Diversión. Albert Sergio Laguna

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СКАЧАТЬ or things seriously, even if they merit just that.

      Is it possible to create a typology of ludic terms in Cuban popular culture complete with definitions? Perhaps, but such a project will not be the focus of this book. I am not interested in distinguishing how choteo might be similar to or different from say, relajo. Instead, I choose the word diversión as a means to index a host of terms like choteo, relajo, jodedera, and burla, which populate Cuban scholarly and vernacular expression. At times, I will use certain terms, with qualification, when it is particularly apt in the context of the material I am discussing. Choteo, especially, carries a significant amount of weight because of the long intellectual history of the term and its anti-authoritarian bent. But the general attractiveness of diversión as this project’s organizing logic is its imprecision. Its broadness allows me to stay away from what I consider the less interesting conversation around classification. The discursive latitude of diversión allows me to place a variety of ludic cultural forms into conversation to illuminate the ways in which levity and play broadly conceived have shaped the social in dramatic ways.

      I deploy diversión on two complementary levels. On the first, I use the term to describe ludic popular culture texts or moments as “archive[s] of feelings” charged with “feelings and emotions that are encoded not only in the content of the texts themselves but in the practices that surround their production and reception.”33 Diversión is the morning radio show you listen to on your morning drive that helps to set the tone for your day. It is the funny meme you circulate among your friends on social media that only they would understand. Diversión is the ridiculous “Cuban” nickname your aunt has given to one of your friends. It is the standup comedy show you attend on the weekend where gestures and jokes intersect to produce comic pleasure. It is born out of the cultural clashes that occur as Cuban Spanish and English meet in Hialeah to produce mistranslations or when you try to communicate the meaning of idiomatic phrases like “le zumba el mango” in English.34 As these examples suggest, a key component of my analysis will be a focus on language. More committed to wordplay and the absurd than slapstick, an analysis of diversión must be attentive to how language produces comic moments and ludic sociability over time. Diversión is the language used to narrate shared pasts and presents with designs on a potentially pleasurable future.

      On the second level, I use diversión to describe the performative logic of these cultural forms—not only what is said but how it is said. As I will highlight throughout the book, el cubaneo—the sonic and gestural repertoire of cubanía—goes hand in hand with diversión.35 The pronounced aural dimension of much of the material under scrutiny here demands that we “listen in detail” if we are to fully appreciate how sound informs the performative palette of cubanía.36 I am talking about how a laugh can sound Cuban to a listener with a finely tuned ear. The sonic logic of diversión is at work when I call out “oyeeeee” with a heavy and exaggerated Cuban accent in the hotel lobby of a busy conference to get the attention of a fellow Cuban American colleague—a kind of hailing through jodedera. Diversión can also be signaled by the body through gesticulation; it is the hand waving and the flip of the wrist that orchestrates the telling of a story. One need only watch a clip of Fidel Castro’s marathon speeches to appreciate the relationship between gesture and meaning. Interrogating diversión as a performative form of relation highlights the potential for the kind of intimacy and ludic sociability upon which communal identifications are built and projected. The pain, the trauma, and the melancholy of exile are often invoked to highlight how the Cuban diaspora has cohered historically. In this book, I make the argument that diversión has been just as vital.

      The Archive of Diversión

      In the previous section I cited the long history of diversión in Cuba as both a cultural practice and academic area of interest stretching back to the nineteenth century. But what about the diaspora? Those who left Cuba? It did not take me long to discover that diversión had been making the trip from Cuba to the United States for over one hundred years. It was always there, hiding in plain sight, molding community formations and the means of sociability alongside the brooding lamentations of exile. Continuing a long tradition of political cartooning on the island, Cuban exiles in New York published newspapers like Cacarajícara, which functioned like a nineteenth-century version of the Onion, complete with cartoons and satirical commentary directed at Spanish colonial rule.37 Puerto Rican Bernardo Vega, in his memoirs of life in New York City in the early twentieth century, thought it important to devote time to describe how jokes served as a means to promote ludic sociability among the politically engaged tabaqueros, “especially on the part of the Cuban comrades.”38 Scholars like Antonio López and Christina D. Abreu have captured the relationship between race and forms of diversión in New York City from the 1920s through the 1950s through readings of print culture, bufo performances, the Cuban music scene, and social clubs.39

      When Cubans began settling in the United States shortly after Fidel Castro rose to power in 1959, diversión quickly became a highly visible and popular way for negotiating the new space of exile, developing the emotional tools for managing the strain of displacement, and establishing a sense of cultural continuity across national boundaries. Zig-Zag, a wildly popular satirical newspaper that began its run in Cuba in 1938, initially supported the Revolution. But when the paper’s humor ran afoul of the government, key players fled to the United States.40 By 1962, Zig-Zag was back up and running in Miami under the name Zig-Zag Libre. The new incarnation featured deeply critical political cartoons of Fidel Castro accompanied by drawings and columns addressing life in exile. It would be joined by other satirical newspapers like Chispa, Cubalegre, Loquillo, and La Política Cómica among others through the decades.41

      But diversión was not just a way to articulate political critiques of communist Cuba. It was a crucial means for keeping cultural practices and memories alive, especially for children born or reared primarily in the United States. In 1964, an event called Añorada Cuba (Yearning for Cuba) debuted in Miami and featured music, dances, and dramatic works performed by the children of exiles. Younger children could enjoy magazines like Payaso (1967) and Revista Cabalgata Infantil (1972), which billed itself as “The Magazine of Cuban Childhood” and offered Cuban history in digestible tidbits alongside pictures of children exhibiting their artistic talents.42 Zig-Zag Libre held political cartooning contests for children who could draw the best caricatures of Cuban government officials.

      Figure I.1. Zig-Zag Libre, February 16, 1963. Courtesy of the Cuban Heritage Collection, University of Miami.

      Diversión was certainly on the agenda for adults as well. Magazines like Espectáculos and Showtime, which combined celebrity gossip with nightlife guides, started being published in the mid-1960s. These magazines featured interviews with exiled artists along with articles with titles like “Su artista favorito puede ser un comunista” (Your Favorite Artist Could Be a Communist).43 But without question the most consistently popular form of adult diversión came in the form of theater.44 The first play to take up themes of exile was a comedy called Hamburgers y sirenazos written in 1962 by Pedro Román and debuted in 1969, but it would not be the last. Over the years, comedies began to dominate Miami’s theater landscape.45 These works were often written, performed, and staged by talent from Cuba who had fled after the Revolution and thus were familiar to many exiles. Because demand was so high, many theaters dedicated themselves to staging comedies, which often included some combination of political satire, physical comedy, and sexual innuendo.46 But like all successful comedies, the plays spoke to issues facing the community in their moment. Reflecting community frustration with the durability of the Cuban government, Armando Roblán, famous for his impersonation of Fidel Castro, starred in No hay mal que dure 100 años … ni pueblo que lo resista (1979) (There Is No Evil That Lasts Forever … Nor Community That Can Take It), written by famed satirist Alberto González. When Soviet economic support for Cuba dried up in the early 1990s, exiles believed Castro would soon fall. Comic theater again answered the call with plays like A Cuba me voy hoy mismo … que se acabó el comunismo! (I’m Going to Cuba Because Communism Is Over!), performed in 1990 and starring Norma Zúñiga and Sandra Haydee, СКАЧАТЬ