Negotiating a New Identity for US Latino Literature in Achy Obejas's Ruins
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Abstract
The Cuban American author Achy Obejas’ latest novel Ruins (2009) is another text in an emerging trend among US Latino authors, raised in the United States, looking at their ancestral countries, and engaging with its contemporary socio-political issues. The Dominican American Julia Alvarez’s Saving the World (2006), and the Peruvian American Daniel Alárcon’s Lost City Radio (2007) are some of the other texts that are part of this phenomenon. Obejas’ novel stands out from other novels of US Latino authors raised in the US by not portraying Cuba as the ancestors’ nostalgia, or a lost paradise waiting to be found again. Instead Cuba’s poverty is its key theme and speaks from within the country. Cuba is presented as a living reality in need of urgent attention. This paper examines the implications of texts like that of Obejas’ Ruins for the state of US Latino studies in the academic world of specializations and exclusions. This novel, like the two mentioned above, negotiate a new identity for US Latino literature, which lives on the margins of the academic world, both in United States and in Latin America, based on the language and content. Engaging with Latin American issues, allows US Latino texts to be introduced in the larger dialogue, from which it has been excluded. The novel Ruins becomes a voice to connect contemporary Cuba with the US audience. It is also a tool to engage Latin Americanists with US Latino scholars on both sides. Even though the question of authority remains open to debate, it allows for the possibility of crossing over.
