Of Hurricanes and Tempests: Ena Lucía Portela’s Text as a Nontourist Destination

Abstract

In To Die in Cuba: Suicide and Society, Louis A. Pérez devotes his last chapter to study the conditions that have increased the number suicides in the Caribbean island after the revolution. The first section of the text focuses on establishing the origin of a certain view of death prevalent among Cubans before 1959 and which, with important changes, is continued during the revolutionary period. For Pérez, the nineteenth-century fight for Cuban independence “inscribed itself deeply into the dominant configurations of nationality” (322), both spontaneously—in legends, popular memory, songs—and as part of the deliberate construction of a Cuban identity through the erection of monuments and statues, the renaming of cities, public spaces, and streets: “In 1921, the Cuban congress required every municipality of the island to dedicate a statue, bust, plaque, or memorial to Marti” (324). The national images and symbols such as a national anthem that includes the line “to die for the fatherland is to live” or a national bird “selected for its reputation for dying in captivity” (324) were reinforced by the historical legacy of sacrifice children learned in school.