El otro de nuestra America: Imaginarios nacionales frente a Estados Unidos en la Republica Dominicana y Cuba

This dissertation explores the generative mechanisms of representation by which the Dominican and Cuban "lettered cities" situated themselves the 20th century vis a vis an imagined, yet dynamic US alterity. The argument is that the trope of the United States works as a "productive prejudice"—a powerful master signifier that both grounds and modifies the established national narratives. The dissertation is divided into two parts, on the Dominican Republic and Cuba, respectively. The first explores the influence of Rodó's Arielism (arielismo) on official Dominican nationalist discourse. During the early part of the 20th century, the US is seen in as a Caliban figure by Dominican intellectuals. But in the period of Trujillo's dictatorship, this negative view of the US is displaced to some extent by a focus on Haiti as the main "constitutive outside" of Dominican national identity. The section explores how writers such as Ramón Marrero Aristy, Juan Bosch, Pedro Mir, Marcio Veloz Maggiolo, Aída Cartagena Portalatín, and most recently Junot Díaz reacted to or challenged these totalizing discourses.In Cuba, the discourse of the "lettered city" on the United States also evolves in the course of the 20th century. In the immediate aftermath of independence, intellectuals like José Antonio Ramos oscillated between two ideas of the US: as a model for a desired modernity and as a symbol of imperialism. Later, during the years prior to the 1933 revolution, Jorge Mañach, Antonio Mella, Fernando Ortíz, and Ramiro Guerra, offer varied, and at times opposing views of the US. A similar disparity occurs in the post-revolutionary "lettered city." Writers such as Luis Rogelio Nogueras and Roberto Fernández Retamar echo the earlier image of the US as an imperial power, whereas recent novels from the so-called "Special period" by Leonardo Padura and Edmundo Desnoes offer a more nuanced , self-reflective vision of Cuba's relation with the United States.The dissertation shows that the different narratives of acceptance and/or resistance to the idea of the US are also ways of negotiating tensions and ambiguities internal to the national projects of both Cuba and the Dominican Republic during the 20th century