Reframing Latin America: A Cultural Theory Reading ... - BGSU Blogs

civilized folk marry the barbarians 227
• Although Angel Rama’s concept of the lettered citizen was not
available to Martí in 1891, does “Our America” challenge the traditional
dominance of the lettered citizen by appealing to the natural man as the
new American leader? Or, does the image of the natural leader simply cast
the lettered citizen in a new, American image?
• Imagine a society structured along the lines of “Our America.”
Would it be any different for so-called uncultured people?
notes
1. Sources consulted for this introduction were Joanne Hershfi eld, Mexican
Cinema/Mexican Woman: 1940–1950 (Tucson: U of Arizona P, 1996);
Julie Skurski, “The Ambiguities of Authenticity in Latin America: Doña
Bárbara and the Construction of National Identity,” ed. Geof Eley and R.
Suny, Becoming National: A Reader (New York: Oxford UP, 1996) 371–402;
and Doris Sommer, Foundational Fictions: The National Romances of Latin
America (Berkeley: U of California P, 1991) 272–289.
2. Rómulo Gallegos, Doña Bárbara (New York: Peter Smith, 1948), originally
published in Barcelona by Editorial Araluce in 1929. These excerpts
are from 23–29, 44–46, 139–140, 145, 185–186, 209–210, 297.
3. Paiba is one of Doña Bárbara’s henchmen, and this sentence refers to
his setting fi re to a portion of Luzardo’s property. He did so without direct
orders from Doña Bárbara, who at this point is still assessing her strategy
toward Luzardo.
4. This excerpt is drawn from the chapter called “Love of Country: Populism’s
Revised Romance in La Vorágine and Doña Bárbara,” 272–279, 281,
284–289.
5. Sommer is referring to José Eustancio Rivera, author of La Vorágine
(1924).
6. The page numbers in parentheses refer to the 1948 publication of Doña
Bárbara.
7. José Martí, “Our America,” ed. Deborah Shnookal and Mirta Muñiz,
José Martí Reader: Writings on the Americas (Melbourne: Ocean, 2001)
113.
8. Martí 113.
9. Martí 112.
10. Martí 119.
11. Martí 115.
12. Martí 118.
13. Martí 114.
14. Martí 112.
15. This excerpt is from 111–120.