In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

52 In a review of Phillip Roth’s prolific contribution to American literature, the critic Claudia Roth Pierpont observes about the central character in Roth’s most notorious book that Alexander Portnoy’s onanistic hold to the flesh is “literally, in rebellion against the life that is being forced upon him . . . a fiercely comic shtick that is also a howl to the heavens” (Pierpont 2006, 82). The same may be said about much of art, including the art of Cuban Americans in the United States. This chapter focuses on the relationship between aesthetic expression and immigrant incorporation. What is the role of art in the adaptation of newcomers often facing harsh environments? How do music, dance, and the figurative arts define, and how are they defined by, the quest for national and ethnic distinctiveness ? How does immigrant art differ in terms of class, and what do those differences reveal about modes of incorporation, types of reception, and structures of opportunity in the host country? Although the importance of these questions is obvious as soon as they are formulated , mine is among the first attempts to address them. Omissions are especially puzzling given the enduring significance of art as an element of the human experience and the richness of artistic manifestations in immigrant communities. It may be a testimony to the supremacy of market-economics thinking that there are many more treatises about immigrant employment and exploitation than about the way immigrants use art to combat punishing conditions in the labor market. This chapter is partly based on information collected through the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Survey (CILS).1 For more than a decade CILS has followed a national sample of immigrants from early adolescence to young adulthood. A Howl to the Heavens art in the life of first- and second-generation cuban americans Patricia Fernández-Kelly c h a p t e r 3  By combining survey and ethnographic research, it has amassed the largest data base available for the understanding of immigrant incorporation in the United States in the latter part of the twentieth century. Although CILS did not focus directly on artistic expression, that subject spontaneously emerged in interviews with members of the original sample. I rely on them, my own ethnographic research, and a profuse literature on the arts to develop an interpretive framework. Overview Artistic expression among older and more educated Cuban Americans draws from historical and cultural traditions in the country of origin to affirm national pride in places of destination. It also depends on shared agreements about the value of creativity to connect with the receiving society. In the case of Cubans, the majority of whom first arrived in the United States as exiles, artistic production entails a reinvention of the ancestral land and the forging of a culture of nostalgia that strengthens coethnic bonds, separating insiders from outsiders. In other words, artistic tastes among the members of early Cuban waves—like equivalent manifestations by recent immigrants from other places—assert distinctiveness even as they uses aesthetic empathy to establish roots in the adopted country. It is in this sense that art, especially music, becomes a universal language forging bridges between newcomers and their host environment. The children of immigrants face circumstances dissimilar from those confronted by their forebears and, as a result, their artistic tastes diverge from those cultivated by the first generation. Having grown up in America they do not possess their parents’ close connection to or deep understanding of the country of origin. Some feel an impulse to relearn traditions as a way to preserve or recast cultural identity. Others embrace the mores and art of youth subcultures in the new nation. The two trends are not mutually exclusive—they often merge, giving way to innovative manifestations. Those tendencies can also vary in terms of class, with more affluent and educated populations seeking elements of authenticity and cultural purity in the art of sending countries and more humble groups resorting to forms that mix ethnic and American modalities or adopting distinctly American forms. Especially informative in that respect is the popularity of hip-hop among young Cubans, especially those living in the City of Hialeah, a working-class district in Miami-Dade County. When they appropriate art forms originally created by African Americans to voice opposition and reclaim power, Cuban youngsters symbolically join hands with multitudes sharing comparable experiences throughout the world. Immigrant art thus becomes an instrument for vindicating tarnished identities and rejecting the homogenizing pressures of the market...

Share