Waves of Decolonization: Discourses of Race and Hemispheric Citizenship in Cuba, Mexico, and the United States

353 Pages·2008·2.441 MB·English

by  David Luis-Brown

waves of decolonization
new americanists
A Series Edited by Donald E. Pease
Waves of Decolonization
Discourses of Race and
Hemispheric Citizenship in Cuba,
Mexico, and the United States
DAVID LUIS-BROWN
Duke University Press
Durham and London 2008
∫ 2008 Duke University Press
All rights reserved
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CONTENTS
acknowledgments
vii
introduction
1 Waves of Decolonization
and Discourses of Hemispheric Citizenship
one
35 ‘‘White Slaves’’ and the ‘‘Arrogant
Mestiza’’: Reconfiguring Whiteness in
The Squatter and the Don and Ramona
two
67 ‘‘The Coming Unities’’ in ‘‘Our America’’:
Decolonization and Anticolonial Messianism in Martí,
Du Bois, and the Santa de Cabora
three
147 Transnationalisms against the State: Contesting
Neocolonialism in the Harlem Renaissance, Cuban Negrismo,
and Mexican Indigenismo
four
202 ‘‘Rising Tides of Color’’: Ethnography and Theories
of Race and Migration in Boas, Park, Gamio, and Hurston
coda
241 Waves of Decolonization and Discourses of
Hemispheric Citizenship
notes
245
references
301
index
329

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
.
In describing the process of writing this book to my nonacademic
friends, I liken it to the craft of candle dipping. Just as a candle gains its
shape through the process of repeatedly dipping the wick in hot wax, so
these chapters came into being through a long process of research and
writing, conversations in and out of the classroom, travel, and help from
other scholars.
I am grateful to all those who generously added the hues of their own
thinking to this project. Susan Gillman has been the best possible men-
tor and an invariably stimulating intellectual interlocutor. Norma Klahn
shared her comprehensive knowledge of Latin American history and litera-
ture. José Saldívar’s impassioned teaching and writing have inspired my
hemispheric approach to cultural production. I am extremely grateful to
George Lipsitz for his comments on an earlier draft of this book—they
provided an invaluable compass to me through the final revisions; to Beth
Freeman for meeting with me at an early stage in the publication process;
and to Robert Gross—who came to my aid at a crucial moment—for his
suggestions for revision. For their comments on chapters or parts of chap-
ters, many thanks go to Chris Breu, Johnnella Butler, John González, Gwen
Kirkpatrick, Vibeke Laroi, Francine Masiello, Julio Ramos, Roger Rouse,
Roz Spa√ord, and the late Gene Ulansky and to my graduate school bud-
dies Stuart Christie and Chris Shinn. Cathy Rigsby, the executive editor of
American Literature, and the anonymous readers for the journal provided
suggestions for editing and revising an earlier version of chapter 1 that was
. .
viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
published as an article. I would also like to thank Judy Frank, my thesis
advisor at Amherst College, and Robert Gooding-Williams, Robert Gross,
George Kateb, Barry O’Connell, Andrew Parker, and Robert Thurman for
their inspirational teaching before my graduate career began. Thanks as
well to Dickson Bruce and Raúl Fernández at Irvine and to Michael Cowan
and Lourdes Martínez-Echazabal at Santa Cruz for teaching courses that
proved important to my career.
I am grateful to several sources for their financial support. Two two-year
fellowships allowed me to research and finalize the manuscript. A Univer-
sity of California Predoctoral Humanities Fellowship provided me with
two years of full support for graduate study. And a University of California
President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship gave me the opportunity to finish a
draft of the manuscript as I began work on a new book project. Fortunately
for me, Sara Johnson’s time as a postdoctoral fellow at Berkeley overlapped
with mine; I enjoyed talking with her about all things Cuban. Other fellow-
ships that supported my research and writing included two Amherst Col-
lege John Woodru√ Simpson fellowships for graduate study; a University
of California at Santa Cruz Literature Department qualifying examination
fellowship and dissertation quarter fellowship; a University of California
Humanities Research Institute Fellowship to participate in the residential
research group ‘‘The Cultures of the Americas and the Narratives of Glob-
alization,’’ convened by Gwen Kirkpatrick. I am grateful to the participants
in the Humanities Research Institute who helped to make my time in
Irvine productive and enjoyable: Leo Chávez, Beth Marchant, Sergio de
la Mora, Francine Masiello, Roger Rouse, and Josefina ‘‘Fina’’ Saldaña.
My friends from the Los Angeles area also kept me going: ‘‘Little’’ Luis
Camacho and his daughter Alexis, Michael Matteucci, Buddy Méndez,
Casey Nagel, and Anita Weston. Casey deserves special mention for spend-
ing hours helping me to solve computer and software problems. Finally, a
National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute Fellowship
allowed me to participate in ‘‘The Americas of José Martí’’ institute at the
University of South Florida in Tampa and at the Centro de Estudios Mar-
tianos in Havana, Cuba. I’d like to thank Jossianna Arroyo, Laura Lomas,
and Elliott Young for their camaraderie in Tampa and Havana and Ivan
Schulman for having led the institute.
Nahum Chandler’s work on W. E. B. Du Bois has been the greatest gift
to me, and I was delighted to finally meet him while we were both working
short stints in the Department of Comparative Literature at the University
. .
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix
of California at Davis. Many thanks to Neil Larsen for his interest in my
work and his advice. The final stretch of revisions of this book took place as
I worked at Lafayette College. I would like to thank all of my colleagues
there, but especially Paul Cefalu, Bianca Falbo, Tori Langland, Alix Ohlin,
Beth Seetch, Andrea Smith, and Lee Upton. I would also like to thank my
new colleagues at the University of Miami for welcoming me and for
helping to make my transition run so smoothly.
Publishing with Duke University Press has been a dream come true,
especially because the two anonymous readers of the manuscript were so
helpful in their suggestions for revision. I would also like to thank my
editors at Duke, Sharon Parks Torian and Reynolds Smith, for all of their
work in making this book a reality, as well as the rest of the sta√ at the press.
Finally, I would like to thank my family for their emotional and finan-
cial support: the late Tina (Puccinelli) Acerbi, my nonni (Italian-American
dialect for grandmother); Brenda and Donal Brown, my parents; my sis-
ter Paula, her husband, John, and their children Erin and Evan; the late
‘‘Uncle’’ Al Minetti, my godfather, who was like a grandfather to me; my
son Dante, my daughter Sofìa, and my life partner and wife, Tina. In
tribute to Tina I can do no better than to agree wholeheartedly with my
mother-in-law, who tells me that even if my travails as a graduate student
and professor haven’t made me rich, I’ve been ‘‘livin’ on love!’’ My in-laws
have been wonderful: Connie and Frank Prado, their children, especially
Mark Luis, and their many grandchildren. And un abrazo fuerte goes to the
late Warren Kolodny, my best friend from college and a consummate
‘‘cronopio’’ to boot.
A shorter version of chapter 1 appeared as ‘‘‘White Slaves’ and the ‘Arro-
gant Mestiza’: Reconfiguring Whiteness in The Squatter and the Don and
Ramona,’’ in American Literature 69.4 (December 1997): 813–39, copyright
1997 by Duke University Press.