The Octopus's Tentacles

THE OCTOPUS’S TENTACLES: REPRESENTATIONS OF THE UNITED STATES IN CONTEMPORARY CENTRAL AMERICAN NARRATIVE (1996-2012) Greg C. Severyn A dissertation submitted to the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Romance Studies (Hispanic Literature). Chapel Hill 2017 Approved by: Emilio del Valle Escalante Oswaldo Estrada Sam Amago Ariana E. Vigil Miguel La Serna © 2017 Greg C. Severyn ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT Greg C. Severyn: The Octopus’s Tentacles: Representations of the United States in Contemporary Central American Narrative (1996-2012) (Under the direction of Emilio del Valle Escalante) This dissertation project critically examines how contemporary fictional authors like Arturo Arias, María Lourdes Pallais, and Gloria Guardia, among others, represent the United States’ cultural, political and economic influences in Central America during the post-war period. In doing so, I identify three literary tendencies in the late-20th and early-21st centuries. On the one hand, I argue that U.S. neoliberal foreign policy representations by some authors of crime novels are not only less critical than they have historically been, but that they are rather sympathetic with U.S. political and economic interests in Central America, at times even celebrating U.S. characters and influence. On the other hand, I show how disdain for the U.S.’s foreign policies has, in part, become radicalized into dystopian literature. Writers like Fernando Contreras Castro, I argue, thus seek cultural decolonization and the breakdown of Eurocentric social hierarchies by targeting U.S.-supported global capitalism in the region. This “polarization” of Central American writers shows how some authors are now more complicit in global capitalism, while the resistance desires change through culture and intellect as opposed to physical or violent means. Lastly, this dissertation project also considers how U.S. foreign policy also imposes identities upon the Central American-American population as read in novels of immigration by Mario Bencastro and Roberto Quesada. The same Eurocentric hierarchies are called into question in these works as we find that repressive attitudes and policies ensure the marginalization and invisibility of the diasporic population’s personal narratives. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES .........................................................................................................................v INTRODUCTION ...........................................................................................................................1 CHAPTER 1: THE ELUSIVE TENTACLE: IMPLICIT FORGIVENESS FOR U.S. PARTICIPATION IN THE GUATEMALAN AND NICARAGUAN REVOLUTIONS............................................................................................................................16 Cascabel and the CIA Agent Hero Tom Wright ...............................................................24 La carta and the Outspoken, Imprisoned Claudette ..........................................................39 CHAPTER 2: THE RELENTLESS TENTACLE: PERPETUATING DESIRE FOR THE NORTH IN PANAMA AND NICARAGUA ..............................................................62 El cielo llora por mí: Chuck Norris vs. Inspector Morales................................................71 Lobos al anochecer and the Struggle for Sovereignty .......................................................85 CHAPTER 3: THE MONOLITHIC TENTACLE: DESIRES FOR DECOLONIZATION IN COSTA RICAN AND GUATEMALAN FICTION ..............................................................108 Cantos de las guerras preventivas: Rejecting the Notion of Universality ......................121 Tikal Futura: Breaking History’s Violent Cycle .............................................................143 CHAPTER 4: THE CONSTRICTING TENTACLE: IMPOSING IDENTITIES ON CENTRAL AMERICAN-AMERICANS ....................................................................................165 Odisea del Norte: Keeping Central America Close at Heart ...........................................173 Nunca entres por Miami: Getting Intimate with the “Land of Opportunity” ..................189 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................212 WORKS CITED ..........................................................................................................................219 iv LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1 – Udo J. Keppler’s “Next!” (1904)..................................................................................12 Figure 2 – Cover of José María Vargas Vila’s Ante los bárbaros (1930) .....................................13 Figure 3 – NROL-39 Logo ............................................................................................................14 v INTRODUCTION In January of 2009, after having applied to the Hispanic Literatures doctoral program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, I moved to San José, Costa Rica to teach English. The succeeding seven months of my life in Costa Rica would confirm that, indeed, I did want to dedicate my life to teaching language, literature, and culture. The experience of instructing part-time also allowed for extensive travel and cultural exploration within the country, as well as plenty of time to become familiar with Costa Rican literature, including authors like Joaquín García Monge (1881-1958), Carlos Luis Fallas (1909-1966), Yolanda Oreamuno (1916-1956), Fabián Dobles (1918-1997), and Joaquín Gutiérrez (1918-2000). Brief literary excursions at the time also led me to read works from neighboring countries like Panama and Nicaragua, yet save for the biggest names like Rubén Darío and Ernesto Cardenal, the Central American writers I read during my time in Costa Rica would not (possibly ever) be taught or even mentioned during my doctoral program. By the end of my first two years of graduate studies, it had become abundantly clear that – as we all know – Central American literature remains quite marginalized when compared with neighbors like Mexico and Colombia, and certainly within the field of Hispanic or Latin American Literatures in general. Additionally, as the canonical Costa Rican authors I mention above indicate, there are also evident problems with the male- and Euro-centric literary canon that has largely excluded women and minority writers alike from being as widely read or recognized within the region as significant cultural contributors. For these reasons, my decision to continue working with Central American narratives for this project due to familiarity, both literarily and on a more personal and cultural 1 level, was not a difficult choice, especially considering the large research gap that comparatively few literary and cultural critics, like Arturo Arias and Ana Patricia Rodríguez to name only two, have been working to fill in recent years. My dissertation project critically examines how contemporary fictional authors like Arturo Arias (Guatemala), María Lourdes Pallais (Nicaragua), Fernando Contreras Castro (Costa Rica), and Gloria Guardia (Panama), among others, interpret and represent the United States’ cultural, political and economic influences in Central America, particularly during the post-war period. In doing so, I identify three distinct literary tendencies in the late-20th and early-21st centuries. On the one hand, I argue that U.S. foreign neoliberal policy representations in spy and detective fiction by some authors are not only less critical than they have historically been, but that they are, in many cases, sympathetic with U.S. political and economic interests in Central America, at times even celebrating U.S. characters and influence. On the other hand, I show how negative criticism and disdain for the U.S.’s foreign policies has, in part, become radicalized into dystopian literature. Writers like Contreras Castro and Franz Galich, I argue, thus seek cultural decolonization and the breakdown of Eurocentric social hierarchies by targeting U.S.-supported global capitalism in the region. This “polarization” of Central American writers shows how some leftist authors are now more complicit in global capitalism, while the resistance desires change through culture and intellect as opposed to physical or violent means. Lastly, my project also considers how U.S. foreign policy circumnavigates back to the domestic sphere in order to impose identities upon the Central American-American population as read in works of immigration by Mario Bencastro and Roberto Quesada. The same dominant Eurocentric social hierarchies are called into question in these works as we find that stereotypes, discrimination, and xenophobic laws intend to overwrite the diasporic population’s personal narratives. 2 This study, then, explores how U.S. foreign policy has been written into post-war Central American narratives from 1996 to 2012. As a result, it marks a clear departure from the mid-20th century fictional narratives that I absorbed during my time in Costa Rica. These more contemporary works, to be sure, have received much less critical attention than writers like Dobles, Gutiérrez, and Cardenal. To that end, most of the novels that I treat in this project have one, or perhaps two, academic publications written about them, with the notable exception of Mario Bencastro’s Odisea del Norte (1999) that has enjoyed attention from a handful of

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