Reseña de "Governing Spirits: Religion, Miracles, and Spectacles in Cuba and Puerto Rico, 1898-1954" de Reinaldo L. Román (original) (raw)

History of Latin American Culture - Introduction

Routledge History of Latin American Culture, 2018

While editing this book and translating many of its chapters, I was reminded of the radical difference between how Latin Americans and U.S. Latinxs 1 have traditionally viewed race, and in many regards, culture. Fortunately, that difference is beginning to erode. The United States has become a temporary and permanent destination for Latin Ameri-cans. Ideas, trends, expressions, and knowledge travel back and forth at a dizzying pace. It has also been at the crossroads of a changing identity among Latin Americans and a source of inspiration for new ways of viewing race. In the United States there is more cultural intersection and understanding between mestizos and American Indian groups. In fact, because of the debilitating effects of anti-immigrant racism in the United States, it becomes clear to us that we are, in fact, Black or indigenous, or more simply put, not white. There is no more pretense of fitting into a racial category when you are clearly rejected. This has facilitated the process of decolonization during the Chicano/a Movement by proclaiming the outright acceptance of our indigenous selves. The Chicano/a Movement partly came about as a defense mechanism: somos ni de aqui ni de alla. We were rejected for being too gringo and not gringo enough. Instead of suffering the effects of rejection because of our skin color, and therefore being traumatized, we rejected shame. We made peace with the idea of not being white. Culturally, we invested in our indigenous ancestry. And as César E. Chávez reminded the world: " Once social change begins, it cannot be reversed. You cannot un-educate the person who has learned to read. You cannot humiliate the person who feels pride. You cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore. " 2 Chicanismo represented a cultural shift; it lifted a demoralized people out of the dregs; it healed our trauma and made us confident enough to pursue our dreams. It also created a path for future generations of migrantes to follow. It is with this combative passion of change that I position the concept of Latin Ameri-can culture and chose the essays included in this volume. There are many perspectives on culture and many opinions on what it should or should not represent. Culture in Latin America, and among the Latinx population in the United States, has often been produced out of struggle. In many ways, this is a book that explores how colonialism has affected culture. The quest for identity and autonomy, the defiance of borders and homogeneity, the fight for equal rights and the rise of social movements, and the evolution of feminism and sexuality may seem politically driven but they have also contributed profoundly to culture in Latin America and among Latinxs in the United States. Even if we speak of the great works of art and literature in Latin America, they are often inspired by conflict. However, in this increasingly globalized world, Latinxs are learning from one another. We have more shared experiences now and it is possible for Latinxs from all parts of the Americas to sit down and map out commonalities, analyze differences, and reveal to one

Elián González and the ‘‘Real Cuba’’ of Miami: Visions of Identity, Exceptionality, and Divinity

Cuban Studies, 2007

This essay explores the significance and meaning of the international custody battle forged between Miami Cubans and the government of Fidel Castro over six-year-old Elián González, one of only three survivors of a boat loaded with fourteen other Cubans that capsized at sea in late November 1999. It argues that the massive legal and political campaign launched by exile leaders in Miami to prevent Elián from being returned to his father in Cuba dramatized the creation and growth of what many Miami Cubans understand to be the ''real Cuba'' in the United States. Critical to this vision of the ''real Cuba'' are two related myths of Cuban exceptionality. Articulated today by exile leaders for their own ends but conceived by powerful, founding groups of exiles who arrived in Miami in the 1960s, these myths posit U.S. Cubans as uniquely entitled to special treatment from the U.S. government and as uniquely qualified to defend the interests of democracy and anticommunism better than any non-Cuban U.S. citizen and even better than the U.S. government itself. Using popular mobilizations of Miami Cubans around Elián as a window on the political and ideological underpinnings of these myths, this essay also suggests that the ''real Cuba'' of Miami has, as the case of Elián showed, little legitimacy or resonance with island Cubans, today or in the post-Fidel age. 2 : Lillian Guerra defender los intereses de la democracia y el anticomunismo mejor que cualquier otro ciudadano americano no cubano y mejor aún que el propio gobierno de Estados Unidos. Usando las movilizaciones populares de los cubanos de Miami alrededor de Elián como una ventana hacia los elementos políticos e ideológicos que sostienen estos mitos, este ensayo también sugiere que la ''Cuba real'' de Miami tiene, como el caso de Elián mostró, poca legitimidad o resonancia entre los cubanos de la isla tanto hoy como en la era posFidel.

Anthology of Spanish American Thought and Culture

Anthology of Spanish American Thought and Culture, 2017

This Landmark Anthology brings together more than sixty myths, poems, memoirs, manifestos, and works of fiction translated from Spanish to English, some for the first time. It is an ambitious introduction to Spanish American Thought and culture, featuring historiographies by mestizo intellectuals of the Colonial periods; thought-pieces by eighteenth-century Jesuits; personal accounts by indigenous authors, women in struggle, and labor activists; and excerpts from Reinaldo Arenas, the exiled gay Cuban poet, playwright and novelist.