Susanna Regazzoni, ed., Alma cubana: transculturación, mestizaje e hibridismo/The Cuban Spirit: Transculturation, Mestizaje and Hybridism Author(s): Thomas F. Anderson Source: Modern Philology, Vol. 108, No. 1 (August 2010), pp. E67-E71 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/656062 . Accessed: 08/08/2011 10:05 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact
[email protected].
The University of Chicago Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Modern Philology.
http://www.jstor.org
BOOK REVIEW
Alma cubana: transculturacio´n, mestizaje e hibridismo/The Cuban Spirit: Transculturation, Mestizaje and Hybridism. Edited by Susanna Regazzoni. Madrid: Iberoamericana/Vervuert, 2006. Pp. 229. Alma cubana: transculturacio´n, mestizaje e hibridismo gets off to a rather rocky start, which epitomizes some of the shortfalls of this otherwise engaging collection of essays on Cuban literature and culture. The epigraph to editor and contributor Susanna Regazzoni’s introduction, which cites sixteen lines from Cuban poet Nicola´s Guille´n’s ‘‘Balada de los dos abuelos’’ (Ballad of the two grandfathers), is erroneously attributed to Spanish poet Jorge Guille´n, and the poem’s title is incorrectly given as ‘‘Los dos abuelos’’ (The two grandfathers). These oversights would hardly be worth noting were it not for the fact that several of the essays contain similarly careless errors that detract from the overall quality and value of the collection. Alma cubana opens with Alfonso de Toro’s article ‘‘Figuras de la hibridez. Fernando Ortiz: Transculturacio´n. Roberto Ferna´ndez Retamar: Caliba´n.’’ De Toro examines the history of transculturacio´n, the term that Fernando Ortiz coined in 1940 to describe the process by which a subordinate culture chooses which aspects of a dominant culture it will assume. De Toro contends that Ortiz’s neologism served as an important precursor to the modern notion of ‘‘hybridism.’’ He argues, however, that in light of the great migrations and cultural overlapping of modern times transculturacio´n should be replaced by transculturalidad, since the latter term ‘‘no implica pe´rdida o cancelacio´n de lo propio’’ (does not imply loss or cancellation of one’s own qualities) (25). In his brief discussion of Retamar’s essay, ‘‘Caliba´n: apuntes sobre la cultura de nuestra Ame´rica’’ (Caliban: Notes on the culture of our America) (1972), de Toro maintains that the Cuban author conceived of the figure of Caliban both as a conceptual figure of Latin American ‘‘hybridÓ 2010 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. For permission to reuse, please contact
[email protected].
E67
E68
MODERN PHILOLOGY
ism’’ and an essential aspect of cultural theory. In his words, Caliba´n is the incarnation of ‘‘anticolonialismo, decolonizacio´n y postcolonialidad’’ (anticolonialism, decolonization, and postcoloniality) (30). Though certain aspects of de Toro’s essay are enlightening, I found it as a whole to be frustratingly and unnecessarily complex. One problem is that the introductory section titled ‘‘Algunas nociones teo´ricas’’ (Some theoretical notions) is disproportionately long—over eight of the essay’s twenty pages—while the discussion of Ortiz, transculturation, and ‘‘hybridism’’ is only allotted three. De Toro’s theoretical musings are very hard to follow, largely because of the dizzying profusion of terms, some of them arbitrarily italicized, as in the following passage: ‘‘En el contexto de la hibridez y la transversalidad, como ası´ tambie´n de la transdisciplinariedad, transculturalidad y transtextualidad, se ubica el de la transmedialidad, que no significa el intercambio de dos formas mediales distintas, sino una multiplicidad de posibilidades mediales’’ (In the context of hybridity and transversality, as well as transdisciplinarity, transculturality and transtextuality, one finds transmediality, which does not mean the exchange of two different medial forms, but rather a multiplicity of medial possibilities) (21). In his engaging article ‘‘Religio´n y arte: algunos momentos sincre´ticos en la pla´stica cubana’’ (Religion and art: Some examples of syncretism in Cuban sculpture), Alenjandro Alonso underscores the important influence of the studies of Fernando Ortiz on modern Cuban plastic art. Alonso overstates his point by insisting that it would be impossible to study any aspect of Cuban art without considering the concept of transculturation, but he aptly demonstrates how this term and the related concept of syncretism are defining characteristics of the works of many of Cuba’s greatest artists of the twentieth century, such as Wilfredo Lam (1902–82), Roberto Diago (1920–55), and Jose´ Bedı´a (1959–). Daniela M. Ciani Forza’s ‘‘American-Cuban and Cuban-American: Hyphens of Identity’’ contains numerous factual errors that make for rather frustrating reading. Though many of the errors in the essay are just typos—she gives Jose´ Martı´’s year of birth as 1835 instead of 1853, for example—the author also makes a number of genuinely inaccurate and uninformed statements. For example, in her confusing discussion of the Mariel Boatlift, she asserts that the ‘‘Marielitos . . . represented a majority of legitimate political prisoners in Cuba’’ (63), and in her brief summary of the Cuban Revolution, she makes the all-too-common mistake of implying that it was a Communist revolution from the beginning by stating that ‘‘Castro imposed his marxist [sic] regime’’ in 1959 (67). The author’s contention that Cuban exiles to the United States have been historically better prepared to deal with mainstream American culture than other Latinos is not altogether inaccurate, but her explanation—that this is largely due to the fact that Cuba’s relationship with the United States ‘‘had historically been
Book Review
E69
much closer and less conflicting than those of other American Countries’’ (63–64)—is misleading. It should be added that throughout her twentysix-page article, the longest of the collection, Forza has a hard time grappling with the term ‘‘Latino,’’ which she never really defines and often seems to use inaccurately and too broadly. In the section entitled ‘‘NorthAmerican Latinos’ Homelessness in Their Own Homeland,’’ for instance, she states, ‘‘Latinos had inhabited the South and the Southwest of the United States as early as the 16th century, one hundred years before the Puritans arrived’’ (59). Paola Scudiero’s article, ‘‘A New Englander Visiting Cuba: R. H. Dana’s Voyage in 19th Century Cuba,’’ examines a very interesting diary, To Cuba and Back (1860), by Richard Henry Dana, a Bostonian who visited the island in 1859. However, instead of delving into the intricacies of Dana’s problematic views on Cuba and its people, Scudiero sets out to prove that his diary faithfully reflects Cuba’s relationship with the United States in the mid-nineteenth century. The problem is that Scudiero, much like R. H. Dana himself, often seems to contemplate that very problematic and complicated relationship through rose-colored glasses. Her contention that ‘‘Cubans accepted and encouraged, almost without any reserve, the presence and influence of [the United States]’’ (133), is typical of the many generalizations in the article that give the false impression that during the second half of the nineteenth century all Cubans were pleased with the increasing U.S. influence on the island. She claims, for example, ‘‘It was only after the intervention of the United States in the Cuban War of Independence and their military occupation, which began at the end of the century, that Cubans started to realize what the nature of the presence of the United States was’’ (140). One of the most interesting contributions to the collection is Irina Bajini’s ‘‘Mefisto´feles en el escenario cubano del siglo XIX: un caso de manipulacio´n del canon operı´stico’’ (Mephistopheles on the nineteenth-century Cuban stage: A case of manipulation of the operatic canon). This essay contains a compelling study of Mefisto´feles (1886), a parody in one act and six scenes by Ignacio Sarachaga (1852–1900), one of the most significant but underappreciated proponents of Cuba’s teatro bufo. In this well-documented discussion, Bajini argues that Sarachaga’s parody of Charles Gounod’s Faust (1859) reveals the author’s assertion of a Cuban national identity in the face of the increasing influence of Spain and the United States. According to Bajini, the work’s palpable sense of cubanı´a is largely felt through Sarachaga’s incorporation of traditional African-derived music and dance genres—such as the conga and yambu´—and his use of the Cuban vernacular. Elina Miranda Cancela’s ‘‘Edipo bajo un sol tropical’’ (Oedipus under the tropical sun) is an excellent contribution to the collection. The author considers Abelardo Estorino’s 1968 play El tiempo de la plaga (The time of
E70
MODERN PHILOLOGY
the plague) in light of a long and rich tradition of theatrical recreations of Greco-Roman myths in Latin America, a tradition that, she rightly notes, has gone largely unrecognized in histories of and critical works on Latin American theater. Cancela contends that many such plays by Hispanic Caribbean authors—she specifically refers to Virgilio Pin ˜ era’s Electra Garrigo´ (1948)—have been misunderstood and misinterpreted by literary critics and have thus not received their rightful place as either integral components of Cuban national expression or deliberate challenges to established literary canons. Another fine contribution to the collection is Luisa Campuzano’s ‘‘Sab : La novela y el prefacio.’’ Here Campuzano examines the brief preface to Gertrudiz Go´mez de Avellaneda’s 1841 novel in light of its turbulent historical context: it was published at a time when the continuation of the slave trade in the Caribbean was sparking intense debates and threatened to provoke a military conflict between Spain and England. Campuzano insists that despite this dangerous atmosphere, Avellaneda elected not to make major changes to the novel even though more than two years passed between its completion (probably 1839) and its publication. Campuzano does speculate, in the final paragraphs of the essay, that at the eleventh hour Avellaneda may have changed the nationality of Carlota’s betrothed and his father, Enrique and Jorge Otway. Unfortunately, the tantalizing theory that the two were not Englishmen in the original version is not backed up by any concrete evidence. She thus leaves the reader waiting with bated breath for a more definitive answer. Susanna Regazzoni’s ‘‘La ambigua realidad afrocubana en los cuentos de Lydia Cabrera’’ (Ambiguous Afro-Cuban reality in Lydia Cabrera’s stories) demonstrates how Cabrera’s Cuentos negros de Cuba (1940; originally published in French, 1936) epitomizes Afro-Cubans’ ability to resist oppression by means of fantasy, and she further posits that the stories reveal several key strategies that Afro-Cubans employed in their struggles to adapt to a hostile society. However, despite her insightful analysis of Cabrera’s stories, some of Regazzoni’s assertions in the essay are not entirely accurate, such as the following claims about Fernando Ortiz: ‘‘A principios del siglo XX, el ensayista Fernando Ortiz proclama ‘la negritud’ de lo cubano y afirma que ‘sin el negro Cuba no es Cuba’’’ (At the beginning of the twentieth century, the essayist Fernando Ortiz proclaims ‘‘the negritude’’ of things Cuban and affirms that ‘‘without the Negro Cuba is not Cuba’’) (145). But it is very well known that many of Ortiz’s writings from the early years of the century—Los negros brujos (The black sorcerers) (1906) serves as the most obvious example—were not exactly celebrations of the African origins of Cuban identity. Moreover, the quotation she cites to support her claim comes from Contrapunteo cubano del tabaco y del azu´car (Cuban counterpoint of tobacco and sugar), which was not published until 1940. Finally, it
Book Review
E71
should be added that Regazzoni makes the common error of equating ne´gritude with negrismo, when in fact these terms refer to two distinct concepts, as Richard Jackson clearly explains in Black Literature and Humanism in Latin America (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1988). Though all of the essays in this volume deal at least tangentially with the subjects of transculturation and ‘‘hybridism,’’ Regazzoni is correct to point out in her brief introduction that Alma cubana ‘‘es una coleccio´n de artı´culos sobre temas muy distintos’’ (is a collection of articles on very different themes) (11). In my mind, this aspect of the collection is at once a strength and a weakness. The multiplicity of themes and subjects makes the volume—at least on the surface—appealing to a diverse readership. However, the downside is that when the volume is considered as a whole, it becomes apparent that the essays do not contribute equally to the goal of ‘‘ofrecer una nueva base teo´rica para los estudios cariben ˜ os focalizados on Cuba’’ (offering a new theoretical base of Caribbean studies focused on Cuba) (9), which Alfonso de Toro outlines in his brief ‘‘Presentacio´n’’ to the collection. Several of the essays represent significant contributions to the much-studied theoretical concepts of transculturation, mestizaje, and hybridity; others, though they deal with fascinating texts or topics, are unfortunately marred by careless errors of style and fact. Thomas F. Anderson University of Notre Dame
