UCLA UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Between Orientalism and Affective Identification: A Paradigm and Four Case Studies Towards the Inclusion of the Moor in Cuban Literary and Cultural Studies Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5ps5d43t Author Rodriguez Drissi, Susannah Publication Date 2012 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Between Orientalism and Affective Identification: A Paradigm and Four Case Studies Towards the Inclusion of the Moor in Cuban Liteary and Cultural Studies A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Comparative Literature by Susannah Rodríguez Drissi 2012 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Between Orientalism and Affective Identification: A Paradigm and Four Case Studies Towards the Inclusion of the Moor in Cuban Liteary and Cultural Studies by Susannah Rodríguez Drissi Doctor of Philosophy in Comparative Literature University of California, Los Angeles, 2012 Professor Efrain Kristal, Chair This dissertation proposes an interpretive paradigm to explore the Moorish, Arab, Islamic and Algerian presence in Cuban literature and cultural studies, and it offers four case studies in which to do so. The interpretative paradigm involves a dynamic between two coexisting approaches in Cuban cultural history. The first is akin to Edward Said’s notion of Orientalism, an exotization of the other that invites a critical stance. The second, here called “affective identification,” signals the recognition of and connection with the other as an element of national identity. The four case studies, which correspond to the chapters of the dissertation, are organized with a chronological movement from the nineteenth century until the present, and each is intended to underscore the links between the specific historical moment in question and ii significant aspects of Cuban literature and cultural studies. Chapter 1 argues that the intersection between the dominant white sector’s view of an exclusively white Cuban national identity and specific historical and geopolitical circumstances of the early nineteenth century informs the representation of Muslim pirates in Cirilo Villaverde’s Excursión a Vueltabajo. Chapter 2 proposes that changing attitudes towards slavery in the second half of the nineteenth century, as well as the rising importance of the eastern region of the country, among other factors, contributed to the representation of Moors and Arabs in Martí’s poetic and political discourse (specifically, Ismaelillo and “Los Moros en España”), in keeping with the notion of affective identification. Chapter 3 argues that the general interest in North Africa before the twentieth century, and the presence of the Moor in Cuban literature and nationalist discourse, contributed to the ways in which Algeria and Algerians were represented in Cuban print and television in the 50s and 60s. It gives pride of place to two works: Jorge “Papito” Serguera’s Che Guevara, la clave Africana: Memorias de un embajador de Cuba en Argelia and Delia Fiallo’s Bajo el cielo de Argelia, a soap opera about the Algerian struggle for liberation, broadcast in Cuba in 1962. Chapter 4 relies on theories of loss to address the affective identification with the Moor in Abilio Estévez’s Los palacios distantes, and with the Arab figure in Jesús Díaz’s short story “El pianista árabe” that involves the experience of exile and loss at the turn of the twenty-first century. The dissertation concludes suggesting several ways in which the inclusion of Arab and Islamic elements can enrich the study of both Cuban and Latin American literary and cultural studies. iii The dissertation of Susannah Rodríguez Drissi is approved. Lia Brozgal Nouri Gana Michael Heim Jorge Marturano Efrain Kristal, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2012 iv DEDICATION To my family, in particular, to my two young daughters Kamila and Leïla v Table of Contents ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................................ ii COMMITTEE .................................................................................................................... iv DEDICATION .....................................................................................................................v LIST OF FIGURES ......................................................................................................... viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................................x VITA ................................................................................................................................. xii INTRODUCTION ...............................................................................................................1 CHAPTER 1: Moros en nuestra costa: The Moor in Cirilo Villaverde’s Excursión a Vueltabajo ..........................................................................................................................28 1.1 Sugar and Slavery ............................................................................................31 1.2 Politics of Blanqueamiento ..............................................................................34 1.3 Independence vs. Annexation ..........................................................................37 1.4 Villaverde, Domingo del Monte, and the Annexation Project .........................40 1.5 The Black Legend in Cuba ..............................................................................48 1.6 Excursión a Vueltabajo ....................................................................................52 1.7 Conclusions ......................................................................................................71 CHAPTER 2: Call Him Ismael: The Moor in José Martí’s Selected Works and Gregorio Ortega’s “Las Noches de Nueva Orleans” .........................................................................72 2.1 The Failure of the Annexation Project and Abolition ......................................74 2.2 Arab Immigration.............................................................................................75 2.3 Cuba’s Orient ...................................................................................................78 2.4 Martí and the Arabs .........................................................................................90 2.5 Martí and French Orientalists ..........................................................................93 2.6 Ismaelillo: Orientalism or Identification? ........................................................97 2.7 Shifting Tides: From an Orientalist Aesthetic to a Political Discourse .........109 2.8 Re-Writing Villaverde in a Post-Martí World: Gregorio Ortega’s “Las Noches de Nueva Orleans” ...............................................................................................117 2.9 Conclusions ....................................................................................................122 vi CHAPTER 3: Let Us Be Moors! Orientalist and Identification Paradigms in Jorge “Papito’s”Serguera’s Memorias de un embajador Cubano en Argelia and Delia Fiallo’s Bajo el cielo de Argelia…………………..……………………………………………………. 124 3.1 Cuba’s First Mission in Africa .......................................................................127 3.2 Martí, the Moors, and the Cuban Revolution of 1959 ...................................134 3.3 Cuba and the “Colossal North”/American “West” ........................................136 3.4 Identification and Orientalist Paradigms in the Cuban Revolution of 1959 ..139 3.5 Why Algeria? .................................................................................................142 3.6 Algeria, the Key to Africa ..............................................................................143 3.7 Algeria and Cuba, an Imagined Community .................................................150 3.8 Under an Algerian Sky...................................................................................153 3.9 Conclusions ....................................................................................................160 3.10 Timeline .......................................................................................................183 CHAPTER 4: A Thousand and One Ex(iles) in Havana: Cuba Transnational and the Moor In Abilio Estévez’s Los palacios distantes and Jesús Díaz’s “El pianista árabe”. ..........185 4.1 The Moor in Cuba at the Turn of the Millenium ...........................................188 4.2 Exile and Melancholy ....................................................................................189 4.3 El Moro, an Algerian Pilot .............................................................................195 4.4 Cuba, Algeria, and the Special Periods ..........................................................200 4.5 The Island of Paris .........................................................................................216 4.6 Conclusions ....................................................................................................221 CONCLUSION: Cuba and Beyond .................................................................................223 APPENDIX A: Palestinians from Oriente: Osama Qashoo’s Soy Palestino (2008) .......227 APPENDIX B: The Covered Women of Lima