Authentic Assertions, Commercial Concessions: Race, Nation, and Popular Culture in Cuban New York City and Miami, 1940-1960 by Christina D. Abreu A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (American Culture) in The University of Michigan 2012 Doctoral Committee: Associate Professor Jesse Hoffnung-Garskof Associate Professor Richard Turits Associate Professor Yeidy Rivero Associate Professor Anthony P. Mora © Christina D. Abreu 2012 For my parents. ii Acknowledgments Not a single word of this dissertation would have made it to paper without the support of an incredible community of teachers, mentors, colleagues, and friends at the University of Michigan. I am forever grateful to my dissertation committee: Jesse Hoffnung-Garskof, Richard Turits, Yeidy Rivero, and Anthony Mora. Jesse, your careful and critical reading of my chapters challenged me to think more critically and to write with more precision and clarity. From very early on, you treated me as a peer and have always helped put things – from preliminary exams and research plans to the ups and downs of the job market – in perspective. Your advice and example has made me a better writer and a better historian, and for that I thank you. Richard, your confidence in my work has been a constant source of encouragement. Thank you for helping me to realize that I had something important to say. Yeidy, your willingness to join my dissertation committee before you even arrived on campus says a great deal about your intellectual generosity. ¡Mil Gracias! Anthony, watching you in the classroom and interact with students offered me an opportunity to see a great teacher in action. Thanks for being a model of a teacher and scholar. Also at the University of Michigan, I’d like to thank professors Jay Cook, Phil Deloria, Kristin Hass, Matt Lassiter, Susan Juster, Rebecca Scott, and Sueann Caulfield for introducing me to fields, questions, and methodologies that have informed my research and teaching. Fellow American Culture graduate students Erik Z. Morales and Alex Olson read and offered helpful comments on an early draft of the third chapter of iii this dissertation. Sam Erman shared his reading lists and notes, without which I may never have gotten to the point of writing. Alex and his wife, Nicolette Bruner Olson, have also been wonderful and supportive friends. Emma Amador has been a comadre from the start, and I’m glad we’ve had each other for commiseration. Marlene Moore, Graduate Program Coordinator for American Culture, has been an incredible help keeping track of details and deadlines. Without Marlene, I’d have been lost. I should also offer my formal thanks and appreciation to the Rackham Graduate School and Department in American Culture for generously funding my research and writing. A five-year Rackham Merit Fellowship, a two-term Rackham Humanities Research Fellowship, and a Rackham One-Term Fellowship as well as several Summer Research and Writing Grants from the Department in American Culture allowed me to focus on my studies and still help pay the bills. For this privilege alone, I consider myself lucky to have been a graduate student at the University of Michigan. Go Blue! Librarians, archivists, and fellow researchers at the various institutions I visited in New York and Florida helped me in more ways than they might imagine. In particular, I am grateful to Pedro Juan Hernández and the staff at the Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueños. Thanks for allowing me a first look at the Carlos Ortiz Collection and for pointing out the best place to get a cafecito in the afternoon. It was at the Centro that I met Aldo Lauria Santiago, and our brief conversations about my project and Cuban music in general led to his suggestion that I locate a collection of oral history interviews conducted by music librarian and writer David Carp. That tip was priceless. I also want to thank Andy Huse at the University of South Florida for his help in sorting through relevant materials in Special Collections and his invitation to feast on cangrejo enchilado iv at the Union Martí-Maceo in Ybor City. Muchas gracias to the archivists, librarians, and staff at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, the Bronx County Historical Society, the Otto Richter Library at the University of Miami, the Historical Museum of Southern Florida, the Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library at the University of Michigan, and the Humanities, Social Science, and Education Library (HSSE) at Purdue University. I also want to thank those kind folks who put me in contact with family and friends who were both willing and eager to share with me their stories of migration and their love of Cuban music. Thanks to Linda Radelat, Elsie Ferrara, and Nicolette Bruner Olson. And to those of you who shared your stories with me over the phone and in- person in New York City, Orlando, and West Palm Beach, countless thanks to you. Mary Lynn Conejo and Vilma Rizo welcomed me into their homes and shared with me their family histories and childhood photographs. Lupe O’Farrill was generous with her time and invited me to see her son, Arturo O’Farrill, Jr. perform at the Birdland jazz club. Joe Conzo introduced me to dozens of musicians in the Bronx and always spoke to me as someone who knew what she was talking about. Thanks also to Sarita Gantz, Leonor de León, and Joseph Rosendo for their time and openness. Raúl A. Fernández was kind enough to send me a copy of the interview he conducted with Graciela Pérez for the National Museum of American History. I can’t say thanks enough for that generosity. Early drafts of chapters benefitted from the feedback and suggestions I received at various conferences and seminars. I presented a section of the third chapter of this dissertation at the Latina/o Studies 25th Anniversary Symposium at the University of Michigan held in October 2009. I appreciate the comments and encouragement offered v by all of those in attendance, especially George Sánchez, Anthony Macías, and Erik Z. Morales. I presented a draft of the entire third chapter at the Newberry Library Seminar on Borderlands and Latino Studies in April 2011. My thanks to all those who participated in the mini-conference, including organizers Geraldo Cadava, John Alba Culter, and Jason Ruiz and fellow presenters Sarah Cornell, Annette Rodríguez, and Alex E. Chávez. A section of the fourth chapter of this dissertation served as the foundation of the paper I delivered at the Annual Meeting of the American Studies Association in October 2011. In particular, I appreciated the comments, questions, and enthusiasm of panel commentator Joel Dinerstein and was motivated by the work of co-panelists Susan Murray and Benjamin Min Han. Close family and friends supported me in various ways as I worked to finish this project. My parents, Rosendo and Teresa Abreu, bid me farewell each morning and welcomed me home each evening as I commuted from their house in Orlando to the archives in Tampa. They also never asked me, not once, the dreaded question: “So, when are you going to be done?” My aunt, Gilda Abreu, provided me with a place to sleep and sangria to drink during two extended stays in New Jersey to complete research in New York City. She also shared with me a lovely hotel suite on the beach when I was in Miami for interviews and research. Thanks, Tati! Longtime friends from Ursinus also helped out: Katie Higgins offered her dog-sitting services so that I could travel to Washington, D.C. for research, Lauren “Tippy” McNamee shared her Miller Lite, hot dogs, and spare bedroom during a quick research trip in the Northeast, and Brett Scipioni let me crash in his apartment in Baltimore and provided rides to the train station during vi two separate trips. From the very beginning, Brett has been there for me, offering daily doses of intellectual support, celebrity gossip, and comic relief. I am lucky to say that I have many others to thank. In just two years as an M.A. student at Purdue University, I met folks that have become life-long friends, colleagues, and mentors: Brian “Daddy Cool” McCammack – thanks for the good times and good talk; Ryan Schneider – thanks for the honest advice and witty perspective; Mark Bousquet, Andrew Smith, and Erika Cornelius Smith – I miss our Sunday afternoons spent chatting and complaining over beer, wings, and Chicago Bears football; Megan Birk, Erin Kempker, and Sara Morris – I’ll keep it simple by saying that these are the best of friends, friends in scholarship and friends in shenanigans. At Georgia Southern University, I want to thank our new colleagues and friends Jon Bryant, Jeff and Julie Burson, Lisa Denmark, Brian and Carrie Feltman, Larry Griffin, Michelle Haberland, and Cathy Skidmore-Hess. Thanks for welcoming us into Eagle Nation and showing a sincere interest in this project and my future as a scholar. Family, both near and far, supported me in so many different ways as I worked to finish this dissertation. My heartfelt thanks go out to the members of the Hall and Espinal families. My parents-in-law, Donald and Cathy Hall, have been kind and patient, and my brother-in-law, Adam, and his soon-to-be-wife, Kaitlyn, were always up for a few drinks and good times. Guillermo and Daneli Espinal and their sons, Guillermo Jr. and Daniel, offered me a place to stay and countless home-cooked dinners. ¡Gracias, Tesos! I wrote most of this dissertation while sitting at home in my pajamas.