The paper looks at the impact of collective memories on the construction of cultural identity in Achy Obejas’s Memory Mambo (1996). The notion of personal memories are challenged and juxtaposed with borrowed and invented memories. The realization that personal and collective memories collide and intermingle lead the narrator-protagonist Juani to contest her cultural identity based on ethnic memories of her community, that of Cubans. This paper specifically looks at the critical representation of the collective attitude towards race, class, gender, sexuality, and exile. It further explores the different approaches, the various generations of Cubans in exile have used, to cope with their changing reality.
