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UCLA UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Imagining Cuba: Emigration, Tourism, and Imperialist Nostalgia in the Work of Spanish Women Writers and Photographers (1992-2015) Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/335116w2 Author Monti, Jennifer Linda Publication Date 2019 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Imagining Cuba: Emigration, Tourism, and Imperialist Nostalgia in the Work of Spanish Women Writers and Photographers (1992-2015) A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Hispanic Languages and Literatures by Jennifer Linda Monti 2019 © Copyright by Jennifer Linda Monti 2019 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Imagining Cuba: Emigration, Tourism, and Imperialist Nostalgia in the Work of Spanish Women Writers and Photographers (1992-2015) by Jennifer Linda Monti Doctor of Philosophy in Hispanic Languages and Literatures University of California, Los Angeles, 2019 Professor María Teresa de Zubiaurre, Chair The year 1992 marked a turning point for Spain. The Barcelona Olympics, the Seville World Exposition, and the Quincentennial of Columbus’ first voyage to the Americas kickstarted a renaissance for the Iberian country, as it entered into a globalized economy. Though the 1992 celebrations were criticized by many for their problematic glorification of Spain’s colonial history, this particular year also gave birth to a newfound interest in Cuba, one of Spain’s most precious colonies, lost in 1898. Literary texts, films, documentaries, photographs, and art focused on the Caribbean island began circulating in Spain in an unprecedented manner, as artists and the public alike showed a growing enthusiasm towards Cuba, its history, and its culture. ii By analyzing novels, theater, a tourist guidebook, a film, and two photographic series, this interdisciplinary and transatlantic dissertation studies the image of Cuba promoted through the work of Spanish women writers (Carme Riera, Magrarita Aritzeta, María Teresa Álvarez, Ángel Aymar i Ragolta, Isabel Segura) and photographers (Cristina García Rodero, and Isabel Muñoz) between 1992 and 2015. I maintain that though conceived with good intentions, the literary and cultural productions discussed herein offer a simplistic, stereotypical, and at times fetishizing image of Cuba. Most works fail at openly criticizing Spain’s dark colonial history and choose, instead, to grant Spanish women a voice, an agency, and a subjectivity, wishing to rescue them from historical oblivion. While significant, this “gendered choice” is nevertheless paradoxical, for it obscures the role that Western women, alongside men, played in the colonization process and in the oppression of others. The westernized images of Cuba offered by the writers and photographers in this project, as well as the omission of Spain’s colonial actions, support what scholars call imperialist nostalgia—the longing for a past whose brutality has been concealed and forgotten. The works that I study are the offspring of this particular form of nostalgia, which finds its truest expression in the problematic clichés and images used, during the last thirty years, in Spanish literature and photographs focused on Cuba, as well as in Spain’s new forms of economic colonialism on the island. iii This dissertation of Jennifer Linda Monti is approved. Lauren Derby Jorge Marturano Jesús Torrecilla María Teresa de Zubiaurre, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2019 iv A Julio, Alessandro e Cosimo— perché senza di voi, niente sarebbe possibile v TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures .............................................................................................................................. viii Preface ........................................................................................................................................... ix Introduction: Cuba in the Spanish Imaginary ..................................................................................1 I. Previous Studies on the Spain-Cuba Relationship .................................................17 II. Chapter Organization .............................................................................................24 Chapter 1: Journey to the Past: Nineteenth Century Catalan Women and their Voyage to Cuba I. Introduction ............................................................................................................29 II. The Catalan Footprint in Cuba: Historical Emigration and Cultural Integration (1780-1980)............................................................................................................32 III. Emigration, Gender, and Race in Antoni Verdaguer’s Havanera 1820 ................42 IV. A Criticism of Slavery or a Perpetuation of Stereotypes? Carme Riera’s Por el cielo y más allá ...........................................................................................56 V. Ways to Remember ................................................................................................68 Chapter 2: Yearnings, Failures, and the Reconstruction of Memory: Rewriting the Gender of Spanish Indianos I. Introduction ............................................................................................................76 II. The Untold Story: Memory, Gender, and Indianos ...............................................82 III. Endeavors of the Past, Silences of the Present: Ángel Aymar i Ragolta’s La indiana ..............................................................................................................89 IV. Indiano Failures and the Reconstruction of Memory in Margarida Aritzeta’s vi L’herència de Cuba................................................................................................99 V. Indianas in Far Away Cuba: Success, Corruption, and Moral Instability in María Teresa Álvarez’s La indiana .....................................................................106 VI. Rebirth or Return to the Past? ..............................................................................114 Chapter 3: Desexualizing Havana: Gendered Tourism in Twenty-First Century Cuba I. Introduction ..........................................................................................................124 II. “Why Don’t You Go to Havana?”: A Brief Introduction to the History of Tourism in Cuba ..................................................................................................129 III. Cuban Tourism and the Discovery of New Identities: Isabel Segura’s La Habana para mujeres .....................................................................................147 IV. A Reinvention of the Female Self ........................................................................170 Chapter 4: Photographing Cubans: Rethinking the Gendered Lens I. Introduction ..........................................................................................................176 II. Cristina García Rodero in Baracoa, Cuba: Five Hundred Years Later ................183 III. Isabel Muñoz’s Danza Cubana and Ballet nacional de Cuba .............................203 IV. Cuba Is: Problematic Foreign Portrayals .............................................................219 Conclusion: Is Colonialism Dead? Spain, Cuba, and Women I. Overarching Themes ............................................................................................225 II. What Lies Ahead..................................................................................................231 Bibliography ................................................................................................................................234 vii LIST OF FIGURES 1. Jordi Riera, Biofilia: Revista mensual de culto a la vida, 1936, drawing 51 2. Cuban Tourist Commission, “Cuba, Holiday Isle of the Tropics,” 1949, poster ..................131 3. Cuban Tourist Commission, “Cuba, Holiday Isle of the Tropics,” ca.1940, poster .............132 4. Cuban Tourist Commission, “Visit Cuba: So Near and Yet so Foreign,” ca. 1950, postcard ...........................................................................................................................135 5. Unknown photographer, “Untitled,” National Gographic, 1991, photograph ......................138 6. Unknown photographer, “Untitled,” National Gographic, 1991, photograph ......................139 7. LeRoy Neiman, “Untitled,” 2000, drawing ...........................................................................142 8. Pilar Aymerich, La Habana para mujeres, 2003, book cover ..............................................151 9. © Cristina García Rodero / Magnum Photos, “El pionero,” 1999, photograph ................... 188 10. © Cristina García Rodero, “El Rincón, Cuba,” 2007, photograph ........................................193 ...................................................................................................................................................... 11. © Cristina García Rodero / Magnum Photos, “Fishmonger,” 2010, photograph ..................195 12. © Cristina García Rodero / Magnum Photos, “Dancer from the Afro-Cuba musical group Omi II, who represents Oshun, one of the Yoruba deities,” 2010, photograph .......................................................................................................................196 13. © Cristina García Rodero / Magnum Photos, “María Jiménez washing her