Diversión. Albert Sergio Laguna

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      Racism against Afro-Cubans within the Cuban exile community is rarely, if ever, explicitly addressed in popular culture. But if racism can be used as a tool to detract from the narrative of racial equality under the Revolution and its policies more broadly, then it is fair game. To be sure, the Cuban Revolution has failed to address a multitude of issues involving racial discrimination as multiple scholars have pointed out.36 But to suggest that Afro-Cubans have endured the most harm under the Revolution is consistent with the general refusal within the exile community to acknowledge any accomplishments under Castro. White Cuban exiles who arrived before Mariel were quick to use the boatlift as proof of the failures of the Revolution. But the symbolic “victory” of Cubans fleeing the island during Mariel did not lead to better treatment of marielitos, especially black arrivals, once they settled in Miami. This population routinely suffered discrimination on the basis of race, sexuality, and a perceived lack of anti-revolutionary fervor.37

      What this joke does is “sanitize” blackness for symbolic use in order to criticize the Cuban government. Small details matter. For instance, the black man in the joke is leaving the island with his family. He has not taken to the sea as other Cubans of color did during the chaotic boatlift. Instead, he waits for his flight to Miami at the airport—an orderly departure. Like the narrative of his white countrymen before him, this black Cuban male is leaving the island with a family unit because of government persecution, complete with a plane ride. Besides the anxiety about blackness, exiles found the number of single young men arriving during the boatlift troubling—a reversal of the narrative of family-driven migration and the sense of responsibility and wholesomeness that goes with it. In addition, the black man’s snappy comeback to the Cuban official’s warnings about racism in the United States seems to reinforce the conservative position that claims of racism are exaggerated and an excuse for those unwilling to work hard.38 The protagonist of this joke is simply a white Cuban exile of a different color whose race provides an avenue for attacking the Revolution in a way that is consistent with broader anti-Castro rhetoric.

      The pattern of politically expedient critique also arises in how the exile community seized upon the Cuban government’s treatment of gays. Néstor Almendros’s 1984 documentary, Improper Conduct, captures the experiences of homosexual men sent to labor camps called Unidades Militares de Ayuda a la Producción (UMAPs) (Military Units to Aid Production). Public figures in the exile community celebrated the film for its exposure of the repressiveness of the Castro government and as an opportunity to “shake up the conscience” of liberal supporters of the Revolution in Europe and the United States.39 Homophobia has a long history in Cuba before and after the Revolution. As Emilio Bejel points out in his study of homosexuality and nationalism: “Homophobic discourses articulated as part of modern national precepts have been publicly expounded by Cuban nationalist leaders from the earliest days of modern Cuban history. Their discussions have often defined the homosexual body, implicitly or explicitly, as a threat to the health of the body of the nation.”40 Of course, the powerfully ingrained homophobia in Cuba did not disappear when Cubans moved from the island to Miami. Although Improper Conduct was celebrated, attitudes toward homosexuality in the exile community were less than hospitable. Ricardo Ortíz and Susana Peña have shown that homophobia in Cuba in the 1970s and 1980s was mirrored in the exile context.41 Like jokes about race, jokes about sexuality combined common social attitudes from Cuba and United States to consolidate a narrative of white, heteronormative exile cubanía and the social privileges encoded therein.

      On Alvarez Guedes’s albums, the topic of sexuality comes up in the figure of la loca, literally “crazy woman.” Susana Peña describes locas as “flamboyant, gender-transgressive male homosexuals.”42 Locas serve as a popular, recurring topic throughout Alvarez Guedes’s repertoire.43 In his material from the 1970s and 1980s, they frequently appear in jokes meant to prompt audience laughter through an audible performance of effeminacy and cartoonish representations of sexually aggressive locas with their insatiable and uncontrollable desire for men. The following from Alvarez Guedes 3 captures the essence of his loca material:

      The police arrive to raid una fiesta de locas and they surround their house with police cars and a patrol wagon. When they have the house completely surrounded, una loca comes out of the house like a shot running [makes cartoonish running sound] and bam! gets into the wagon. The cop asks, “Why did you come out alone and get into the wagon by yourself?” To which la loca replies [effeminate voice], “Porque el año pasado me tocó ir de pie” (Because last year I had to go [to the police station] by foot!)44

      The setting of the joke betrays its historical context. With police roundups of gay men in Miami in the news, Alvarez Guedes signals a situation that would be familiar to his audience. The comedian even uses the word “raid” in English suggesting that this term would be understood by his predominantly Spanish-speaking audience. With state-sponsored violence not being funny in and of itself, the comic pleasure hinges on the cartoonish depiction of la loca. Alvarez Guedes produces this caricature by manipulating his voice to resemble the sound effect of a cartoon character running quickly (think Bugs Bunny) complete with the “bam!” when la loca gets into the police wagon. The next comic layer comes when the joke moves to unsettle the expectations of the audience: Why would the “guilty” loca willingly get into the police wagon? Alvarez Guedes supplies the answer by adopting an effeminate voice and lilt that his audience would immediately recognize. The punchline builds off of the cartoonish representation up to that point. This is not la loca’s first run-in with the law. La loca simply can’t help being loca. Flamboyance (conveyed in Alvarez Guedes’s loca ventriloquism) and the repetition of the “illegal” behavior of attending a party with other locas suggest that the desire for pleasure and the company of men trumps the unpleasure of yet another visit to jail. This loca does not resist state violence; it is the accepted cost of effeminate, same-sex desire. In this narrative, la loca is asking for it.

      If this joke were made by a Cuban drag queen or queer performance artist, it might be possible to read it as resistance to the criminalization of queer sexualities in the United States.45 But alas, this is not the performer or the audience. Instead, this joke and others are in keeping with how queerness has traditionally entered and been consumed in popular culture on and off the island—as a kind of abstract entertainment, pure surface, and a convenient source for a quick laugh.46 This kind of humor is so ingrained that it is possible to discern laughter from the audience on the album even before the punchline is delivered. The mere mention of “una fiesta de locas” was enough for some members of the audience. This abject image of la loca, legible only through sexuality deemed aberrant and thus comical in its incongruousness, was and continues to be a regular feature of Cuban humor on and off the stage. It is a critical thread that I will examine throughout the book.

      Problems arise when la loca ceases to exist only for entertainment and becomes “real,” a political subject who demands rights and fair treatment and actively campaigns against state-sponsored violence. As with jokes about race, jokes about sexuality can be read in the context of the Cuban community forging a normative narrative of exile cubanía. In January of 1977 a group of gay activists organized under the banner of the Dade County Coalition for the Humanistic Rights of Gays to lobby for a change in the county’s human rights statute that would ban discrimination on the basis of sexual preference. Though the amendment passed, it quickly drew the ire of conservative groups in South Florida. Anita Bryant became the face of the backlash leading an organization called Save Our Children, Inc., created to rally support for the effort to repeal the anti-discrimination amendment.47 In a shrewd political move, Bryant and Save Our Children made an aggressive push to enlist the support of South Florida’s growing Cuban community. All accounts point to Cubans as strong supporters of Bryant’s efforts.48 In June of 1977, the anti-discrimination amendment was repealed in a landslide referendum.

      There is little doubt that the rhetoric of Save Our Children, communicated in the organization’s very title, would strike a chord in the exile community. Many were concerned in the 1960s and 1970s about the Americanization of their children and their exposure to counterculture movements dedicated to questioning the racial, gender, and sexual dynamics СКАЧАТЬ