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Apr. 18th, 2014 09:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsA Cultural History of Cuba During the U.S. Occupation is one of those library books that sat on my shelf for literally over a year as I renewed it repeatedly because I kept reading, like, YA and Mercedes Lackey instead, until FINALLY I could renew it no more and was like "OK I'M GOING TO READ IT."
And, as always happens with the nonfiction books that I put off reading because I'm lazy, it was incredibly fascinating. As the title indicates, the book focuses on the four years in Cuban history right after the Spanish-American War, when the U.S. was still occupying Cuba but an all-Cuban government was on the horizon.
Marial Iglesias Utset is deliberately focusing her attention, not on major or dramatic events, but rather on how the everyday things that ordinary people do take on enormous political and ideological significance in times of cultural shift -- like, what music do you dance to and how do you dance to it, what cafes do you eat at and what are they serving, when and how and where do you display the national flag? What holidays are state-sanctioned, and what holidays do people take anyway even if the government has not formally declared them a day off? What chotchkes are being sold at the store?
(There's a great passage quoting an ad that appeared in the magazine Patria, under the heading "Long Live a Free Cuba! Independence or Death!" which then went on to advertise commemmorative pins, brooches, buttons, belts, painted plates, portraits of Jose Marti ... because everyone should support the Fatherland and be a patriot! PEOPLE ARE SO MUCH PEOPLE.)
Anyway this is the kind of history that I'm always wanting to see more of -- not who killed what in which battle, but how people live their lives through and in and around and after those battles. HISTORY IS SO INTERESTING. Why don't I read more history? (Because I'm lazy, and there are so many terrible novels out there -- but I should read more history!)
And, as always happens with the nonfiction books that I put off reading because I'm lazy, it was incredibly fascinating. As the title indicates, the book focuses on the four years in Cuban history right after the Spanish-American War, when the U.S. was still occupying Cuba but an all-Cuban government was on the horizon.
Marial Iglesias Utset is deliberately focusing her attention, not on major or dramatic events, but rather on how the everyday things that ordinary people do take on enormous political and ideological significance in times of cultural shift -- like, what music do you dance to and how do you dance to it, what cafes do you eat at and what are they serving, when and how and where do you display the national flag? What holidays are state-sanctioned, and what holidays do people take anyway even if the government has not formally declared them a day off? What chotchkes are being sold at the store?
(There's a great passage quoting an ad that appeared in the magazine Patria, under the heading "Long Live a Free Cuba! Independence or Death!" which then went on to advertise commemmorative pins, brooches, buttons, belts, painted plates, portraits of Jose Marti ... because everyone should support the Fatherland and be a patriot! PEOPLE ARE SO MUCH PEOPLE.)
Anyway this is the kind of history that I'm always wanting to see more of -- not who killed what in which battle, but how people live their lives through and in and around and after those battles. HISTORY IS SO INTERESTING. Why don't I read more history? (Because I'm lazy, and there are so many terrible novels out there -- but I should read more history!)
no subject
Date: 2014-04-20 09:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-04-22 01:03 pm (UTC)Yeah, it's always really interesting for me -- like, major events are major events, they definitely do happen, but living through them you still have to go day-to-day and do all the normal things as much as possible.