Siempre algún día (review)

288 Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies War propaganda films in Mexico, simultaneously addressing each government's distinct goals. Four other essays, on the banana enclave in Colombia, the copper mines in Chile, the U.S. imposition of marriage and divorce law in Puerto Rico, and the Sandino rebellion, all show the ambiguous outcomes of U.S. corporate and military expansion in Latin America. While men and women used U.S. gender prescriptions favoring the nuclear family to achieve their own goals in the Chilean and Puerto Rican cases, residents of the banana enclave were not homogenized by the United Fruit Company: they developed multiple connections with the outside world and retained a dynamic local culture. The marine invasion of Nicaragua both provoked a nationalist response and won many local adherents. Both the marines and Sandino's followers appropriated local styles of violence, and the regional war actually expanded the reach ofthe Nicaraguan state. The revolt was not purely nationalist , nor was the invasion simply an external imposition. Two concluding essays by Emily Rosenberg and William Roseberry applaud the collection's successful use of cultural analysis, and integration of cultural and materialist approaches, respectively. A final visual essay by Maria del Carmen Suescun Pozas examines the meanings of eleven images by U.S. and Latin American artists that focus on imperialist themes. One ofthe collection's larger messages is that Latin Americans were not passive victims ofthe U.S. imperial enterprise, and U.S. actors needed to adapt their goals to local social and political conditions. Likewise , U.S involvement often provoked tacit and open resistance, as well as unintended consequences. Furthermore, the essays illuminate the gender and racial constructs developed by both U.S. and Latin American actors, and show how these ideas were part and parcel of the post-colonial encounter in the Americas. In short, imperialism is about much more than political and economic domination, and imperial control is always partial and contradictory. While pointing to important limitations in traditional political and economic approaches, as a group, the essays also raise a new set of questions. While cultural approaches point to the multiplicity of "encounters" between the U.S. and Latin America, how do we square the diversity of local interactions with the fact the U.S. was and is an imperial force in Latin America, and that this presence does have systemic properties? Moreover, how can theoretical discussions of U.S. generated representations of Latin America take into account how Latin Americans interpreted these discourses and images? In short, by deconstructing the discourses of imperialism , modernization, international relations , and so on, can we replace them with more adequate theories, or simply produce individual stories? For the most part, these excellent and at times brimant essays do not respond to these questions. However, readers of this volume will no doubt thank the authors for opening up this set of problems, and look forward to the further development of these important debates. Joel P. Stillerman The University of Arizona Siempre algún dÃ-a Tusquets Editores, 1998 Por Justo Vila Justo Vila (Badajoz, 1954) nace en el seno de una familia de jornaleros que se vio obligada a emigrar a las cuencas mineras de Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies 289 Asturias para encontrar trabajo. De regreso a Extremadura, Vila compaginó sus estudios con trabajos como jornalero, albañil, educador, etc. Miembro fundador de la SEGUEF (Sociedad de Estudios de la Guerra Civil y el Franquismo), ha publicado varios libros de historia y la novela La agonÃ-a del buho chico (1994). En Siempre algún dÃ-a, Vila recrea el perÃ-odo histórico de una gran parte del siglo XIX y principios del XX a través de la crónica de una familia de Artobas. Este pequeño pueblo de la provincia de Badajoz se convierte en sujeto paciente de las leyes de desamortización implementadas poi el gobierno central de Madrid, y, a su vez, es testigo de los avances tecnológicos que comienzan a llegar de Europa a la penÃ-nsula. La trama argumentai de Siempre algún dÃ-a relata los avalares de una familia de Artobas a través de cinco...