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Reframing Latin America reframing latin america TT4209.indb4209.indb i 66/4/07/4/07 88:01:35:01:35 AAMM THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK reframing latin america A Cultural Theory Reading of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries erik ching christina buckley and angélica lozano-alonso university of texas press, austin TT4209.indb4209.indb iiiiii 66/4/07/4/07 88:01:36:01:36 AAMM copyright © 2007 by the university of texas press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America First edition, 2007 Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be sent to: Permissions, University of Texas Press, P.O. Box 7819, Austin, TX 78713-7819. www.utexas.edu/utpress/about/bpermission.html ∞ The paper used in this book meets the minimum requirements of ansi/niso z39.48-1992 (r1997) (Permanence of Paper). library of congress cataloging-in-publication data Ching, Erik Kristofer. Reframing Latin America : a cultural theory reading of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries / Erik Ching, Christina Buckley, and Angélica Lozano- Alonso. — 1st ed. p. cm. Includes index. isbn 978-0-292-70933-1 (cloth : alk. paper) isbn 978-0-292-71750-3 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Latin America—Civilization. 2. Spanish American literature— History and criticism. 3. Postmodernism. 4. Culture. I. Buckley, Christina, 1969– . II. Lozano-Alonso, Angélica, 1973– . III. Title. f1408.3.c44 2007 980—dc22 2006038417 TT4209.indb4209.indb iivv 66/4/07/4/07 88:01:36:01:36 AAMM To all our students in Interdisciplinary Studies 75: Issues in Latin America TT4209.indb4209.indb v 66/4/07/4/07 88:01:36:01:36 AAMM THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK contents what are we doing and why are we doing it? a preface xi acknowledgments xv part one: introduction(s) 1. Post What?! (Not) An Abbreviated Introduction 3 2. Saussure, Signs, and Semiotics, or Lots of Words That Begin with S 41 3. Narrating about Narrative 51 part two: theory 4. An Opening Jaunt: El Salvador in 1923 65 Harry Foster, “A Gringo in Mañana-land” 67 5. Be Here (or There) Now 74 Stuart Hall, “Ethnicity: Identity and Difference” 77 6. Identity Construct #1: Race 87 Lawrence Blum, I’m Not a Racist But . 93 Peter Wade, Race and Ethnicity in Latin America 98 7. Identity Construct #2: Class 104 David Parker, The Idea of the Middle Class 109 TT4209.indb4209.indb vviiii 66/4/07/4/07 88:01:36:01:36 AAMM viii contents 8. Identity Construct #3: Gender 118 Candace West and Don Zimmerman, “Doing Gender” 122 R. W. Connell, Masculinities 126 9. Identity Construct #4: Nation 134 Arthur de Gobineau, The Inequality of Human Races 138 Louis Pérez, On Becoming Cuban 143 10. Identity Construct #5: Latin America 147 Gerald Martin, Journeys Through the Labyrinth 154 Leslie Bary, “The Search for Cultural Identity” 162 Walter Mignolo, Local Histories, Global Designs 167 part three: reading(s) 11. Civilized Folk Defeat the Barbarians: The Liberal Nation 189 Domingo Sarmiento, Facundo 192 12. Civilized Folk Marry the Barbarians: The Nationalist Nation 201 Introduction to Doña Bárbara by Rómulo Gallegos 201 Rómulo Gallegos, Doña Bárbara 205 Introduction to Doris Sommer’s Foundational Fictions 210 Doris Sommer, Foundational Fictions 213 Introduction to José Martí’s “Our America” 219 José Martí, “Our America” 223 13. Film Foray: The Three Caballeros 228 Julianne Burton, “Don (Juanito) Duck and the Imperial Patriarchal Discourse” 230 14. The Socialist Utopia: Che Guevara and the Cuban Revolution 237 Analyzing The Motorcycle Diaries 237 Film Analysis: The Motorcycle Diaries 247 Introduction to Alma Guillermoprieto’s “The Harsh Angel” 250 Alma Guillermoprieto, “The Harsh Angel” 252 Film Analysis: Soy Cuba/Ya Kuba (I Am Cuba) 259 15. Boom Goes the Literature: Magical Realism as the True Latin America? 269 Elena Garro, “It’s the Fault of the Tlaxcaltecas” 272 i TT4209.indb4209.indb vviiiiii 66/4/07/4/07 88:01:36:01:36 AAMM contents ix 16. Film Foray: Como agua para chocolate (Like Water for Chocolate) 286 Barbara Tenenbaum, “Why Tita Didn’t Marry the Doctor, or Mexican History in Like Water for Chocolate” 290 Harmony Wu, “Consuming Tacos and Enchiladas” 297 17. Film Foray: Mi familia (My Family) 306 18. Are We There Yet? Testimonial Literature 318 Thomas Tirado, Celsa’s World: Conversations with a Mexican Peasant Woman 320 19. Some Closing Comments 331 permissions acknowledgments 337 index 341 TT4209.indb4209.indb iixx 66/4/07/4/07 88:01:36:01:36 AAMM THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK What Are We Doing and Why Are We Doing It? A Preface Modernism, postmodernism, discourse, deconstruction, hegemony, hybrid- ity, hermeneutics, semiotics, episteme. Even for someone trained in cul- tural theory these terms can be daunting. For the novice, they can be down- right alienating. This book has two goals: to defi ne and explain the basics of cultural theory, or postmodernism, and to demonstrate its usefulness in interpreting nineteenth- and twentieth-century Latin America. This book grows out of an undergraduate seminar we teach at Furman University, a liberal arts school in South Carolina. We fi nd that most of our students entering the seminar have heard of postmodernism and cultural theory but lack a working knowledge of them. We are happy to report that none of them has left ignorant, although, admittedly, not all of them have agreed with us as to cultural theory’s explanatory merits. In fact, some have left fi rmly opposed to it, choosing to retreat to the safety of modernity; oth- ers have left unsure, waiting for more information to declare a verdict. Still others have strongly accepted its claims and now see themselves and their world in a new way. It is not of great concern to us whether our students agree with us by the end of the course. We simply want to make cultural theory and postmodernism accessible to them so they can decide for them- selves. The same objective drives this book. Its structure follows closely that of our seminar, which we designed to ease the encounter with cultural theory and postmodernism. A main in- troductory section lays out some central issues. The remainder is divided into two parts. The fi rst is dedicated to theory and consists of brief excerpts from key works in cultural theory. Some of these address specifi cally Latin America; others are more general. The second part consists of excerpts from TT4209.indb4209.indb xxii 66/4/07/4/07 88:01:37:01:37 AAMM xii preface some of Latin America’s principal writers in the nineteenth and twenti- eth centuries, including Domingo Sarmiento, José Martí, Rómulo Gallegos, Elena Garro, and Che Guevara. Anyone familiar with Latin America will recognize these authors as key fi gures in Latin American history and/or literature. Indeed, their writings commonly appear in anthologies. So what makes our approach different? Why have we included the same authors that anthologists have selected repeatedly? We will show that what matters is not what is read, but how it is read. Using our section on theory as a guide, we will demonstrate how to read these works from a cultural theory per- spective. We will then show how this approach results in new interpreta- tions of modern Latin American history and culture. The introductory sections of the book prepare the reader to interpret its deliberate mixture of primary and secondary sources that cuts across the traditional theory/text hierarchy. We should point out here that it is not our goal to offer a comprehensive survey of particular time periods, authors, or literary styles. We leave those goals to anthologies and historical surveys. To that end, we have divided our coverage into only fi ve areas: 1. Liberalism (mid-to-late nineteenth century) 2. Nationalism (late nineteenth through mid-twentieth century) 3. Socialism (1959–1989) 4. Magical realism (1960s and 1970s) 5. Testimonials (1970s–1990s) These areas are ordered chronologically and cover most of Latin America’s modern era, which dates back to independence from Spain in the early nine- teenth century (with a few exceptions, like Brazil and Cuba). They obvi- ously are not comprehensive, and they represent an admixture of historical eras and literary styles. We have made these choices because they allow us to explain cultural studies and then apply its theories to a series of readings in the confi nes of a short book. Our selections have another objective, which is to show the prevailing trend in Latin American intellectual and political circles over the past two centuries to incorporate a broader swath of the population into the center of power. Authors in the mid-nineteenth century were typically privileged white, propertied males, but by the end of the twentieth century, the defi n- i tive protagonist had become dark-skinned, poor, and female. But our cul- tural studies reading of this progression will illustrate how ideologies and power structures can betray authorial intentions. Sometimes, attempts at liberation contain elements of exclusion and hierarchy. TT4209.indb4209.indb xxiiii 66/4/07/4/07 88:01:37:01:37 AAMM preface xiii The excerpted writings are drawn from a variety of genres, including but not limited to essays, novels, short stories, and personal testimonies. We have also included fi lm analyses and other secondary critical essays on pri- mary texts. Each of these is preceded by a brief, or not so brief, introduction written by us to provide some guidance for our readers. At the end of the book, we offer a few concluding thoughts inspired by questions typically asked by our students as we approach the end of our term together.
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