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Title Imagining Cuba: Emigration, Tourism, and Imperialist Nostalgia in the Work of Spanish Women Writers and Photographers (1992-2015)
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Author Monti, Jennifer Linda
Publication Date 2019
Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation
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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.
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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.
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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
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A Julio, Alessandro e Cosimo—
perché senza di voi, niente sarebbe possibile
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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
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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
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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 clothes in the mouth of the River Toa,” 2010, photograph ...... 200
14. © Isabel Muñoz, “Untitled,” 1995, photograph ...... 208
15. © Isabel Muñoz, “Untitled,” 1995, photograph ...... 210
16. © Isabel Muñoz, “Untitled,” 1995, photograph ...... 211
17. © Isabel Muñoz, “Untitled,” 2001, photograph ...... 214
18. © Isabel Muñoz, “Untitled,” 2001, photograph ...... 216
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PREFACE
When I first visited Cuba in November 2014 to attend a conference on Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda, I did so as a scholar intent on studying Spanish literature, but who happened to have a predilection for the novel Sab (1841). I knew little about the Caribbean island and its culture and was extremely curious to witness the Cuban reality with my own eyes. As is oftentimes the case, my brief stay defied all expectations and, more importantly, provided the inspiration for this dissertation.
Through my studies I was familiar with Cuba’s history and its canonical literary texts. I was well aware that Spain had occupied the island for centuries, and that it considered it one of its most important (if not the most important) colonies. Its geographical position was ideal for trade—as the island sits at a crossroad between Africa, Europe, and the entire American continent, which also favored an effortless exchange of culture and ideas1—and its wealthy, fructiferous lands were an endless source of income. What eluded me prior to my ominous trip, however, was the strong connection that existed during the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries between Cuba and Catalonia, the wealthiest and most industrialized Spanish autonomy, and the one in search of political independence. As the Catalan economy expanded following its eighteenth-century industrial revolution, Cuba and its virgin market proved to be the ideal site for such expansion. Next to the sterile aspects of commercial trade, Cuba also opened its doors to
Catalan emigrants who voyaged across the Atlantic on several occasions to make the Caribbean island their new home. As ideas travelled to-and-fro between the Spanish colony and Catalonia,
1 Among the most notable exchanges between the two countries is the practice of Spiritism, a nineteenth- century philosophy, science, and religion systematized by the French educator Allan Kardec (Hoppolyte Léon Denizard Rivail) in his book called The Spirits Book (1857). According to Ulisses Castillo, Spiritism rapidly expanded in Cuba both in the private and public sector through several institutions and newspapers (5).
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they left their mark in the form of architectural constructions, language idioms, gastronomy, history, politics, cinema, photography, and certainly literature.
As I began my quest to uncover Catalan literature focused on Cuba, I came across a plethora of texts that spanned throughout the centuries: soldiers’ letters, merchants’ notes, newspaper articles, memories, emigrants’ diaries, poetry, theater, tourist guidebooks, and novels.
What caught my attention, however, was the quasi-inexplicable increase in the production of texts centered on Cuba that surfaced around and after the year 1992, as if this particular date represented a turning-point for Catalonia and Spain. The year 1992 (which was followed by a second important date: 1998), did, in fact, stand as one of the most important dates in post-
Franco Spain, as three crucial events took place in the Iberian country: 1) the celebration of the summer Olympics in Barcelona; 2) the World Exposition in Seville; and 3) the quincentennial of
Columbus’ first voyage to the Americas—which was met with both jubilee and criticism.
Though the Olympics and the World Expo (along with Spain’s entrance into the European
Community in 1986) symbolized the country’s metaphorical and economic rebirth after decades of dictatorship, the celebration of the 1492 events were tainted with a different aura. While some viewed the festivities as a way to celebrate Spain’s history and past imperial glory, others interpreted it as a resurfacing of colonial values and feelings of imperialist nostalgia. Instead of catapulting Spain into modern Europe, the celebration of Columbus’ crossing was anchoring
Spain to its questionable colonial past.
As my quest to discover Cuba-related texts continued, I noticed that the accretion of such texts was not solely pertinent to Catalonia, but to Spain’s entirety, as well. So, my interest shifted from a close analysis of Catalan texts to a larger analysis of Spanish literature and cultural productions focused on Cuba, for the more I searched, the more I found, and the more intent I
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became on uncovering how Cuba and its women were depicted in Spanish literature and photography. Hence, this manuscript includes texts and photographs that originate from several
Spanish areas—Catalonia, Aragón, Asturias, the Balearic Islands, and Castille-La Mancha—and that span across a twenty-five-year period (from 1992 to 2015), but that share a common element: Cuba and their representation of women.
It would have been and arduous task to write this dissertation without the support of family, friends, professors, and my current institution, the University of California, Los Angeles.
At UCLA it has been a pleasure to work with Jorge Marturano, Jesús Torrecilla, Robin Derby,
Barbara Fuchs, and my dissertation chair, Maite Zubiaurre. Maite has shown me nothing but support from the moment I began my doctoral career and has demonstrated that being a mother and an academic is not only possible, but also enjoyable. Thank you for always pushing me away from my comfort zone, making me think outside the box, and reading the numerous versions of my chapters with a keen and critical eye. I also wish to express my gratitude to Barbara Fuchs for allowing me to be a part of the wonderful Diversifying the Classics initiative—a meeting I always looked forward to, and that opened the doors to a number of wonderful collaborations.
My special thanks also to my mentors from Syracuse University: Alicia Ríos, Kathryn Everly,
Myrna García-Calderón, and Gail Bulman. Thank you for always believing in me, even when I didn’t believe in myself. And finally, thank you to Raúl Fernández, Secretary of the UC Cuba initiative, whose kindness and infinite knowledge aided me along the way.
I owe a debt of gratitude to the following people in Cuba: Luisa Campuzano, Jorge
Domingo Cuadriello, Zaida Capote Cruz, Martha Gómez, and Verónica, who, without previously knowing me, have helped me more than they might realize. I am infinitely thankful for the
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numerous phone calls and in-person meetings, but more importantly, I am thankful for your kindness and your scholarly contributions.
This dissertation would not have been possible without the support I received from the
UCLA Graduate Division and the Department of Spanish and Portuguese. Because of your generous awards—which include two Dean’s Scholarship Summer Awards, the Dissertation
Year Fellowship, and two year-long departmental fellowships—I was able to complete my Ph.D. in five years. I am also indebted to Magnum Photos, which granted me permission to use three of
Cristina García Rodero’s photographs, and to Maite Zubiaurre’s online Wunderkammer, which gave me access to the image discussed in Chapter 1.
On a more personal note, my gratitude goes to the following people: my parents, Camille and Massimo, who have believed in me since I was a child and emotionally supported me throughout my undergraduate and post-graduate career; my sister, Olivia, who is the best sibling and aunt I could have asked for, and who makes the miles between us a mere product of our imagination; Stefano, who has helped me more than he knows; mia nonna, Dida, che mi ha insegnato il valore e l’importanza dell’educazione, e mi ha sempre tenuto la mano. Tra le infinite cose che ho imparato da te, la forza e la perseveranza sono le più importanti. My lifelong friends,
Arianna, Benedetta, Serena, and Luca, whose friendship I cherish dearly; the many friends I met along the way, from Syracuse, to Middlebury, to Los Angeles; and Andrew, my Ph.D. companion from afar. Y finalmente, gracias a mis adorados Julio, Alessandro y Cosimo, porque sin vuestro amor y apoyo nada sería posible.
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VITA
EDUCATION
2017 C.Phil., Hispanic Languages and Literatures University of California, Los Angeles Department of Spanish and Portuguese
2014 M.A., with Distinction, Italian Language, Literature and Culture Italian Language School, Middlebury College Thesis: “I Ritratti di Isabella: donna, salonnière, scrittrice”
2013 M.A., with Distinction, Spanish Language, Literature and Culture Syracuse University
2011 B.A., summa cum laude, Spanish Literature; History; and Italian Syracuse University
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
90 Monologues from Classical Spanish Theater. Newark, DE: Juan de la Cuesta, 2018. Co-authored with Barbara Fuchs and Laura Muñoz.
“Madness, Parricide, and Incest: A Revision on Myths in Juan Rulfo’s Pedro Páramo” Spanish and Portuguese Review (2017): 119-136.
“Semblanza de La Verónica (1939-1942).” Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes – Portal Editores y Editoriales Iberoamericanos (siglos XIX-XXI) – EDI-RED (2017).
“Los cementerios: heterotopías inmortales en Inventario secreto de La Habana y Le città invisibili” Céfiro (2015): 43-55.
“Broken and Metaphorical Bridges in Carme Riera’s En el último azul” Graduate Romance Studies Journal at SUNY Buffalo (2014): 19-36.
SELECTED AWARDS AND HONORS
2018-2019 Dissertation Year Fellowship, UCLA 2016-2017 Dept. of Spanish and Portuguese Year Fellowship, UCLA 2015-2016 Dean’s Scholarship Summer Award, UCLA 2014 Center for the Study of Women Travel Grant, UCLA 2014-2015 Dept. of Spanish and Portuguese Year Fellowship, UCLA 2013 Outstanding Masters Student Award at Syracuse University
SELECTED CONFERENCE PARTICIPATION
“Emigrants, Indianos, Exiles: The Cultural Legacy of Catalans in Cuba.” Second California Symposium on Catalan Studies, University of California, Los Angeles, April 23-24, 2018
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“Hidden Havana: Tourism, Gender, and Nostalgia in Ángeles Dalmau’s Habanera.” Eighth Annual Conference and Workshop sponsored by UC Cuba, University of California, Irvine, November 16- 17, 2017
“A Journey to the Past: Nineteenth Century Catalan Women and their Voyage to Cuba.” First California Symposium on Catalan Studies, University of California, Los Angeles, April 24, 2017
“Yearnings, Failures, and the Recuperation of Memory: Rewriting Gender in L’herència de Cuba and La Indiana.” KFLC, University of Kentucky, Lexington, April 20-22, 2017
“Emigration, Gender, and Race in Antoni Verdaguer’s Havanera 1820.” PAMLA, Pasadena, November 11-13, 2016
“A Round-trip Voyage: Cuba in Two 21st Century Catalan Texts.” Cuba in the 21st Century. Latin American Studies Conference, CSU San Bernardino, April 28-29, 2016
“The Catalan Footprint in Cuba: Emigration, Gender, and Cultural Identity.” Sixth Annual UC Cuba Conference and Workshop, University of California, Irvine, November 12-13, 2015
“Anaïs Napoleon: primera estrella de la fotografía en Cataluña.” XXV Congreso Anual de la Asociación Internacional de Literatura y Cultura Femenina Hispánica (AILCFH), Marquette University, Milwaukee, October 8-10, 2015
“Prostitución, esclavitud y la idealización del Oriente en En el último azul de Carme Riera.” 7th International Conference on East-West Intercultural Relations, Eugene Lang College, New York, March 26-27, 2015
“Sab, la mujer y la esclavitud: cinco preguntas (y respuestas) para refutar el género abolicionista.” XXIV Congreso Anual de la Asociación Internacional de Literatura y Cultura Femenina Hispánica, Havana, Cuba, November 10-14, 2014
“Medea nel Siglo de Oro come celebrazione dell’impero spagnolo: El Vellocino de oro di Lope de Vega.” Mediterraneità e Alterità Mediterranee, Eric