Issues of Identity in the Contemporary Narrative of Cuban Women Writing (In) the Diaspora
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Nova Southeastern University NSUWorks CAHSS Faculty Theses and Dissertations Faculty Scholarship 2002 Beyond the Nation: Issues of Identity in the Contemporary Narrative of Cuban Women Writing (in) the Diaspora Yvette Fuentes Nova Southeastern University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://nsuworks.nova.edu/chass_facetd Part of the Latin American Literature Commons, and the Latina/o Studies Commons Share Feedback About This Item NSUWorks Citation Yvette Fuentes. 2002. Beyond the Nation: Issues of Identity in the Contemporary Narrative of Cuban Women Writing (in) the Diaspora. Doctoral dissertation. Nova Southeastern University. Retrieved from NSUWorks, . (1) https://nsuworks.nova.edu/chass_facetd/1. This Dissertation is brought to you by the Faculty Scholarship at NSUWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in CAHSS Faculty Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of NSUWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. INTRODUCTION DIVING INTO CURRENT DEBATES ON CONTEMPORARY CUBAN LITERATURE RODEADA de mar por todas partes, soy isla asida al tallo de los vientos… Nadie escucha mi voz si rezo o grito: Puedo volar o hundirme… Puedo, a veces, morder mi cola en signo de Infinito. Soy tierra desgajándose… Hay momentos en que el agua me ciega y me acobarda, en que el agua es la muerte donde floto… Pero abierta a mareas y ciclones, Hinco en el mar raíz de pecho roto. Crezo del mar y muero de él… Me alzo ¡para volverme en nudos desatados…! ¡Me come un mar abatido por las alas de arcángeles sin cielo, naufragados! 1 [Surrounded by sea on all sides, I'm an island held by the stalks of the winds… No one hears my voice, if I pray or scream: I can fly or sink… I could, at times, bite my tail like the Infinity sign. I am earth that breaks off… There are moments when the sea blinds and scares me, moments when the water is the death I float upon… But I am open to the tides and the storms, I bury myself into the sea like the roots of a broken breast. I rise from the sea and die from it… I rise up to turn myself into undone knots…! The sea eats me, shattered by the wings of heaven-less and shipwrecked archangels!] 2 It is fitting to begin this study with Dulce María Loynaz's "Isla", in particular because this poem and Loynaz's work, in general, reflects the notion of Cuban identity, Cubanness, as fluid and transportable. Loynaz's unique body of literary work echoes the strong bond with the sea that has permeated Cuban literature in the past and present. In this 1947 poem, Loynaz portrays a poetic I, "un yo poético," that is insular, an ambiguous and buoyant island-body. The sea appears to direct 1 2 the poetic voice, and there are moments when the sea threatens, exposing the island-voice to rough waves and hurricanes, and yet the sea also appears to provide a kind of freedom and stability. Loynaz's poetic I stands firm, despite her movements, paradoxically rooted by her very insularity. In this poem as with other works, Loynaz embraces the island and its qualities, adopting "la isla" for herself as well as for those voices she recreates in her literature. That is, Loynaz is an island, and takes in that isolation, or aislamiento, as a way of life. But, aislamiento does not equal marginalization, per se; rather, it refers to the various ways in which Loynaz, and women like her, assume the condition of the island, se aislan, as a way of surviving within multiple spaces. Aislamiento refers to a discursive and narrative technique intricately tied to the island- space that serves as a means of contesting patriarchal Cuban discourses. Literally meaning "to [move towards] an island," aislarse is a move toward isolation. Al aislarse one assumes or adopts the paradoxical condition of the island, a floating space at sea lacking fixed roots and borders, that both isolates, as well as allows for movement. Aislamiento is both imposed from the outside (by society, as well as voluntary (assumed by the individual) and has as much to do with the condition of isolation from within the island (insilio), as from outside the island (exilio). As opposed to afincarse, the planting or setting down of roots, aislarse suggests the transportability of one's identity, wherever one finds oneself. Aislamiento suggests the need to isolate oneself in order to forge a space of one's own, in a sense to create a "third space", from which to think and speak. Aislamiento, then, is an inherently paradoxical term, with, in fact, opposing definitions. On the one hand, Cuban women writers as aisladas rely on the "island" as a sort of anchor; in their literature, in fact, characters return to la isla again and again most often in search of "wholeness". Yet curiously enough, al aislarse Cuban women also seek to move beyond the island. They adopt a metaphorical island, rather than a geographic one. Thus, literary returns to the island ultimately expose the impossibility of achieving wholeness. Rather than essentialize identity, Cuban women 3 argue its constructedness. Via their aislamiento, in their metaphorical island-space, or third space, found beyond Cuba and beyond the Diaspora in-between nations and canons, Cuban women rewrite nation and gender. Through aislamiento Cuban women writers, such as Loynaz and those who have followed her footsteps "talk back", to borrow Debra Castillo's term, to a society that has sought to silence them. A precursor to contemporary Cuban women's literature, both within the island and in the Diaspora, Loynaz's work is crucial for a reformulation of a more encompassing view of Cuban identity and her work needs to be regarded a precursor to contemporary Cuban and Latin American, feminist texts. Moreover, Loynaz and her work should serve as bridges between the narrative being produced by contemporary Cuban women writers on and off the island. I return to discuss Loynaz, and analyze her work in more detail, specifically the lyrical novel Jardín, in the second chapter of this study, "Feminine Spaces and Transnationality: Gendered and National Identities in the Narrative of Dulce María Loynaz and Zoé Valdés". This dissertation focuses on the narrative of Daína Chaviano (1957), Zoé Valdés (1959) and Yanitzia Canetti (1967), three Cuban women writers who began their literary careers on the island, and who currently write in the Diaspora. I center on these three because in many ways they represent the diversity of contemporary Cuban women writing in the Diaspora, and in their narrative they confront issues of gendered and national identity. Born, raised, and educated in post-1959 revolutionary Cuba, these three women published successfully on the island before leaving in the last decade. Their works produced on and off the island center as much on exile, the movement outside nation, as on inner exile, or insilio, the condition of alienation from within the nation-state. By borrowing from and contesting various Cuban discourses, including works from the Cuban Canon and marginal Queer texts, these women reveal the construction of national and 4 gender identity. They also rewrite those identities; in their narrative, Cuba and Cuban national identity transcend geographic borders, rethinking the nation as transnational. Before proceeding to discuss specific works by Chaviano, Valdés and Canetti, it is necessary to dive into some recent debates and trends in Cuban Studies. Since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, but especially within the last decade, Cuban literary and cultural studies have flourished both on and off the island. In Cuba, government-owned publishing houses such as Editorial Letras Cubanas, Unión and Casa de las Américas have long provided writers a dependable outlet for publishing their works. However, these Cuban works have rarely reached large numbers of readers outside the island. Thus, in recent years, a growing number of Cuban writers have sought to publish their works abroad. As for Cuban exile writers in the United States, works written in the 1960s and 1970s were for the most part published by independent publishers in Miami, such as Ediciones Universal or Torre de Papel. However, as with insular Cuban literature, contemporary Cuban exile and Cuban-American writers have also succeeded in having their literary work published by Spanish and English-language publishing houses throughout Latin America, the United States and Spain.3 Therefore, one may argue that the market has been a factor for the growth in interest (and sales) of present-day Cuban and Cuban-American publications. To augment this, many Cuban writers living in the Diaspora now boast prestigious literary prizes, including the Premio Azorín and the Premio Alfaguara, for instance.4 One plausible underlying reason for the growth of studies on Cuban and Cuban-American literature may lie with the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959 and its effect on Cubans on the island and abroad. Without a doubt, the Cuban Revolution has meant many things for different people and it is difficult to speak to anyone, but particularly a Cuban, about "la Rev" without expecting some kind of emotional reaction. Yet, despite the different points of view on the subject, despite the more than forty years that have passed since its triumph, it continues to be the focal point of numerous Cuban 5 works produced in and out of Cuba. The Revolution's other half was and still is exile itself with its various migratory waves since 1959. In the essay "Introduction: Narrating the Nation", Homi Bhabha argues the following regarding nation: The locality of national culture is neither unified nor unitary in relation to itself, nor must it be seen simply as 'other' in relation to what is outside or beyond it.