latin american essays maclas

(1994; Fantastic Journeys), Ladrón de la mente (1995; Mind Thief), and Isla de
luz (2001; Island of Light).
His four novels are thematically intertwined, all linked by his
preoccupation with the struggle for authenticity and identity within the Cuban-
American experience. All four works explore this theme within the context of
inter-generational dynamics of Cuban families in the United States. His switch to
the English language after his first novel marks an important transition for him,
on a personal and literary level. He, along with many other Latino/a writers who
write in English, make a profound statement of entrance into the U.S. literary
scene, embracing the problematic relationship between adherence to ethnic
origin and the demands of living in the contemporary U.S. society. Isabel
Alvarez Borland (59) sees it as a way of resolving identity issues through a new
language: “Writing in a language other than the language of birth becomes the
means of regaining an identity or refashioning a new one, and in the case of the
one-and-a-half generation writers, it also becomes a way to cope with change
and feelings of inadequacy.” Writing in the language of the society in which one
has grown up is also an act of embracing the linguistic comfort zone of their
present environment. However, many of these writers do not abandon Spanish
altogether in their work, often mixing some Spanish words and expressions into
the English narrative, a reminder that language plays an important part as a
mirror of their condition.
Brand New Memory and the Theme of Memory
Brand New Memory, Elías Miguel Muñoz’s fourth and latest novel, is
representative of his unique treatment of the theme of memory as a building
block for identity. Among his narrative resources is his treatment of technology
as a narrative and thematic tool. His young protagonist, Gina Domingo, is a
second-generation child of the 90s, steeped in the ever-changing, rapidlyupgrading
world of technological tools. What she does with these tools is directly
linked to the theme of Cuban-American identity.
The theme of memory as a building block for identity is common to U.S.
Latino/a literature, as it is to any literature dealing with the experience of
immigration, regardless of the particular causes of that immigration. It is also
common to all coming-of-age narratives, where young protagonists struggle to
make sense of their role in a world whose past has yet to be fully revealed, let
alone understood. Brand New Memory is part of this literary tradition combining
immigration and coming-of-age, 4 but it also has unique characteristics that speak
to us in a fresh new way of what it means to be a U.S.-born child of Cuban exiles
and, at a deeper level, what goes into the making of any identity.
Both the title and the two epigraphs that open this novel immediately
immerse the reader in the discourse of memory: The epigraph “Whatever isn’t
image isn’t memory” is taken from Alan West-Durán’s Finding Voices in the Rain,
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