Diversión. Albert Sergio Laguna

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СКАЧАТЬ all know that Miami has been officially declared a bilingual city. The Americans have declared it officially but I think this bilingualism exists only on our part, the part of the Cubans because those Cubans who are here can get by (se defienden) in English. But on the part of the Americans, the same thing doesn’t apply because among the poor Americans, it is extremely difficult to find one that speaks two words of Spanish. Because of this, I’d like to dedicate this part of the album to the Americans, to give them a class on Cuban language.… These classes will help us understand each other better.59

      The key phrase in this excerpt is “se defienden” translated idiomatically as “get by.” In this context, the invocation of the verb defender is a common way to refer to one’s tenuous grip on a foreign language. I retain the Spanish phrase in my translation in order to explore the resonance of the word in relation to Alvarez Guedes’s treatment of cultural and political exchanges between los americanos and the exile community in all his Miami-related material. In this “class” and the jokes regarding language that I take up below, an economy of defense (“defender”) is always working as subtext. The use of choteo to narrate the politics of language in Miami amounts to a form of defense for a Cuban community that feels a certain degree of vulnerability as a result of exilic displacement and the challenges posed by a sociopolitical landscape scripted in English. As the political tension in Miami mounts, the signification of defender in Alvarez Guedes’s performances will shift to meet the escalation of anti-Cuban rhetoric.

      Alvarez Guedes’s introduction to his Cuban language class sets up one of the defining features of choteo’s political potential as expressed by Mañach. In his essay on choteo, he describes the playful point of view on the intractable realities of life as choteo’s tendencia niveladora (leveling tendency)—the ability to create a narrative of experience that “levels,” or balances, the uneven power dynamics of the social milieu through the language of choteo. Choteo subverts the dominant model of immigrant assimilation in the United States by suggesting that Cubans are in a position to pity those “poor Americans” who cannot speak Spanish. Instead of interpreting the decision to make the city of Miami officially bilingual as a benefit to Cubans, Alvarez Guedes understands it as an almost matter-of-fact, logical unfolding of events. Cubans “se defienden” in English but now the Americans must fulfill the literal meaning of what it means to live in a bilingual city where everyone speaks two languages. In the narrative of the Cuban language class, the burden of cultural assimilation and understanding, usually carried by the incoming population, is transferred to the established community through choteo’s leveling tendency.

      Once he has finished his introduction, Alvarez Guedes begins his class by asking his audience to forgive him for speaking in English so the Americans can understand him. Of course, his audience is composed of Cubans who feel most comfortable speaking in Spanish. But imagining an audience of americanos allows for a comic reversal of the classic teacher-student dynamic at work in the encounter between “native” and immigrant. Under this logic, the newly arrived must learn the language and customs of the United States with a certain amount of deference to those who were born citizens. By putting himself in a position to teach los americanos of Miami, Alvarez Guedes reverses the logic of this dynamic and places power into the hands of the Cubans. His English is accented but syntactically flawless as he explains two “Cuban” words that he will teach, mierda y comemierda (shit and shit eater, idiomatically, asshole). He then goes on to explain how phrases in English like “go to hell” can be translated into Cuban as “vaya a la mierda.” “Teaching” Cuban phrases that have a distinctly popular, vulgar resonance to los americanos and equating them with English phrases makes the language of political power legible to those Cubans who may feel intimidated by the privileged position of English in Miami at the time. Alvarez Guedes’s use of the familiar language of choteo creates the opportunity for a pleasurable encounter with the unfamiliar dominant language.

      The notion of familiarity warrants further discussion in relation to how choteo brings about pleasure for the audience. Besides already being familiar to many exiles who followed his career in Cuba, Alvarez Guedes’s jokes and stories create a safe space where anxieties generated by the experience of exile can be managed pleasurably. The choteo that describes the relationship between Cubans and americanos is an explicit reminder of those common denominators of cubanía that Alvarez Guedes constantly tapped: we are different, special, and one way to articulate that is through diversión as a recognizable form of relation. Every time the audience laughs, applauds, or silently awaits the next joke, they ally themselves with Alvarez Guedes’s perspective—a view that values, champions, and furthers the cause of the exile community. Alvarez Guedes’s comic persona assumes the mantle of “defender.” The humorous, playful language functions not only as mode for reimagining the difficulties associated with exile but also as a means to create an active, critical, political consciousness united around a cultural identity threatened by American assimilationist paradigms.

      As the years went by, Alvarez Guedes continued to release albums annually and remained committed to addressing the relationship between los americanos and Miami’s Cuban community. What changed was the boldness of the humor as the political climate in Miami became more hostile toward exiles. What started as a Cuban language class for “poor Americans” who can’t speak Spanish evolved into a defiant, almost brash assertion of cultural difference. Take “Viva la diferencia” (Long Live Difference) featured on Alvarez Guedes 10 (1979). Alvarez Guedes opens this story by saying, “Los cubanos se han cagado en el melting pot” (Cubans have shit on the concept of the melting pot), and follows with a list of examples detailing how Cubans have resisted the call to assimilate through the maintenance of distinct cultural characteristics.

      “Shitting” on the most recognizable metaphor for American assimilation constitutes a defiant assertion of cultural legitimacy and resilience. The constant use of abject imagery in much of Alvarez Guedes’s comedic performance is consistent with literary critic Gustavo Pérez Firmat’s theorization of choteo’s scatological mode. According to Pérez Firmat, the abject language of choteo is consistent with its peripheral relation to centrist discourse. As such, choteo is “a movement toward or assault from the margins.”60 With Cubans on the margins of Miami political power in the 1970s and early 1980s, Alvarez Guedes’s comedy represents a desire to reimagine the power relations within the exilic space and to bring the margins to the center. At the same time, the jokes about negros and locas represent how in that move to the center, blackness and homosexuality were rendered abject and placed on the margins.

      Choteo’s assault from the margins becomes more pronounced on Alvarez Guedes 11, recorded in the chaotic year of 1980. The tension of the anti-bilingual referendum combined with the fallout from the Mariel crisis spilled over into the material on this album. Unlike the more covert aggression of “teaching” words like “mierda” and “comemierda” to an imagined American audience on Alvarez Guedes 2, the material on this album addresses the contentiousness in Miami much more directly. In “De ayer a hoy” (“Yesterday to Today”) Alvarez Guedes discusses how Miami has changed since Cubans first arrived. He focuses again on language, explaining how speaking Spanish in Miami used to be equivalent to saying a vulgar word and citing instances when Americans would insult Cubans for not speaking English. The theme of reversal, putting the Cubans into the position of power via the humorous narrative, continues but in a much more aggressive way. He suggests that the Americans are now “trained” and are accepting of Spanish. Within this narrative, Spanish has replaced English as the dominant language. This dominance is communicated most effectively when Alvarez Guedes focuses on the reach of the Cuban community into the realm of business. To illustrate his point, Alvarez Guedes describes how he went into a pharmacy to ask for change for a dollar in order to make a phone call. He asked in English, to which the clerk responded in Spanish, “Now you want too much my brother. Now you want people to speak English here and everything.”61 The prevalence of Spanish within the economic sphere symbolizes the growing strength of the Cuban community. Cuban-owned businesses and other entrepreneurial ventures had been climbing steadily, and this humorous example not only serves as a rebuff to demands to speak English but also demonstrates the successful evolution of the Cuban enclave system СКАЧАТЬ