LASA/EANLAS: Rethinking Trans-Pacific Ties: Asia and Latin America

Transatlantic ties: Hispanic Orientalism and the contemporary Cuban novel

• In Event: Migrant Literature and Identity

Abstract

Although hybridity is the essence of Cuban-ness, Cuban identity discourses
marginalized and even excluded the Asian component, perpetuating Said’s
Orientalism. However, during the last decades, Cuban literary works have
been re-thinking such position and distancing themselves from previous
self-orientalism, claiming to be based on integration and inclusion. Unlike
Said’s Orientalism, which is based on binary oppositions, the so-called
Hispano-American Orientalism conveyed in Cristina García’s Monkey Hunting
and Daína Chaviano’s La isla de los amores infinitos, re-think Orientalism
and unravel a new perspective for the construction of Cubanidad, one that
regards the Asian component as integral part of the discourse, exploring the
processes of exile and acculturation. This article explores these two
literary works and reviews the way in which they integrate the so called
“exotic” in their literary discourse to comprehend a more inclusive
construction of Cuban identity including diaspora and transnational
communities.
Key words: Acculturation, Exile, Chinese communities, Diaspora communities.

Author

• Teresa Villoria Nolla, The University of the West Indies