On the second level, I use diversión to describe the performative logic of these cultural forms—not only what is said but how it is said. As I will highlight throughout the book, el cubaneo—the sonic and gestural repertoire of cubanía—goes hand in hand with diversión.35 The pronounced aural dimension of much of the material under scrutiny here demands that we “listen in detail” if we are to fully appreciate how sound informs the performative palette of cubanía.36 I am talking about how a laugh can sound Cuban to a listener with a finely tuned ear. The sonic logic of diversión is at work when I call out “oyeeeee” with a heavy and exaggerated Cuban accent in the hotel lobby of a busy conference to get the attention of a fellow Cuban American colleague—a kind of hailing through jodedera. Diversión can also be signaled by the body through gesticulation; it is the hand waving and the flip of the wrist that orchestrates the telling of a story. One need only watch a clip of Fidel Castro’s marathon speeches to appreciate the relationship between gesture and meaning. Interrogating diversión as a performative form of relation highlights the potential for the kind of intimacy and ludic sociability upon which communal identifications are built and projected. The pain, the trauma, and the melancholy of exile are often invoked to highlight how the Cuban diaspora has cohered historically. In this book, I make the argument that diversión has been just as vital.
The Archive of Diversión
In the previous section I cited the long history of diversión in Cuba as both a cultural practice and academic area of interest stretching back to the nineteenth century. But what about the diaspora? Those who left Cuba? It did not take me long to discover that diversión had been making the trip from Cuba to the United States for over one hundred years. It was always there, hiding in plain sight, molding community formations and the means of sociability alongside the brooding lamentations of exile. Continuing a long tradition of political cartooning on the island, Cuban exiles in New York published newspapers like Cacarajícara, which functioned like a nineteenth-century version of the Onion, complete with cartoons and satirical commentary directed at Spanish colonial rule.37 Puerto Rican Bernardo Vega, in his memoirs of life in New York City in the early twentieth century, thought it important to devote time to describe how jokes served as a means to promote ludic sociability among the politically engaged tabaqueros, “especially on the part of the Cuban comrades.”38 Scholars like Antonio López and Christina D. Abreu have captured the relationship between race and forms of diversión in New York City from the 1920s through the 1950s through readings of print culture, bufo performances, the Cuban music scene, and social clubs.39
When Cubans began settling in the United States shortly after Fidel Castro rose to power in 1959, diversión quickly became a highly visible and popular way for negotiating the new space of exile, developing the emotional tools for managing the strain of displacement, and establishing a sense of cultural continuity across national boundaries. Zig-Zag, a wildly popular satirical newspaper that began its run in Cuba in 1938, initially supported the Revolution. But when the paper’s humor ran afoul of the government, key players fled to the United States.40 By 1962, Zig-Zag was back up and running in Miami under the name Zig-Zag Libre. The new incarnation featured deeply critical political cartoons of Fidel Castro accompanied by drawings and columns addressing life in exile. It would be joined by other satirical newspapers like Chispa, Cubalegre, Loquillo, and La Política Cómica among others through the decades.41
But diversión was not just a way to articulate political critiques of communist Cuba. It was a crucial means for keeping cultural practices and memories alive, especially for children born or reared primarily in the United States. In 1964, an event called Añorada Cuba (Yearning for Cuba) debuted in Miami and featured music, dances, and dramatic works performed by the children of exiles. Younger children could enjoy magazines like Payaso (1967) and Revista Cabalgata Infantil (1972), which billed itself as “The Magazine of Cuban Childhood” and offered Cuban history in digestible tidbits alongside pictures of children exhibiting their artistic talents.42 Zig-Zag Libre held political cartooning contests for children who could draw the best caricatures of Cuban government officials.
Figure I.1. Zig-Zag Libre, February 16, 1963. Courtesy of the Cuban Heritage Collection, University of Miami.
Diversión was certainly on the agenda for adults as well. Magazines like Espectáculos and Showtime, which combined celebrity gossip with nightlife guides, started being published in the mid-1960s. These magazines featured interviews with exiled artists along with articles with titles like “Su artista favorito puede ser un comunista” (Your Favorite Artist Could Be a Communist).43 But without question the most consistently popular form of adult diversión came in the form of theater.44 The first play to take up themes of exile was a comedy called Hamburgers y sirenazos written in 1962 by Pedro Román and debuted in 1969, but it would not be the last. Over the years, comedies began to dominate Miami’s theater landscape.45 These works were often written, performed, and staged by talent from Cuba who had fled after the Revolution and thus were familiar to many exiles. Because demand was so high, many theaters dedicated themselves to staging comedies, which often included some combination of political satire, physical comedy, and sexual innuendo.46 But like all successful comedies, the plays spoke to issues facing the community in their moment. Reflecting community frustration with the durability of the Cuban government, Armando Roblán, famous for his impersonation of Fidel Castro, starred in No hay mal que dure 100 años … ni pueblo que lo resista (1979) (There Is No Evil That Lasts Forever … Nor Community That Can Take It), written by famed satirist Alberto González. When Soviet economic support for Cuba dried up in the early 1990s, exiles believed Castro would soon fall. Comic theater again answered the call with plays like A Cuba me voy hoy mismo … que se acabó el comunismo! (I’m Going to Cuba Because Communism Is Over!), performed in 1990 and starring Norma Zúñiga and Sandra Haydee, two veteran actresses of the Miami stage. These satires were joined by bawdy comedies about impotent men, cheating spouses, and even taxes. Today, the comic theater scene of Miami remains active, though certainly not as lively as it was in the 1970s and 1980s. Radio programs like Zig-Zag Radio, La Fonomanía, and La Mogolla took aim at the Cuban government and the excesses of Cuban Miami alike. Movies such as Amigos and El Super used dark humor to work through the pain and disorientation of exile. Cuba Nostalgia, La Feria de los Municipios de Cuba en el Exilio, and early instantiations of the Calle 8 Festival celebrated a narrative of prerevolutionary Cuba through the lens of nostalgia. ¿Qué Pasa, USA?, a bilingual sitcom that followed three generations of the Peña family as they navigated life in Miami, was wildly popular from 1977 to 1980.47
I offer this broad overview not to suggest that this book will take an encyclopedic approach to documenting diversión but to communicate its pervasiveness in a number of contexts and to assure the reader that the moments that I have chosen to examine more carefully in the chapters to come are not isolated incidents cherry-picked to fit some contrived scholarly paradigm. Instead, the cultural forms I examine in this book have long been deployed and celebrated in diasporic culture: the enduring popularity of standup comedy; radio and its ubiquity in the history of Cuban Miami; and the continued staging of cubanía at fairs and festivals, among others. By selecting contemporary manifestations of popular culture practices with a long history in the diasporic context, I am able to examine not only how Cuban Miami has changed but also how the cultural forms themselves have been transformed to meet the demands of contemporary audiences and the potential of technological advances. The spirit of satirical periodiquitos of old now inform YouTube videos and memes produced by groups like Los Pichy Boys, whose content has been viewed millions of times on social media. Counterrevolutionary comedy produced in Miami once circulated in Cuba in the form of books and cassettes passed hand to hand. Now, thousands of gigabytes of content circulate throughout the island courtesy of thumb and hard drives. My analysis of diversión, then, is deeply committed to understanding a changing Cuban diaspora and the aesthetic and performative evolution of the often-ephemeral cultural forms that profoundly shape everyday life.
Figure