We Are Not the World Author(S): George Yúdice Source: Social Text, No

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We Are Not the World Author(s): George Yúdice Source: Social Text, No. 31/32, Third World and Post-Colonial Issues (1992), pp. 202-216 Published by: Duke University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/466226 . Accessed: 25/08/2013 02:06

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This content downloaded from 130.70.132.61 on Sun, 25 Aug 2013 02:06:04 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions We AreNot theWorld

GEORGE YUDICE

"We are the world" is a slogan withmany possible interpretations.It may be interpretedas an updated version of the "white man's burden," the globalization of late capitalism or the "Americanization"of the world. From a different,multicultural perspective the United States is seen as a microcosmof the world. Of course, these differentinterpretations have theircommon denominatorin the dual process of global driftof capital and global riftof populations. In a special supplementto The New York Times, "A World of Difference,"the connectionbetween commerceand diversityforms part of a celebrationof multiculturalismthat is really an advertisementfor New York: This metropolitanarea encompassesworld-renowned neighborhoods like Harlem,Chinatown, Little Italy... and places thetourists don't knowabout - thePortuguese shops and restaurants of Newark'sIron- boundsection, the Cuban enclave of UnionCity, the Arabian settle- mentsof Brooklyn....Somewhere in the tri-statearea you'll find representativesofvirtually every race, religion, nationality and ethnic background.That's a resourcefor learning few othercities in the world can offer.1 Is being the world- claiming to representthe numerousperspectives of peoples around the world- , however, a legitimateclaim for New York (and by extensionthe United States) to make? Even if "we" could see thingsfrom the vantagepoint of all national formations,there would still be the insurmountablechallenge of takinginto account the particu- larisms of region, race, class, gender,religion, and so on withinthose formations.What I would like to argue here is thatthe "we are the-world" complex is not exclusive to the global reach of MTV - as pointed up in a JonPareles piece entitled"As MTV Turns 10, Pop Goes the World"2- or of the new internationaladvertising which now targets segmented publics not only withinbut also across countries.3Multiculturalists have jumped on the global bandwagon too and unwittinglyseem to legitimize some unfavorablerepercussions on representationsof foreigncultures. As a culturalcritic of U.S. and Latin Americancultures and the rela- tions between themI have developed a persistentbifocality that induces in me an unease whenever the impulse to recognize the diversitythat constitutesthe United States overshootsits markand self-servedlycele- brates"American" multiculturalismas isomorphicwith the world. On the

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This content downloaded from 130.70.132.61 on Sun, 25 Aug 2013 02:06:04 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions GeorgeYa dice 203 one hand, I am an enthusiasticadvocate of greaterrecognition of our (U.S.) cultural diversityin educational and artistic institutions,in the media and otherpublic spheres.My advocacy, of course, is not simplyfor recognitionbut more importantlyfor access to all the rightsand services thatgo along withcitizenship. On theother hand, I question theauthority of U.S. intellectualsand activistswithin the above-mentioned institutions to representother peoples, especially when the injunctionto do so stems fromour own internalidentity politics (withrepercussions, of course, for internationalcultural politics, which is the problem I am addressing). I mustemphasize thatthis questioning did not develop in me early on as an actor in the U.S. multiculturalmovement; it was instead lavished on me when as a "representative"of progressive U.S. cultural politics I at- temptedto translateU.S. multiculturalismfor my counterparts(progressive intellectualsand activists) in some Latin Americancountries. I hasten to point out that Latin Americans' challenge to U.S. multiculturalismis by no means unproblematic.On the contrary,their suspi- cion of it - beyond a justified repugnanceto U.S. imperialism- often stemsfrom their own unease in valuing thecultural diversity of theirown societies, especially when that diversityis defined in terms of race, ethnicityand sexual preference.Latin Americanintellectuals, who enjoy an entrenchedclass privilege,have not questioned enough the criteriaby which their national cultures (articulated in public spheres to which access is limited) override their own under- or unrecognized cultural diversity.Indeed, untilrecently nationalism in Latin Americatranscended other more particulariststruggles as the "most effective"resistance to imperialism.My critique of U.S. multiculturalism'sglobal thrust,then, should not be understoodto draw its legitimacyfrom Latin Americans' challenge to it. I bringup the issue, rather,as a factorwhich must be taken into consideration in assessing the reception of U.S. multiculturalism abroad. My argumentrevolves around the problems raised by cross-cultural networksof disseminationand reception.One cannot speak of what U.S. culturemeans to Latin Americanswithout examining its means of dissemination: film and TV programs,the popular press, mainstreamaesthetic culture,and mainstreamintellectual journalism (The New YorkReview of Books, The New YorkTimes Book Review,Atlantic Monthly, etc.) fromthe U.S. and theircounterparts in Latin America.Academic culture,for better or worse, has relatively little influence in the representationof U.S. culture in Latin America, so that to this day what is conveyed by the mainstreammedia is almost exclusively what gets to Latin American reading and viewing publics. In the other direction,cultural flow from Latin America to the U.S., with few exceptions, is not mediated by equivalent Latin American institutionsof dissemination.The fact is that decisions about what Latin Americanfilms should be shown,what books

This content downloaded from 130.70.132.61 on Sun, 25 Aug 2013 02:06:04 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 204 WeAre Not the World are to be translated,what social and political movementsto be repre- sented,etc. are made by U.S. enterprisesand theuniversity system, which in thisregard does wield considerablepower, especially in its linkages to state policy making apparatuses but also in alternativespheres, such as those in which solidaritypolitics and multiculturalisminteract. This discussion of uneven networksof disseminationraises the impor- tant point that cultural representation- which is at the heart of U.S. multiculturalpolitics - is always already mediatedin ways thatcompli- cate well-intentionedattempts to give recognitionto othercultures, especially those fromLatin America,Africa, the Middle East and Asia. If we focus, forexample, on the selection of foreigntexts to representforeign cultures,say those of the Mexican writerCarlos Fuentes, it is necessary to take into considerationcertain circumstancesthat are likely to go unexamined: thatas one of the canonized writersof the Latin American literary"Boom" of the 1960s and early 1970s his work was promoted within a particularlyfelicitous conjuncturein the newly consolidated transnationalpublishing industry; that his concernswith the definitionof a continentalLatin Americanculture reflected the aspirationsand anxie- ties of elites and by no means those of Mexico's own non-hegemonic groups; thatFuentes' equivalentin theU.S. would likelybe someone like Styron,not an Ishmael Reed nor even a Doctorow, and much less Latino writerslike Rolando Hinojosa or Oscar Hijuelos; and thathis workis grist foran academic mini-industry,initially in mainstreamSpanish and Latin American literaturedepartments in the U.S. and increasinglyin those English departmentsthat have begun to capitalize on and absorb - often with little expertise- so-called Third World literaturesas part of their cultural or multiculturalstudies programs.That Fuentes opposes U.S. interventionsin Latin America, criticizes late capitalism,and has estab- lished some multiculturalconnections - e.g., he is on theeditorial board of Transition(co-directed by AnthonyAppiah and Henry Louis Gates, Jr.),along with the likes of bell hooks, Jamaica Kincaid, Toni Morrison and Cornel West- certainlykeys the mainstreamregisters sounded in the portrayalabove. But this only points up a politics of reception of so-called ThirdWorld figuresthat gives priorityto highprofile positions and gesturesand neglectsthe contradictionsof those figuresin theirown national settings;it really is odd thata mandarinlike Fuentes could be recycled as a multiculturalist. The multiculturalcall forrepresentation of othercultures, for which a writerlike Carlos Fuentes- or any otherforeign writer, artist or political figure for that matter- may be chosen, requires attendingto various, even incompatibleagendas (correspondingto differentnetworks of dissemination), not all of which have the progressive repercussions that multiculturalism arguably hopes to effect. In other words, U.S. multiculturalism'sprogram of culturalrepresentation may in fact expose

This content downloaded from 130.70.132.61 on Sun, 25 Aug 2013 02:06:04 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions GeorgeYadice 205 it to a minefieldof consequences which it is not fullyprepared to deal with. In what follows, I would like to explore some of these consequences, takingmy experiences with the disseminationand receptionof U.S. culturein Latin America and Latin Americanculture in the U.S. as a point of departure. Multiculturalismhas many varieties,ranging from the liberal touchy- feely, "I'm okay, you're okay," embrace of differenceto the radical programof seeking justice for those groups who are oppressed within U.S. society, especially racial "minorities,"women, gays and lesbians. Even in this lattertendency "doing justice" can vary fromensuring that these groupsare representedwithout prejudice to legislatingreparations. Not included on most multiculturalagendas, however,are such issues as structuraladjustment, uneven wages, the deteriorationof the conditions of life. This is its greatestdrawback, for multiculturalidentity politics have proven incapable thus far of addressingsome of these largerprob- lems. It is notenough to blame culturalcategories - Eurocentrism,West- ern culture,etc. - instead of social problems.Another problematic goal of multiculturalismis the recognitionof the cultures of origin of these oppressed groups: Native Americancultures, Africa cultures,Asian cultures, and Latin American cultures. Multiculturalism'srationale is that such recognitionwill undo the "damaging effecton the psyche of young people of African,Asian, Latino, Native Americandescent" wroughtby "negative characterizationsor the absence of positive references."4 These statements are made in The New York State Education Commissioner's Task Force report,"A Curriculumof Inclusion," which goes on to argue, correctlyin myview, thatthe remedyfor the misrepre- sentations of these groups' contributionsis a multiculturaleducation which properlyrepresents the historyand cultureof oppressed groups in U.S. A trulymulticultural curriculum represents a body of knowledge aboutthe African, Asian, Latin American/Caribbean, Native Ameri- can, and Europeanexperience and presentsan alternateapproach to theeducation system. To theextent that this alternative curriculum withits equitable treatment of all cultureseliminates omissions, cor- rectserroneous material, provides new analyses,contradicts falla- cious assumptions,and challenges ethnocentric traditions of all kinds - it improvesexisting educational endeavors and becomesthe basis forinnovative, creative models of learningfor all studentsand staff.5 Questions about this remedy arise, however, when one considers the problem fromthe vantage point of the culturesof originsof these groups and the levels of mediation throughwhich "accurate knowledge" about them is (re)produced. The reportis wholely motivatedby U.S. identity politics - which makes sense since it is a U.S. educational systemthat is being reformed- and none of the draftersof the reportare currently taking part in the cultural dynamics of the above-mentionedforeign

This content downloaded from 130.70.132.61 on Sun, 25 Aug 2013 02:06:04 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 206 WeAre Not the World regions.It is notadequate, in myopinion, to havea U.S. Latinospeak for, say, Ecuadoransor an AfricanAmerican for Ghanians. The pointI am tryingto makeis thateven immigrants from these countries do nothave the same perspectiveas those who remain,despite the emergenceof translocaland diasporiccommunities comprised of social and cultural networksthat defy national boundaries.6 Multicultural reform, then, must extendits reachto includethe knowlegdes produced in theseother coun- triesindependently of U.S. identitypolitics, not as authenticrepresenta- tions- authenticityis not the issue - but ratheras participantsin their own culturalpolitics. This is an enormousand verydelicate task, especially since it mustreckon with the political economy of U.S. artistic, educational,and mediainstitutions as producersof a knowledgeof the worldthat reflects U.S. global interests.Moreover, we are inscribedin thispolitical economy in sucha waythat it is notalways clear whether or notthe knowledge produced by multiculturalism ultimately ends up serv- ingthese global interests. Let me givesome examples. Readersmay remember a certain reluctance on NelsonMandela's part to playthe role that the Dinkins Administration had scriptedfor him in a dramatizationof African-American identity politics when he visitedNew YorkCity shortly after his releasefrom prison. Furthermore, Mandela's refusalto condemnCuba, whichsupplied the ANC withmore than just moralsupport, raised all kindsof hypocritical posturings, especially from thosewho wereinvited by Mandelato criticizeIsrael forits oppression of Palestinians.An analogouscaution regarding assimilation to U.S. Latinoidentity has been takenby manyrepresentatives of revolutionary or progressiveLatin Americansocial movementswhile participating in solidaritypolitics in theU.S. A betterexample, perhaps, is thecase of a Salvadoranartist who complained to me [no doubtanticipating the sym- pathyof an almost-fellow-Salvadoran- I am theson of Salvadoranpar- entsand have workedin thesolidarity movement since its inception]of herexclusion from contemporary art shows. From a mainstreamperspec- tive,she explained,her neo-abstract expressionist works were considered derivative,as ifonly "Americans" and Europeans could legitimately work in thisstyle; but froma "multicultural"perspective, too, herwork was foundwanting because she did notwear her identity on hersleeve - or ratherher canvas - thusnot embodying the aesthetic ethos sought out by alternativeart institutions. Such an injunctionto accommodateto U.S. identitypolitics was clear in "The Decade Show,"an exhibitionsponsored in partnershipby the Museum of ContemporaryHispanic Art,the New Museum of Contempo- rary Art and the Studio Museum in Harlem. Subtitled "Frameworksof Identityin the 1980s," the catalogue essay explained thatthe show was a "proclamationthat 'history'is not objective and thatthe Americanexpe- rience is much more heterogeneousthan generally asserted."' Signifi-

This content downloaded from 130.70.132.61 on Sun, 25 Aug 2013 02:06:04 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions GeorgeYddice 207 cantly,the heterogeneityof the "American experience" extended to the whole world and to a multiplehistoricity: The workincluded in thisexhibition may be seenas materialevidence of alternateviewpoints. Many artists of color,for example, in their philosophical,aesthetic, and spirituallinkages to theprecolonial so- cietiesof Africa,Asia, and America,legitimize diversity, resist Eu- rocentricdomination, and createa foundationfrom which to analyze and explaincontemporary social phenomena.Feminist, gay and les- bian artistssimilarly affirm that there are other ways of seeing,ways equal to existingcultural dictates.8 That designated U.S. "minority"artists, as well as others who claim subalternidentities, should pretendto representsuch a global and histor- ical diversityis contestedby some activists,artists and academics whom I have met abroad. Let me give an example. A year ago I was thus confrontedat a conferenceheld in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiroon race and gender in Latin America. As the organizers were familiarwith an essay on U.S. Latinos thatI co-wrotewith Juan Flores and published in these very pages, I was slated to give the postmodernaccount of ethnic and racial politics, for the sake of comparison with Latin American countries. I also took the opportunityto tryto correctwhat I had long perceived to be the Latin American image of U.S. culture,an image of consumerismand simulationor of postmodernhigh art and literature,as projected, respectively,by the mass media and high cultureinstitutions. If the mass image of "America" consisted of sitcoms, fast food restaurants, malls, deserted highways and inner cities in ruins, A la Jean Baudrillardand Wim Wenders,postmodern art and literatureseemed like the curriculumof an English Departmentcultural studies section. In Latin America, "American" postmodernismmeans Robert Venturi, Philip Johnson,Andy Warhol, David Salle, Robert Longo, Cindy Sher- man, Laurie Anderson, Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Peter Sellars, JohnAdams, Philip Glass, Steve Reich, David Byrne,John Barth, Donald Barthelme, Robert Coover, William Kennedy, Charles Olson, Thomas Pynchon,Don DeLillo, RaymondCarver, Susan Sontag, William Gass, Richard Rorty,Fredric Jameson. The list could go .... The main- streamimage of "America" is so ingrainedin Latin America thatthe most acclaimed Brazilian documentaryin 1989,9show- around the same time as the conferenceon race and gender,consisted of a virtualreproduction of the above-mentionednames, plus those of actors like Dennis Hopper, businessmenlike David Rockefeller,and politicianslike HenryKissinger, as well as the indispensablenames of those foreigners,like Baudrillardor Paul Virilio, who have made their careers projecting "America" as a postmodernutopia of global dimensions.In fact,this documentary, titled "America" after Baudrillard's eponymous book, construed the setting more as a generalized ontological condition that seduces the foreigner thanas a particularcountry. Of course, no Latinos, no Native, Africanor

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Asian Americanswere includedamong the intellectuals,artists, scientists interviewed,although they did formpart of the simulscape.'0 Justas no "minority"figures were included in the documentary,the participantsat the conferencehad neverheard of Latino intellectualsand artists like Gloria Anzaldiia, Alurista, Pedro Pietri, Oscar Hijuelos, Guillermo G6mez Pefla, Martin Espada, Luis Valdez, Sandra Cisneros, Sandra Est6vez, Nicolosa Mohr,Rolando Hinojosa, Miguel Piflero,Tino Villanueva, Lorna Dee Cervantes,and many others.I argued thatmain- stream U.S. culture translateden bloc to mainstreamLatin American cultures.This is the effectnot only of the global power of U.S. media but even more of the elitist characterof Latin American public spheres, in which subalterngroups not only do not participatein the representation of nationalculture but are also radicallyexcluded fromthe distribution of resourcesand services. Class difference,constituted in greatpart by racial and ethnic difference,is clearly marked in the aesthetic and public spheres. In fact, a nickname has been coined in Brazil to express this race-bound class division: Belindia, thatis, a combinationof bourgeois Belgium (the southernpart of Brazil) and a stereotypicCalcutta (the Afro-BrazilianNortheast). The firstand mostsustained response to mypresentation was given by a black Venezuelan woman and fellow panelist. She pointed out thatmy U.S. Latino, multiculturalperspective would soon follow the paths already cleared by mainstream"American" culture, likewise setting the trendsof culturalproduction that people all over the world would either have to follow,resignify or resist. Much as I mightnot like to admit it, she added, the transnationalculture industrywas already packaging multiculturalism,as exemplifiedby rap music and hip hop culture,which was not only being producedas such in all Latin Americancountries but which was also being fused withlocal musical formssuch as salsa, samba, and national rock musics. We and others debated whetheror not this constituted"cultural imperialism," arriving more or less at the consensus thatcultural give and take are inevitable,especially in an era of electronic reproductionwhich makes global disseminationinevitable. Under such circumstancesany notionof culturalpurity makes littlesense. Are samba- rap or roforengue- a blend of rock, forr6 and merengue- any less Brazilian because theyincorporate musical formsinvented elsewhere? Is it accurate, moreover,to repudiatetransnational cultural flows when the very subalternpeoples multiculturalismwants to representin all their differenceengage in these flows in ways thatmake it difficultto draw the line between what is and is not "Western"?It is not, then, a matterof acculturationor "Americanization"but, rather,differential reception to modernizationaccording to particular,local needs, what JestisMartin- Barbero calls "repossessing culture.""'1

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There is a well-foundedreaction against Eurocentrismwithin multiculturalism that seeks to valorize other, non-Westerncultural experiences. The transferof this tendencyto Latin Americancultures, however, can produce serious distortions,not the least of which is to argue that Latin America is non-Western.The exoticization that mainstreamU.S. culture wreaks on even the most "universal" Latin American writersis bad enough. A New YorkTimes book review of Mario Vargas Llosa's The Green House - in whichhe attemptssocial representationas a totalityof form,adapting 19thcentury realism to Latin America- dredgesup every clich6 imaginable: A squirmingmass of tatterdemalionhumanity emerges in these pages.... Thereare Amazonianriver people and Amazonianwomen. Thereare missionarynuns, lawless speculators in rawjungle rubber. Indiantribesmen who use blowgunsand pilotson riverboats in the amphibiousworld...you get everything:the agonyof a womanin childbirth,the brutalities of Indiantorture, moments of intoxicated joy, a fatalgame of Russianroulette, a provincialwedding...it is electricallyalive.12 But multiculturalismcan also incurin its own "otherizations"in what,in myopinion, is its preferenceto see Latin Americansas non-Western,thus a nativism. testimo- privileging quasi-essentialized Rigoberta Menchti's nio, I... Rigoberta Menchi. An Indian Woman in Guatemala, widely used in multiculturalcourses, is importantnot only for its account of Indian life in Central America but also for its challenge to hegemonic formsof However, own ratherto expression. Menchti's experiencespoint a process of transculturation,theorized initially by Cuban FernandoOrtiz and insightfullyapplied by the UruguayanAngel Rama as a correctiveto the unidirectionalnotion of "acculturation." Transculturationis a dy- namic wherebydifferent cultural matrices impact reciprocally - though not fromequal positions- on each other,not to produce a single syn- cretic culture but rathera heterogeneousensemble.13 After all, Menchti does learn to read and write Spanish and ultimatelybecomes a human rightsactivist in an internationalcontext, making use of the knowledges and technologiesof "Western"culture. Latin Americancultural experiences, I would like to argue, constitute alternate ways of being Western.The vast majoritylive in urbancenters with a long historyof transculturation.The workingand middle classes take a course of studywhich spans "Westerncivilization" fromclassical antiquityto the crisis of modernity.They too were raised on the same films and TV programs as the rest of the Westernworld, plus those produced in the media megalopolises of Mexico City and Rio de Janeiro, basically using the same genres: sitcoms,soaps (telenovelas), game and varietyshows, etc. The point I am tryingto make here is not thatLatin Americancultures are Westernin the same way as theU.S. or France but, rather,that they are inscribedin a transculturalrelation to Westernmo-

This content downloaded from 130.70.132.61 on Sun, 25 Aug 2013 02:06:04 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 210 WeAre Not the World dernityjust as muchas, say,Eastern Europe (or forthat matter multicultural U.S.). Andjust as in EasternEurope there are greatvariations in the compositionof thistransculturation, say, between Romania and Hungary, in LatinAmerica too one can discerna rangeof Westerntransculturation fromthe predominantly indigenous Guatemala and Paraguayto Argen- tina,whose population has a higherpercentage of Europeandescendants thanthe U.S. Of course,there is a temporaldifference in thesedifferent transculturations.According to Ortiz,Cuba transculturatedin less than fourcenturies "the whole gamutof culturerun by Europein a span of morethan four milleniums,"1'4 suggesting a partialcontinuity in theprocess of Westernization.He duly observesthat Cuban transcultuarion failedwith regard to thenative population (i.e., theywere wiped out) and thatit was cruelto Africanslaves. However, on themore positive side of theprocess, there was a "consequentcreation of new cultural phenomena" in whichthe role of Africans,Spaniards, Chinese, and othersmust be recognized. It is the specificityof the"heterogeneous ensemble" which resulted and the attendantproblems caused by modernizationthat must not be assimilatedto blanketnotions of the colonial,the postcolonialor the ThirdWorld. Latin America's transcultural Westernism, itmust be empha- sized, is radicallydifferent from the cultural matrices of countrieslike Nigeria,Iraq, India or China.To beginwith, unlike these countries, Latin Americawas colonizedby Europeans who settled there, transferring their religious,linguistic, political, juridical, literaryand social systems. These, of course, were transculturatedin contactwith non-European peoples,whose own systems,however, were utterly destroyed, with the exception,of course, of everyday beliefs and practices which survived the destructionof indigenousimperial civilization. Since independence in the earlynineteenth century, but also earlierin theactivism of some progressive clergylike Las Casas, recognitionof thesepeoples' cultureand reparationfor the destruction have been on theagendas of certain political movements,at leastformally, and diversepublic spheres. Consequently, comingto gripswith Latin America's diversity comes much earlier than in theU.S., althoughit getsabsorbed by nationalism, the means by which criollo elites negotiatedtheir insertion in the economicand political forces,known as modernization,unleashed from Western Europe." [It shouldbe added,at least in theform of an indispensableexcursus, that thegroup most excluded by nationalismwas comprisedof women,who, at least since thebeginning of thiscentury, were active in citizenship organizationsthat traversed national boundaries.'6 It is thenon-national- istic characterof theirconcerns - or concerns not construed in accor- dance with a male gendered conception and practice of nationalism- that accounts in part for women's exclusion fromthe intellectual and culturalhistory of Latin America.There are almostno collections of Latin

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Americanintellectual and culturaldiscourse which include women con- tributors.] It may seem odd thatsomeone who subscribesto multiculturalism shouldput forth the argument that Latin America is notnon-Western. In the firstplace, mine is not a defenseof "Westerncivilization" in its imperialforms. It is, however,a challengeto themonolithic straw man thathas beenconstrued as theWest, as ifthere were no variantsin it.Not everythingthat forms part of Westerncultures can be reducedto imperialism.I followthe thinking of thoseLatin Americans who distinguished between,on theone hand,the arrogance of Western European and United Statesdominant classes thatprojected themselves as heirsto theputative westwardmove of History,facilitated by therejection of miscegenation, and,on theother hand, an alternativeoccidentality emerging from Latin America'scultural heterogeneity. Already in theearly nineteenth century, Sim6nBolivar declared that Latin America was comprisedof European, Native Americanand Africancontributions."7 Not only is highculture (literature,architecture, etc.) evidently a composite,but so also is popular culture:samba and salsa wouldnot exist without the contributions of the waltzand thepolka, on theone hand,and diversepercussive styles and genresfrom Africa, on theother. As theWest was sufferingits decline, theDominican Pedro Henriquez Urefia, along withthe likes of Asturias and Carpentier,was characterizingthe project of NuestraAmerica as a utopian,emancipatory one, an alternativeone, however, to thatexclusive "Westerncivilization" construed in the Enlightenment.'8We mustnot forgetthat Latin America's alternative, transculturated occidentality de- rivesnot onlyfrom its non-Europeanroots but also fromits non-hege- monicEuropean sources in theIberian peninsula, with its double legacy of Counterreformationand Baroque cultures,and veryheterogeneous ones at that. It seems to me thatthis difference is notfully appreciated in certain pedagogicalapproaches to so-calledThird World literatures. For instance, exemplaryas BarbaraHarlow's Resistance Literature is formaking available in Englishcontestatory texts from Africa and theMiddle East, cen- soredwithin "first" and "third"world publishing institutions, as well as alreadytranslated Latin American materials, the outcome, at leastfor this reader,is frequentlyhomogenization of political and aestheticintent and purpose.Organized under the same thematicrubric, the selections from ErnestoCardenal (Nicaragua), Balach Khan(Baluchistan), Roque Dalton (El Salvador),Onesimo Silveira (Cape Verde),Jorge Rebelo (Mozam- bique), A.N.C. Kumalo (South Africa) and others sound strikinglysim- ilar.'9 The reader has no way of knowingwhether the otherpoets share Cardenal's parodyof Biblical verse foran almostdisingenuously innocent political effect,or the caustic ironywhich Dalton turnson really existing socialism and on his own communistbeliefs. Furthermore,these two

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CentralAmerican poets are squarelywithin Western poetic tradition, drawingfrom classical sources (Cardenal's epistles, epigramsand psalms)and avant-gardistrupture (Cardenal's "exteriorism," patterned in partafter the poetry of Poundand Williams;Dalton's post-Dadaist anti- poetry). I referto Harlownot because I thinkthat she has effecteda distortion; afterall, themain purpose of herbook is notcultural representation but to providea politicallysheltered reading public with a contestatoryliter- atureunavailable in mainstreampublications, which she does rathersuc- cessfully. The problem,rather, is with those U.S. critics who, in pretendingto bringus writersrepresentative of othercultures, do not attendcarefully enough to differentialnetworks of disseminationand reception,a problemHarlow addresses scrupulously. The emergenceof Luisa Valenzuelaas an importantArgentine writer in someU.S. circles providesa good case foranalysis. Her workis toutedfor its allegorical treatmentof torture under military dictatorship and the peculiar gendering of torturingand torturedbodies in thesecircumstances. The topicsmake herrelevant to progressivesand to feministsand otheracademics who followthe fashion of "writingthe body." However, there are manyLatin Americanwriters who have dealt with these topics and whohave consid- erableuptake in theirown cultures, such as fellowArgentine Marta Traba and theChilean Diamela Eltit, both of whomare virtuallyunknown in the U.S. and whoshould be of interestto thesame constituencies. I bring up Valenzuela in order to get back to the issue that I started with;namely, that in selectingany textfor cultural representation one mustpay attentionto thenetworks of disseminationthat have madethat textavailable. Afterall, we shouldnot treat texts as if theywere inno- cently there,just for the picking. Two networksof disseminationhave contributedto Valenzuela's rise in the U.S. First, the connection with NYU's Institutefor the Humanities,where she rubbedshoulders with the likes of Susan Sontag, JosephBrodsky, and otherswho were involved in the constructionof "dissidence." Her work was construedto accommo- date to that construct,perhaps because as an Argentinethe experiences could be more easily assimilated to the Eastern European model. In any case, assimilation to this paradigm broughther a certain recognition within the mainstreampublishing world to which Sontag and company had access. Then came Valenzuela's writingon Nicaragua and on the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, which laid the bridge to feministand multiculturalacademia.20 I bring up these factors to account for Valenzuela's emergencein the U.S., which in turnenabled her to get her workpublished in Argentina.There is certainlynothing wrong nor peculiar in this; it is practicallya normfor many writers, Joyce, Hemingway, Ionesco, Beckett, and Nabokov among them. In their exile or emigr6 condition,however, they were not construedas representativesof Irish,

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American,Romanian or Russianculture. Valenzuela, on theother hand, is being construedas a representativeof a country,and indeed of a continent,in whichshe has littleuptake as a writer.Why? Because she, like anothermulticultural favorite, Eduardo Galeano, is construedas a representativeofdissidence or the Third World in thenetworks of dissem- inationin whichthey circulate.21 In bothcases, thesefigures are manipu- lated forparticular political ends, whichis fine forour own tactical purposes - say the opposition to imperialismin Latin America- but certainlynot if we wantto knowhow realityis construedfrom other perspectives. Withthese brief examples I havetried to argue that critics ought to pay moreattention to howwriters and other cultural workers are insertedinto networksof dissemination;by notdoing so we go on aboutour business as if we were the world,collaborating in the constructionof cultural representativesthat may, in fact,not reallybe representativeat all. I would like to extendthis point and makethe argument that there is no guaranteethat multiculturalism will have onlyprogressive effects. Not onlyis therethe problem of a U.S.-basedmulticulturalism enveloping the culturalproduction of othercountries; worse still, it may unwittingly, despiteits resistanceto conservativeattacks, become a "front"for our ownintegration into a globalmarket in whichthe image - thepolitics of representation- supplantsresources and servicesshrinking at an ever fasterpace. Thereis one hauntingimage that stays in myown mindwhen I think of multiculturalismand globalitytogether. Outside of theuniversity and the unemploymentline, the U.S. army,that global defender- or, more accurately,mercenary - of freetrade in the interestsof transnational capital,was projectedas theepitome of multiculturalism bythe televisual charadethat promoted the Gulf War to marketsaround the world. Foreign culturalcritics were quick to remarkon themulticultural composition of theArmy.22 Blacks, Latinos, women were seen takingpart in thebanali- tiesof everydaylife as theyawaited the go-ahead to invadeIraq. The war also broughtthe armyrenewed multicultural demands: that women be permittedto engagein combatand thatgays and lesbiansbe givenequal opportunityto servetheir country. But theseU.S. "multiculturals"were notthe only ones to demandthe right of "inclusion."There was strong oppositionto thisdisplay of U.S. imperialismthroughout Latin America, and yet a New YorkTimes reportchose to give more play to those Latin Americanswho soughtto enlistin theU.S. Armyas a way of gettinga greencard than to theinfintely more numerous who protested. Contrary to coverage in Latin America,the Timesreported: "'We have had farmore people tryingto enlist thanpeople throwingstink bombs,' said a spokes- man at the embassy in Lima, where a sign warns thatthe embassy is not accepting volunteers.'It is presumedto be a ticketto a green card.',23

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Even PresidentSaul Menemof Argetinasought to get,not a greencard, butbrownie points on thescorecard of Bush's Enterprise for the Americas Initiative.He sent two warships,a cargo plane and 450 troopsto the PersianGulf, declaring that "[t]his new attitudeof Argentina[i.e., its abandonmentof protestof U.S. imperialism]opens enormous possibili- ties forus in thenew internationalorder."24 Bush, of course,"rewarded BuenosAires with a privatebreakfast." It maybe objectedthat this image of multiculturalismis a co-optation. My responseis of course.The media certainlyacted irresponsiblyin concoctingthis charade. However, while Latin Americans certainly un- derstoodthe imperialist nature of thisdisplay of mediaglobalism, they neverthelesswere able to articulatetheir critiques by means of a differential,critical reception of CNN. Anyonewho has spentsome time in Brazil, Venezuelaor evenCuba knowsthat Latin Americans are questioningthe monolithiccharacter of nationalidentity and consequentlyno longer positionthemselves to globalcultural dissemination as before,when any demagoguecould invokethe nationas the highestinstance of fealty againstthe evil Empire.CNN is notso muchdespised as used in keeping withthe demands of local struggles.25We in theU.S. shouldnot hold the so-calledThird World to a differentstandard when it comes to thetactical use ofthe media. We allowourselves to getoff, for example, on Madonna, arguingin some cases thather brassiereis a subversivepostmodern culturalintervention,26 but we piouslyimagine Africans, Asians, and LatinAmericans rejecting these wicked Western media inventions for fear of beingcolonized. At leastin theLatin American case thereis no fearof Westernculture since there is no hardand fast boundary that pits it against them. Misrepresentationis not the sole domainof dominantclasses and institutionsin theU.S. By notcarefully examining networks of dissemination,multiculturalists too can get it "wrong."It is not enoughto denounceU.S. imperialismfor we incurin ourown brand of it whenwe pretendthat a moreintimate knowledge of U.S. Latinos,African Ameri- cans,and AsianAmericans will give us privilegedinsights into the diver- sities thatconstitute Panama, Angola, Iraq, Vietnam,indeed, the entire world.Multiculturalism celebrates crossing borders and a culturaltrans- formismworthy of Zelig: Today,eight years after my departure [from Mexico], when they ask me formy nationalityor ethnicidentity, I can't respondwith one word,since my 'identity'now possessesmultiple repertoires: I am Mexicanbut I amalso Chicanoand Latin American. At the border they call mechilango or mexiquillo;in MexicoCity it's pocho or norterio; andin Europe it's sudaca. The Angloscall me"Hispanic" or "Latino," and theGermans have, on morethan one occasion,confused me with Turksor Italians.My wifeEmilia is Anglo,but speaks Spanish with

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an Argentineaccent, and togetherwe walk amid the rubble of the Tower of Babel of our Americanpostmodernity.27 Is it onlyin "America"that even a recentimmigrant has pretensionsof beingthe world? N6stor Garcia Canclini interviewed many residents of Tijuana,just on theother side of theborder where G6mez-Pefia's "Taller de ArteFronterizo/Border Arts Workshop" used to operate,who had seriousreservations about this Zeligism: OtherTijuana artistsand writerschallenge the euphemistictreatment of thecontradictions and uprootingthat they discern in thework of La Lfnea Quebrada/The Broken Line [the Taller/BorderArts Workshop journal]. They reject the celebrationof migrationscaused by poverty in the homeland and in the United States. Native Tijuanos or those who have resided therefor fifteen years or longer are outragedby the insolence of these artists' unconcernedparodies: "These are people who have just arrivedand immediatelythey tell us who we are, they dictate how we should discover ourselves." We should take these complaintsseriously; crossing borders still un- leashesdifference. We cannotshow the world how to discoveritself; we are not the world. Notes

1. "A Worldof Difference," supplement to The New YorkTimes (4/16/89): 12. 2. JonPareles, "As MTV Turns10, Pop Goes theWorld," The New YorkTimes (7/7/91): H1, H19 & H22. 3. MichaelLev, "Advertisers See GlobalMessages," The New YorkTimes (11/18/9 1): D9. 4. New YorkState Commissioner of EducationTask Force On MinoritiesReport, "A Curriculumof Inclusion,"(July 1989): iii. 5. "A Curriculumof Inclusion,"39. 6. These transnationalnetworks are extremelyimportant for rethinking the national contextof multiculturalism.However, they are operative in a limitedscope andthus cannot be used to supportan argumentfor a worldculture of translocalityor translocalities.The argumentthat Mexican migration to theU.S. has createdjust such a "postmodern"social space has been put forthby RogerRouse, "Mexican Migration and theSocial Space of Postmodernism,"Diaspora, 1, 1 (Spring1991). MayraSantos Febres has also suggested sucha new space in "Viajes translocales:emigraci6n y globalizaci6nde la cultura,"paper presentedat the Conferenciasobre EstudiosCulturales, Universidad de PuertoRico, Recintode Cayey(1/23/92). 7. "The Decade Show:Frameworks of Identity in the1980s," Museum of Contemporary HispanicArt (May 16 to August19, 1990),The New Museumof Contemporary Art (May 12 to August19, 1990),The StudioMuseum in Harlem (May 18 to August19, 1990). 8. Ibid. 9. Videofilmes ArtisticasLtda, Rio de Janeiro,1989. The America,produced by Produc3es accompanyingvolumes of imagesand interviewswere written and compiledby Nelson BrissacPeixoto: Amdrica. Imagens and Amdrica. Depoimentos (S do Paulo: Companhiadas Letras,1989). 10. It shouldbe explained,in all fairness,that Brissac Peixoto did attemptto include AfricanAmerican and Latino intellectuals and artists- I myselfwas consultedby him on thismatter - butwas discouragedfrom doing so by theproducer, who thoughtthat they would"politicize" the documentary in ways(i.e., racially) that were less palatablethan the moreclassical politics of a Kissingeror a Chomsky,both of whom perorated on "American" culture.

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11. Martin-Barbero, Culture- The of Movementsin Jestis "Repossessing Quest Popular Latin America,"Media Development,2 (1989): 21-24. See also De los medios a las mediaciones:comunicaci6n, cultura y hegemonia(Mexico: Gustavo Gili, 1987). 12. Reprintedon theback cover of TheGreen House (New York:Bard Books, 1973). 13. See FernandoOrtiz, "Del fen6menosocial de la 'transculturaci6n'y de su importancia en Cuba," in Contrapunteocubano del tabacoy el azacar, (Caracas:Biblioteca Ayacucho, 1978),92-97; AngelRama, Transculturaci6n narrativa en AmericaLatina (Mexico: Siglo XXI, 1982). 14. Ibid.,94. 15. Criollo is the termused to indicateLatin Americansof non-indigenousdescent, especiallyEuropean background. The wordbears a commonetymology with creole, which in linguisticsrefers to the languagesthat resulted from the transculturationof diverse languages,especially European and African and/or native American languages. The fact that theSpanish and Portuguesespoken in LatinAmerica, with very few exceptions, are not creolelanguages attests to thepervasive incorporation of thesecountries into at least a lingusticcomponent of a Europeancultural system. This is notthe case inother "colonial" situationsin Africaand Asia. 16. See FrancescaMiller, "Latin American Feminism and theTransnational Arena" and MaryLouise Pratt,"Women, Literature, and NationalBrotherhood," in Seminaron Femi- nism and Culturein Latin America,Women, Culture, and Politics in Latin America (Berkeley:University of CaliforniaPress, 1990), 10-26& 48-73. 17. See Sim6n Bolivar,"Reply of a South Americanto a Gentlemanof thisIsland [Jamaica](September 16, 1815)," in SelectedWritings of Bolivar,vol. I, ed. HaroldA. Bierck,trans. Lewis Bertrand(New York:Colonial Press, 1951), 103-22. 18. See PedroHenrfquez Urefia, La utopiade Am&rica(Caracas: BibliotecaAyacucho, 1978),originally published in 1925. 19. See BarbaraHarlow, Resistance Literature (New York:Methuen, 1987), 31-74. 20. See heressay, "The Five Days ThatChanged My Paper," in Profession 91: 6-9. 21. For one of themost insightful critiques of theunfortunate homogenizing effects of assimilatingheterogeneous cultures to thenotion of theThird World see Aijaz Ahmad, "Jameson'sRhetoric of Othemessand theNational Allegory" Social Text,17 (Fall 1987) and "'ThirdWorld Literature' and the NationalistIdeology," Journal of Arts and Ideas, 17-18(New Delhi,June 1989). 22. See, forexample, Beatriz Sarlo, "La guerradel Golfo:representaciones pospoliticas y anilisiscultural," Punto de vista,40 (julio-setiembre1991): 28-31. 23. JamesBrooke, "War's Ripples Lap at LatinAmerica," The New YorkTimes (2/4/92): A10. 24. TimGolden, "Argentine Leaer Sees GulfRole As BestWay to ReverseOld Image," TheNew YorkTimes (10/1/90): A14. 25. For an analysisof thereactions to transnationalflows of knowlegdeand culturein LatinAmerica, see my"Postmodemity and Transnational Capitalism in Latin America," in GeorgeYlidice, Jean Franco and Juan Flores, eds., On Edge. The Crisisof Contemporary LatinAmerican Culture (Minneapolis: University of MinnesotaPress, 1992), 1-28. 26. See AnnCvetkovich, "Marketing Differences: Feminism as CulturalCapital," paper deliveredat theModem Language Association Convention, San Francisco(12/27/91). 27. GuillermoG6mez-Pefia, "Documented/Undocumented," in Multicultural Literacy. Openingthe American Mind, eds. RickSimonson and ScottWalker (Saint Paul: Grayworl Press,1988), 127-28. 28. N6storGarcia Canclini, "Cultural Reconversion," in On Edge: The Crisisof Contem- poraryLatin American Culture, 42.

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