“YES! WE HAVE NO BANANAS”: CULTURAL IMAGININGS OF THE BANANA IN AMERICA, 1880-1945 by YI-LUN HUANG A DISSERTATION Presented to the Department of English and the Graduate School of the University of Oregon in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy September 2018 DISSERTATION APPROVAL PAGE Student: Yi-lun Huang Title: “Yes! We Have No Bananas”: Cultural Imaginings of the Banana in America, 1880-1945 This dissertation has been accepted and approved in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in the English Department by: Mary Wood Chairperson Mark Whalan Core Member Courtney Thorsson Core Member Pricilla Ovalle Core Member Helen Southworth Institutional Representative and Janet Woodruff-Borden Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School Original approval signatures are on file with the University of Oregon Graduate School. Degree awarded September 2018 ii © 2018 Yi-lun Huang iii DISSERTATION ABSTRACT Yi-lun Huang Doctor of Philosophy Department of English September 2018 Title: “Yes! We Have No Bananas”: Cultural Imaginings of the Banana in America, 1880-1945 My dissertation project explores the ways in which the banana exposes Americans’ interconnected imaginings of exotic food, gender, and race. Since the late nineteenth century, The United Fruit Company’s continuous supply of bananas to US retail markets has veiled the fruit’s production history, and the company’s marketing strategies and campaigns have turned the banana into an American staple food. By the time Josephine Baker and Carmen Miranda were using the banana as part of their stage and screen costumes between the 1920s and the 1940s, this imported fruit had come to represent foreignness, tropicality, and exoticism. Building upon foodways studies and affect studies, which trace how foodstuffs travel and embody memory and affect, I show how romantic imaginings of bananas have drawn attention away from the exploitative nature of a fruit trade that benefits from and reinforces the imbalanced power relationship between the US and Central America. In this project, I analyze the meaning interwoven into three forms of cultural production: banana cookbooks published by the United Fruit Company for middle-class American housewives; Claude McKay’s dissent poetry; and the costumes and exotic transnational stage performances of Baker, Miranda, and also the United Fruit mascot, Miss Chiquita. iv CURRICULUM VITAE NAME OF AUTHOR: Yi-lun Huang GRADUATE AND UNDERGRADUATE SCHOOLS ATTENDED: University of Oregon, Eugene National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan National Chengchi University, Taipei, Taiwan DEGREES AWARDED: Doctor of Philosophy in English, 2018, University of Oregon Master of Arts in English, 2007, National Taiwan University Bachelor of Arts in English, 2002, National Chengchi University AREAS OF SPECIAL INTEREST: Twentieth-century American Literature American Modernism Transnational Modernity and Modernisms Contemporary Critical Theory Cultural Studies Foodways Studies Affect Studies PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE: Graduate Teaching Fellow, Department of English, University of Oregon, 2012-2018 GRANTS, AWARDS, AND HONORS: Food Studies Graduate Research Grant, University of Oregon, 2016-2017 Graduate Research Grant, Center for the Study of Women in the Society, University of Oregon, 2016-2017 v Sherwood Travel Grant, Department of English, University of Oregon, 2016 The Horn Graduate Conference Travel Grant, Department of English, University of Oregon, 2016 PUBLICATIONS: Huang, Yi-lun. “Commodification of the Banana in Print and the Formation of American Womanhood across Classes.” Comparative Print Culture: A Study of Alternative Global Literary Modernities. Eds. Rasoul Aliakbari and Gary Kelly. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Forthcoming. (7000 words). vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS My special thanks go to my advisor, Professor Mary Wood, who has offered her generous and untiring support to help me reach this academic milestone. I truly appreciate the intellectual conversations we have had during the past couple of years, which have expanded the scope of my dissertation and have led me to think about how to apply my theoretical approaches to cultural productions of the early twentieth century. I also thank Professor Mark Whalan, who introduced Claude McKay’s poetry to me in the seminar “Transnational Modernism” in 2013. My term paper for that class about representations of the banana in McKay’s “The Tropics of New York” became the bedrock of this dissertation. I appreciate the fruitful discussions we shared about McKay, American literature, and transnational cultural exchanges. I am grateful, too, to Professor Courtney Thorsson for her insightful advice on my dissertation at each stage. It was the book that she introduced titled Building Houses out of Chicken Legs: Black Women, Food, & Power that inspired me to explore the cultural significance of the banana in American cultures. I would like to thank Professor Pricilla Ovalle, who, since 2014, has been giving me critical feedback on my writing about Josephine Baker and Carmen Miranda. Learning from her about her expertise in film and on Carmen Miranda led me to investigate the cross-hemispherical racial imaginings in different colonial contexts. I would express my deep gratitude to Professor Helen Southworth, who encouraged me during in my writing and who has provided constructive feedback that will continue to enrich this project as it develops in the future. I owe a debt of gratitude to a number of others during the dissertation research and writing process. I was fortunate to receive Professor Paul Peppis’s thoughtful vii suggestions on earlier versions of the Claude McKay chapter. I benefitted largely from Dr. Corbett Upton’s seminar on Claude McKay, which inspired me to re-approach McKay’s poetry with new eyes. I also thank the Center for the Study of Women in Society and Food Studies for their grant, which funded my archival research at the National Museum of American History on early twentieth-century cookbooks in the US. I am thankful for the Graduate Teaching Fellowship from the Humanities Program and the German Department, which supported my last year of doctoral study. My years at the University of Oregon have been enriched by wonderful and intellectual friendship. Matt Hannah, Liz Curry, Margaret Bostrom, Justin Brock, Rachel Rochester, Lizzy LeRud, and Paula Wright have generously shared their insight during treasured conversations, offering their warmest support and feedback on my writing. My dear college cohorts, Michelle Liang, Alicia Shen, and Yiling Tsai, have supported me almost twenty years. Thank you, friends. Those beautiful days and the conversations we have shared are among the best memories I will take with me from my doctoral years. I owe a special debt of gratitude to Mr. Shuan-hung Wu, who led me to the literary garden of forking paths and who influenced me to become a Derridean when I was a freshman. I could not have completed this work without the strong support and encouragement of my family. I am so appreciative to have such a caring and loving brother, sister-in-law, and nephew, and as I come to the end of this long academic road, I do so acknowledging that it is my parents’ undying love for me that has been the foundation of my academic achievement. viii To my father, who has encouraged me to be intellectual, brave, and empathetic. ix TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page CHAPTER I.: INTRODUCTION ............................................................................ 1 The History of the Banana .................................................................................. 04 The Multifaceted Representations of the Banana in American Literature………. 06 Methodology ...................................................................................................... 11 Organization ...................................................................................................... 15 Final Remarks .................................................................................................... 21 CHAPTER II.: “YES! 100 WAYS TO ENJOY BANANAS”: THE COMMODIFICATION OF BANANAS IN PRINT AND THE FORMATION OF AMERICAN WOMANHOOD …………………………………………………. 23 The Witness of American Foodways .................................................................. 24 Cookbooks as Tools Promoting Social Bonding ........................................... 26 Cookbooks Reconstruct History and Space ................................................... 32 Cookbooks Make Use of the Rise of Home Economics and Scientific Discourses…………………………………………………………………… 44 Cookbooks Lead to the Formation of Women as Consumer .......................... 54 Women of Difference Classes Embrace Bananas ................................................ 66 Beyond American Foodways and Class Divisions .............................................. 76 x Chapter Page CHAPTER III.: CLAUDE MCKAY AND POETRY OF JAMAICAN IDENTITY: TOURISM, CARIBBEAN DIASPORIC WRITING, AND RESISTANCE ……..... 82 The United Fruit Company Tourism ................................................................... 83 The Tropics of New York................................................................................... 104 Caribbean Resistance and Rebellion .......... ........................................................ 127 CHAPTER IV.: “BANANAS IS MY BUSINESS”: FROM JOSEPHINE BAKER’S SKIRT TO MISS CHIQUITA’S TUTTI FRUTTI HAT ........................................... 152 The Banana Skirt as Josephine