The Space of Cuban American Exile Narratives: Places, Maps and Wayfinding

This dissertation considers the connections between Cuban American exile writers and spatial contexts that allow people to orient themselves in new surroundings. By employing a multi-disciplinary approach, I examine the impacts of physical movement and the literal readjustment people go through in new spaces to reconsider how exiles negotiate space. Addressing several literary genres, the process by which existing in space alters social constructs, sense of self, and basic understanding of one’s surroundings is investigated from multiple spatial viewpoints. The introduction sets the historical context for exile and Cuba’s dynamic history and also details how space functions across disciplines, particularly literature, cultural studies, and geography. Chapter one examines the active and passive nature of representational and representations of space in Pablo Medina’s The Marks of Birth. Chapter two studies the real and imagined spaces in Daína Chaviano’s Island of Eternal Love, contending that melancholia, nostalgia, and displacement create a perceived space that exists to acclimate exiles with their new homeland through various forms of wayfinding. Chapter three looks at trajectories of space and time in Carlos Eire’s Learning to Die in Miami, with the goal of proving that a panoptic vision of oneself is how Cuban Americans manage the trauma of exile. Chapter four states that recursive space and the relationship between writer and reader Carlos Eire’s Waiting for Snow is Miami allows space to be molded as one traverses through it. Finally, chapter five, asserts that exile space is a reticulated network. Using Stuart Hall’s concept of identity formation and theories on collective space, the formation of collective consciousness as it applies to exiles is explored. Contributions of this study include furthering the correlations between geographical and literary research, and spatial reconstruction and reconsidering identity-based orientation within displaced communities. This project significant for continuing the study of Cuban American exiles in the U.S, combining multiple disciplines to analyze literature and providing a comprehensive investigation of spatial theory as the foundation for unpacking the location-specific social issues and struggles of exiles