A Cultural History of Underdevelopment New World Studies J. Michael Dash, Editor Frank Moya Pons and Sandra Pouchet Paquet, Associate Editors A Cultural History of Underdevelopment Latin America in the U.S. Imagination John Patrick Leary University of Virginia Press Charlottesville and London this book is made possible by a collaborative grant from the andrew w. mellon foundation. University of Virginia Press © 2016 by the Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper First published 2016 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Leary, John Patrick, 1979 – author. Title: A cultural history of underdevelopment : Latin America in the U.S. imagination / John Patrick Leary. Description: Charlottesville : University of Virginia Press, 2016. | Series: New world studies | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016002825 | ISBN 9780813939155 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780813939162 ( pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780813939179 (e-book) Subjects: LCSH: United States — Relations — Latin America. | Latin America — Relations — United States. | Latin AmericaForeign public opinion, American — History. | Public opinion — United States — History. Classification: LCC F1418 .L43 2016 | DDC 327.7308 — dc23 LC record available at http: // lccn.loc.gov/ 2016002825 Cover art: “Landing U.S. Marines in Cuba,” New York World, May 15, 1898. (Courtesy of the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University) Prospero, you are a great illusionist: You know all about lies. And you lied to me so much, lied about the world, lied about yourself that you have ended by imposing on me an image of myself. underdeveloped, in your words, incompetent, that’s how you forced me to see myself. And I hate that image! And it is false! But now I know you, you old cancer, and I also know myself! — Aimé Césaire, Une Tempête (1968) Contents List of Illustrations ix Acknowledgments xi Introduction: Latin America and the Meanings of “Underdevelopment” in the United States 1 1 Latin America as Anachronism: The Cuban Campaign for Annexation and a Future Safe for Slavery, 1848 –1856 23 2 Latin America as Nature: U.S. Travel Writing and the Invention of Tropical Underdevelopment 44 3 Latin America at War: The Yellow Press from Mulberry Street to Cuba 70 4 Latin America and Bohemia: Latinophilia and the Revitalization of U.S. Culture 109 5 Latin America, in Solidarity: Havana Reads the Harlem Renaissance 143 6 Latin America in Revolution: The Politics and Erotics of Latin American Insurgency 170 Coda: The Places of the “Third World” in Contemporary U.S. Culture 201 Notes 217 Bibliography 245 Index 271 Illustrations Narciso López at his execution, 1852 25 Map of Santiago, illustrating where Shafter’s army entered, 1898 72 A squad of Cuban “White Wings” in Santiago de Cuba, 1899 93 “Landing U.S. Marines in Cuba,” 1898 97 “Starving Cubans Welcome American Army of Invasion,” 1898 99 A “fallen woman” seeks solace, 1883 102 A street sweeper: “The Voice of the Street,” 1882 103 “Two Ragamuffins ‘didn’t live nowhere,’ ” Jacob Riis, ca. 1890 105 “Four Little Cubans of Havana,” 1899 106 Iconic photo of Pablo Arauz, also known as “Molotov Man,” 1981 197 “Sandinista barricade during last days of fighting in Matagalpa,” 1981 199 Acknowledgments I am in the debt of many people whose labor, brilliance, and friendship have shaped this project. This book began in graduate school, where Ana Dopico was an inspiring teacher, a brilliant mentor, and a good friend. It was in her courses that I first encountered the critical histories of uneven development, dependency, and revolution that guide this book. Besides her fierce intelligence, her humor and generosity as a teacher and a critic have always stood out in a profession that rarely val- ues these enough. When I first met Ana as a nervous prospective graduate student at NYU, she told me, warmly and reassuringly, “Well, it sounds like we’ll have a lot to talk about.” Happily, that has never ceased to be the case. Kristin Ross has pushed this book in new theoretical and geographic directions, and I have always been grateful for her spirit of solidarity, her humor, and her immense critical energy. Gerard Aching and Ada Ferrer have been rigorous and generous readers since this proj- ect was in its infancy, and I have found myself returning repeatedly to the lessons I learned (and many of the friends I learned them with) in Philip Brian Harper’s seminar on Marxist literary theory. I am grateful to many librarians and archivists who helped me during the years of primary research for this book, especially those at New York University’s Bobst Library, the Detroit Public Library, the New York Pub- lic Library, the Duke University Library, the University of Chicago library, the University of Florida Library, and the American Antiquarian Society (AAS). The AAS granted a Petersen Fellowship for research on its Latin American collections, and I am thankful for the help of many brilliant people there, especially Andrew Borque, Ashley Cataldo, Paul Erickson, and Jaclyn Penny. Elizabeth Dunn and the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Duke University made available an un- matched treasure of “yellow press” newspapers in their original print xii Acknowledgments form. A travel grant from the University of Florida’s Latin American Studies Library facilitated research on the Cuba annexation movement. Finally, the American Council of Learned Societies supported this project with an Andrew Mellon Dissertation Completion Fellowship. This book reflects the arguments, criticisms, and insights of many friends and colleagues at NYU, Wayne State University, and beyond. My thanks especially to many friends who have read and critiqued drafts of what eventually became this book: Diego Benegas Loyo, Kate Benward, Roosbelinda Cárdenas, Jennifer Cayer, Ipek Celik, Sarika Chandra, Maggie Clinton, Sasha Day, Jennifer Duffy, Jonathan Flatley, Nattie Golubov, Greg Grandin, Miles Grier, Rob Jansen, Walter Johnson, Bill Johnson González, Leigh Claire La Berge, Kathryne Lindberg, Aaron Love, Michael Palm, Hugo Pezzini, Elizabeth Reich, Naomi Schiller, Ramón Suárez, Quinn Slobodian, Smita Tripathi, and Dillon Vrana. Paul Kershaw and Tracy Neumann read many early drafts, and their critiques, encouragement, and friendship have been essential. The inimitable Jon Miller has been a great and inspiring friend during some difficult passages in and out of Detroit. Jordi Carbonell at Café con Leche in Southwest Detroit provided space, nourishment, and translation assistance. I am grateful to the anonymous readers whose feedback improved the book considerably. Finally, my deep thanks to Eric Brandt, Cathie Brettschneider, and Anna Kariel at the University of Virginia Press for all of their expertise and hard work. Although I am often skeptical about some of the practices of solidar- ity I consider in this book, the desire for community and shared struggle across artificial boundaries, whether national, disciplinary, professional, or otherwise, is something very dear to me. It is through my own experi- ence of this political desire, and with it my own misunderstandings and misplaced assumptions, that I became interested in Latin America in the first place. Solidarity was often on my mind as I began the work of this book, both as a research topic and a practice of being in the world and in the academy. In all these senses, I am particularly grateful to everyone who played a part in building the Graduate Student Organizing Commit- tee and UAW Local 2110 over the years. Without them, graduate school would not have been possible nor nearly as rewarding. Lara Langer Cohen was present at this project’s inception and has be- lieved in its worth when I often did not. The skepticism of her powerful intellect is matched by her capacious imagination and peerless generosity as a reader and critic. Her influence is on every page. I have learned more from my older brother Charley Leary than I am sure he realizes or would ever admit. As I followed his lead to Chicago, to New York, and then to xiii Acknowledgments academia, he has been a mentor, co-conspirator, and friend. Finally, this book is a product of all the debates that started around my parents’ din- ner table. Most of what I know about the power of ideas and argument I learned there from my mother, father, and brother, often (though I would still insist not always) in a losing effort. This is dedicated with gratitude to them. I am thankful to the editors of the journals in which chapters 3 and 5 appeared in earlier form. Chapter 3 appeared as “America’s Other Half: New York Slum Journalism and the War of 1898” in the Jour- nal of Transnational American Studies 1 (2009), and chapter 5 appeared as “Havana Reads the Harlem Renaissance: Langston Hughes, Nicolás Guillén, and the Dialectics of Transnational American Literature” in Comparative Literature Studies 47 (2010). All translations, unless otherwise noted, are my own. A Cultural History of Underdevelopment Introduction Latin America and the Meanings of “Underdevelopment” in the United States The country that is more developed industrially only shows the less developed [entwickelten] the image of its own future. — Karl Marx, Capital The power and authority wielded by macropolitics are not lodged in abstract institutions but in their management of meanings, their construction of social categories, and their microsites of rule. — Ann Laura Stoler, “Tense and Tender Ties: The Politics of Comparison in North American History and ( Post) Colonial Studies” Mr. Polly felt himself the faintest underdeveloped simulacrum of man that had ever hovered on the verge of non-existence. — H. G. Wells, The History of Mr. Polly The danger of falling behind has haunted the United States at every stage of its existence: in a country that belongs so self-consciously to the future, the fight against national obsolescence is one of the endur- ing conflicts of U.S.