The Cuban Caricature and National Identity

THE CUBAN CARICATURE AND NATIONAL IDENTITY1 K. Lynn Stoner When and how is national identity formed? Does it spring from the souls of citizens as the true representation of national purpose? Does it mature over time as citizens of a country are tested by civil discontent or foreign wars. Is it a set of unchallengeable values? Are the heroic stories of nation formation truthful or are they fiction. Are they history or myth? Contrary to the idea that national identity was fully formed in the first declaration of statehood, it did not begin with independence. It evolved and continues to evolve as a result of perpetual crises that test a people’s values. Over time stories emerge about heroic deeds that direct citizens’ attention toward their society’s accomplishments and failures. They give a people shared purposes and pride. Some nations such as Cuba have openly searched for an elusive identity. During the republican period leaders at once accepted Jose Marti’s imagined nation and failed mightily to deliver democracy, social justice, popular power, and sovereignty to the people. The post-independence period rendered a first generation infuriated by unfulfilled revolutionary promises but divided by how those promises should come to fruition. They lamented the absence of certain cultural and national identity, cubanidad. This paper will examine political caricatures during the Early Republic (1902-1940) to consider the effect political comedy had on establishing commonly shared cultural beliefs. It will argue that comic imagery both invented and perpetuated national identity. The graphic arts were not, of course, the only source of common recognition, but they gave visual meaning to prevailing values and the contestation of those values. I will also argue that by examining representative comic art taken from the most popular news magazines, historians can view cultural assumptions that gave the myths meaning. For example, conventions of masculine power and feminine morality framed national stories and images of identity. Political caricatures usually displayed the nation and the Cuban condition as feminine and threats to national stability as masculine . Only the caricature of Liborio, an observant, common sense peasant challenged the feminized nation as a metaphor for the incompetence of national leadership. The History of the Cuban Caricature The Cuban caricature had an uproarious past. Humor had a dual purpose : to mask the humiliation of renewed colonization and to criticize contemporary flaws of leadership and the threat of foreign intervention. Comic art pointed out hypocritical divergence from independence ideals. Where the nation had been subverted by repressive, incompetent C  2009 Southeastern Council on Latin American Studies and Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 55 The Latin Americanist, September 2009 governments, caricaturists reminded the public and the leadership that the nation as defined by the Mambi Army and council was in jeopardy. Comic artists helped form a popular consensus about the direction or misdirection of national interests. They also got away with rather severe criticism because they were funny, and because editors appeased elites with photojournalism that displayed the elite at their soirees and boarding ships for international travel, which pleased the political jet set. During a period of unrest, caricaturists were at least as powerful as political organizations , because they were seen as relatively unaffiliated editorialists and because their art was art. In short, caricaturists formed a perfect union between aesthetics and politics, and they obtained political power and social recognition for their cleverness. Cuban artists, some with international reputations as serious painters, dabbled in la polı́tica cómica. Individual artists, such as Conrado W. Massaguer , won international recognition for their artistic skill and humor. Their drawings appeared as humorous editorials, as front covers of magazines , as entertainment features, and as advertisements. On the one hand, the advent of color printing made news magazines veritable art galleries. On the other hand, messages in the political cartoons informed domestic audiences about the Cuba’s collective traumas in self image and national identity. What was interesting about the presentation of humorous criticism was the willingness of the artists to make fun of themselves and members of their own class, the very people who were misdirecting their country. Even though most artists belonged to the upper classes, they nonetheless attacked their friends for their ineptitude...