Search Results

Martí

Gerald E. Poyo

in Exile and Revolution: Jose D. Poyo, Key West, and Cuban Independence

José Martí first visited Key West in late 1891 and found a well organized community with long experience and tradition of nationalist activism led by a cadre of committed, experienced, and skilled ... More

José Martí first visited Key West in late 1891 and found a well organized community with long experience and tradition of nationalist activism led by a cadre of committed, experienced, and skilled insurrectionists. Key West had patriotic clubs and schools, secret revolutionary associations, a nationalist working class constituency, ties with revolutionary groups in Cuba, a financial base in the cigar industry, a certainty that one day Cuba would be rid of Spanish rule, and a predisposition to immediate action. Martí possessed intellectual prowess, political genius, a charismatic presence, superb oratorical skills, and an obsessive energy capable of mobilizing a working class community ripe for revolution. Together they forged the Cuban Revolutionary Party, an émigré-wide organization with a clear and inspiring political platform. José D. Poyo opened Martí’s path to Key West where, under his guidance, the New York nationalist orator became a practical revolutionary organizer. Poyo and Martí needed one another; a mutuality that enhanced their revolutionary aspirations, and produced an affectionate friendship.Less

José Martí at Vega del Jobo (1895)

in Cuba's Wild East: A Literary Geography of Oriente

This chapter sets the war diary of José Martí alongside the exile poems of his most famous predecessor as a Cuban poet, José María Heredia, alongside the work of the indigenista movement known in ... More

This chapter sets the war diary of José Martí alongside the exile poems of his most famous predecessor as a Cuban poet, José María Heredia, alongside the work of the indigenista movement known in Cuba as siboneyismo, and alongside some of Martí's other writings. His most famous essay, ‘Nuestra América’ [Our America], is considered. The chapter also explains the subsequent constructions of the indigenous presence in Oriente. Then, it describes the impulse behind ‘Nuestra América’ by Patricio Del Real. It suggests that the small indigenous communities in Vega del Jobo may be hidden in the mountains, but they embody the history of Oriente.Less

Hemispheric Parallax: South America and the American South

Paul Giles

in The Global Remapping of American Literature

This chapter examines how the contours of American literature have changed over time by focusing on the shifting geospatial dynamics associated with the American South. In particular, it juxtaposes ... More

This chapter examines how the contours of American literature have changed over time by focusing on the shifting geospatial dynamics associated with the American South. In particular, it juxtaposes South America with the American South in order to highlight the historically variable nature of their interrelationship and the complicated ways in which these domains have intersected over time. The chapter first considers how the American South was imagined in the writings of William Bartram, William Gilmore Simms, and José Martí before discussing the notions of southern “regionalism” and pseudo-geography in the works of Zora Neale Hurston and Elizabeth Bishop. It also analyzes the fiction of William Faulkner and Frederick Barthelme.Less

Martí and Race, an Overview

Anne Fountain

in José Martí, the United States, and Race

Chapter two provides an overview of José Martí’s writing on race and what notable historians and critics have written about Martí and racial issues. It offers brief historical background on ... More

Chapter two provides an overview of José Martí’s writing on race and what notable historians and critics have written about Martí and racial issues. It offers brief historical background on nineteenth-century Cuba and a comparative look at slavery in Cuba and in the United States. Key Martí works on race are discussed: the essay “Mi raza” (My race), poem number 30 of Versos sencillos, the famous essay “Nuestra América” (Our America), and the Montecristi Manifesto of 1895. This chapter describes films on Martí’s life. La rosa blanca (The White Rose) and El ojo del canario (The Eye of the Canary) and presents the perspectives of major scholars, including Fernando Ortiz, Charles Hatfield, Alejandro de la Fuente, Aline Helg, Ada Ferrer, Lillian Guerra, Jorge Camacho, Louis A. Pérez Jr., Lourdes Martínez-Echazábal, Ivan Schulman, and Oscar Montero. It also raises translation questions in regard to race.Less

The Global Taste for Queer

Hiram Pérez

in A Taste For Brown Bodies: Gay Modernity and Cosmopolitan Desire

This chapter situates Tomas Gutiérrez Alea’s film Fresa y chocolate (1993) next to José Martí’s essay, “Nuestra America” (1891), in order to explore the entanglements of race and sexuality in each ... More

This chapter situates Tomas Gutiérrez Alea’s film Fresa y chocolate (1993) next to José Martí’s essay, “Nuestra America” (1891), in order to explore the entanglements of race and sexuality in each text. Considering how gay male spectatorship in the US projects a problematic variety of cosmopolitanism onto the film; alternatively, the chapter insists on reading the film within its more local context, situating it as a contemporary expression of Martí’s foundational yet anxious nationalism. The theme of seduction in Fresa y chocolate (Strawberry and Chocolate)—the gay Diego’s seduction of the communist youth David—mirrors both the project of reconciliation to which the Cuban state deployed the film internationally as well as the Anglo American projection of erotic desire onto a fetishized Cuba. The global taste for queer cinema (Gabilondo) then directs us back to modern gay male identity’s need for and production of the brown body.Less

The Experience of Civic Conscience: Designs for the Monumento a Martí

Timothy Hyde

in Constitutional Modernism: Architecture and Civil Society in Cuba, 1933-1959

This chapter discusses the design of the Monumento a Martí. The monument was the belated result of Presidential Decree No. 1631 of June 2, 1937, which created the Comisión Central Pro-Monumento a ... More

This chapter discusses the design of the Monumento a Martí. The monument was the belated result of Presidential Decree No. 1631 of June 2, 1937, which created the Comisión Central Pro-Monumento a Martí, an appointed body of government, military, and business leaders given responsibility for devising and executing a suitable national commemoration of José Martí. The new Monumento a Martí would be the central focus of the civic square, taking advantage of the rise of the hill amplifying the monument’s effect. The ambition to erect a monument in Havana to the martyred leader of the Cuban independence movement arose as one aspect of the larger deification of José Martí.Less

Pragmatic Pluralism, Multiculturalism, and the New Hispanic

José Medina

in Pragmatism in the Americas

Drawing on American and Latin American philosophers such as John Dewey, Alain Locke, and José Martí, this chapter articulates a thoroughgoing pluralistic view of ethnic identity in general and of ... More

Drawing on American and Latin American philosophers such as John Dewey, Alain Locke, and José Martí, this chapter articulates a thoroughgoing pluralistic view of ethnic identity in general and of Hispanic identity in particular. The chapter argues that the best way of elucidating ethnic experiences and identities without relying on essentialist assumptions is offered by a radical pluralism that we can find in the pragmatist tradition. This radical pluralism understands ethnic identity as intrinsically heterogeneous, that is, as necessarily containing inner diversity.Less

Revolution

Gerald E. Poyo

in Exile and Revolution: Jose D. Poyo, Key West, and Cuban Independence

During the eighties, Key West was the most important center for organized nationalist activism and established a distinct and radical revolutionary identity and ideology. Key West Cubans debated how ... More

During the eighties, Key West was the most important center for organized nationalist activism and established a distinct and radical revolutionary identity and ideology. Key West Cubans debated how to revive the rebellion, routinely urging new strategies and tactics. José D. Poyo believed that audacious and courageous men capable of inspiring the Cuban people through a combination of guerrilla and conventional warfare would spark a new rebellion. Numerous fighters responded, including veteran Generals Máximo Gómez and Antonio Maceo, who relied heavily on Key West resources. Throughout the previous decade the Cuban republic-in-arms looked to the middle class professional and even wealthy Cubans in New York for leadership and guidance, but after 1880 they lost confidence in any immediate revolutionary solution to the Cuban situation, most prominently the young activist José Martí. Key West acted alone and though the Gómez-Maceo initiative failed in 1886, Poyo and the traditional leadership continued to advocate and organize for an immediate revolution.Less

Cuba's Most Universal Man

Anne Fountain

in José Martí, the United States, and Race

Chapter one is an introduction to Martí’s life that describes his childhood experiences with slavery in Cuba and how those experiences affected him. It also describes his early writing in relation to ... More

Chapter one is an introduction to Martí’s life that describes his childhood experiences with slavery in Cuba and how those experiences affected him. It also describes his early writing in relation to race: Abdala, a short dramatic poem, and El Diablo Cojuelo (the Lame Devil), a text in support of Cuban independence. This chapter shows the importance of Martí’s time in Mexico and Guatemala, especially in regard to Indian communities, and it takes him to New York, where he began his life in exile in the United States. Martí met death on the battlefield in Cuba in 1895 after planning a war of independence from Spain and a political future for Cuba in which Cubans of every color were to be partners.Less

Introduction

Emily Greenwood

in Afro-Greeks: Dialogues between Anglophone Caribbean Literature and Classics in the Twentieth Century

This introductory chapter outlines the role that ancient Greece and Rome — as both cultural ideals and antitypes — have played and continue to play in the construction of Caribbean cultural identity ... More

This introductory chapter outlines the role that ancient Greece and Rome — as both cultural ideals and antitypes — have played and continue to play in the construction of Caribbean cultural identity in anglophone Caribbean literature. It contends that to overlook dialogues between the Caribbean and ancient Greece and Rome is to perpetuate an odd occlusion in the Caribbean's cultural space and suggests that, rather than projecting alien influences onto the Caribbean, these dialogues might help us to better understand the distinctiveness of anglophone Caribbean literature and may also contribute fresh insights to the study of ancient Greece. Accordingly, the apparent tension in the compound term ‘Afro‐Greeks’ is used to open up an exchange of ideas between spheres of culture that are seemingly incommensurable.Less

A fragile and beautiful world: the northern borderland and the 1937 massacre

Maria Cristina Fumagalli

in On the Edge: Writing the Border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic

This chapter discusses texts that shed light on one of the most traumatic events in the history of Hispaniola: the 1937 massacre of Haitians and Haitian–Dominicans living in the Dominican borderland. ... More

This chapter discusses texts that shed light on one of the most traumatic events in the history of Hispaniola: the 1937 massacre of Haitians and Haitian–Dominicans living in the Dominican borderland. These works are José Martí's War Diaries (1895); Manuel Rueda's Bienvenida y la noche: Crónicas de Montecristi (1994); Freddy Prestol Castillo's El Masacre se pasa a pie (1937; 1973) and Paisajes y meditaciones de una frontera (1943); Manuel Rueda's La criatura terrestre (1963); and Polibio Díaz's Rayano (1993). These authors explore the causes of the massacre, the ways in which it unfolded, and its dramatic consequences for the areas it affected. Their narratives enable readers to comprehend both the character and the signifiance of the borderland.Less

Saxon Eyes and Barbaric Souls: Responses to the American Annexation of the Philippines in Europe and Latin America

Susan K. Harris

in God's Arbiters: Americans and the Philippines, 1898-1902

This chapter briefly surveys European responses to annexation and then looks at the ways in which Latin Americans constructed their own national identities in opposition to the white Protestant ... More

This chapter briefly surveys European responses to annexation and then looks at the ways in which Latin Americans constructed their own national identities in opposition to the white Protestant ideal. It discusses essays, letters, and poems by three of the greatest Latin American writers at the turn of the twentieth century: José Martí, Rubén Darío, and José Enrique Rodó.Less

Beginnings

Jesse E. Hoffnung-Garskof

in Racial Migrations: New York City and the Revolutionary Politics of the Spanish Caribbean

This chapter focuses on the early lives of three of the key personalities in this book. The first of these is Rafael Serra, cigar maker, poet, and politician. The second is Gertrudis Heredia de ... More

This chapter focuses on the early lives of three of the key personalities in this book. The first of these is Rafael Serra, cigar maker, poet, and politician. The second is Gertrudis Heredia de Serra, a midwife who became one of the few black women to complete a certification program in obstetrics at the University of Havana before joining her husband, Serra, in New York. There, the couple raised a daughter. Heredia, along with another midwife, led the various women's organizations affiliated with La Liga. The third is Sotero Figueroa, a Puerto Rican typesetter and journalist. Figueroa set the type, proofed copy, and oversaw the printing of José Martí's newspaper, Patria. The experiences of three other figures help to fill in some crucial gaps around the stories of the first three: Manuela Aguayo, Juan Gualberto Gómez, and José Martí. These individuals do not represent the full spectrum of diversity within the group that would later converge at La Liga. But their stories are sufficiently distinct from one another to provide a starting place—a sketch of the varied racial landscapes out of which they came.Less

Community

Jesse E. Hoffnung-Garskof

in Racial Migrations: New York City and the Revolutionary Politics of the Spanish Caribbean

This chapter explores the immigrant social network—the community—within which the unusual intellectual projects and political alliances created by Rafael Serra, the Bonillas, Sotero Figueroa, and ... More

This chapter explores the immigrant social network—the community—within which the unusual intellectual projects and political alliances created by Rafael Serra, the Bonillas, Sotero Figueroa, and José Martí took shape. It traces the origins of this community by taking up more of the radial lines that intersected at La Liga, particularly the story of a man named Germán Sandoval. Sandoval was a cornerstone of the community out of which La Liga emerged. From there, the chapter considers the experiences of Sandoval and fellow Cubans of African descent in “migrating while black.” The challenge for the Sandovals and other early settlers lay precisely in determining who was a friend and who was a countryman. The solutions that they found to this problem—including turning sometimes to African Americans, sometimes to white Cubans, and sometimes only to one another—are crucial to understanding the emergence of the community that would later coalesce around Serra, the Bonillas, and Martíin the evening activities at La Liga.Less

ImagiNations from a History of Space to a History of Movement: Cuba between Island-World and World of Islands

Ottmar Ette

in Postnational Perspectives on Contemporary Hispanic Literature

This chapter provides a postnational perspective on Cuban history, culture, and its literature, from the moment of its invention until the Castro era. Many of our theories and epistemologies are ... More

This chapter provides a postnational perspective on Cuban history, culture, and its literature, from the moment of its invention until the Castro era. Many of our theories and epistemologies are informed by spatial and static views that keep us from recognizing the highly dynamic developments and processes at their base. As an alternative, Ette appeals to a transition from history informed by spatiality to a history shaped by movement. By examining the first examples of early modern cartography, Ette argues that Cuba had been perceived from the moment of discovery as a potential global island. Furthermore, the author cites prime examples of Cuban literature, among them the works of José Martí, that follow a logic of inclusion, not one of exclusion, based on a theory of global relationality. Given the fact that Cuban literature has been written on all continents—mostly in Spanish, but also on a translingual level in the respective languages of the countries of exile—the idea of Cuba as a global island could become part of a trans-areal archipelago, one built upon the foundation of symmetrical relations that develop a relational logic in accordance with the ongoing process of globalization.Less

The Public Square

Jesse E. Hoffnung-Garskof

in Racial Migrations: New York City and the Revolutionary Politics of the Spanish Caribbean

This chapter shows how José Martí's former students frequently built explanations of their participation in his movement and of his unique qualities as a leader around descriptions of Thursdays at La ... More

This chapter shows how José Martí's former students frequently built explanations of their participation in his movement and of his unique qualities as a leader around descriptions of Thursdays at La Liga—evenings whose principal purpose was to support them in their efforts to remake themselves from dignified workers into writers and intellectuals. This was the context in which, together with Martí, they imagined a republic “without a single Cuban who did not feel himself to be a man.” The politics of race and Cuban nationalism could involve discussions about many things—slavery, labor, land, sex, or military service—but for the participants in the seminars at La Liga, it was centrally about their own right to be thinkers. When the radial lines of the resurgent nationalist movement crossed paths at La Liga, the politics of race and nationalism converged with a specific project of literary self-making and intellectual assertion.Less

/ Apparitions of Africa: Leoncio Evita's When the Combes Fought and José Martí's “Our America”

Adam Lifshey

in Specters of Conquest: Indigenous Absence in Transatlantic Literatures

The Spanish-American War of 1898, despite the hyphen and implied dialectic, was never simply a matter involving two nations and a particular year. It was a global conflict from the very beginning, ... More

The Spanish-American War of 1898, despite the hyphen and implied dialectic, was never simply a matter involving two nations and a particular year. It was a global conflict from the very beginning, disputed by a European and a North American power but fought on islands on opposite sides of the world, in the Caribbean and Southeast Asia. Furthermore, substantive local revolutionary forces in both regions had been battling for independence before the foreign master changed from Spain to the United States. And the Spanish-American War did not take place only in 1898, at least not symbolically.Less

Conclusion

Maria A. Windell

in Transamerican Sentimentalism and Nineteenth-Century US Literary History

Transamerican Sentimentalism concludes by returning to the 1880s and exploring how the mode translates not only across the US–Mexico border but also through language. The coda juxtaposes an 1878 ... More

Transamerican Sentimentalism concludes by returning to the 1880s and exploring how the mode translates not only across the US–Mexico border but also through language. The coda juxtaposes an 1878 suffragist document that maligns “the Mexicans, Half-Breeds and ignorant, vicious men [who] voted solid against women’s suffrage in Colorado” with Helen Hunt Jackson’s 1884 novel Ramona and José Martí’s 1888 translation thereof. Given their associations with nineteenth-century reform movements, it is perhaps unsurprising that these distinct yet varied documents use sentimentalism to generate connective possibilities. Yet the coda notes how they each also use the mode as a tool of dispossession. Within this contradiction lie the contingent, disjunctive, and anachronistic accumulations that define transamerican sentimentalism—and that open powerful alternative possibilities for hemispheric connection.Less