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Maria Luisa Ochoa Fernandez, University of Huelva (Spain)Performing Cultural Identity |
Dolores Prida is ranked among the most important playwrights of contemporary Latino theatre in the United States. Prida belongs to a new generation of Latino women writing in North America: a hybrid generation born in the Caribbean and raised in the United States, who, though, socially progressive are still closely identified with their cultural roots which deeply mark their lives as well as their literary works. More precisely, Prida belongs to the first generation of Cuban-Americans who left the island with the feeling of having left everything behind (home, family belongings,...) and perfectly aware of the possibility of not recovering it ever again.
In Coser y Cantar (one of her most acclaimed plays), Prida wittily brings to the stage the biculturalism and subsequently, bilingualism in which millions of U.S. Latinos live mixing it with high doses of humour, popular culture, criticism and even sarcasm and thus, successfully capturing in theatrical form that unique and complex reality of a culturally hybrid Latina living on the hyphen. Together with that, this paper will also analyze how Prida aims with these plays at the denouncement and criticism of assimilationist tendencies imposed by the mainstream and accordingly, vindicates the duality of the Latino bilingual and bicultural being, clearly revealing her anti-assimilationist message. Prida deals with such topics creating a play whose content and structure does not resemble any previous works by Cuban-Americans.
Coser y Cantar (1981), as Prida herself states, is "about the experience of being Hispanic in the United States, about people trying to reconcile two cultures and two languages and two visions of the world into a particular whole..." ("The Show Does Go on" 182), which is an experience shared by many Latinos in the U.S. that Prida artfully succeeds in taking to the theatre with this play. In this work, Prida brings the personal experience to a political dimension so as to denounce and criticize the assimilationist tendencies imposed by the mainstream that aim at homogenizing American society according to Anglo-American values.
The subtitle of Coser y Cantar, "a One Act Bilingual Fantasy for Two Women", already hints at its content since the play can be considered as Prida's fantasy of what would be a possible theatrical representation of being a bicultural and bilingual woman, which is corroborated by Prida herself when asserting that "[it] deals with how to be a bilingual and bicultural woman in Manhattan and keep your sanity" ("The Show Does Go on" 185). Therefore, she will explore the inner struggle within women caught between two cultures at the same time as she will try with her work to look for an emotional equilibrium between one culture and the other, and accordingly, perfectly reflecting the dual personality (hence, the hybridity) of a female Cuban exile belonging to the one-and-a-half generation1.
Coser y Cantar is really one long bilingual monologue between a Latina named "Ella" and her Anglo inner self "She", who are two halves of the same person. They are the cultural sides of a personality: the Cuban immigrant (that is, the woman's cultural heritage) and her more acculturated, and therefore, Americanized self, which perfectly exemplify the personal struggle between two cultures that many Latinas living in that same dual condition experience.
The play begins with the apartment in which "Ella" and "She" live divided into "two ethnic territories, one for each character" (Sandoval 203) that represent the two different cultural parts of the consciousness of any bicultural and therefore, hybrid Latina. The objects they own (the props) have been thoughtfully introduced by the playwright so as to function as evident embodiments of their cultures. Thus, in "She"'s part "a pair of ice skates, a tennis racket, a glass with pens and pencils and various bottles of vitamin pills" as well as the "jogging shorts and sneakers" (49) she is wearing clearly stand for the Anglo culture, whereas "Ella"'s area somewhat untidy with copies of Cosmopolitan, Vanidades, and TV Guías, cosmetics, a figurine of the Virgen de la Caridad, a candle, a large conch, a pair of maracas" (49) contains many items typically associated with the Cuban culture that, in this case, form her survival kit in exile. Therefore, "it is evident from this description that both characters function as ethnic stereotypes" (Sandoval 204): the Anglo-American woman and the Latina respectively.
The presence of two different cultures within the same person gives way to the abundance of cultural dichotomies in the text which function as a "polarizing comic device" (Weiss 15). Thus, one speaks English and reads Psychology Today, the other speaks Spanish and reads Vanidades; one is on a diet and does exercise with Jane Fonda's records, the other eats and dreams; one eats healthy low-calorie food, the other fattening Caribbean meals; one likes Barbra Streisand, the other Olga Guillot and boleros; one is tidy, the other untidy; one controls her emotions and therefore is calm, the other is "emotionally primitive" (54) and accordingly, passionate; one hates soap operas and Corín Tellado's novels, the other loves them; one is realistic, the other idealistic; one dwells in the here and now, the other in there and then (anchored to the past) and so on, since an endless list of dichotomies could be established. Clearly enough the first part of the dichotomy corresponds to "She" and the second to "Ella."
As has been proved, the text moves as if it were a ping-pong ball jumping from one part of the stage to another constantly switching language and culture (with its corresponding polarizing effect that creates hybridity). "Ella" and "She", the two players in this ping-pong game, "bounce their own metaphorical ball of cultural selfhood back and forth" (Sandoval 202) by which Prida makes the spectator concentrate on who is hitting and who is returning the ball. Thus, with this game a new bicultural and bilingual fluency very familiar for people in similar situations is created. As the playwright warns us, the "play must never be represented in one language" (49) because its main point is, precisely, to show the simultaneous presence of both cultures without the superiority of one above the other, that is, hybridity. This is a clear political message against the mainstream assimilationist tendencies that Prida artfully manages to convey through this play which is a representation of the personal experience of any U.S. bicultural Latina.
Throughout the play, the two halves continually bicker, each trying to assume total control trying to impose their views about food, music and moral principles on the other. However, none of them seem to surrender to the other one, that is, neither of them assimilate to the other one, which clearly indicates that assimilation is not a possible solution in this bicultural ping-pong game.
However, it is not till the end, that the playwright gives a solution to this game. "Ella" and "She" come to realize how dependent they are upon each other for survival since neither can make it completely on her own, as revealed in the following lines:
ELLA: ...Yo tengo mis recuerdos...Yo tengo una solidez. Tengo unas raíces, algo de que agarrarme. Pero tú...Ątú de qué te agarras?2
SHE: I hold on to you. I couldn't exist without you.
ELLA: But I wonder if I need you. Me pregunto si te necesito...
SHE: I was unavoidable. You spawned me while you swam in that fish tank...
ELLA: Tú no eres tan importante. Ni tan fuerte. Unos meses bajo el sol, y, ...desaparecerías...Yo soy la que existo. Yo soy la que soy. Tú no sé lo que eres.3
SHE: But, if it weren't for me you would not be the one you are now. No serías la que eres. I gave yourself back to you. If I had not opened some doors and some windows for you, you would be still be sitting in the dark, with your recuerdos...! (66)
The above quotation proves that "Ella" and "She" are not after all opposite but apposite, that is, they complement each other, which corroborates Pérez Firmat's assertion that "Cuban-American culture is 'appositional' rather than 'oppositional' for the relation between the two terms is defined more by contiguity than by conflict" (Life on the Hyphen 6) and it is actually the hyphen that serves as a bridge between both cultures. "Ella" created "She" when "Ella" emigrated to the U.S. and "She" helped "Ella" to overcome the difficult experience of exile by dragging her out of the land of remembrance and not letting her wither in nostalgia for the past. Thus, thanks to "She", "Ella" does not to feel completely alienated in a foreign world. On the other hand, "She" realizes at the end that she cannot live without her Cuban part since "Ella" existed first. Consequently, both halves come to the realization that it is necessary to stay together in order to survive in the outside world: in that hostile, violent and terrifying urban Anglo social environment depicted. Therefore, "only by becoming double, can [s]he ever be a whole; only by being two, will [s]he ever be someone" (Pérez Firmat, "Transcending Exile" 12 ).
What Prida is openly conveying with this representation of the personal experience of any bilingual Latina is her anti-assimilationist political message. By making "She" state that "No one shall win!" (67) in the game and so ending in a draw, the playwright is clearly in favour of what Pérez Firmat has denominated the "non-conflictive cohabitation of dissimilar cultures" ("Transcending Exile" 5), in which no culture dominates or subordinates the other rather than in favour of "a cultural synthesis" (209) as Sandoval proposed, which would imply the merging of both cultures into a new one4. Therefore, "the two cultures achieve a balance that makes it difficult to determine which is the dominant and which is the subordinate culture" (Life on the Hyphen 6). That is actually the definition of being bicultural proposed by Pérez Firmat. Consequently, "unlike acculturation ... biculturation implies an equilibrium... between the two contributing cultures" (Life on the Hyphen 6).
Coser y Cantar will only be totally understood by those, who like the protagonist, live with relative ease in similar worlds. For Prida the most natural and normal state is that dual cohabitation (that hybrydity), any other possibility would result in incompleteness. Accordingly, those that only speak either Spanish or English will get half of the message; however, only some privileged ones, such as those belonging to the one-and-a-half generation Pérez Firmat talks about, would have a coherent view of the play. With Coser y Cantar, Prida has successfully captured in theatrical form that unique and complex reality of living on the hyphen (neither here nor there but simultaneously in both cultures), a situation in which millions of Latinos live.
By airing, not with existential despair but always humorously, some of the main problems any hybrid Latina has to face in everyday life (double identity, assimilation, struggle for self-definition, alienation and loneliness among many others), Prida clearly arises as a spokesperson and the conscience of many Latinos living in similar situations to those portrayed in her play. Accordingly, Coser y Cantar is aimed at awakening, in particular, Latinas and, in general, the Latino community to an understanding of their oppression so as to make them react and throw off a collective lethargy of many years; hence, the playwright's commitment to her community.
In order to make her political message against acculturation reach the audience, Prida wittily mixes her drama with Latino popular culture (what Latinos like most) so that her plays appeal to a larger audience, who can identify with the characters and situations they see on stage. Thus, by introducing elements of mass culture such as well-known boleros, songs, proverbs and santería, Prida catches the audience's attention at the same time as she makes sure that her anti-assimilationist political message successfully reaches the audience.
As has been proved throughout this paper, Coser y Cantar is a clear example of what happens to an immigrant who refuses to renounce the native culture and mother tongue in favour of the Anglo ones trying at all costs to keep attached to the cultural heritage of the place of origin so as not to feel alienated in a foreign world. Thus, in this play, Prida emerges as skilled playwright able to bring to the theatre the complex reality of biculturalism and hybridity, that is, of a person who wants to reconcile both cultures (the Latino and the Anglo) and both languages (English/Spanish) but, at the same, tries not to succumb to the Anglo-American acculturation. Consequently, biculturalism as well as bilingualism have never before been so wittily and artfully brought to the stage so as to reject assimilation as in this play clearly revealing Prida's mastery in dealing with one of the most relevant themes that cut across Latino life in the United States.
Notes
- 1 This term (first coined by the Cuban sociologist Rubén Rumbaut) is used by Pérez Firmat to refer to "an intermediate immigrant generation whose members spent their childhood or adolescence in Cuba but grew into adults in America", that is, they were "born in Cuba but made in the U.S.A." (Life on the Hyphen 4).
- 2 All the translations in this essay are mine: "...I have my memories...Y have my strength. I have roots, something to hold on to. But you?...What do you hold on to?"
- 3 Translation: "You are not as important or as strong. A few months under the sun, and,...you would disappear...I am the one that really exists. I am what I am. I don't know what you are"
- 4 For Pérez Firmat "ethnicity...consists of the non-conflictive cohabitation of dissimilar cultures. Notice that I say cohabitation rather than synthesis, for it is not clear to me that this cohabitation necessarily engenders a synthetic third term" (Life on the Hyphen 5).
Works Cited
Pérez Firmat, Gustavo. Life on the Hyphen. The Cuban-American Way. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994.
---. "Transcending Exile: Cuban-American Literature Today." Occasional Papers Series Dialogues. Ed. Richard Tardanico. Miami: Florida International University, 1987. 1-13.
Prida, Dolores. "Coser y Cantar." Beautiful Señoritas and Other Plays. Ed. Judith Weiss. Houston: Arte Publico Press, 1991. 49-67.
---. "The Show Does Go On (Testimonio)." Breaking Boundaries. Eds. Asunción Horno-Delgado et allii. Amherst: The University of Massachusetts Press, 1989. 181-187.
Sandoval, Alberto. "Dolores Prida's Coser y Cantar: Mapping the Dialectics of Ethnic Identity and Assimilation" In Breaking Boundaries. Eds. Asunción Horno-Delgado et allii. Amherst: The University of Massachusetts Press, 1989. 201-220.
Weiss, Judith. "Introduction." Beautiful Señoritas and Other Plays. Houston: Arte Publico Press, 1991. 9-16.