralistic society with room for cultural differences. The strongest expression of her opinion is her statement that New York is Spanish. 155
156
Adriana Estill, ‘Giannina Braschi’ Latino and Latina writers, Alan West-Durán ed. (New York 2004).841
Estill, 'Giannina Braschi’, 846.
56
The title Yo­Yo Boing evokes images of a yoyo. In the article ‘Either and ’ Harvard professors Doris Sommer and Alexandra Vega Merino state that a yoyo carries the possibility of two special extremes and a wide range of in‐betweeness. 157 The identity of Puerto Ricans in the United States can thus range from exclusively American to completely Puerto Rican. Between these two ends there are multiple varieties of (bi)lingualism and (bi)culturalism. The scholars however also thought that the title might refer to the novel Yo! of the well‐known Dominican‐
American author Julia Alvarez. Yo is a short version of the protagonist’s name: Yolanda. Scholars used to think that that Giannina Braschi was improving the title for the general first person or herself. 158 Sommer and Vega Merino also suggest that yo‐yo refers to the Spanish word ‘yo’, meaning I and the English word ‘you’. 159 Nevertheless, Braschi reveals that the title refers to the Puerto Rican comedian Luis Antonio Rivera. He used the name Yo‐Yo‐Boing as a name for his performances. The suggestion that yo‐yo also refers to ‘yo’ and ‘you’ I do not consider very plausible. The novel is divided into three sections. The first and third part, ‘Close‐Up’ and ‘Black‐
Out’ are short and act as a prologue and epilogue, while the middle part ‘Blow‐up’ makes up the central part of the story. Although the second chapter has the shape of a bilingual dialogue between two persons, I would suggest this is rather an inner dialogue between the ‘I’’s or ‘yo’’s. In the last chapter the outcome of the inner debate is that Giannini embraces her identity. Spanish was her first language and always will be her first language: thus, the novel takes off in Spanish and ends in Spanish. Adriana Estill, assistant professor of English and American Studies at Carlton University, states that there exists a constant travel between yo and yo, because conversation between them never ends. The yo‐yo metaphor can also refer to the impossibility of stable or finite relationship between binaries. 160 The second chapter of the novel ‘Blow Up’ seems to be an unstructured dialogue between the protagonist and other people. They discuss movies, politics and many other aspects of life. According to scholar Julia Corrall the dialogue must be interpreted as a series of frustrating attempts to establish a bilingual aesthetic. 161 Even though Braschi does her utmost best she can, she ultimately fails, ending the chapter in a tidal wave of Spanish words. 162 157
Doris Sommer and Alexandra Vega Merino, ‘Either and’ Yo-Yo Boing (1998)15.
Sommer and Vega Merino, ‘Either and’,15.
159
Ibidem, 114.
160
Estill, ‘Giannina Braschi’, 841-842.
161
Julia Carroll, ‘Spanish affect and its effects: bilingual process in Giannina Brashi’s Yo-Yo Boing’ Leading
ladies: mujeres en la literature hispana y las artes (Louisiana 2006) 96.
162
Braschi, Yo-Yo Boing, 190-193.
158
57
‘La única manera en que me siento bien es en el way I feel well is in the eternal dynamism of my errant self the only way I feel well in the eternal dynamism of my errant self. Ergo: the self is only well when in movement, being dynamic, while yo‐yo‐ing between spaces, texts, languages, imaginations and realities. 163 At a certain moment the protagonist starts an argument with a waiter, feeling being discriminated against. How dare the waiter think she is a tourist just because she speaks Spanish! She tells him that New York speaks Spanish, referring to the city’s many Spanish speaking inhabitants. -
Why is the tip included into the bill? -
I’m sorry, I thought you were tourists. -
Tell me, where am I from? -
I’m sorry. I really don’t know. -
New York -
You were speaking Spanish. -
New York speaks Spanish. I want to know what is the criteria for determining who are tourists. -
It’s up to each waiter. We’re bound to offend some people. -
Who. You’re not worried about offending Spanish‐speaking people. Everybody gets the red stamp. I’ll write to the New York Times about this establishment. -
Our apologies. We’ll return the tip. -
That’s right, missy, no tip because of the discriminatory policies. -
Our apologies. Cognac on the house. 164 Her ‘conversation partner’ (read: her other self) says she has defended Giannini against discrimination. ‐Defended me? I was defending you. It was because of your accent. They discriminate against Hispanics. Face it, you know it exists, but when someone slaps your face, you freeze and fall mute. Y cuando no hay ningún problema tú lo creas. Yo pensé, so what? You don’t like to be on committees. 165 Later on, the protagonist proclaims that multiculturalism is dead (just like the author, God and other things are dead according to postmodernism) and the fact its is being taught in universities is evidence enough to her. She also hates African, gay and Asian models. Brashi considers these models rubbish: in fact they are one and the same model: unification. The lady 163
Ibidem, 847-848.
Ibidem, 117.
165
Ibidem, 118.
164
58
with the strong opinion states that unification destroys Europe, yet at the same time she suggests that the American assimilation stimulus ruins cultural diversity. 166 When the protagonist is asked which poets she has read lately, she answers ‘none of them’. Her conversation partner responds by stating she limits her public by publishing into two languages: knowing a language is knowing a culture. By writing in both Spanish and English Braschi does not respect either of them. She replies saying that if she thought the same way about language as her companion, she would not write at all. Her aim is to break language walls and make them fall down. The fall of the Berlin Wall is used as a metaphor: when the symbolic wall between Spanish and English will break down they can live together in harmony. On the other hand, Braschi plays with the thought of creating a new language (Spanglish) comparing herself to writers like Dante. 167 Her linguistic bewilderment mirrors her confusion about her identity. ‐ My confusion is my statement of clarity. I live with plenty of identities within myself. And I want all of them to work. (…) I have asked myself what I am doing here, listening to a Rican who can’t spick English or Spanish. ‐ I can understand Spanish, but I can’t understand Puertorricans. ‐ We have a similar problem. I can understand English, but I cannot understand Americans. ‐ Scum of the earth. Destiérrenlos de la república. Sponges. Chameleons. 168 She might want them (her multitude of identities) all to work, but as the words above illustrate that is not the case. The conversation continues like this: ‐You could be free like me if you go to therapy. ‐ I don’t want to be like you. ‐ It’s not what you want to be. It’s what you are. You don’t want to accept yourself as you are. ‐ It is so if you think so. ‐You think so. You think so. ‐ No, I don’t think so. But if you think so. ‐I think so. ‐Well, I’m not what you thinks so. Only, if I think so. Myself is not yourself. And it is not if you think so. Only if I think so. So you don’t think so, in my book, it is not so. Not if you think so, it is not. 169 166
Ibidem,121.
Ibidem, 142.
168
Ibidem, 143.
169
Ibidem, 170.
167
59
Should she go into therapy if she will ever be able to accept herself as she is, or is she perhaps already in therapy? As stated earlier, ‘Close‐up’ and ‘Black‐out’ function as a prologue and epilogue. ‘Close‐
up’ is written from a third person perspective and gives a description of a woman and her bathroom rituals. The chapter focuses on the protagonist’s love for her body, even though she regards some parts ‘ugly’ or ‘bad’. According to Estill, the text in ‘Close‐up’ operates as a photo‐
graphic close‐up, not allowing the reader and the protagonist the chance to remove oneself from the examination of the body. She also states that this section functions as introduction to the carnavalesque and its many masks. The making up of the woman with beauty products is simultaneously the making up of a creation of language and sound. 170 ‘Black‐out’ ends the novel in Spanish, underlining the importance of the Spanish language for Braschi. 171 In the article‘ Spanish affect and its effects’ scholar Julia Carroll suggests that the closing chapter acts as a reverse mirror image of ‘Close‐up’. She considers both chapters to be studies in likeness and contrast. In the first chapter the unidentified protagonist stares at her reflection in a bathroom mirror, while in 'Blackout' she captures her fragmented reflection in storefront windows, while making her way through Manhattan. The situation in the final chapter is a reversal of the first one: while the bathroom is a private space where the woman can study the 'perception of the wholeness of her subjectivity' in peace, the city is a thriving public space where she can only catch glimpses of her reflection. In 'Black‐out' the female protagonist finally identifies herself as Giannina, after having experienced a healing process in the former chapter. In my opinion, this process can be identified as the suggested therapy in the line on page 170: You could be free like me if you go to therapy. At the beginning of this process, the author blames herself for her constantly changing and splintered identity. 172 Pero quién soy yo si yo no me descrubro en ninguna de las dos personas que se están mirando, a ver si me reconcen a mí, cuando ya yo me he ecapapado, porque no aguento estar fija en un sinstante que tenga la osadiá de querer fijarme como un cuadro en los clavos una pared, no aguanto ser yo misma, la que acabo de ser, la que ya no soy, la que se escapó co el instante que ya no es 173 But who am I when I don’t discover myself in any of the two persons that are being seen, to see that I recognise myself, when I have already escaped, why I do not want to be a winner on a moment that has the courage to long for confirmation like a painting nailed to the wall, I do not 170
Estill, ‘Giannina Brashi’, 841-842.
Ibidem 841-842.
172
Julia Carroll, ‘Spanish affect and its effects’ 103-104,
173
Braschi, Yo-Yo Boing,196.
171
60
wait to be myself, the she that stops being the she that I am not, she who escapes the moment when she does not exist anymore. The fact that Giannina is walking through the city, identifying herself and exposing herself to the world suggests that she has come to terms with herself, instead of feeling ashamed and hiding herself in her bathroom. She has come out of her cage and is doing just fine. However, according to Carroll, this suppression of the self also symbolizes the release of Spanish. By opening up the psychological space for Spanish, Braschi hints for the possibility of ‘more outward communication’ in this tongue. 174 Conclusion All together, Yo­Yo Boing can be seen as a demonstration of an inner dialogue about identity. First, Giannina looks at her complete self in the private condition of her bad room, feeling ashamed about herself. This part is written in English. Next, she starts a dialogue between her Puerto Rican and American self in Spanglish. As an author, she does not want to choose between Spanish or English. Braschi will have to write in both languages or in Spanglish. However, Giannina fails to do so. In the epilogue, Giannina stares in a scattered image of herself in shopping windows, representing her splintered identity: she is a Puerto Rican living in the United States. In the end, she symbolically rejects against the concepts of assimilation to English and the mixing up of two languages. Spanish is her language, New York is Spanish: it has become a part of American culture. It is as if Braschi rejects against the concept of America as an Anglo‐
Saxon nation. The United States is just like her: hyphenated. 174
Caroll, ‘Spanish affect and its effects’ 103-104.
61
Chapter 4: ‘Just because I’m losing, doesn’t mean I’m lost’ In this chapter I will discuss four famous Dominican American writings: Drown, Something to declare, Soledad and Geographies of home. All protagonists seem to be lost, though all in a different way: they struggle with their identity, life and their families. They seem to be at the losing hand, but are they? Are they lost in the sense that they have lost the battle against life or are they lost in the sense of being gone astray? 4.1 Drown 4.1.1 Junot Diaz Junot Diaz was born in the Dominican Republic in the city of Santo Domingo. At the age of seven he arrived in the United States. He graduated at Rutgers University and received his Master of Fine Arts degree from Cornell University. Nowadays Diaz lives in New York and works as a professor of creative writing at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His fictional writing has appeared in the New Yorker, The Best American Short Stories and the Paris Review. His novel The brief wounderous life of Oscar Woa became a bestseller. 175 Diaz states that his generation is ‘a nation asserting their Latino roots'. This includes people of different ethic and racial heritages. According to scholar Conrad Martinez, Diaz’ generation of novelists echoes these sentiments. The novelist notes that the generation before him was invisible and did not ask themselves whether they were Puerto Rican or Dominican. 176 Perhaps Diaz is right, when keeping in mind the example of Down these main streets. 4.1.2 Drown (1996) Drown is a collection of ten short stories dealing with various aspects of immigrant life, which together form one large story. Most tales are set on the American East Coast, however other stories show the experiences of the ones left behind at the Dominican Republic. All together, the tales tell the history of a Dominican family, consisting of Papi (Ramon), Mami, Rafa, Yunior and a little sister. In most cases Yunior acts as the storyteller. The reader learns how he grows up without his father who had left for the United States. Diaz also documents his experiences and feelings. Further, the story 'No face' tells the tale of Ysrael, a Dominican boy with a mutilated face, who used to be bullied by Yunior and Rafa. Since every story is written from the perspective of a first‐person narrator, Diaz provides the reader with detailed and authentically feeling narratives. 175
176
Conrad Martinez, ‘Between the island’ 111.
Ibidem, 113.
62
Diaz begins his novel with a poem of the Cuban poet Gustavo Perez Firmat. The fact that I am writing to you in English Already falsifies what I wanted to tell you. My subject: how to explain to you that I don’t belong to English Though I don’t belong nowhere else Gustavo Perez Firmat 177 By quoting the words of the Gustavo Perez Firmat and the positioning of this poem before the first chapter, Diaz evidently highlights his identity crisis: he does not feel connected to English, but neither to any other language. Language also fulfills an important function in Drown. The English of Junot Diaz is full of street language, Spanish and Afro American modes of speaking. Unlike in the works of other authors, these ‘exotic’ words are not printed in Italics. Scholar Jacqueline Loss states that for Diaz neither the English or Spanish language is sufficient to entirely tell the experiences of Drown’s characters. She mentions the poem of Gustavo Perez Firmat as an example. Next, she refers to a well‐known interview of Diaz titled ‘Fiction is the poor man’s cinema’ in which he stated that he longed to keep Spanish as ‘normative in a predominantly English text’. In this way the English language is necessarily changed. 178 The first chapter, 'Ysrael', is told by Yunior, while being a young child. He tells about Ysrael, a boy whose face has been mutilated by a pig. For this reason his face is always hidden behind a mask. Rafa and Yunior bully him, saying the boy is stupid. Nevertheless, the deeper cause of their bullying is jealousy. 179 ‘Ysrael’s sandals were of stiff leather and his clothes were North American. I looked over at Rafa and my brother seemed unperturbed. 180 We made a long circle and by then Ysrael had his kite in hand –his kite was no handmade local job. It had been manufactured abroad (…) Where did you get that? I asked. Nueva York, he said. From my father. No 177
Ibidem, 1.
Jacqueline Loss, ‘Junot Diaz’ Latino and Latina writers, Alan West-Durán ed. (New York 2004) 805.
179
Junot Diaz, Drown (New York 2007) 3-10.
180
Diaz, Drown, 15.
178
63
shit! Our father’s there too! I shouted. I looked at Rafa, who, for an instant, frowned. Our father only sent us letters and an occasional shirt or pair of jeans at Christmas. 181 Not only the materialistic gifts of Ysrael’s father make Rafa and Yunior green of envy, also the fact that he is going to be operated in the United States seems to annoy them. Probably Yunior’s father is making a good deal of money abroad, being able to pay for Ysrael’s expensive face operation. I’m going to have an operation soon. You better watch out for that, Rafa said. Those doctors will kill you faster than the Guardia. They’re American doctors. Rafa sniggered. You’re lying. I saw them last spring. They want me to go next year. They’re lying to you. They probably just felt sorry. 182 Eventually Rafa utters his frustration by beating the boy up. In the chapter ‘Aguantada’ it becomes evident that Yunior has not seen his father for years. I lived without my father for the first nine years of my life. He was in the States, working, and the only way I knew him was through the photographs my moms kept in a plastic sandwich bag under her bed. 183 For years, Yunior and the rest of the family have been living in extreme poverty in the Dominican Republic. When Papi suddenly arrives back home in the Dominican Republic, Yunior wonders who that strange man is. I would see him coming from the trees. A man with swinging hands and eyes like mine. He’d have gold on his fingers, cologne on his neck, a silk shirt, good leather shoes. The whole barrio would come out to greet him. He’d kiss Mami and Rafa and shake Abuelo’s reluctant hand and then he’d see me behind everyone else. What’s wrong with that one? he’d ask and Mami would say, He doesn’t know you. In the chapter ‘Fiesta, 1980’ the family is reunited and live in the United States. They are throwing a party for other family members who have just arrived in America. On their way to the airport, where they are going to pick up their relatives, Yunior gets sick. He explains this is 181
Ibidem, 16.
Ibidem, 17.
183
Ibidem, 69.
182
64
the result of a third world childhood: lack of clean water, sufficient healthy food and good medical care have destroyed his immune system. 184 Nevertheless, their migration to the United States has had a positive effect on Mami, because Yunior notices: Mami looked really nice that day. The United States had finally put some meat one her; she was no longer the same flaca 185 who had arrived here three years before. She had cut her hair short and was wearing tons of cheapass jewellery which on her didn’t look too lousy. 186 Yunior’s remark suggests that the living conditions of the family have improved. The fact that his mother has been able to buy ‘tons of cheapass jewellery’ and the fact that she has put on weight implies that the financial situation of the family has improved. The final chapter, ‘Negocios’ reveals how Papi, Ramon de las Casas, heads for the United States in order to make a better life for his wife and children. In the Dominican Republic he experiences trouble with his wife: various people have told her he has an affair with a hooker. Ramon tries to convince his father‐in‐law the rumors are false. Ramon asks him some money so that he can take his wife and children to the United States, so he can offer them a better life. His father‐in‐law provides him with just enough money for a plane ticket to Miami. Subsequent to his arrival in Miami, he is able to find a job as a dishwasher. He tries to avoid thinking of his family. When he has learned a little English and has saved some money he takes a bus to New York City. However, on his way to the Big Apple he gets stranded and is forced to hitchhike. In addition, he has not been able to save money and thus arrives in New York without a penny. Nueva York was the city of jobs, the city that had first called the Cubanos and their cigar industry, then the Bootstrap Puerto Ricans and now him. 187 During his first year in New York, Ramon lives in Washington Heights, a Dominican neighborhood close to Manhattan. He has two jobs and again tries to save some money. His aim is to use his capital to arrange a marriage and thus a legal residence. Nevertheless, Ramon is deceived by some so‐called friends and all his savings are gone with the wind. By time, the improvement of Ramon’s English causes him to be able to find better jobs. At a certain point, he even meets a Dominican woman Nilda and marries her. Nevertheless Ramon keeps silent about 184
Ibidem, 23-43.
A meager woman.
186
Ibidem, 24.
187
Ibidem, 167.
185
65
a little detail: the fact that he is already married and has children. Not surprisingly, Nilda is shocked, when she finds out the truth. In the meantime various acquaintances try into lure Ramon in so‐called well‐paid jobs, but the protagonist dreams of his own negocio. When his life is beginning to look fine and he starts thinking about bringing his first family over to the States, his fortune however changes, when he injures his back at a certain moment. After being discharged from the hospital Ramon is reduced in rank and eventually looses his job. In addition, his relationship with Nilda, who has already given birth to a son, is going down the drain. Years later, Yunior visits Nilda and he learns that Ramon left her just as unexpectedly as he had left his family in the Dominican Republic. 188 Diaz has devoted several chapters to Yunior's adolescent experiences in the United States, namely, ‘ Edison, New Jersey', ‘Boyfriend' and ‘ Aurora’) . In ‘Aurora’, Yunior and his friend Cut are making their living by dealing drugs. Yunior is having a relationship with a drug addicted girl named Aurora. They do not see each other often, but when they do they meet in a dirty, old apartment until at certain moment, Aurora ends up in prison. After her release, Yunior learns that she was pregnant with his child, but got an abortion. One day they find an old abandoned apartment. Right there, they escape the horrors of daily life and imagine a life together in a nice house with some children. However, they know that their simple dream will never become reality. 189 In the chapter 'Edison, New Jersey’ , Yunior is working for a pool table seller and has to deliver items to customers. He is proud of his job, but even more of their rich costumers. 190 You should see our customers. Doctors, diplomats, surgeons, presidents of universities, ladies in slacks and silk tops who sport, thin watches you could trade in for a car, who wear comfortable leather shoes. 191 The customers represent a totally different world, a world to which Yunior never ever will belong. He in contrast, has to steal even if he wants to give a girlfriend a present. Nevertheless, his relationship ended some time ago. His partner in crime, Wayne, is married and keeps cheating on his wife. Also Yunior’s mother has no luck in love: she and Ramon eventually get divorced. Her heart would break if she knew that her son was stealing and dealing drugs. 192 The life her son leads in the United States can be said to be almost the same (or perhaps a bit 188
Ibidem, 163-208.
Ibidem, 47-65.
190
Ibidem, 131-147.
191
Ibidem, 122.
192
Ibidem, 121-140.
189
66
better) as the life he would have lived in the Dominican Republic: a life of poverty, crime, violence and drugs. Even Washington Heights seems to be a replica of the Dominican Republic. Everything in Washington Heights is Dominican. You can’t go a block without passing a Quisqueya Bakery or a Quisqueya Supermercado or a Hotel Quisqueya. If I were to park the truck and get out novboy would take me for a deliveryman; I could be the guy who’s on the street corner selling Dominican flags. I could be on my way home to my girl. Everybody’s on the streets and the merengue’s falling out of windows like TVs. 193 In the case of Yunior and his family American life eventually seems to resemble their life in the Dominican Republic. The American Dream of Ramon turns into a nightmare, alienating him from his first wife and his children and also from Nilda and not being able to make a decent living. Conclusion The characters in Drown embody the dark side of the American Dream. With pain in his heart Ramon leaves his family in order to create a better life for them in the States. He arrives in New York without a penny and without being able to speak a word of English. Nevertheless, he manages to survive: meanwhile he gets better jobs and his English language skills improve. Despite these improvements he still does not earn enough to bring his family over to the United States. His loneliness makes him seek comfort with another wife who he even marries and who bears him a son. Marrying a Dominican American woman provides Ramon with a visa, but it also tells something about his moral values: back in the Dominican Republic his wife accused him of cheating. In the end, Ramon misses his first family so much that he brings them over to the States, after having lost his job. Back there, the family does not live a happy and successful life. After Ramon and his first family are reunited in the United States, the relationship between Ramon and his first wife is destroyed by the fact that she knows about Nilda, the other Dominican wife and as a result, they divorce. The most important character of Drown, Yunior leads a dramatic life. In the Dominican Republic, as in the States as well he experiences poverty and the hard street life. The bullying of and beating‐up of Ysrael illustrate their jealousy: though the boy has a mutilated face he has a father who is in America and who sends him kites, jeans and letters. Those are signs of his (material) success. The letters represent the contact between father and son. Yunior and Rafa, on the other hand, have no contact with Ramon and are still starving. Their living conditions reflect their father’s ‘misfortune’ in the States. Though Ysrael wears a mask to hide his physical 193
Ibidem, 136.
67
wound, it is in fact Rafa and Yunior who wear a physical mask of ‘nonmutilation’ though they are psychologically wounded. Yunior’s life in the United States is the total opposite of the American Dream. Like Piri Thomas, he is totally drained into the world of drugs and criminality. Addicted to drugs, involved in drug dealing, stealing and sleeping with any prostitute or regular woman available, he is caught in a vicious circle of misery and poverty. He represents the abandoned child: left by his father and his girlfriend, rejected by his mother and his female neighbor. His drug abuse and violence are Yunior’s way to deal with this. Yunior does not seem to have a preference for the United States or the Dominican Republic, because both countries provide him with pain and misery. Yunior speaks merely English and when he utters a word in Spanish, it is mostly a translation. According to scholar Jaqueline Loss, the tales of Junot Diaz illustrate the impossibility of living in the Dominican Republic without also living in America. The United States not are not only present in people’s daily life, but also in the imaginary of the Dominican islet. As a result, individuals are living an experience of simultaneity, which has more to do with science fiction than with an authentic minority experience. Additionally, Loss states that the myth of homogenization and singularity illustrates the model of newcomers into an American way of existence, that became the standard during the two World Wars or to put it in another way: complete assimilation. Nevertheless, Diaz’ comparison to science fiction implies something totally different: it accounts for ‘the feeling of being in and out of place at home and in the host country’. Awareness is the keyword in relation to immigrants’ negotiations of multiple allegiances. These identities are labeled ‘border identities’ by literary scholar Maria de los Angelos Torres. Additionally, Loss notes that Diaz concept definition of science fiction exploits ‘bizarre and uncanny sensations at the core of transforming diasporic experiences of dislocation.’ 194 4.2 Something to declare 4.2.1 Julia Alvarez Julia Alvarez was born in 1950 in a small village in Puerto Rico. Ten years later, she and her family had to flee to the United States, because her father was involved in an underground protest movement against the Dominican dictator Trujillo. During the 1960 and 1970s Alvarez attended Middlebury College and Syracuse University. Next, she taught creative writing courses at colleges and high schools. In 1988 she was appointed as professor of English at Middlebury 194
Loss,’ Junot Diaz’ 804-805.
68
College. 195 Alvarez considers herself neither American or Dominican, but a combination of both. She has stated that her writing is an aim to interweave Spanish and English in order to mirror her identity as a trans‐cultural writer 196 Julia Alvarez gained success as a poet and an author. All her works deal with matters as identity, immigration life, writing and language. One of her most best‐known collections of poems is called Homecoming. Nevertheless, Alvarez is more famous for her novels. How the Garcia girls lost their accents became a bestseller and tells the story about the four Dominican sisters of the Garcia family who grow up in the United States. The novel Yo! can be considered a sequel How the Garcia girls lost their accents. In the novel sixteen persons, family, friends and acquaintances express their opinion about Yolanda. In the time of the butterflies is set in the Dominican Republic and tells the story of the famous Maribel sisters during the Trujillo dictatorship. On the basis of its popularity and his fame How the Garcia girls lost their minds would in first instance be considered as the best choice for a book discussion. However, Alvarez has also published a celebrated collection of essays –at least that is what Alvarez calls it‐ titled Something to declare. To me the ‘essays’ look more like short, personal and amusing stories. The tales provide a clear and direct insight in the mind of Julia Alvarez. By analyzing the stories, it is possible to create an image of her identity. The book is separated into two parts: the first thirteen essays deal with costumes, while the second part is titled ‘Declarations’. 4.2.2 Something to declare (1998) In ‘Grandfather’s Blessing’ an infant Alvarez is asked by her grandfather what she wants to be when she grows up. 197 Already taken by the ‘American Dream’, a young Julia answers him: bullfighter. Her abuelo frowns his eyebrows: Dominican women were supposed to become a mother and a wive. On another occasion she informs him that she’s going to be a cowboy. After a while, also the cowgirl dream vanishes. Alvarez dreams of becoming a movie actress instead, being able to wear ‘all the costumes of the world and travel in airplanes and hot air balloons’.Besides being an actress, she wishes to become a pilot and a poet. 198 Although just ten years old, she is expressing dreams that she would be able to fulfill in the United States, but not in the Dominican Republic. To her America is a land where dreams may come true, were women can become anything they want. Alvarez states that her father undertook secret activities against dictator Trujillo. He was suspected by the government. As a result, he and his family were in 195 Karen Goffney, ‘Julia Alvarez, Yo!’ Reading US Latina writers: remapping American literature, Alvina E.
Quintana ed. (New York 2003)17.
196
Goffney, ‘Alvarez’17.
197
Julia Alvarez, Something to declare ( Chapel Hill 1998) 4.
198
Ibidem, 9-10
69
danger. The children however, were told that they would go for a holiday to the United States. Partially, Alvarez was exited about their departure: Meanwhile we girls better practice our English! We would get so tall and pale and pretty in the United States, and smart! Maybe we would marry Americans and have little blue‐eyed babies that didn’t know how to speak Spanish! 199 Later on, when Alvarez and her sisters became to understand that they would remain in America, they began to express their dislike. They did not want to go to a place full of skyscrapers, where people spoke English all the time and where there family was not present. The girls started to riot: they would not leave. Of course, their parents dragged them into the plane and the family made their way to New York. Although weeks became months and months became years, Alvarez wondered time after time what was going on on the island. Besides that, she would ask herself if their immigration papers – a charter for freedom‐ had set them free from the people she loved. 200 The English tongue fulfills an important role in the life of Alvarez, as the chapter title ‘My English’ reveals. Back in the Dominican Republic her parents used to converse in English when they had a secret for their children. Therefore, English became the language of secrets, being left out and worries. Alvarez would attempt to understand what they said, regarding English as a difficult variant of Spanish. After a few years, Alvarez and her sisters were sent to an American school. As a child, their mother had been educated at an American school. According to Alvarez she was quite Americanized. She wished the same for her infants. It was very important, she kept saying, that we learn our English. She always used the possessive pronoun: your English, an inheritance we had come into and must wisely use. Unfortunately, my English became al mixed up with our Spanish. Mix‐up, or what’s now called Spanglish, was the language we spoke for several years. There wasn’t a sentence that wasn’t colonized by an English word. At school, a Spanish word would slip into my English like someone butting into line. 201 Every time when Alvarez made a mistake, her teacher would point this out clearly. Next, she would feel humiliated with all the American kids staring at her. It seemed, like the teacher tried to beat the Spanish out of her. Alvarez tells that as a result, she became insecure of her Spanish. By time, her English had become better than her Spanish. 199
Ibidem, 18.
Ibidem, 18-19.
201
Ibidem 24.
200
70
On her arrival in New York, she was shocked by the fact that everybody spoke English. Because everybody seemed to be able to speak that ‘difficult language’ the little girl thought that Americans had to be very intelligent people. Nevertheless, after a while she began to understand that Americans were not a smarter and superior race. In the sixth grade, Alvarez’ teacher nurtures her with a love of the English language. The more she understands and loves that former foreign language, the more she starts to feel at home. 202 Sister Marie filled the chalkboard with snowy print, scribbling all over the board until English, those verbal gadgets, those tricks and turns of phrases, those little fixed units and counters became a charged, fluid mass that carried me in its great fluent waves, rolling and moving onward, to deposit me on the shores of my new homeland. I was no longer a foreigner with no ground to stand on. I had landed in the English language. 203 The English tongue and languages in general would remain important to Julia Alvarez. As a matter of fact she devotes another chapter to language, but in ‘La Gringuita: On losing a Native Language, she talks about losing her mother tongue. Alvarez searches the cause in the climate of the sixties: during those days bilingual education or multicultural studies did not exist yet. She tells that the girls were sent to public school and when they were bullied, the teachers reaction was that the bullying would stop as soon as they would speak English. However, after a while they were sent to the same Boarding School as where their mother had been educated. This was the place were the Alvarez sisters truly mastered the English tongue. Alvarez tells how they used the language to their advantage. By pointing out mistakes in their parents’ English they were gaining a sense of power over them or were able to get what they wanted. Besides that, the growing distance from Spanish can be considered as a way the girls freed themselves from their old world. Or in other words: they were liberating themselves from male domestic Dominican society values in order to become ‘free’ American women. However, papi and mami Alvarez feared that their offspring would loose all connections with their native culture. In order to avoid this scenarn englio, they began to send their daughters ‘home’ every summer. The Dominican aunts and uncles desperately tried drive out this Americanization, like an evil spirit. 204 By now, we couldn’t go back as easily as that. Our Spanish was full of English. Countless times during a conversation, we were corrected, until what we had to say was lost in our saying it wrong. More and more 202
Ibidem, 24-29
Ibidem, 28-29.
204
Ibidem, 62-64.
203
71
we chose to answer in English even when the question was posed in Spanish. It was a measure of the growing distance between ourselves and our native culture‐ a distance we all felt we could easily retrace with a little practice. It wasn’t until I failed at first love in Spanish, that I realized how unbridgeable that gap had become. 205 During a vacation on the island, Alvarez met a girl named Dilita. She had been living in New York for a couple of years. Alvarez considered her to be the first successful hyphenated person she met. Like American girls, they made the town unsafe and chased after boys. Soon they found themselves a boyfriend. When her boyfriend Mangu complimented Alvarez for her dancing skills, she felt proud: the felt that she wanted to be the best at the best things of both cultures. Many years later, Alvarez and her husband ordered some Spanish‐language tapes, since he wanted to be able to communicate with her family while she longed to ‘regain the language that would allow me to feel home in my native country again’. 206 After the United States had become their new patria, the teenage Alvarez sisters were desperately trying to look like they belonged there. They studied the way their classmates and people on TV dressed and collected magazines. Nonetheless, they regarded the Miss American contest as the best discovery of all. The sisters made it a tradition to watch the contest every year, admiring the girls who – in their eyes‐ possessed the American look they dreamt of. 207 There they stood, fifty puzzled pieces forming the pretty face of America, so we thought, though most of the color had been left out, except for one or possibly two, light‐skinned black girls. If there was a “Hispanic”, she usually looked all American, and only the last name, López or Rodriguez, often mispronounced, showed a trace of a great‐great‐grandfather with a dark, curled mustache and a sombrero charging the Alamo. During the initial roll‐call, what most amazed us was that some contestants were ever picked in the first place. They were homely girls with cross‐eyed smiles or chipmunk cheeks. My mother would inevitably shake her head and say, “The truth is, the Americans believe in democracy‐ even in looks”. 208 Despite the lack of skin color variation at the national pageant contest, the Alvarez girls and their mother started to feel at home. They went to West Side Story and bought a house in Queens in a neighborhood mostly inhabited by German and Irish people. They were the only Hispanic family in the environment. At the local Catholic school, the adults and the children referred to them as ‘Spanish’ or ‘Puerto Rican’. Besides that, nobody was able to find the Dominican Republic on the 205
Ibidem, 64.
Ibidem, 66-73.
207
Ibidem, 37.
208
Ibidem, 38.
206
72
map. When people asked her about the island, she tried to make it sound like a vacation spot instead of a Third World Country, since Alvarez wanted to prevent that people from looking down on her native country. Nevertheless, one problem kept haunting the sisters: their looks did not fit in. They looked nothing like the American beauty pageants, striding over the television screen. As a result, they ironed their curls until their black hair was flat and shiny. At the beauty store, they were told to use a strong foundation to tone down their olive skin color. Even during the summer the Alvarez sisters hid their legs by tights, feeling ashamed of their unshaved legs. Nonetheless, their longing for smooth, long legs was far stronger than their mother’s prohibition on shaving them. They shaved them anyway, in secret. Subsequently, the girls were sure that they were one step closer to the runway and flashing cameras: stardom was in their eyes. Their mother did not even notice their ‘divine’ legs. She was to busy criticizing her daughters’ way of cdressing. 209 “You’re going to wear that in public” She’d gawk, as if to say, What will Americans think of us? “This is what Americans wear” we would argue back. But the dresses that we had picked out made us look cheap, she said, like bad, fast girls‐ gringas without vergüenza, without shame. 210 Alvarez’ father on the other hand had no problem with their new look, saying that his daughters looked liked Marilyn Monroes. Probably, their mother was not amused by the amount of flesh the clothes revealed. This is a well‐known complaint about the American –or western‐ way of clothing. Preferably, she would have seen her daughters wear colorful dresses and skirts and vests that covered up her daughters’ female shapes. The potential Miss Americans also symbolized US female opportunities and liberties. These girls were in college or heading for it, they were allowed to wander the streets without male guidance or a female chaperone; they had social lives, boyfriends and lived in shared apartments. In contrast, Dominican girls were trained to be good wives and mothers! No wonder, that the girl who once dreamed of being a cowgirl, a bullfighter, a pilot and a movie star liked this aspect of the United States. 211 I always felt let down. I knew I would never be one of those girls, ever. It wasn’t just the blond, blue‐eyed looks or the beautiful, leggy figure. It was who she was ‐an American‐ and we were not. We were 209
Ibidem, 39-40.
Ibidem, 40.
211
Ibidem, 40-42.
210
73
foreigners, dark‐haired, and dark‐eyed with olive skin that could never, no matter the sun blocks or foundation makeup, be made into peaches and cream. 212 Yet, the late sixties would come and the ethnic look would be considered in vogue. Suddenly, people would wear the same sort of colorful clothes their mother would have picked. Even Barbie seemed to go with the flow: she became available in all the colors of the world, wearing ethnic fashion. Alvarez noted that people wanted to look exotic; they wanted to look ‘like us’. Because of these developments, the Alvarez sisters experienced a gratifying sense of inclusion. The author nevertheless notes it was already too late, telling that she and her sisters had developed a habit of doubting themselves and the place where they came from. 213 In the chapter ‘So much depends’ Alvarez mentions a Hispanic writer William Carlos Williams. This author had a Puerto Rican high class mother who had married an Englishman. Williams grew up in New Yersey. He never associated himself with the island. He was in his late sixties, when he traveled to Puerto Rico for the first time in his life, longing to understand his roots. Although he had an American boyhood, he often felt the ‘islandness in him, his separateness’, which is said to be a typical feature of first generation immigrants. Williams reminded Alvarez of herself. She too, as an adult experienced a period in which she wanted to be an American. Often she had felt ashamed of her ethnicity: of her skin color. The people in the streets who yelled at her confirmed these feelings. Besides that, her parents and teachers stimulated her to assimilate. In addition, the family did not move into an American comunidad of Latinos or Dominicans. If they had, their values and customs would have been kept alive and affirmed. In this situation, Alvarez felt she had a black void in her identity. As she stated before, ethnicity was in vogue during the sixties and seventies. 214 My classmates smoked weed from Mexico and Colombia and hitchhiked down the Pan American Highway and joined the Peace Corps to expiate the sins of their country against underdeveloped and overexploited countries like, yes, the Dominican Republic. More than once I was asked to bear witness to this exploitation, and I, the least victimized of Dominicans, obliged. I was claiming my roots, my Dominicannes with a vengeance. 215 Alvarez’ uncle notes that the problem of the Alvarez sisters was that they had the idea that they could return to where they came from. However, they had come to the US to stay. Yes, her uncle was right, but the fact that American culture had forced her to give up her Dominican identity in order to be an American, bothered her. She wonders if she had been a member of an earlier 212
Ibidem, 43.
Ibidem, 43-44.
214
Ibidem, 164-166.
215
Ibidem, 166-167.
213
74
generation: this would have upset her too. Perhaps she would have considered it a privilege to be included in American society. However, during the sixties and seventies people were claiming their cultural roots. 216 The melting pot was spilling over, and even Americans were claiming and proclaiming, not just their rights, but the integrity of their identities: Black is Beautiful, women’s rights, gay rights 217 In writing, Alvarez would find a cure for her identity struggle. William Carlos Williams functioned as a source of inspiration, but it was a female Asian American author who provided her with a model. The writer states that she keeps getting nervous, when people ask her to define herself as a writer. She fears the narrowness of terms as ‘Latino subject matters’. Instead, Alvarez proclaims that the best way to define her is through the stories and poems she writes. By writing, she finally found her comunidad. 218 Conclusion After years of struggle to become accepted by US society and ‘ Americanized’ , Julia Alvarez learned appreciate her Dominican heritage. The color of her skin made Alvarez insecure. Writing offered her ways to deal with her identity struggle, as well as the opportunity to fully express herself as a Dominican American writer. Her world is a world full of clashes, contradictions and cominglings and it is fascinating her. By writing Julia Alvarez intends to transcend the contradictions she faces in order to create a new consciousness: a new way of looking at the world. 219 According to Alvarez writing powerfully about Latino culture, is a way to invent a new tradition and to create a new literature that will widen and enrich the existing canon. 220 216
Ibidem
Ibidem, 167.
218
Ibidem, 169-170.
219
Ibidem, 170-173.
220
Ibidem, 170.
217
75
4.3 Soledad 4.3.1 Angie Cruz Born in 1972, in the city of New York, Angie Cruz has been living in this American city all of her life. In 1999, she received her MFA from New York University. Her novels Soledad and Let it rain coffee received many awards, such as a fellowship of the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship. Cruz is currently working as an Assistant Professor of English at Texas A&M University. 221 4.3.2 Soledad (2001) The novel Soledad deals with the twenty‐year‐old Soledad, who returns to her family in Washington Heights, New York. She has not seen them for two years. Her aunt Gorda is determined that Soledad’s return is the only way to awake Solidad’s mother Oliva from an emotional coma. In the beginning, Soledad hates it to be back again, being confronted with her damaged family relationships. There is a reason why she left two years ago: Solidad longed for some breathing space and wanted to get away from annoying relatives who told her what to do. However, she cannot escape her past anymore and has to come to terms with her mother, her other relatives and herself. The title of the book refers to the protagonist. Nevertheless, the name Soledad,‐ meaning ‘loneliness’ in Spanish‐ raises questions. Solidad’s name suits her character: the protagonist does not like to be surrounded by many people. But even more important is the fact that the relationship between Soledad and her mother is disturbed. Flaca, Soledad’s cousin is more a daughter to Olivia than Soledad. To Gorda, Olivia’s sister, it feels like her sister has stolen her daughter from her. In a certain way all characters feel lonely, missing the warm embrace of their mother or daughter. The last sentences of the novel reveal the reason why Olivia chose to name her offspring Soledad: She tells me about the day I was born, how when she first looked down at me, so tiny and vulnerable, she named me Soledad. My name means loneliness in Spanish, the language my mother speaks in and dreams in. She said this name would open people’s heart to me and make them listen. She thought with a name like Soledad I would never be alone. 222 221
222
http://www-english.tamu.edu/index.php?id=1411
Angie Cruz, Soledad (New York 2006) 227.
76
Soledad is an art student at Cooper Union and works in an art gallery. She feels ashamed about her background. If people ask her where she comes from, she tells them that she is from the Upper West Side of New York. Their response is that they like it up there, picturing themselves Central Park in Manhattan. Soledad notes that most of them do not consider Washington Heights‐ the Dominican neighborhood‐ part of Manhattan. She never reveals them the truth, knowing that people believe in the stereotype images created by the media, which display the neighborhood as a place full of crack dealers, lazy welfare mothers and gangs. When Soledad enters Washington Heights she holds her breath and once again expresses her dislike of the surroundings. 223 There are more cops on the streets than fire hydrants. Merengue blares out of car speakers, the Dominican flag drapes in place of curtains on apartment windows, sneakers hang from lampposts, Presidente bottles, pizza boxes and old issues of El Diario burst out of the trash cans on the corner, a side of pernil grills by a building’s basement. The way I ‘m figuring it out, my time in Washington Heights is like a prison sentence. Once I do the time, I won’t have the guilt trip anymore about moving out. I’m twenty years old. Twenty years is old enough to live away from home. 224 In her mother’s apartment, Soledad encounters her family and the unmoving body of her mother. She does no know how to handle. Yet, her relatives are convinced that her presence should be enough to awake Olivia from her coma. In addition, she cannot think up better options, because she considers her relatives foolish and annoying. Solidad’s relatives all have different opinions about the United States and the Dominican Republic. When Solidad for instance notices her cousin Flaca wearing a t‐shirt that reads DOMINICANS GO ALL OUT, she asks her angrily what she means. How can she wear something like that, while she has never even seen the Dominican Republic? Flaca answers she is still Dominican. Her mother told her that Dominican women were supposed to be the most beautiful women on the planet. Solidad seems almost to explode: there are far more relevant things in life than looking beautiful in order to seduce men! And what kind of men: ‘ganstra homies from the hood’! Solidad has ensured herself that she will never ever fall for such a ‘low’ kind of man. Besides the t‐shirt, Flaca’s red fire truck lips and her habit of smacking bubble gum and blowing bubbles, scream American mainstream culture. 225 Totally unexpected, Solidad gets in touch with Richie, a boy from Washington Heights. They become friends and eventually Solidad falls in love with him, despite her aversion to Washington Heights’ boys. Just like her, Richie has Dominican roots. Unlike her, he seems to feel 223
Cruz, Soledad, 2.
Ibidem, 3.
225
Ibidem,31-32
224
77
connected to the Dominican Republic, since his room is stuffed with typically Dominican souvenirs. At a certain moment they discuss the Dominican Republic 226 Do you go home a lot? What do you mean? Plátano land. I haven’t been there in a while. But I remember it though. Sometimes I have nightmares about it, where I somehow land in Dominican Republic and I have no papers to get out of the country, no extra clothes to wear and I need to go to the bathroom but the toilets don’t flush. Maybe you should take a trip there so the nightmares will stop. No way. Before I go to D.R. I’d go to Europe. To do what? To see the world. Europe is not the world. Dominican Republic isn’t either. But it’s a big part of your imagination. And that’s your world. 227 The fact that Solidad has nightmares about the island (especially the aspect that she wants to leave it) seems again to underline her dislike for the Dominican culture. In addition, her reply that she would rather go to Europe than the land of her forbears is striking. Richie’s answer that the Dominican Republic is a big part of her imagination and that it is her world can be seen as a reprimand. The Dominican Republic is not just a geographical reality, it is also an idea. It is an idea about a nation, about belonging to a certain group of people and to a definite culture. The Dominican Republic is part of her, if she likes it or not. Denying this fact, is like denying an essential part of her identity. Solidad should be proud of her Dominican heritage. When Olivia’s condition does not seem to improve, aunt Gorda decides that she has to be taken back to the Dominican Republic. Gorda considers this as the only and final remedy. On the island she has found a clinic where her sister can be healed. Olivia’s past will be erased and she will be able to start all over again. While Gorda is packing her suitcase, Solidad enters the room. She tells her aunt to stop packing: her mother is ill and as her daughter it is her responsibility to take care of her. Solidad explains to Gorda that for all her life she has been wondering ‘why I am the way I am’. She never wanted to be like her father, because she considered him a ‘dick’. Neither did she long to be like her mother, who always seemed to be so unhappy. Despite her 226
227
Ibidem, passim.
Ibidem, 127.
78
misery, Gorda pretended to be strong. According to Soledad, her mother only pushed her further away. 228 Later on, Solidad notes that the thought of going to the Dominican Republic all on her own scares her. The idea that Olivia is accompanying her only increases her fear. Her family will ask her for material favors from the US, they will slaughter a chicken for her and treat her like a princess because she is an American gringa, used to comfort. 229 At the Dominican airport mother and daughter are welcomed by their family. Solidad remembers how every time she stepped out of line her mother used to threaten her to send her back home, referring to the island. To Olivia, home means San Pedro de Macorís. It is clear that Soledad’s relatives consider their stay in the United States to temporary. When they have earned enough money, they will return. They desire to die on the islet of their birth: home. To them the Dominican Republic is ‘home, rice and beans, apagones, plátanos, día de los muertos, strikes, warm beach water, malecón, never having an election that doesn’t get recounted home…’ According to Solidad they don’t live in New York, they just work. Eventually, after having gained enough money they will return home. Olivia always told her daughter that to her home is a place of rest and a place to live. 230 The trip to the Dominican Republic seems to have a positive impact on Olivia. Near the end of the novel, she opens up her eyes and holds her daughter. For the first time in her life, she will be able to speak to Solidad and tell her daughter everything she ever wanted to know about her or her life. When I open my eyes, my mother is holding me, my head on her lap, her hands combing through my hair. I want to ask her so many questions about my father, her past, my birth. But before even open my mouth, she speaks, as if all this time she has been listening, reading my mind, waiting to tell me the things I want to hear. 231 Olivia The tale of Olivia’s life is revealed in fragments throughout the novel. Her faith is tragic: As a young girl in the Dominican Republic, she was supposed to marry a Swedish man, Luz. He took her to the United States and told her the only thing she had to do was to look beautiful. By ‘looking beautiful’ he meant that she had to work as a prostitute. One day she met a Dominican man named Manolo. Naturally, she fells in love with him and gets pregnant. In the meantime, Olivia had become so ashamed of herself that she lies to her parents about her situation. If they 228
Ibidem, 206.
Ibidem, 207.
230
Ibidem, 218-219.
231
Ibidem, 227.
229
79
would only knew what she was doing… Olivia and Manolo end up having a baby, Solidad. Not surprisingly, Manolo turns out to be an aggressive wife‐slapper who abuses his wife and children. When Solidad is a teenager, Olivia just can’t stand it anymore after one of his beating ups. When he is hanging out of the window, she pushes Manolo. He dies and Olivia keeps telling herself it was an accident. After the incident, she will never be the same. All she longs for is to return to the Dominican Republic: she is homesick. Conclusion Solidads mother Olivia is homesick. All she longs for is to return to her native country. She also speaks and dreams in Spanish, the language of home. 232 Her desire for home, can be compared to that of the Puerto Rican Ramona, who never felt at home in the United States, except in el Building. Olivia is another illustration of the immigrant who arrives in the States unwillingly, has to struggle to keep alive, is unable to speak English, depends on her husband and for whom life in America is not much better than back on the island. The general narrative suggests th’at Solidad has no connection to the Dominican Republic. She hates living in Washington Heights, even feels ashamed of ever having lived there. Her remark that she would rather travel to Europe and that she has nightmares about the Dominican Republic seems to underline this idea. Her love for Richie –a Dominican guy‐, his remarks and the condition of her mother might have contributed to the fact that in the end she is willing to travel to the island and give it a chance. Solidad suddenly seems to understand that a trip to the islet might act as a cure for her problems (the condition of Olivia, their disturbed mother‐daughter relationship, her nightmares). Angie Cruz does not reveal the outcome of the travel. One can only guess. However, in my opinion she is trying to suggest that Solidad will be ‘healed’ in the Dominican Republic and find a missing piece of herself: her Dominican part. When viewing Solidad in terms of success and discrimination, she can be considered a lucky girl, because she studies at the art academy and has a job in an art gallery. Not a single time, does the narrative suggest that she encounters problems due to her skincolor. Nevertheless, perhaps there is one little feature: her shame for Washington Heights. Like many of the other protagonists the United States have influenced her: she speaks merely English and seems to feel totally in place in American culture. 232
Ibidem, passim.
80
4.4 Geographies of Home 4.4.1 Loida Maritza Perez In 1963, Loida Maritza Perez was born in the Dominican Republic, but from an early age she was raised in Brooklyn, New York. She started writing Geographies of home while being an undergraduate at Cornell University. Her hard work has been awarded with several fellowships. Nowadays she teaches creative writing in New Mexico. 233 4.4.2 Geographies of home (1999) Geographies of home is a novel that explores themes as cultural dislocation, family responsibility, sexual abuse, spirituality and mental health. The novel provides a strong contrast between urban Brooklyn and Dominican family life. Perez’ protagonist Iliana is forced to redraw from university, because of several family crises. She went to a university that was five hours traveling from New York in order to be away from her relatives. Back in the barrio of Brooklyn Iliana has to help her parents and thirteen siblings. The story is recreated by flashbacks that reflect Perez’ trans‐national sensibility and Caribbean and Latin American writing influences. 234 In the prologue of her novel Perez states that to her, immigrant survival depends on creating a home for one‐self. This home is not a geographical sile, but a frame of mind able to accommodate any place as home. 235 At the start of the novel, Iliana is on her way to her parents. She has been asked to come home, because some of her relatives are not doing well at all. Her sister Marina is on the verge of a mental breakdown and will try to commit suicide several times during Iliana's stay, because she continues to be hunted by the memory of being raped. Her other sister, Rebecca is trapped in a marriage with a man who treats her and her kids badly. Nevertheless, she is unable to leave him. In addition, Rebecca and her family are living on a disgusting farm among hundreds of chickens. Iliana’s other sister Beatriz run off and had never returned. Most of the male children simply do not have contact with their parents anymore. 236 The moment Iliana arrives at her parents’ house in New York, she notes her parents have made some changes. Although the place looks different, Iliana tells herself that this house is 233
Alvina E. Quintana, ’Loida Maritza Perez, Geographies of home’, Reading US Latina writers: remapping
American literature, Alvina E. Quintana ed. (New York, Hampshire 2003)174.
234
Quintana, ‘Perez’, 173.
235
Ibidem
235
Ibidem
236
Loida Maritza Perez, Geographies of home (1999) passim.
81
home. Right here she can feel safe, here she should not have to fear anything. 237 However, when she observes the room, which she last saw one and a half years ago, she notices that: the room seemed a version of what her parents believed a rich person's house, or at least an American might look like. Gone were the hand‐carved statuettes and worn but sturdy wooden rocking chairs and tables brought from the Dominican Republic. In their place sat tables with‐gold tinted latticed bases and red and gold‐tinted fringed lamps. Already Iliana felt as if her parents’ home were not her own. While she had been away her memory had consisted of images imbued with the warmth of a Caribbean sun magically transported to New York and of a house furnished with objects lovingly carved by the inhabitants of the island she had dreamed of. Now she found herself surprised and amused by the house's electric contents as well as by the way its lamps and couches had been covered with plastic to preserve their newness. 238 When Iliana recalls the past, feelings of angers and shame pop up. One day she had visited the house of a Puerto Rican friend, Lily, and noticed that life could be better. Lily and her brother had rooms of their own, a lot of toys and even a fridge. And what did she have? Second hand clothes and toys from her brother and sisters! Unlike hers, Lily’s parents were not poor. Besides that, they were able to speak English without a Spanish accent. Iliana had been surprised to found out English was also the language they used to speak at home. Further, they often undertook fun activities with their children. Iliana had been very jealous of her friend and had wished her parents were more like Lily’s. 239 Another issue that troubles Iliana is her skin color. In the novel, Dominican people’s tendency to ‘deny’ their blackness is illustrated in the following situation. Iliana’s sister Marina provides her sister with a warm welcome, suggesting that she considers herself better than her family members, ‘reading stupid books and talking to everyone like you were better’. Marina’s remark is the result of a little quarrel about skin color. When Iliana told her sister that she would love to have a black guy, Marina answered her that they are unreliable and lazy. Her sister responded by asking if she thought blacks were inferior to whites. Next, Iliana slaps her sister imaginary in the face, telling she is black. Marina becomes furious: she is not black, but Hispanic! According to her, Illiana is acting like a hypocrite: how many black students has she encountered at the university? Marina’s dislike of blacks and the fact that she does not want to be associated with them has a simple and understandable reason: the man that raped her was a black man. Iliana responds to her sister saying although she is black, white people have always treated her 237
Ibidem, 27.
Ibidem, 30.
239
Ibidem, 183-186.
238
82
better. 240 All together, she does seem to be able to life her skin color, since at the first page of the novel, Perez reveals about Iliana: The ghostly trace of “NIGGER” on a message board hanging from Iliana 's door failed to assault her as it had the first time she returned to her dorm room to find it. 241 Yet, eventually it turns out that Iliana is lying to herself. By going to college far away, she had not just tried to escape from her family, but also hoped that by entering the company of an elite she would have been liberated form hunger and abuse. Nonetheless, her hope turned to be false. Every time she hears somebody shout NIGGER, every time she notices a swastika and other insulting signs, she just closes her eyes and ears, and denies their existence. Her classmates have tried to explain her ‘laziness, lack of motivation, intellectual insufficiency and welfare dependency in terms of class and race. Iliana’s rage turns against herself, making her feel sick very often. 242 When Iliana remembers the years in an apartment in Pennsylvania Avenue in a neighborhood where few Dominicans lived, she is once again confronted with her identity issues. As a little girl she had hungered to look like a typical Puerto Rican or black girl, dreaming of belonging to a certain group. How had she hated the question ‘where do you come from?’ Most people had never heard of the Dominican Republic. Due to their ignorance, some of her black friends had assumed that she claimed to be a Hispanic to put on airs. They told her she was black and belonged to them, while her Puerto Rican friends too tried to persuade her that her she was one of them, due to her ability to speak Spanish. This drove Iliana mad: she was neither like one of them and at the same time she shared features with both groups. Where did she fit in? 243 Many times Iliana’s parents had considered returning to the Dominican Republic. Nevertheless, they remained in the United States, not being able to bear the thought of being so far away from their children and grandchildren. In addition, her youngest (Iliana) remembered so little of the island and considered it a country of poverty and backwardness. Aurelia, Iliana’s mother sometimes asked herself if going to the United States had been a good decision. Had she and her husband perhaps unwillingly 'spoiled' their children by letting them grow up in the States, yearning for wealth? Wealth, which was said to be easily achieved in the United States. Reality had proven to be different: to Aurelia and her husband had been working hard for years 240
Ibidem, 38-39.
Ibidem, 1.
242
Ibidem, 71.
243
Ibidem, 190-191
241
83
and had often been unable to provide for their family. They learned that accomplishing the American Dream was not easy. 244 Aurelia misses the Dominican Republic, even though on the island she was every poor and living under the terrible Trujillo dictatorship. It wasn’t that she romantized the past or believed that things had been better long ago. She had been poor even in the Dominican Republic, but something had flourished from within which had enabled to greet each day rather than to cringe from it in dead. With bare feet planted on familiar ground, she had been trusted her perceptions. Yet assaulted by the unfamiliar and surrounded by hard concrete and looming buildings, she had become as vulnerable as even the Trujillo regime had failed to make her feel. 245 In New York, she had been terrified to step outside and the three‐room apartment where she lived with her husband and children had made her feel claustrophobic. Aurelia had looked like a skeleton, only weighing eighty‐one pounds. The only thing that had prevented her from dying, was the thought that she could not let her children down. What kind of example would she have given them by giving up the struggle for a better future? 246 Yet, at a certain moment, Aurelia discovers that after fifteen years of moving from apartment to apartment she longs for going home instead of returning home. Suddenly she understands that she has not been searching for a geographical home, but for a frame of mind which allows her to accommodate any place as home. 247 Her husband hoped to find a solution to their problems in religion. Iliana’s father is a Seventh Day Adventist and the aspect that had attracted Papito was that Advantist doctrine made specific distinctions between right and wrong. In a country (the Dominican Republic) where this distinction seemed vanished, religion had granted him salvation, access to the divine and a set of principles to structure his life. He had offered those rules to his children in order to protect them against pain and poverty. 248 He had hoped, with the promise of heaven, to shield them from disappointment in the world. Yet in a United States where the fulfillment of dreams was considered possible and the young demanded satisfaction in the here and now, he, who had long ago given up dreams, had been unable to discourage his children from theirs or to fathom what, other than faith, he might in old age offer to help them endure their lives. 249 244
Ibidem, 21-22.
Ibidem, 23.
246
Ibidem, 24.
247
Ibidem, 137
248
Ibidem, 149.
249
Ibidem, 236.
245
84
Well, conversion to Advantism totally made his wishes come true! God blessed Papito’s family with misery. As he and his wife were getting old, he started dreaming of purchasing a piece of land in the Dominican Republic where they – together with several of their children and grandchildren‐ would live in happiness. When Papito talks the plan over with Aurelia, she tells him, she loves the idea, but she does not have the energy anymore to start all over again. She suggests they have to make the best of their lives, because the United States is their home now. Aurelia also tells him, she will not go back unless all her children and grandchildren surround her. They should have seen a long time ago that New York was not doing Marina any good. However, they didn’t. The only option left for them is to live with the consequences and to prevent themselves from loosing their children. 250 The reason why the family eventually migrated to the United States had to do with one of their daughters. lliana’s sister Rebecca has been living in a dirty apartment that her husband Pasión had transformed into a chicken farm for years. Iliana’s parents want her to divorce from him, but she refuses to do so, because Rebecca turns out to be a frustrated woman. She was the one who moved to the United States in order to gain money to send for her parents and later her brothers and sisters. She had taken care of their green cards and had been paying half of her relatives’ expenses for years. And where had it gotten her? Rebecca is angry with her family members, because they have never expressed any gratitude toward her. The fact that they are telling her now what to do with her life only increases her anger. 251 The confrontation with her mad sister Marina, who seems to despise her, the abused Rebecca who drives everybody crazy and the blame towards her parents, make Iliana collapse. Eventually, the tears come. Iliana realizes she has returned home, not so much to be of any help, but to be embraced. The one thing she had been longing for all these years was to belong. Somewhere, she had figured that leaving home would free her from her worries, only to find out that: when she finally did, that she felt as displaced out into the world as her parents’ house, she had made the decision to return and to re‐establish a connection with her family so that, regardless of where she went thereafter, she would have comforting memories of home propping her up and lending her the courage to confront the prejudices she had encountered during eighteen months away. 252 In the end, Iliana nonetheless is able to come to terms with herself and her family. She understands that all their lives are connected to each other. All her feelings toward them, all her 250
Ibidem, 233-236.
Ibidem, 62-63.
252
Ibidem, 312.
251
85
experiences will help her maneuvering trough life: they will transform into memories a provide her with the one thing she desired so much: a home. 253 Conclusion The tale of Papito and Aurelia, is once again a typical first generation story. They left their homeland in search of a better life and discovered that realizing the American Dream was not as simple as people said it was. Instead of living the American Dream they lived a life of poverty. Because of their inability to create a better life for their kids, their children. It seems like each of their children feels treated badly by their parents. Like many other characters, Papito and Aurelia keep longing for a retur to the Dominican Republic and like in many cases, this remains a dream. However, they did the best they could. Since her childhood, Iliana had been feeling like a stranger. She did not fit in with Hispanics, but neither with Afro Americans. At home she felt neglected. However, Iliana did not see the fact that her parents did the best they could, raising fourteen children in poverty. Disgusted of her family and the surrounding, she attempted to flee. However, Iliana soon learned that running away from home, was not the answer to her problems. The overwhelmingly white university elite kept treating her like a stranger or ‘someone who does not fit’ in. Her reaction, after being returned to her parents’ house, illustrates that Iliana saw her their home as a memory of the Dominican Republic: otherwise she would not have been shocked to notice that the traditional furniture was replaced by American furniture. 253
Ibidem, 321.
86
Conclusion: ‘I don’t want to be an American idiot’ ’Being American means that you feel like you’re the norm” one of my friends tells me. [But] in a splintered society, what does one assimilate to?... I want to figure out, more urgently than before, where I belong in this America that’s made up of so many subAmericas.’ Eva Hoffman, Lost in translation (1989) In this final chapter, I will apply the theoretical framework presented in the first chapter to the outcomes of my literary research. In most cases both literary characters and authors define themselves as hyphenated Americans. For this reason they can be placed under the heading of consonant acculturation. Results of the first generation However, the next figure shows the acculturation outcomes of first generation members. Charactername Ethnic group Assimilation or Generation
ethnic pluralism Lourdes Cuban Ass 1 Merceds Cuban eth pl 1 Alejo Cuban eth pl 1 Ramona Puerto Rican eth pl 1 Rafael Puerto Rican ? 1 Guzman Puerto Rican eth pl 1 Momin Puerto Rican ass/ eth pl 1 Ramon (Papi) Dominican ass/eth pl 1 Olivia Dominican eth pl 1 Abuela Dominican eth pl 1 Gorda Dominican eth pl 1 Aurelia Dominican eth pl 1 Papito Dominican eth pl 1 Figure II: The cultural preservation of first generation characters Most characters have been placed under the label of ethnic pluralism for the following reasons: 
Language skills. Characters are unable to converse in English or speak it badly. In most cases Spanish remains the spoken language (at home). 87

Social status: Characters often have low paid jobs and experience difficulties climbing the social ladder. In many cases they are (in first instance) living a life of poverty in small, crowded apartments. In most cases, they are living in barrios where they form Latino or national enclaves. 
Appreciation of mother culture: The multitude of characters cherishes their original culture and tries to preserve it for instance by speaking Spanish, decorating their house with objects from and in the style of their home country and socializing with other Latinos. Homesickness and aspirations to return ‘home’ after having lived in the United States for several years are not uncommon phenomena. 
Attitude towards American society: The general attitude of characters towards the United States can be said to be ambiguous. Characters understand that they have more opportunities in the Unites States than on their island. However, they learn that it is difficult to accomplish the American Dream and are confronted with racial discrimination and (labor) exploitation. In addition, certain traditional Latino values seem to collide with American cultural standards. In most cases, first generation characters prefer their own cultural norms to the American ones. In the exceptional case of Lourdes, somebody is willing to give up her entire cultural heritage. She can be seen as the ultimate illustration of (total) assimilation. Most characters are nevertheless, unwilling or unable to give up their entire cultural heritage. Their sense of Cubanidad, Puertoricannidad, Dominicanidad or ‐more general‐ Latinidad helps them to survive in the United States and provides them with a sense of who they are. In conclusion it can be said the more a person is able to assimilate, the more successful he or she can become. Still, remind that in the case of upward mobilization factors like racial discrimination attribute to the creation of a ceiling. Next, I will discuss the research results for second generation figures. Results of the second generation Charactername Ethnic Group Type of Identity Generation acculturation Esmeralda Puerto Rican Consolant Puerto Rican 2 (American) Piri Puerto Rican Dissonant Puerto Rican 2 Marisol Puerto Rican Consolant Puerto Rican 2 (American) 88
Giannina Puerto Rican Consolant Puerto Rican 2 Horacio Cuban Selective Cuban American 2 Hector Cuban Consolant confused Cuban 2 American Pilar Cuban Consolant Cuban American 2 Virgil Cuban Consolant Cuban American 2 Pablo Dominican Consolant Cuban American 2 Julia Dominican Consolant Dominican American 2 Ynior Dominican Dissonant Dominican American 2 (does not seem to care much) Soledad Dominican Consolant Dominican American 2 Iliana Dominican Consolant Dominican American 2 Figure III: Acculturation of second generation characters The most striking outcome is that most second generation characters can be placed in the category of consonant acculturation. In many cases, English proficiency of these second‐
generation children surpasses that of their parents. In most cases English is their first language. In several cases, with characters like Julia Alvarez, they lose their ability to speak Spanish fluently. Other characters are even unable to speak Spanish at all. Most writings suggest that the English language and the American mainstream culture have left a profound mark on the characters’ identity. On the other hand, racial discrimination and exclusion are causes for doubts about their position in American society. This is best illustrated in the cases of Illiana, Piri, Hector, Julia and Giannina. As a result, their curiosity about their parents’ cultural roots is stimulated. All together, they struggle with their identity and feel insecure. Another important feature is disagreement between parents and children. Illiana and Soledad almost seem to loath traditional Dominican culture. Both left their parental home in order to escape their families. In addition, they do not agree with traditional Latino cultural values –especially for women‐ and so do Julia, Marisol, Esmeralda, Pilar and Giannini. These women want to be more than ‘just’ mothers and wives, long to wander the streets on their own without a chaperone and have a career. These are the reasons why I have categorized these characters under the heading of consolant acculturation instead of selective acculturation. The latter type of acculturation 89
requires fluent bilingualism, strong self confidence and a strong self identity. Neither is the case for these characters as well as for the selected authors themselves. If Latino writers were totally satisfied with themselves, they would not have written these books in order to explore and express their multicultural identities. In my opinion, selective acculturation requires bi‐lingual education and a profound awareness of somebody’s dual cultural background. In the cases of the Dominican Yunior and the Puerto Rican Piri, I would suggest dissonant acculturation. Both live in a New York barrio (Washington Heights and Spanish Harlem), suffer from severe poverty and discrimination and end up in a vicious circle of drugs, crime and violence. Although near the end of Down these mean streets Piri considers to better his life, I hold the opinion that during the novel he followed the trail of dissonant acculturation, hating American (white) society for being badly treated by it and promoting a Puerto Rican and Afro American image of himself in order to reject general society. Author Year of Place of birth birth Christina Garcia 1958 Cuba Cuban Cuban American Oscar Hijuelos 1951 New York Cuban Cuban American Virgil Suarez 1962 Havana Cuban Cuban American Pablo Medina 1948 Havana Cuban Cuban American Piri Thomas 1928 New York Puerto Rican Puerto Rican Judith Ortiz Cofer 1952 Homigueros Puerto Rican Puerto Rican woman Giannina Braschi 1953 San Juan Puerto Rican Puerto Rican Esmeralda 1948 Villa Puerto Rican Puerto Rican Santiago Ethnic group Identity Palmeros Julia Alvarez 1950 New York Dominican Dominican American Junot Diaz 1960 Santo Dominican Dominican American Domingo S.M Esteves 1969 New York Dominican Dominican American L.M Perez 1963 Dominican Dominican Dominican American R. Figure IV: Data of authors Also second‐generation authors themselves seem to fit in the framework of segmented assimilation. They can be placed under the heading of consonant acculturation, because they 90
ponder their identities, have sometimes difficulties with dancing between two cultures, and are not fluent bilinguals. Again the Puerto Ricans form an exception: as a result of the strong promotion of native Puerto Rican cultural symbols and as a reaction against American society (Puerto Ricans feel treated like second rank citizens) they highlight their Puerto Rican identity. Their cultural awareness reminds one of that of Mexican Americans or Chicanos, who emphasize their Mexican roots as a matter of protest. All together, it can be said that Latino immigrants, whether they are first or second generation immigrants, consider it relevant to preserve their cultural heritage. However, first generation immigrants tend to cling more strongly to their original culture than their offspring. Cultural preservation and life in ethnic communities enables them to feel more at home in the United States. Several factors hold them back from firm assimilation into American society. Their children on the other hand, grow up between two cultures. They often feel forced to choose between being American or being Puerto Rican, Dominican or Cuban, due to the labels others stick on them. As a result, second generation persons struggle with identity issues: they feel connected to two cultures and search for ways to identify themselves. Thus, most of them can be put under the label of consonant acculturation, because in the end they prefer to be a hyphenated American instead of just an ‘American idiot’. In relation to the general sociological discussion whether immigrants assimilate (assimilation theory) into American society or desperately try to preserve their identity (saladbowl theory) my research has shown that Latinos of the first generation in most cases tend to maintain their original culture. Their attitude towards American mainstream culture is more negative than that of their children. In their case the theory of ethnic plurality seems to be more valid than the assimilation theory. The situation of their children is far more complex, because they have to deal with two cultures. This is confirmed by the outcomes of my literary research. Application of the saladbowl theory or assimilation theory does not provide an adequate explanation for the way they make up their identity. However, my research has also demonstrated that the theory of segmented assimilation of Portes and Rumbaut can explain the construction of their identity. Thus, I suggest that their framework can be used as a starting point for similar academic types of research. Next, sociologists have studied American immigrants for centuries. Why would the experience of Latinos differ from that of Germans, British and Italians? In contrast with the former, Latinos are faced with skin color issues. In general, Latinidad is defined by cultural values and often Spanish. Unlike Puerto Rican and Cuban Americans, Dominican Americans are haunted by the legacy of a nationalistic racial discourse. In the Dominican Republic they are defined as white, but in the United States they are, just like Cubans and Puerto Ricans, faced skin color issues. 91
Although apartheid was abolished decades ago, today American society still often uses the narrow labels ‘black’ and ‘white’ to define people. The term black, in many cases, is linked to Afro Americans. Additionally, the word black can evoke negative associations. White, on the other hand can be associated with ‘American’ or ‘good’. Nevertheless, who decides whether somebody is black or white? Society, the individual or both? This remains a difficult problem. I would suggest to use broader labels, such as ‘coloured’. In addition, there exist other manners to define people, such as by religion or cultural background. Another difference can be found in the number of immigrants. There are so many Latin American immigrants living in the United States that within years they will be the largest population group. As a result, their cultural influence will increase. If Latinos choose to preserve their Latin American heritage, their traditional Latino values Spanish could become dominant and could jeopardize European cultural standards. However, looking at my research outcomes I expect this will not be the case, since Latinos seem to adapt themselves partially to mainstream American culture. All citizens of the United States will be challenged to find new ways to live harmoniously in pluribus unum. 92
Bibliography Books 
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Huntington, Samuel P. Who are we: America’s great debate (London 2004). 
Kevane, Bridget A. and Heredia, Juanita, Latina Self­Portraits: Interviews with Contemporary Women Writers(Albuquerque 2000). 
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Obama, Barack H., The audacity of hope: thoughts on reclaiming the American Dream (New York 2006). 
Torres‐Saillent, Silvio, and Hernandez, Ramon, The Dominican Americans (Westport 1997). 
Sollers, Werner, Beyond ethnicity: consent and descent in American culture (New York 1986). 
Staten, Clifford L., The history of Cuba (Westport 2003) 
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Alba, Richard, and Nee, Victor, ‘Rethinking Assimilation Theory for a New Era of Immigration’, International migration review vol.31, no4. Special Issue: Immigrant Adaptation and Native‐Born Responses in the Making of Americans (1997). 
Caminero‐Santangelo, Martha, ‘Contesting the boundaries of exile Latino/a literature’ World literature today, vol. 74. no, 3. 
Carroll, Julia, ‘Spanish affect and its effects: bilingual process in Giannina Brashi’s Yo­Yo Boing’ Leading ladies: mujeres en la literature hispana y las artes (Louisiana 2006). 
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Caulfield, Carlota and Davis, Darien J., ‘Pluralism in US Latino literature: a historical perspective’, A companion to US Latino literatures, Carlota Caulfield and Darien J. Davis ed. (Woodbridge 2007). 
Coonred Martínez, Elizabeth, ‘Between the island and the tenements: new directions in Dominican American literature’ A companion to US Latino literatures, Carlota Caulfield and Darien J. Davis ed. (Woodbridge 2007). 
Duany, Jorge, ‘Nation and migration: rethinking Puerto Rican identity in a transnational context’ None of the above: Puerto Ricans in the global era, Frances Negrón‐ Mantaner ed. (New York 2007). 
Estill, Adriana ‘Giannina Braschi’ Latino and Latina writers, Alan West‐Durán ed. (New York 2004). 
Fernandez, Roberto G. ‘Virgil Suarez’ Latino and Latina US authors, Alan West‐Durán ed. (New York 2004). 
Garcia, Maria Christina, ‘Exiles, immigrants and transnationals: the Cuban communities of the United States’,, The Colombia history of Latinos in the United States from 1960, David E. Gutierrez (New York 2004). 
Goffney, Karen, ‘Julia Alvarez, Yo!’ Reading US Latina writers: remapping American literature, Alvina E. Quintana ed. (New York 2003). 
Haydée Rivera, Carmen , ‘Judith Ortiz Cofer’, Latino and Latina writers, Alan West Duran ed. (New York 2004) . 
Levine, Susanne Jill, ‘The Latin American novel in translation’, Cambridge companion to the Latin American novel (Cambridge 2005). 
Loss, Jacqueline, ‘Junot Diaz’ Latino and Latina writers, Alan West‐Durán ed. (New York 2004). 
Luis, William, ‘Latin American (Hispanic Caribbean) literature written in the United States’, The Cambridge Companion of American literature vol. 2 Roberto Gonzalez Echevariia and Enrique Pupo‐Walker ed. (Cambridge 2002). 
Montilla, Patricia M., ‘The island as Mainland and the Revolving Door Motif: contemporary Puerto Rican literature in the United States’ A companion to US Latino literatures, Carlota Caulfield and Darien J. Davis ed. (Woodbridge 2007). 
Mujcinovic, Fatima, ‘Multiple Articulations of Exile in US Latina Literature: Confronting Exilic Absence and Trauma’, MELUS, Vol. 28, No. 4, Speech and Silence: Ethnic Women Writers (2003). 
O’Reilly Herrera, Andrea ,‘Christina Garcia, Dreaming in Cuban’, Reading US Latina writers: remapping American literature, Alvina E. Quintana ed. (New York, Hampshire 2003). 94

Portes, Alejandro and Rumbaut, Rúben G., ‘Ethnogenesis: coming of age in immigrant America’, Ethnicities: children of immigrants in America, Alejandro Portes and Rúben G. Rumbaut ed. ( Berkeley, New York, Los Angelos, London 2001). 
Portes, Alejandro and Rumbaut, Rúben G. , ‘The forging of a New America: lessons for theory and policy’ Ethnicities: children of immigrants in America, Alejandro Portes and Rúben G. Rumbaut ed. ( Berkeley, New York, Los Angelos, London 2001). 
Quintana, Alvina E., Reading US Latina writers :remapping American literature, Alvina E. Quintana ed. (New York,Hampshire 2003). 
Ramirez, Luz Elena, ‘The Latino novel’, The facts on file companion of the American novel vol. 3, Abby H.P. Werlock ed. (New York 2006). 
Real, Luis and Martin‐Rodriguez, Manuel M. ,‘Chicano literature’, The Cambridge history of Latin American literature, vol.2. Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria and Enrique Pupo‐
Walker ed. (Cambridge 2002). 
Rodriguez, Joseph A., ‘ Latinos in cities and suburbs’, Encyclopaedia of American urban history vol.1 , David Goldfield ed.(London, Delhi 2007). 
Schmitter Heisler, Barbera, ‘The sociology of immigration: from assimilation to segmented integration, from the American experience to the global era’ Migration theory, Caroline B. Brettell and James F. Hollifield ed. (New York 2007). 
Sommer, Doris, and Vega Merino, Alexandra, ‘Either and’ Yo­Yo Boing (1998). 
Suarez, Virgil, ‘Latino/a literature’, The continuum encyclopaedia of American literature, Stefan R. Serafin ed. (New York, London 2003). Primary sources 
Alvarez, Julia, Something to declare (Chapel Hill 1998). 
Braschi, Giannina, Yo­Yo Boing (Pittsburgh 1998). 
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Garcia, Christina, Dreaming in Cuban (New York 1993). 
Diaz, Junot, Drown (New York 2007). 
Hijuelos, Oscar, Our house in the lost world (1983). 
Medina, Pablo, Exiled memories (Austin 1997). 
Ortiz Cofer, Judith, The line of the sun (Athens 1989). 
Perez, Loida Maritza, Geograhphies of home( New York 1999). 
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Thomas, Piri, Down these mean streets (New York 1997). 95
Websites 
Website of the 2006 American Community Survey among American Latinos. http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/DTTable?_bm=y&‐context=dt&‐
ds_name=ACS_2006_EST_G00_&‐mt_name=ACS_2006_EST_G2000_B03002&‐
CONTEXT=dt&‐tree_id=306&‐redoLog=false&‐all_geo_types=N&‐_caller=geoselect&‐
geo_id=01000US&‐currentselections=ACS_2006_EST_G2000_B03002&‐
search_results=01000US&‐format=&‐_lang=en 
Website of Harper Collins: publisher of the works of Oscar Hijuelos. http://www.harpercollins.com/authors/4476/Oscar_Hijuelos/index.aspx 
Website of the New York State Writers Institute: part of New York State University http://www.albany.edu/writers‐inst/webpages4/archives/medina_pablo.html 
Website of Pine Manor College, Boston. http://www.pmc.edu/solstice‐faculty‐staffz 
Official website of Esmeralda Santiago. http://www.esmeraldasantiago.com/bio/bio.html 
Official website of Piri Thomas http://cheverote.com/bio.html#write 
Website of A&M Texas University, department of English. http://www‐english.tamu.edu/index.php?id=1411 
Official website of the US Census Bureau http://www.census.gov/population/www/projections/2008projections.html Figures 
Figure I: Segmented Assimilation 
Figure II: Figure II: The cultural preservation of first generation 
Figure III: Acculturation of second generation characters 
Figure IV: Author data 96
Appendix Latinos: What’s in a name? Anybody who intends to study the Latino community or Latino‐American literature is confronted with several problems. Primary, Latino fiction forms an expression of several cultural experiences of distinctive Hispanic groups from the nineteenth century up until today: the Cuban story differs from the Puerto Rican one, while the Puerto Rican experience is nothing like the Mexican. Secondly, there is no consensus on the right term as to refer to this group of people. 254 This appendix will examine several definitions of the term Latino and some problems in connection to this label. Further, I will reject the suggested distinction between ‘exile’ and ‘ethic’ literature. Also, I will give some more information about two often‐returning characteristics of US Latino life: their imprisonment between two languages and el barrio: the neighborhoods were many Latinos live. Latino or Hispanic? Juanita Heredia, associate professor of Spanish at Northern Arizona University and Bridget Kevane , professor Spanish at Montana State University, argue in Latina Self­Portraits: Interviews with Contemporary Women Writers that Latino authors distinguish themselves from other writers, because they are the heirs of a blended Latin American and American heritage. 255 The Puerto Rican author Judith Ortiz Cofer for example neither defines herself as Hispanic or Latino. Though born in Puerto Rico, she was raised in Paterson, New Jersey. She tries to shape her identity by writing in English, but telling about Puerto Rican experiences. Instead, she defines herself as a ‘Puerto Rican woman’. 256 Heradia and Kevane point out further: ‘What is certain is that each [Latino] writer has roots in more than one culture, that each is a hybrid’ 257 William Luis, a professor of Spanish at Vanderbilt University, notes that the historical origin of the term Latino dates back to the late sixties and early seventies. According to Luis, the 254
Luz Elena Ramirez, ‘The Latino novel’, The facts on file companion of the American novel vol. 3, Abby H.P.
Werlock ed. (New York 2006)1427.
255
Juanita Heredia and Bridget Kevane, Latina Self-Portraits: Interviews with Contemporary Women Writers
Bridget Kevane and Juanita Heredia ed. (Albuquerque 2000) 2.
256
Heredia and Kevane, Latina Self-Portraits, 7.
257
Ibidem, 2.
97
word made its first appearance in the Young Lords Party’s (a Puerto Rican nationalist group) 13‐
Point Program and Platform. The goal of the program was to fight for the freedom of ‘ all oppressed people in the world’. 258 The second paragraph of the program said: 259 2. We Want self determination for all Latinos Our Latin Brothers and Sisters, inside and outside the united states, are oppressed by amerikkkan business. The Chicano people built the Southwest and we support their right to control their lives and their land. The people of Santo Domingo continue to fight against gringo domination and its puppet generals. The armed liberation struggles in Latin America are part of the war of Latinos against imperialism. Que viva La Raza! 260 The section suggests the existence of a bond between Latin American people inside and outside the United States (Our Latin Brothers and Sisters). This implied connection is based on the idea that all suffer from the oppression of US imperialism and business. Additionally, the statement reflects the international orientation of the Young Lords Party. Members like Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Rap Brown and other members of the Black Panthers, demonstrate the radical character of the Party. Yet, the word Latino in this section describes ‘oppressed’ people in the United States. Luis points out that the term refers to people who were colonized or oppressed in a colonial power (for example Puerto Ricans in the US) looking out toward the postcolonial world. People in Latin America do not regard themselves as Latinos or Hispanic. Rather, they define themselves in national or regional terms. Nevertheless, the word allows people of different Latin American backgrounds within North America to distinguish themselves from their counterparts. Thus, as seen in this context the word Latino suggest a connection to the United States. 261 Though Luis' analysis might be interesting, I would suggest to strip the word from its oppressive notion and its accompanying negative discourse. The American Census Bureau favors the term Hispanic to Latino. In this case, the term includes all individuals of Spanish speaking origin and their descendents. Scholar Luz Elena Ramirez states that politicians, academics and artists on the other hand, seem to have a preference for the term Latino in order to build bridges between different ethic groups. Besides that, they try to focus on a shared resistance to the American hegemony (the predominance of a set of practices, values and cultural expressions over another). Ramirez concludes that the terms are almost interchangeable. 262 258
My cursivation
William Luis, Dance between two cultures 279.
260
The Young Lords Party and Michael Abrahamson, Palente: Young Lords Party (New York 1971) 150.
261
Luis, Dance between two cultures, 279-280.
262
Ramirez, ‘The Latino novel’ 1427.
259
98
Carlota Caulfield, professor of Spanish and Spanish American Studies at Mills College and Darien J. Davis, associate professor of history at Middlebury College, consider in ‘Pluralism in US Latino literature: a historical perspective’, Latinos as a culturally varied group whose construction has changed through time. They see the term Latino as an identity label with all sorts of political, social and economic meanings, which are nuanced and shaped by power relationships. A quantity of Latinos derives from Iberian conquistadores who once formed an elite in the region that nowadays is known as Latin America. Various are descendents of subjected Africans who were forced to accept the dominant Iberian language and culture. Yet, most Latinos are the outcome of centuries of hybridization. This hybridization did not only include native, Portuguese, Spanish and African influences, but also contributions from many other immigrant and religious groups from all around the world. Latino culture in the United States is thus a reflection of this immense diversity. 263 Nevertheless, we should not forget the descendents of these American immigrants. Although, they might be born in the United States, that does not mean they do not identify themselves with the culture of their forbears. To make things even more difficult, Spanish immigrants and also their offspring tend to regard themselves as Latinos. 264 Caulfield and Davis note that Chicana writer Cherrie Morega reminds people that US Latinos represent the whole spectrum of class, color and political position, including those who firmly believe they can integrate into the mainstream of North American life. One could argue that this statement is correct, depending on how ‘mainstream’ is defined. They are right about the fact that, in the first decennium of the twenty‐first century many American cities boast newspapers, presses, TV and radio stations that serve Spanish and bilingual audiences. In consideration to politics, Latinos have been elected as representatives of the American people. Some Latino authors have gained large successes: singers like Jennifer Lopez and Ricky Martin have made Latin music popular with the large public. Caulfield and Davis further point out that many scholars have stated that some of Latino culture is ‘mainstream' in certain parts of America, but that on the other hand a lot of Latinos remained culturally and economically behind. 265 Nicholas Kanellos, professor of Spanish at Houston, states that: Since before the United States was even founded, Hispanics have imagined themselves though literature and have provided a record of their culture in North America. And within the United States, Hispanics have written and published their works since the early days of the Republic. 263
Carlota Caulfield and Darien J. Davis, ‘Pluralism in US Latino literature: a historical perspective’, A
companion to US Latino literatures, Carlota Caulfield and Darien. J. Davis ed. (Woodbridge 2007) 1.
264
Ibidem 265 Ibidem, 2. 99
From the mid‐19th century on, Hispanics have written in English as well as in Spanish. The literary heritage is continuous and unbroken. 266 Davis and Caulfield argue that Kanellos’ comments highlight the importance of Latino/Hispanic literatures and identities. Additionally, they state that the term ‘Latino’ has gained more widespread acceptance: ‘Latino’ allows the recognition of the cultural hybridization produced by the European fusion with Asian, African or Indigenous peoples. They also hold the position that since the 1970s, Spanglish (a mixture of English and Spanish) has gained acceptance in the mainstream cinema and press. Before that period, most writers used to publish either in Spanish or English. These developments should be seen as a demonstration of the growing cultural hybridization. Moreover, the term ‘Latino’ won in popularity among US Brazilians, who – not surprisingly‐ do not consider themselves as ‘Hispanics.’ 267 According to poet, novelist and scholar Virgil Suarez, many Anglos think that the forced nature of grouping such a large variety of distinct and separate cultures together is just, because in their eyes the various cultures are interchangeable 268 In my thesis, I will address this group of people as Latinos or Latin Americans. I consider the term Hispanic to narrow, because to me the word implies explicit association with the Spanish language or culture. All the same, the expression Latino includes a wider range of speech and seems to leave room for people with more complex cultural backgrounds. The term Latin American I regard as just, because the various groups I will research (Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, Dominicans and Cuban) are originally from countries situated in Latin America Distinctive ethnic and exile literatures? Associate professor of English at the University of Kansas, Marta Caminero‐Santangelo, noted that in college course titles the term ‘Latino/a literature of exile’ is becoming more and more common. Contemporary scholarship speaks of who categories: Latino/a ‘exile’ literature and Latino/a ‘ethnic’ (US) literature. This declination implies that people of the first category, born in Spanish speaking, countries are not American Latinos at all. Ethnic Latino literature is mostly seen as a product of Americans of Puerto Rican, Cuban, Dominican or Mexican and Central or South American descent. Caminero‐Santangelo states that most critical discussions of Latino exile literature are about Cubans. Further, she criticizes this distinction: in practice, this would just lead to an exclusion of many Cuban writings from the label ‘US Latino writing’. 266 Caulfield and Davis, ‘Pluralism in US Latino literature’ 2. 267 Ibidem,2 268 Virgil Suarez, ‘Latino/a literature’ The continuum encyclopaedia of American literature, Steven R. Serafin ed. (New York, London 2003) 650. 100
The dominant critical stream defines Latino exile writing as conflicting to Latino ethnic literature. According to the critics, looking back with nostalgia and a longing for the ‘lost culture and country’ is a typical feature of the first generation. Political circumstances forced them to leave their beloved homeland. These exile writers are therefore people who migrated to the United States as adults and who are focused on their native country. Ethnic authors on the other hand, are born in America or came to the country while being a child. Their writings are ethnic in the way that they are focused on experiences of cultural conversion and hybridity. Another facet of their works is its biculturalism. 269 In my opinion, this distinction is too sharp. Of course there will exist differences between the experiences of people who where born or raised in the US and those who left their country in their adulthoods, but why should they be distinguished by two different labels? I guess this leads to profound stereotyping of writings. Caminero Santangelo seems to agree with me, stating that a division between the two groups is start of the construction of a more essentialist explanation of the terms: American ethnic texts are all about hybridity and biculturalism, while exile writings are all about nostalgia and looking back. 270 Critics have correctly noted that no specific qualities exists that bound Puerto Ricans with Chicano’s etcetera into a sole and specific ethnicity under the label of ‘Latino or Hispanic’. Academic Geoffrey Fox stated about American Latinos that they ‘don’t know or care much about one other, don’t think or talk alike and have until recently thought of themselves of not having any common interests’. 271 This may sound solipsistic, but a Cuban is no Mexican. Each group has his own interests and sensitivities: they might even be opposed. Besides that, every individual has its own unique experiences. 272 However, considering every novel as ‘a specific piece of literature’ written by ‘a person with a specific ethnical background’ and of a ‘specific individual’, does not work much either. Can we keep definitions more simple? The American Latino community is an imagined community, but the same can be said for example to the Puerto Rican community. Harvard professor of English and African American Studies Werner Sollers takes historian Benedict Anderson’s concept of ‘imagined communities’ to the next level by stating that ethnicities, like nations, are ‘imagined communities’: what connects these groups is a set of ‘collective fictions’ that are unstable and ‘constantly debated’ and reinvented. Thus, ethnicity, just like identity, is not 269 Marta Caminero‐Santangelo, ‘Contesting the boundaries of exile Latino/a literature’ World literature today, vol. 74. no, 3. 1‐2. 270 Caminero‐Santangelo, ‘Contesting the boundaries’, 4. 271 Ibidem, 22. 272 Ibidem, 8. 101
something which exists an sich, but is invented. Further, it is dynamic, because it is constantly reshaped as is identity. 273 Concluding, I believe in the existence of a imagined US Latino community, bound by immigration experiences. This community consists of people who are torn between loyalties towards the United States and another Latin American country and who’s members are (often) bilingual. This is true for the Puerto Rican, Dominican, Cuban and Chicano community. However, I will take in account that every individual author has his own visions of his or her identity. Further, I like to refer to this type of writing as ‘ethnic’ or ‘exile’ writing interchangeably. Caught between two languages Spanish is in the wake of English, the second most spoken language of the United States. Virgil Suarez states that tongue forms the central point of unity between Latino authors. Although, there may subsist differences in accents and expressions, all share the experience of bilingualism. 274 Additionally, Suarez holds the view that the capability to express oneself, to feel and to think in two languages, makes that people from time to time are unable to express themselves fully in just one speech. This phenomenon is called ‘interference’ by linguists and is mostly seen as something negative, as a weakness. I wonder however, why mingling several languages should be considered as something inferior? In some cases, a language doesn’t provide the appropriate word for a specific feeling or phenomenon. Latino writers and readers however, seem to agree with me that the intermingling of English and Spanish is an effective way of communication. 275 Bilingual authors have to decide in which tongue they want to express themselves. According to Ramirez, the language of choice indicates authenticity and a certain attitude towards the United States. Novelists increasingly inject Spanish into their English written works. Good examples are the works of Sandra Cisneros and Julia Alvarez. The blending of two languages draws attention to allegiances that cut across rural and urban divisions and generations. The Dominican‐American writer Junot Diaz for instance applies African‐American slang to highlight cultural links. 276 Besides that, Suarez remarks that a lot of dramatists consider the use of the Spanish language of their characters as a vital part of daily communication, instead of an alien language. Despite the fact that many Latinos write their novels in English, they include specific points of reference and expressions of their own culture. This action can be deemed as an act of 273 Werner Sollers, Beyond ethnicity: consent and descent in American culture (New York 1986) xv. 274 Suarez, ‘Latino/a literature’, 650 275 Ibidem 276 Ramirez, ‘The Latino novel’, 1427. 102
resistance: they will not allow the English language to destruct their (other) culture and thus their identity. 277 El barrio Many Latin American immigrants live grouped together in special Latino neighborhoods, also known as barrios. The term barrio derives from the Latin word barium, meaning ‘part of the city’. Other names for this kind of neighborhoods refer to the origin of a particular group like, ‘Little Havana’ in Miami. During the twentieth century, barrios in the US grew. This growth had to do with the fact that many Latinos moved to cities in search of better‐paid jobs. Conversely, poverty and discrimination forced them to live in poorer neighborhoods. After the Second World War, mechanization broke through in rural areas: many people lost their jobs and urban migration increased. Countless Latino immigrants had mixed feelings about leaving their mother country. After having American born children or having found decent employment, they did not return to their home country, despite being homesick. Barrios came to function as transnational conduits where they could maintain connections which their former dwelling places. By time, technical innovations made it easier to communicate with the home front. Railroads, highways, airplanes, telephone, television, computers: they all helped to keep the contact alive. Hometown clubs, labor societies, merchant associations and mutual aid societies provided also connections with the old country. 278 277 Ibidem. 278 Joseph A. Rodriguez, ’Latinos in cities and suburbs’: Encyclopedia of American urban history vol.1, David Goldfield ed.(London, Delhi 2007)429‐430.
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