INSIDE THIS ISSUE 3 10 25 28 32 34 Spring 2010 LETTER FROM

Transcripción

PROGRAM IN LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES NEWSLETTER
LETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR
Dear friends of PLAS:
I hope you are having a relaxing and productive summer. As we
prepare for the new academic year,
I would like to tell you about some
of the planned events and activities
for 2010-11.
First and foremost, during the
fall semester the Program will be
hosting Mario Vargas Llosa, the
2010 PLAS Distinguished Visitor,
who will teach one undergraduate
seminar for PLAS and a second one
for the Lewis Center. Vargas Llosa
will also deliver a public lecture and
hold an afternoon seminar for graduate students. Please consult our website for the
exact dates and times.
I am also pleased to announce a new initiative that will be launched this fall: the
Graduate Student Work-In-Progress lunch seminars. Every week, a graduate student
will present his or her work, and will be followed by a faculty discussant. These
informal presentations will increase the interaction between students and faculty,
and will also serve as preparation for job talks. The calendar is now set for the fall.
Graduate students should e-mail the Program ([email protected]) if they would like
to participate in the next edition of the lunch seminars.
In the past years we had a very active lecture program featuring scholars, artists,
and writers from Latin America. This year the focus will be on Princeton: every other
week we will have a formal lecture by a Princeton faculty member – an excellent opportunity to catch up on our colleague’s current research projects. Please check our
website for schedule and topics.
Finally, I would like to thank my colleague Miguel Centeno for serving as acting
director for 2009-10. His dedication to the Program’s faculty and students went well
beyond the call of duty.
I look forward to seeing you in the fall.
Sincerely,
Rubén Gallo
Director, PLAS
Spring 2010
I NSIDE
THIS
ISSUE
3
HIGHLIGHTS
10
FA C U LT Y
25
F E L L OW S
28
STUDENTS
32
ALUMNI
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SP OT L I G H T
SAVE THE DATE: EVENTS, 2010-11
Please check www.princeton.edu/plas for event updates.
September 14, 2010
noon–1 p.m. | 216 Burr Hall
Latin American Studies
Freshman Open House
September 27, 2010
7:30 p.m. | Location TBA
Film Screening
The Storm that Swept Mexico
A discussion with Raymond Telles (film director,
co-writer and co-producer) will follow.
Presentation of Rubén Gallo’s
“Freud’s Mexico: Into the Wilds of Psychoanalysis”
Presenters: Rubén Gallo (Spanish & Portuguese;
Director, PLAS) and Michael Wood (English)
[email protected]
WWW.PRINCETON.EDU/PLAS
TEL: (609) 258-4148
FAX: (609) 258-0113
Comments and news or information
from our readers on recent activities
are welcome, as are inquiries
regarding the program.
Please write to [email protected]
or contact our staff members directly.
RUBÉN GALLO
October 11, 2010
7:30 p.m. | Location TBA
Lecture will be given in Spanish
Lecture by Mario Vargas Llosa
October 20, 2010
4:30 p.m. | 219 Burr Hall
Lecture
In Search of Hope: Albert O. Hirschman in the 1970s
Jeremy Adelman (History)
November 8, 2010
Lecture
The ‘Pre-Colombian Era’ of Drug Trafficking in the
Americas: Cocaine, 1945-1973
Paul Gootenberg (Stony Brook University)
November 18, 2010
Lecture
The Political Economy of Undocumented Migration
Douglas Massey (Sociology and Woodrow Wilson School)
DIRECTOR
314 Burr Hall
[email protected]
December 4, 2010
Time TBA | McCosh 28
Freud and the 20th Century Culture
A Conference Sponsored by the Program in Latin
American Studies and the Council for Humanities
December 14, 2010
Lecture
Dreams of Distraction
Michael Wood (English)
February 15, 2011
Lecture will be given in Spanish
Lecture
Técnicas de conversación con los difuntos
Álvaro Enrigue (Mexican novelist and Whitney J. Oates
Fellow in the Humanities Council and the Program in
Latin American Studies)
With generous support from the Council of the
Humanities
March 1, 2011
Lecture
Native History for Natives: The colonial-era evolution
of Mexican indigenous annals
Camilla Townsend (Rutgers University)
ROSALIA RIVERA
PROGRAM MANAGER
311 Burr Hall
[email protected]
JILLIAN LENIHAN
COMMUNICATIONS AND
PROGRAMMING ASSISTANT
316 Burr Hall
[email protected]
KAI LAIDLAW
TECHNICAL SUPPORT SPECIALIST
310 Burr Hall
[email protected]
NONDISCRIMINATION STATEMENT
In compliance with Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act
of 1973, and other federal, state, and local laws, Princeton University does not discriminate on the basis of
age, race, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, national or ethnic origin, disability, or status
as a disabled or Vietnam-era veteran in any phase of
its employment process, in any phase of its admission
or financial aid programs, or other aspects of its educational programs or activities. The vice provost for institutional equity and diversity is the individual designated by the University to coordinate its efforts to comply
with Title IX, Section 504 and other equal opportunity
and affirmative action regulations and laws. Questions
or concerns regarding Title IX, Section 504 or other
aspects of Princeton’s equal opportunity or affirmative
action programs should be directed to the Office of
the Vice Provost for Institutional Equity and Diversity,
Princeton University, 205 Nassau Hall, Princeton, NJ
08544 or (609) 258-6110.
Produced by the Program in Latin American Studies
Copyright © 2010
by The Trustees of Princeton University
In the Nation’s Service and in the Service of All Nations
2
Cover photo of Rubén Gallo courtesy of the Sigmund Freud Foundation
October 6, 2010
Time TBA | Labyrinth Books
PROGRAM IN LATIN
AMERICAN STUDIES
HIGHLIGHTS
REVEALING THE BENEFITS OF
COLOMBIAN DRUG LEGALIZATION
The senior thesis often involves a moment of
surprise for Princeton students -- a late-night revelation, an insightful conversation with an adviser
or an eye-opening encounter abroad. For Gustavo
Silva Cano, it came when he realized his research
supported drug legalization in Colombia, a conclusion opposing his personal beliefs.
"I was sort of mugged by reality, because I
realized that prohibition has really high human
costs," Silva Cano said. "That's one of the great
things about the thesis -- it's a great intellectual
experience."
Silva Cano, who was born and raised in Bogota,
Colombia, is majoring in the Woodrow Wilson
School of Public and International Affairs, and
pursuing a certificate in Latin American studies. His thesis is a cost-benefit analysis of drug
prohibition and legalization in his home country.
During a summer internship with Colombia's
high counselor for reintegration, Silva Cano was
assigned to evaluate Colombia's drug crop eradication policy. The project, done after his sophomore
year at Princeton, launched his interest in the
topic, and he approached Professor Miguel Centeno last spring to serve as his thesis adviser.
"The idea sounded like an excellent one,"
said Centeno, a professor of sociology and international affairs. "It lent itself to the kind of
analysis we're trying to teach here, to put a policy
dilemma in context and play out the costs and
benefits of the alternatives. Gustavo has a perfect
case study of alternatives."
Silva Cano and Centeno came up with a dozen
precise variables to consider, such as government defense expenditures, economic growth
and homicide rates. Then Silva Cano worked to
identify the current figures under prohibition and
what the figures might be if all drugs were legalized in Colombia. His primary focus was on coca
crops and cocaine -- the target of Colombia's
"war on drugs."
In addition to documents he had from his internship, he utilized numerous sources to perform
his own statistical analysis, including Colombian
government databases and reports online, United
Nations documents, U.S. government surveys, U.S.
think tank reports, news reports, and scholarly
books and journals.
Silva Cano found that Colombia spends approximately $7 billion a year on its drug war, equal
to what it spends on education or health care.
Meanwhile, the war on drugs has resulted in many
deaths, displacement, environmental damage,
hostile occupations of the countryside by drug
cartels and insurgencies, and pressure on cities.
If drugs were legalized, those funds could be
used for infrastructure, health care, education and
balancing the federal budget, Silva Cano noted.
The government also would be able to collect
tax revenue on the sale of cocaine. About 5,000
fewer homicides would occur, and 100,000 fewer
people would be internally displaced, according
to his analysis.
The potential costs of legalization included
diplomatic isolation from the United States, and
possibly economic sanctions and loss of American
investment. Silva Cano also considered the health
risks due to increased drug consumption in the
country, but he said the benefits outweighed all
of these costs.
“Before starting to write my thesis I was a
staunch believer of prohibition. I thought the Colombian government had done a great job, and
they actually have. It might be the only nation in
the world recently that has had great success
against drugs,” Silva Cano said. But, he added,
“there’s no end in sight.”
Silva Cano’s thesis purposefully avoids ethical
and moral issues while examining the political
and economic factors that he feels should be
part of policymaking decisions.
“Some people just believe that using drugs
is morally wrong. I’m trying to make a utilitarian
calculus and am saying, this is how much this
policy costs,” he said. “I don’t think any government would want to leave that utilitarian calculus
out of the question.”
Centeno and Silva Cano have had weekly meetings to discuss research, analysis and drafts. Along
the way, Centeno has recommended sources, given
writing advice and -- as a skeptic of any state’s
ability to effectively prohibit drugs -- played
devil’s advocate to Silva Cano’s arguments.
“I like Professor Centeno’s hands-on approach,” Silva Cano said. “He is so well regarded but also so approachable and so fun
to work with.”
Centeno said he had not studied drug
legalization in depth, but his work on statesociety interaction helped guide Silva Cano’s
work on what makes a state and its laws most
effective. The rest was of his student’s making.
“No one has written about the Colombian
situation with such precision, detachment
and so many variables,” Centeno said. The
final chapter synthesizing all of Silva Cano’s
findings is “masterful,” Centeno said.
Looking at Colombian politics, Silva Cano
acknowledges in his thesis that his recommendations are unlikely to happen anytime
soon, as they are contrary to popular opinion
in Colombia and abroad, and to politicians’
stances at the executive and legislative levels.
After graduating from Princeton, Silva Cano
intends to attend the University of Pennsylvania Law School and work in the United States
for a few years before returning to Colombia
to work in public policy or politics.
Reprinted from the Princeton University
Bulletin 99(12), April 19, 2010.
3
Photo of Gustavo Silva Cano ‘10 (left) and Miguel Centeno (right) by Denise Applewhite
BY USHMA PATEL
TO REMEMBER/RECORDANDO A
JOSÉ LEZAMA LIMA
BY RACHEL PRICE
James Irby guided the audience through a
careful reading of one of Lezama’s “Sonetos
criollos,” lingering on every word in the mysterious ode to a mid-century Cuban shopping
list to better understand its importance—why
a deluded, fallen chickpea? Whence came
the “iodized algae”? What is the dark grotto
through which parade the tomatoes? At the
end of his reading, Irby had himself opened
up the poem like an onion, allowing audience
members to peek inside its translucent—both
clear and opaque—layers to see what “criollo”
might have meant for Lezama: its beauty and
earthiness but also a lurking ominousness and
violence. Or is what appears ominous that
which saves lo criollo from chauvinism? The
poem only states ambiguously, “Something is
missing on the list.”
In a talk entitled “On Substitution in Paradiso,” Rachel Price presented from ongoing
research into the history of Cuban amusement
parks, dwelling principally on those scenes from
Lezama’s novel Paradiso set in such parks. She
first traced the history of Cuban parks from
the beginning of the twentieth century and
singled out the surprising and colorful history
of Havana’s Coney Island Park. Reading several key scenes from the beginning and end of
Paradiso, she then suggested how amusement
parks’ culture of repetition and novelty; sexuality and innocence; consumption and waste;
pleasure and terror; and nature and artifice
provide a (neobaroque) mirror for the novel’s
ongoing engagement with these same themes,
bundled by Lezama under the novel’s investigation of a series of “substitutions”: linguistic,
architectural, sexual, culinary, genealogical,
historical.
Gustavo Guerrero closed the panel with a
history of Lezama’s reception by subsequent
Cuban authors. He focused in particular on a
lively critical rivalry between Paris-based Cuban
author Severo Sarduy’s readings of Lezama and
those by Havana-based poet and critic Cintio
Vitier. Guerrero highlighted the competing
representations of Lezama celebrated both
within Cuba and beyond. Which Lezama is
being recuperated today in centennials around
the world, he asked: a Catholic Lezama or an
ecumenical one? The bold author of pioneering
gay literature or a closeted one? A neobaroque
postmodernist or author of Cuba’s most canonical bildungsroman? Guerrero then focused on
Lezama’s influence on contemporary “neobarroso”
authors, indicating the Cuban author’s deep
reservoir of stylistic and thematic innovation
that continues to be mined by contemporary
authors throughout Latin America.
As the brief panel itself suggested, Lezama
is irreducible to any one reading.
4
Photo of José Lezama Lima courtesy of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese Languages and Cultures
On May 4, 2010, Arcadio Díaz Quiñones (Spanish and Portuguese Languages and Cultures) moderated a roundtable in celebration of the 100 year
anniversary of the birth of José Lezama Lima, one of Cuba’s most important twentieth-century authors. James Irby (emeritus, Spanish and Portuguese
Languages and Cultures), Rachel Price (Spanish and Portuguese Languages and Cultures) and Gustavo Guerrero (Program in Latin American Studies)
presented works in progress about the Cuban author. The event was sponsored by the Department of Spanish and Portuguese Languages and Cultures
and the Program in Latin American Studies, with generous co-sponsorship from the Program in Women and Gender Studies and Poetry@Princeton.
José Lezama Lima (1910–1976) is considered one of the greatest twentieth-century Latin American writers. He was born on December 19, 1910 in a
military camp near Havana, Cuba. Self-described as the «immobile traveler,» Lezama Lima only left Cuba on two brief occasions: for Mexico in 1949 and
Jamaica in 1950. His first poetic composition, Muerte de Narciso (Death of Narcisssus), was published in 1937 and he was primarily known as a poet
until his novel Paradiso was published in 1966. After his first novel, Lezama Lima went on to publish numerous collections of poetry, books of essays,
and founded and edited several important literary journals including Orígenes (1944–1956), considered to have been one of the most significant literary
magazines of the twentieth centry.
Oda a Julián del Casal
de José Lezama Lima
Ode to Julián del Casal
by José Lezama Lima
Déjenlo, verdeante, que se vuelva;
permitidle que salga de la fiesta
a la terraza donde están dormidos.
A los dormidos los cuidará quejoso,
fijándose cómo se agrupa la mañana helada.
La errante chispa de su verde errante,
trazará círculos frente a los dormidos
de la terraza, la seda de su solapa
escurre el agua repasada del tritón
y otro tritón sobre su espalda en polvo.
Dejadlo que se vuelva, mitad ciruelo
y mitad piña laqueada por la frente.
Allow him, greening, to return;
permit him to leave the party
and come out to the terrace where they sleep.
The sleepers he will watch over and complain,
noticing how the chill morning gathers.
The errant spark of his errant green
will trace circles in front of the sleepers
on the terrace, the silk of his lapel
sheds the water gone over by the triton
and another triton on his back in dust.
Let him return, half plum tree
and half pineapple lacquered in front.
Déjenlo que acompañe sin hablar,
permitidle, blandamente, que se vuelva
hacia el frutero donde están los osos
con el plato de nieve, o el reno
de la escribanía, con su manilla de ámbar
por la espalda. Su tos alegre
espolvorea la máscara de combatientes japoneses.
Dentro de un dragón de hilos de oro,
camina ligero con los pedidos de la lluvia,
hasta la Concha de oro del Teatro Tacón,
donde rígida la corista colocará
sus flores en el pico del cisne,
como la mulata de los tres gritos en el vodevil
y los neoclásicos senos martillados par la pedantería
de Clesinger. Todo pasó
cuando ya fue pasado, pero también pasó
la aurora can su punta de nieve.
Allow him to accompany without speaking,
permit him, softly, to turn
toward the fruit bowl where the bears are
with the plate of snow, or the reindeer
on the writing stand, with the amber backscratcher
in back. His happy cough
sprinkles the Japanese warrior mask.
Inside a dragon of golden threads,
he walks quickly with the rain's requests
all the way to the Golden Shell at the Teatro Tacón,
where rigidly the chorus girl will place
his flowers on the swan's beak,
like the mulata of the three shouts in the vaudeville
and the neo-classical breasts hammered out by Clésinger's
pedantry. It all passed
when it had already passed, but the dawn also passed
at its exact snow point.
Si lo tocan, chirrían sus arenas;
si lo mueven, el arco iris rompe sus cenizas.
Inmóvil en la brisa, sujetado
por el brillo de las arañas verdes.
Es un vaho que se dobla en las ventanas.
Trae la carta funeral del ópalo.
Trae el pañuelo del opopónax
y agua quejumbrosa a la visita
sin sentarse apenas, con muchos
quédese, quédese,
que se acercan para llorar en su sonido
como los sillones de mimbre de las ruinas del ingenio,
en cuyas ruinas se quedó para siempre el ancla
de su infantil chaqueta marinera.
If they touch him, his sands squeak;
if they move him, the rainbow breaks his ashes.
Motionless in the breeze, held fast
by the gleam of the green chandeliers.
He's a mist that thickens on the windows.
He brings the funeral card with the opal.
He brings the handkerchief with the opoponax
and complaining water to the visit
without hardly sitting down, with many
please stay, please stay,
that come closer to weep in his sound
like the wicker armchairs from the ruins of the plantation,
in whose ruins remained forever the anchor
from the sailor jacket of his childhood.
Pregunta y no espera la respuesta,
lo tiran de la manga con trifolias de ceniza.
Están frías las ornadas florecillas.
Frías están sus manas que no acaban,
aprieta las manos con sus manos frías.
Sus manos no están frías, frío es el sudor
He asks and doesn't wait for a reply,
they pull his sleeve with trefoils of ashes.
Cold are the ornate little flowers.
Cold are his hands that never end,
he squeezes hands with his cold hands.
His hands are not cold, cold is the sweat
(CONTINUED ON PAGE 36)
5
PLAS MUSIC OF LATIN AMERICA SERIES
MÚSICA FICTA: DOS ESTRELLAS LE SIGUEN
Founded in Bogotá, Colombia in 1988, Música Ficta has earned an international reputation for its passionate performances and fine recordings of an
often unknown and colorfully diverse repertory of Renaissance and Baroque music from Latin America and Spain. Though relatively little known today,
music in the Spanish tradition was heard throughout the Spanish New World, and survives in archives of the Cathedral of Bogotá, records of the ViceRoyalty of Peru, and various archives in Bolivia, Guatemala, and Mexico.
Widely respected for their careful musicological research and innovative programming, the four musicians of Música Ficta perform on a variety of
instruments, including harpsichord, Baroque guitar, vihuela de mano, theorbo, recorders, shawm, dulcian, pipe-and-tabor, as well as percussion and tenor
voice.
Música Ficta’s performance offers a close
exploration of three typical dance forms—
xácaras, folías and chaconas—born during
the 16th century and particularly popular
during the 17th century in Spain and Latin
America. All three forms use the common denominator of a ground bass, an ostinato or
harmonic progression continuously repeated by the accompanying bass instruments,
upon which improvisations are created in
the upper melodic lines. The basic structure
of these 16th-century genres all functioned
in this way. By the 17th century, these forms
evolved, and while the basic harmonic structure remained the foundation for the composition, the pattern was frequently altered
or broken to allow for melodic, rhythmic,
and harmonic exploration. The scope of the
texts of these sung dances also underwent
changes.
Xácaras were second only to pasacalles
in number and importance during the 17th
century in Spain. Their infectious harmonic
and rhythmic elements were used for different kinds of music genres, including villancicos, tonos humanos, and divinos, providing
a very lively, festive feel. Early sung xácaras
were associated with the life of ruffians and
low-life individuals in search of entertainment. By the mid–17th century, this association had faded, and sung xácaras, despite
their complex syncopated rhythm, could be
religious in nature (as so many villancicos
attest), or even tormented love songs. But the
distinctive rhythmic interest is always evident: hemiolas and shifting accentuations
in triple and duple meters provide infinite
possibilities within the overall structure.
The performed examples show a wide spectrum of the form, from the lively Christmas
villancico, A la xácara xacarilla, composed
in Puebla, Mexico, by Gutierrez de Padilla, to the rhythmically challenging Greek
mythological theme of No hay que decirle
al primor, or the dark and moody love song
(tono humano), Sepan todos que muero, by
Spanish composer José Marín. On the instrumental side, some anonymous examples
were simple in their melodic composition
and harmonic accompaniment (usually performed by baroque guitars), but the elaborate, virtuosic instrumental xácara by Valencian organist Juan Cabanilles demonstrates
the form stretched beyond its limits.
Another popular Hispanic dance from
the 17th century is the folía. Folías are mentioned from the early 16th century in various
Portuguese and Spanish sources and from
the first examples, they convey the word’s
primary meaning, madness. Indeed, their nature was wild, a “noisy rambunctious bayle
[baile] accompanied by tambourines and
guitars.” Folías would eventually enjoy enormous international success, soon adopted by
Italian composers whose settings gave them
amazing rhetorical expression during the
first decades of the 1600’s. During the course
of the century, French and English composers also adopted folías as part of instrumental suites, or as solo instrumental pieces. The
examples performed included the unusually introspective early folía, Dos estrellas
le siguen by Portuguese composer Manuel
Machado, as well as a folía by French born
composer Michel Farinel.
Of all the dance forms from Spanish
America during the Renaissance and Baroque periods, chaconas alone originated in
Central America. While no known early instrumental or sung pieces from the Americas
corroborate this theory, numerous writers
mention that Indians and enslaved blacks
danced chaconas in colonial Mexico. Their
harmonic structure was simple—a ground
bass repeated by accompanying instruments—and because of their popular danceable origin, musicians probably did not need
to notate the music of the early chaconas. It
is interesting to note that the first notated
chaconas actually come from Italy. As with
folías and xácaras, chaconas were considered a bayle [baile], not a dance, signifying
an unrefined popular genre. Their overt,
wild, suggestive nature worried the Church,
which forbade chacona performances in any
kind of religious ceremony. Curiously, as
a means of conversion, other dance forms
such as xácaras had been accepted by the
Church, but there are, to the best of our
knowledge, no religious chaconas. As with
folías and xácaras, chaconas also became
more refined as the 17th century proceeded.
As their popularity waned in Spain and its
colonies, France adopted a much more polite and elegant form of chaconne, which remained very popular well into the 18th century. Exaltation and celebration of life and
its earthly delights seem best to define what
early chaconas were all about. Both sung examples of chaconas on the program certainly
attest to that. As Arañés’s Sarao de la chacona commands, “¡A la vida vidita bona, vida
vámonos a chacona!” Let’s live the good life;
let’s go dance the Chacona!
PLAS produced Música Ficta in performance at Richardson Auditorium in Alexander Hall on Saturday, September 26, 2009,
co-sponsored by the Princeton University
Concerts Committee and the Davis International Center.
6
Photos courtesy of Música Ficta
NOTES BY JAIRO SERRANO
EDMAR CASTANEDA:
COLOMBIAN JAZZ HARPIST, COMPOSER, BANDLEADER
From a musical family in Bogotá, Edmar Castaneda took up the
arpa llanera at age 13, under the tutelage of his father Pávelid
Castaneda. The harp does not generally come to mind when one
thinks jazz, but since moving to New York in 1994, Edmar Castaneda
(who also plays trumpet) has performed and recorded (to rave
critical reviews) with major figures including Paquito D’Rivera,
Lila Downs, Giovanni Hidalgo, the Chico O’Farrill Afro-Cuban
Jazz Big Band, Wynton Marsalis (trumpeter and Lincoln Center
jazz director), David Oquendo, John Patitucci, Dave Samuels, and
John Scofield.
Castaneda plays the harp as a lead instrument, in a fashion
owing something to both flamenco guitar and piano, bending
notes, conjuring up astounding melodic and bass lines and jazz
harmonies with an intensely rhythmic, percussive attack, on a
mostly original repertoire that also reflects his grounding in
Colombian folk traditions. With his left hand he creates a bass
line while sustaining a melody or improvising with his right.
Superbly backed in various spare combinations of bandoneon,
trumpet, flugelhorn, trombone, electric bass, drums, congas, percussion, and palmas, Castaneda essays a mostly original jazz-inspired repertoire
tinged with Afrojoropo, bulería, and rumba, sturdily improvisational whatever the genre.
Castaneda has appeared at the Tanglewood Jazz Festival, and has been featured on NPR’s JazzSet. He has won critical praise from the New
York Times, WNYC Soundcheck, New York Post, Bloomberg News, Boston Herald, Time Out, Global Rhythm, Jazz Times, Jazzitalia, Panama News,
Philadelphia Weekly, and Semana (Colombia). Castaneda is highly regarded among NY jazz and world music musicians, and among the Cuban
rumba old guard of Union City, New Jersey—some very serious artists.
PLAS produced the Edmar Castaneda Quartet in performance at Richardson Auditorium in Alexander Hall on Saturday, April 10, 2010. Co-sponsors
included the Princeton University Concerts Committee, the Kathryn W. & Shelby Cullom Davis ’30 International Center, and WWFM-JazzOn2/Mercer
County Community College.
LIFE’S WISDOM IN UNLIKELY PLACES:
DOCUMENTARY FEATURES UNIVERSITY JANITOR’S
EFFORTS TO HELP OTHERS
From 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. each weekday, Josue
Lajeunesse is one of Princeton University’s
220 Building Services janitors. But off campus,
Lajeunesse is a taxi driver, a father, a philanthropist, a community organizer and now the
subject of a documentary film.
A native of Haiti who has worked at Princeton for 15 years, Lajeunesse is featured in the
documentary “The Philosopher Kings,” which
tells the stories of eight janitors at universities
across the country. In search of wisdom in unlikely places, the film highlights the everyday
triumphs and tragedies of staff whose hard
work is often done when no one is looking.
The cameras follow Lajeunesse’s work as
a lead janitor in Whitman College and other
dormitories, and his travels to Haiti as he helps
bring clean drinking water to his family’s village.
The screening and talk events at Princeton
in December 2009 were part of a nationwide
tour of the documentary on college campuses
and at film festivals.
“Some people close their eyes to what’s
going on in front of them,” Lajeunesse said of
the poverty in his homeland. “But if God gave
me the knowledge and the view to see these
things, then I need to go back and help those
people who cannot help themselves.”
Lajeunesse was born in Haiti as the youngest
of four children. His mother passed away when
he was a young boy and he grew up close to
his father, a farmer. Lajeunesse served in the
military in Haiti and moved to the United States
in 1989, ultimately settling in the Princeton area
because a friend from Haiti was living here.
Through the documentary, Lajeunesse puts a
face to the work ethic, passion and perseverance
shared by many of the University’s janitorial
staff, said Building Services director Jon Baer.
Baer noted janitors such as Natasha Bowman,
who has worked at the University for 21 years
and has been a surrogate parent to some of
the students living in the dorms she cleans,
or Mohamed Flites, an amateur photographer
and historian who immigrated to the United
States to escape civil war in Algeria.
“Having managed janitorial and service
staff for the past 25 years, I find so many of
their life stories compelling. There’s a depth
to Josue, as there is to so many of our janitors,
that transcends what they do as an occupation,”
Baer said. “Josue is an excellent ambassador
7
Photos: (top) courtesy of Edmar Castaneda; (bottom) by Denise Applewhite
BY EMILY ARONSON
PRINCETON DOCUMENTARY FESTIVAL 2009
The Princeton Documentary Festival was created to bring attention to the creative explosion of documentary filmmaking in Latin America and Spain.
Through public screenings, commentary and discussions, the festival provides its audience with exceptional, cutting-edge films that would not be otherwise available. The aim is to contribute to a more comprehensive vision of the cultures from which this work springs, while encouraging a more informed
debate on the specific topic addressed in each series and on the current state of documentary production.
Sponsors: The Department of Spanish and Portuguese Languages and Cultures, The Program in Latin American Studies, The University Center for Human Values, The Council of the Humanities, and The Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies. The 2009 festival was funded in part by a gift
to the University Center for Human Values in honor of James A. Moffett ’29.
FILMS SCREENED AT THE FESTIVAL
Juízo (Maria Augusta Ramos, Brazil, 2007)
Juízo follows the process of minors who have fallen into the hands of the Brazilian legal system.
Boys and girls from underprivileged backgrounds are faced with crime, ruling, and sentences
handed down for theft, drug trafficking, and even murder. The film shows the process of judging and how easily we are swayed over questions involving minors breaking the law. Who really
knows what to do?
Intimidades de Shakespeare y Victor Hugo (Yulene Olaizola, Mexico, 2008)
Within Rosa Elena Carbajal’s boarding house lies a passionate and potentially explosive story.
Rosa’s intelligent, artistic, humorous tenant Jorge Riosse was a deeply troubled man—possibly
schizophrenic—carrying dark secrets that emerged only after his sudden death. Best documentary prize winner at festivals in Mexico City and Buenos Aires, this is a story of creativity,
intimacy, homosexuality, friendship and maybe even murder.
Aquele querido mês de agosto (Miguel Gomes, Portugal, 2008)
A strange relationship exists between a father, daughter and nephew in a traveling pop band
in the midst of the August music festivals that permeate the heart of rural Portugal. Fiction
and documentary dance a sensual tango in this celebration of everyday life and love in August.
The camera drifts endlessly through picturesque vistas, capturing unrestrained merriment,
rural ritual, colorful anecdotes and vivacious characters.
Photos courtesy of directors
The Short Films of Susana Barriga (Susana Barriga, Cuba, 2006–2008)
Barriga’s short films exhibit a striking confidence in the authority of stark images. The primitive
work performed by the road workers in Patria, while depicted in all its physicality, inevitably
takes on the allure of a metaphor on the exhaustion—and persistence against all odds—of
the Cuban Revolution. The quiet desperation glimpsed in the faces of the people in the little
fishing village of Cómo construir un barco also speaks volumes about the quandary of staying
or leaving the island. And the failed encounter of The Illusion, between Barriga and her father,
an exile in London, turns the dilemma uncomfortably personal.
8
FILMMAKERS
Maria Augusta Ramos was born in Brasília
(1964) but has lived in Holland for 20 years,
becoming an odd-woman-out in Brazilian cinema since she belongs to none of the regional
groups that make up the Latin American giant’s identity. Though a musician by training,
her films have never had a music sound track,
unless her use of direct sound recorded on
location counts as music. Her previous films
are Brasilia, um dia em fevreiro and the awardwinning Justiça.
Miguel Gomes (Lisbon, 1972) broke new ground
with his second feature, Aquele querido mês
de agosto, straddling documentary and fiction
on a route parallel to that of his countryman
Pedro Costa. The film had considerable impact at Cannes and won the best film award
in Buenos Aires. Despite its modest output (no
more than a dozen films produced per year),
Portugal has come of late to the forefront of
world cinema.
Yulene Olaizola (b. 1983) was still a student at
Mexico’s Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica
when she made her remarkably assured debut
feature, Intimidades de Shakespeare y Víctor
Hugo, winner of best film awards at the Lima
and Buenos Aires film festivals. Olaizola was
awarded the National Fund for Culture & Arts
scholarship in 2005 and is currently writing
a new feature film called Paraísos artificiales.
Susana Barriga (Santiago de Cuba, 1981) made
several shorts while a student at the International Film School at San Antonio de los Baños,
revealing a remarkably original cinematic personality. Her graduation thesis, The Illusion,
garnered the DAAD Prize for Best Short Film
at the 2008 Berlin Film Festival, leading Barriga to be hailed as the brightest new talent to
emerge from the island in many years. She is
currently working on a new project in Berlin,
on a grant from the festival.
Maria Agusta Ramos
Yulene Olaizola
Vivi Tellas (Buenos Aires, 1955) was a figure
of the Buenos Aires underground scene of the
1980s. Subsequently, she has broken with many
conventions of the stage. As a director, she has
explored the limits of theater in her series of
plays labeled Teatro Malo and, lately, in the
documentary theater of Proyecto Archivos. Her
recent plays include Mi mamá y mi tía, Cozarinsky y su médico, Escuela de conducción,
Mujeres guía, and Disc Jockey. She also has
played a significant role as curator, creating
the documentary theater series Biodrama at
the Teatro Sarmiento in Buenos Aires.
At the festival, Tellas offered an illustrated
presentation, Biodrama: Documentary Theater, followed by discussion on the issue of
performance and representation in the documentary genre.
Miguel Gomes
THE OTHER, THE SAME: THE SUBJECT OF DOCUMENTARY
The Other has by tradition been the assumed
subject of documentary. From Robert Flaherty’s
seminal Nanook of the North to current TV fare,
documentary filmmakers have brought home
to our screens the spectacle of the Other: the
Other defined as someone fundamentally different from ourselves, as a representative of a
given category—be it the Indian, the Worker,
the Madman—observed from outside. It is only
quite recently that filmmakers have begun to
see themselves portrayed in their relationship to the Other. The alien may turn out to
be uncannily familiar. And just as pretending
that I know the Other can be a variety of arrogance, to take for granted who I am may be
self-delusion. Predicated on the complexity
of the self—that of their subjects or of themselves—the work of the filmmakers featured
in this year’s program inevitably challenges
cultural assumptions and political imperatives
both at home and abroad.
The Other has different ways of rearing its
head. Susana Barriga’s depiction of Cuban road
workers in Patria, hauling rocks hopelessly, like
Sisyphus, echoes her own failed attempts to
reach out to her estranged father, a Cuban exile
in London, in The Illusion. In Aquele querido
mês de agosto, Miguel Gomes set out to find
real people in the Arganil region of Portugal
to cast as actors in a feature film. When the
financing fell through, he decided to film a
documentary instead, featuring those same
people’s real lives. But fiction—the Other of
documentary?—came back in through the rear
door. In Intimidades de Shakespeare y Víctor
Hugo, Yulene Olaizola undertook a portrait of
her eccentric grandmother, who operates a rundown hostel on the corner of Shakespeare and
Victor Hugo streets in Mexico. But the project took an unexpected turn. In Juizo, Maria
Augusta Ramos describes the workings of a
juvenile court in Rio, but the legal impossibility of filming minors led her to replace the
young offenders with other kids from similar
backgrounds. Vivi Tellas is not a filmmaker
but a theater director. In a sense, theater may
be seen as “the other” of documentary, which
makes her “documentary theater” somewhat
of a paradoxical proposition.
El otro, el mismo. The title is borrowed from
a collection of poems by Jorge Luis Borges,
whose meditation on the metaphysics of identity will hopefully illuminate the proceedings.
9
Photos courtesy of named individuals
BY ANDRÉS DI TELLA
FACULTY NEWS
FROM CASH FLOW TO RHYME FLOW:
MUSICAL SCHOLAR MANABE TAKES UNCONVENTIONAL
PATH TO PRINCETON
BY EMILY ARONSON
time ethnomusicologist, studying the social
and cultural aspects of music-making. Her
research ranges from Japanese hip-hop and
children’s songs to the influence of Italian opera
on Latin boleros.
“While my work involves a spectrum of
musical styles and artists, the primary themes
that interest me are using music to understand
issues of globalization, as well as examining
the interaction of music with language,” said
Manabe, who is an assistant professor.
In addition to teaching three courses this
year, Manabe has organized two series of colloquia, on popular music and non-Western
music, for faculty and students from various
departments to share research and develop
an appreciation for different methodologies
used to study music. She also has brought
in guest musicians for hands-on workshops
long held aspiration of mine — something I
had considered since college,” Manabe said.
After a successful career in business, she felt
that the time was finally right to pursue music
studies full time.
She earned her Ph.D. last year with a double
concentration in ethnomusicology and music
theory, then joined the Princeton music faculty
in the fall. In her first year at the University, she
quickly has generated interest across campus
in her work on popular music in the West,
Japan and Latin America.
Manabe is the music department’s first full
and public performances, and was among the
co-organizers of the conference, “Intellectual
Property and the Making and Marketing of
Music in the Digital Age,” co-hosted by the
Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies,
the Department of Music and the Center for
Information Technology Policy.
“Noriko has managed, in a very short time,
to build synergy between music and other departments such as English, the Center for African American Studies and East Asian studies,”
said Steven Mackey, professor and chair of the
Department of Music. “She is a catalyst, spark-
ing a campuswide awareness of the work that
has already been going on in the department
but may not have been fully acknowledged.”
Her efforts also are introducing students
to ideas about music from parts of the world
not traditionally on the department’s musical
map, Mackey said.
“Japanese hip-hop, taiko drumming and
Cuban music are a few of the areas that Noriko
is taking us to that we’ve never been before,”
he said.
Musical research around the world
Through her research, Manabe said she
has kept up relationships with the contacts
she made while she was working as an equity analyst covering technology and media
companies.
“Now I am going back to some of these
companies in the music, Internet and media
industries to study musical trends in Japan
and the impact of corporate policies and infrastructure on music,” Manabe said.
Her research also has led her on extensive
travels throughout Latin America, where she
has focused on examining connections between
language and music.
One of Manabe’s major projects in the region traced Cuban singer Silvio Rodriguez’s
evolution as a protest songwriter to an artist
who was embraced by the Castros’ government
as a Cuban cultural ambassador. Although his
lyrics have changed during the stages of his
musical career, Manabe found it revealing that
Rodriguez has continued to use the same musical
patterns to convey certain sentiments such as
resignation or postures such as didacticism.
And while she continues to travel the world
examining musical styles, Manabe said she is
finding new insights and influences within the
walls of her classroom.
“Two of the classes I’ve taught here are
not geared toward students who have studied
music before. It is very interesting to see how
students draw on their diverse backgrounds
to interpret musical styles that they may not
have heard before,” Manabe said. “You can also
learn about new kinds of music from students
— which I love, as a scholar of popular music.”
Adapted from the Princeton University
Bulletin 99(13), May 3, 2010.
10
Photo by Denise Applewhite
Noriko Manabe’s path to teaching music at
Princeton is as unconventional and eclectic as
the musical cultures and styles she studies.
Manabe came to academia from the investment and consulting fields, where she was a
leading analyst of the technology and media
industries in Japan and often was cited in the
press as an authority on major companies such
as Sony and Nintendo. As she traveled around
the world for business, she continued to feed
her own love for music, growing increasingly
fascinated by the cultural and social contexts
of global music. Even as she excelled in the
financial arena, Manabe held onto a lifelong
desire to pursue the study of music more fully.
In 2003, she decided to reinvent her career and
enrolled in the City University of New York’s
graduate program in music.
“Going to graduate school in music was a
Sociologist Portes wins Du Bois career award
NEW FACULTY
Nick Nesbitt, a
Francophone literature scholar, has been named a professor of French
and Italian. His appointment, effective Sept. 1, 2010, recently was approved by the Board of
Trustees. Nesbitt’s research focuses on the intellectual history of the black Atlantic world. He
wrote “Voicing Memory: History and Subjectivity in French Caribbean Literature” and “Universal
Emancipation: The Haitian Revolution and the Radical Enlightenment.” He also edited “Toussaint Louverture: The Haitian Revolution” and co-edited “Sounding the Virtual: Gilles Deleuze
and the Philosophy of Music.”
Nesbitt will come to Princeton from the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, where he has been
a senior lecturer since 2007. He previously served for nine years as a faculty member at Miami
University. A graduate of Colorado College, Nesbitt holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University. In
Fall 2010 he will teach FRE 528 Francophone Literature and Culture Outside of France - Haiti
and the Modes of Political Subjectivation.
Portes is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a fellow of the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences. He also served
as the president of the American Sociological
Association in 1998-99.
Born in Cuba, Portes studied at the University of Havana and Catholic University of
Argentina in Buenos Aires before receiving his
B.A. summa cum laude from Creighton University. He received an M.A. and Ph.D. in sociology
from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In
addition to numerous visiting professorships,
Portes has served on the faculty at the University
of Illinois-Urbana/Champaign, the University
of Texas-Austin, Duke University and Johns
Hopkins University.
Reprinted with permission from http://
www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/
S26/59/42K10/index.xml?section=topstories
Selected Recent Publications
Economic Sociology: A Systematic Inquiry.
(Princeton University Press, 2010).
Las instituciones en el desarrollo latinoamericano: un estudio comparado. (Siglo XXI, 2009).
“Migration & Social Change: Some Conceptual Reflections.” Journal of Ethnic & Migration
Studies, 2010. [Spanish-language version: Revista
Española de Sociologia (12, 2009).
“Foreword.” International Migration in Cuba:
Accumulation, Imperial Designs, & Transnational
Social Fields by Margarita Cervantes-Rodríguez
(Penn State, 2009).
“Foreword: Policies & Preaching That Backfire:
The American Experience.” In Getting Immigration
Right: What Every American Needs to Know. C.
Coates & P. Siavelis, eds. (Potomac Books, 2009).
“Migration & Development: Reconciling Opposite Views.” Ethnic & Racial Studies 32, 2009.
Alejandro Portes, Cristina Escobar, & Renelinda Arana. “Divided or Convergent Loyalties: The
Political Incorporation Process of Latin American
Immigrants in the United States.” International
Journal of Comparative Sociology (50(2),2009).
[Spanish-language translations in Dialogos Migrantes
(3, 2009) and Nuevos retos del transnacionalismo
en el estudio de las migraciones. C. Solé, S.
Parella, & L. Cavalcanti, eds. (Madrid, 2009).
Alejandro Portes, Patricia Fernández-Kelly, &
William Haller. “The Adaptation of the Immigrant
Second Generation in America: Theoretical Overview
& Recent Evidence.” Journal of Ethnic & Migration Studies (35, 2009). [Portuguese language
translation in Tempo Social 20, 2008; Spanishlanguage translation in Las migraciónes en el
mundo: desafíos y esperanzas. F. Checa Olmos,
J. C. Checa, & A. Arjona, eds. (Barcelona: 2009).
11
Photo courtesy of Alejandro Portes
Alejandro Portes, Princeton’s Howard Harrison and Gabrielle Snyder Beck Professor of
Sociology, is the 2010 recipient of the W.E.B.
Du Bois Career of Distinguished Scholarship
Award from the American Sociological Association. A major honor in the field, the Du Bois
award recognizes “outstanding commitment
to the profession of sociology” and cumulative
work that has “contributed in important ways
to the advancement of the discipline.”
Portes, an immigration scholar who joined
the University in 1997, will accept the award at
the association’s annual meeting this August
in Atlanta. The Du Bois award committee cited
Portes’ work, which has expanded to include
children of immigrants, for its pioneering and
wide-ranging nature. The committee also commended Portes for working collaboratively with
senior and junior researchers in the international settings he studied.
“Alejandro Portes is a world-renowned
scholar of international migration, who, in the
process of advancing the sociology of immigration, has forged numerous conceptual and
methodological innovations,” said the award
statement from committee chair Robin WagnerPacifici, the Gil and Frank Mustin Professor
of Sociology at Swarthmore College. “Further,
Portes’ scholarship has ranged across several
major domains of sociology, from economic
and political sociology to national development, urbanization, the informal economy,
Latin American politics and class structures,
and U.S.-Cuba relations.”
Portes’ current research projects include
studies on Latin American institutions and
development; immigration and the U.S. health
care system; and assimilation models in Spain.
From 1999 to 2007, he served as the director of
Princeton’s Center for Migration and Development, and he chaired the sociology department
from 2003 to 2006.
Portes is a prolific researcher, with more
than 250 articles and book chapters to his
name. Of his many books, “Legacies: The Story
of the Immigrant Second Generation” (2001)
received the Distinguished Scholarly Publication
Award and the William I. Thomas and Florian
Znaniecki Distinguished Scholarship Award
from the American Sociological Association;
and “City on the Edge: The Transformation of
Miami” (1993) won the Anthony Leeds Award
for best book on urban anthropology from the
American Anthropological Association and the
Robert E. Park Award for best book in urban
sociology from the American Sociological Association.
A Moment with... Marta Tienda
Marta Tienda, the Maurice P. During Professor
in Demographic Studies and director of the Program in Latino Studies, was born in rural Texas
but grew up outside Detroit after her father, who
emigrated from Mexico without documents, took
a job in a steel mill. When her father was laid
off, Tienda spent two summers picking crops as
a farm laborer in northern Michigan. She came
to Princeton in 1997 and served for four years
as director of the Office of Population Research
before becoming the founding director of the
Program in Latino Studies in 2009. In addition
to writing and editing several books of her own,
she is the subject of a biography aimed at young
readers, “People Person: The Story of Sociologist
Marta Tienda,” published as part of the Women’s
Adventures in Science series, underwritten by the
National Academy of Sciences. The following is
an interview conducted by Mark F. Bernstein ’83.
MFB: Hispanics in the United States come from
such a wide range of countries. Is there such
a thing as a Hispanic community?
MT: There is a Hispanic community the
same way there is a black community. But the
nomenclature of “the Hispanic community” presumes that there is one voice, and there isn’t.
Broadly speaking, Hispanics are young, they
share a common language, they tend to have
low levels of education, and many are undocumented. Together, this represents a profile that
differs from other pan-ethnic groups.
MFB: How successful have Hispanics been
at assimilating into American society?
MT: The jury is still out. Many people judge
the ability of Hispanics to assimilate based
on the cross-section they see today, which includes a large share of immigrants. Upward
mobility is occurring between the first and
second generations, but there is mobility for
most other groups, too, so the gaps between
Hispanics and whites are widening, particularly in education. This is very problematic
at a time when the returns to education are
much higher than was the case in the 1960s or
early 1970s. A high school education doesn’t
get jobs that pay family wages today.
MFB: Is there still such a thing as an American melting pot?
MT: I think the melting pot is changing. Over
the last few decades, the Hispanic population
has experienced an unprecedented geographic
scattering. It is unclear whether moving to
new areas is going to facilitate integration or
whether the problems we have experienced
before will follow. We have seen a bit of both.
In some places, Hispanic laborers have been
welcomed, but when they bring their families
along and try to enter the school system there
is resistance. Some people — mainly workers
who feel that they are being displaced — feel
very threatened by Hispanic migration and
immigration. Those with more education and
greater economic security tend to see the Hispanic dispersal as an opportunity for cultural
enrichment.
MFB: How does Hispanic economic mobility
compare to that of African-Americans?
MT: Hispanics have always been intermediate
between whites and African-Americans in social
and economic status, but I see that as vulnerability. African-Americans surpassed Hispanics
in college completion in the 1990 census. It’s
partly because of the ways that Hispanics are
experiencing education in this country. One of
my big concerns is that bilingual education
programs hold them back. We need to ensure
that everyone acquires proficiency in English.
I’m all for multiple languages, but what we are
now producing are quasi-linguals who are not
proficient either in Spanish or English. If you
don’t master English in the early grades, you
will fall further and further behind. Hispanics already have the highest dropout rates of
any group in the United States, and if they go
to college, they are much more likely to go to
two-year rather than four-year institutions.
MFB: Is bilingual education harmful?
MT: If instruction is truly bilingual, where
both languages are taught at the same level
simultaneously so that proficiency is acquired
from a very early age, I would support it. But
that is not what we are getting. Total proficiency in English as early as possible is nonnegotiable, because without it you accumulate
disadvantages. You fall further behind.
In trying to be accommodating to Hispanic
kids, we have been creating divisions and reifying inequality. It’s all well-meaning, but there
are also perverse incentives to keep kids in
bilingual programs because school districts
get extra state and federal money for bilingual
education. Yet, we either blame the kids and
say that they can’t learn English, or blame the
parents and say they are isolating their kids
by speaking Spanish at home.
MFB: Do you have concerns about the census this year?
MT: The census has become increasingly
political, particularly for Hispanics. What I find
very troublesome is that a group of evangelical
Hispanic churches is trying to orchestrate a
boycott of the census by Hispanics unless an
amnesty for the undocumented is approved.
Using the census as a weapon is self-defeating.
Congressional districts are going to be drawn
around representation of all persons. If Hispanics boycott the census, this diminishes our
ability to influence the political process. The
effects of not being counted will reverberate
for 10 years.
MFB: Do Hispanics have political influence
equal to their numbers?
MT: It’s probably not commensurate with
their numbers, but that is partly because Hispanics are younger on average. Younger people
either can’t yet vote or don’t vote. Immigration was the largest component of Hispanic
growth through the 1990s, but in the current
decade demographic growth has been driven
by increased fertility among people who are
already in this country. Even if immigration
stopped altogether, the foundations of Hispanic
population growth already are seeded. Most
people who think about immigration as a driver
of Hispanic population growth are looking in
the rearview mirror. The future impacts will
be in the schools. We have an obligation to
invest in that future generation because, as I
like to say, the American population as a whole
is aging. What language would you want that
person who pushes your wheelchair to speak
to you? Do you want to take another language
so you can speak to that health-care worker?
MFB: The Hispanic vote has been increasingly important. What are some characteristics
of Hispanic voters?
MT: Hispanic political ideology is different from other groups’ in a couple of different
ways. One is that, on average, Hispanics are
more likely to support higher taxes if they can
get better services and schools. But they are
very conservative on family issues. The Bush
administration won some Hispanic votes by
emphasizing family values. Gay marriage, for
example, is not something that gets a lot of
support within the Hispanic community. But
many Hispanics have been turned away from
the Republican Party because of the party’s
stance on immigration.
MFB: What is the Princeton experience like
for Hispanic students?
MT: I worked with a team to start a Latino
studies program at Princeton, but worried about
being perceived as participating in identity
politics. I did not want to be one of “them”
doing work about “them.” If I had my way, I’d
like to see the Program in American Studies
broadened to include Asian-American studies,
African-American studies, and Latino studies, so that programmatic content can evolve
as our society changes. I will consider it a
success when the Latino Studies program attracts a diverse group of students. We have a
lot to do yet. We have three Hispanic student
organizations on campus (Acción Latina, the
Chicano Caucus, and LUNA), and there has
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been inadequate coordination. I’m going to
see if I can’t get them to come together and
Lessons from
Financial Crises
INTERVIEW BY EMILY ARONSON
José Scheinkman, the Theodore A. Wells ‘29
Professor of Economics, taught a course on “Financial Crises” for the first time in spring semester 2010. He said there are similarities among
the current U.S. recession and other economic
crises in modern history, including bad and lax
regulation of the financial industry.
EA: How does the current global financial
crisis fit into the curriculum?
JS: The unfortunate opportunity, so to speak,
presented by the financial crisis that began
in August 2007 led us to design this course. It
brings together elements of previous offering
by the Department of Economics, but with a
different focus and more depth. My colleagues
and I have taught courses that examined past
financial crises, but this is the first time we
have one so focused on contemporary crisis.
In the class, we are using economic theory
and models to study the causes of financial
crises, and discussing the effectiveness of
policy responses. We start with an overview
of the major economic crises in the U.S. and
internationally during the past century, and
then move to the present day. Studying past
crises can inform our understanding of what is
happening in financial markets today, although
this course is primarily focused on models
developed by economists to understand different kinds of financial crises.
The challenging times we’re currently experiencing tend to attract the intellectually
curious to economics, and my goal is for students to use economics as an engine of inquiry
to better understand what is happening more
broadly in the world today.
EA: Are there similarities among the current U.S. recession and other economic crises
in modern history?
JS: Yes, many of today’s aspects remind us of
things policymakers should have learned from
previous experiences. That is something that I
emphasize to my students: When you look at
the historical evidence, you find many recent
risks in the U.S. economy that were repetitions
of things that happened in the past.
Bad and lax regulation of the financial
industry played a big role in this and previous crises. Regulation tends to ebb and flow.
During the past 10 to 15 years there was a
form a coalition. I’d like to build bridges to the
Hispanic graduate students, as well.
Reprinted with permission from the Princeton Alumni Weekly, January 13, 2010.
loosening of government regulation of banks
and investment firms, which allowed financial institutions to take more risks. There also
are common elements of moral hazard, when
people took actions expecting that they would
not suffer the consequences in the case of a
disaster, but would benefit from the upside.
There also is a recurring element of financial
bubbles, when prices for certain assets rapidly
increase because their value is overestimated,
followed by a bursting of the bubble and a
sharp decline in prices.
EA: You and other Princeton faculty have
focused research on financial market bubbles.
Why is understanding bubbles so important?
JS: Financial bubbles often predate periods
of economic crisis, although the severity of
the crises has varied in degree. The current
economic crisis was preceded by the credit
market and real estate bubbles, and in the
early 2000s we had the “dot-com” bubble when
Internet-related stocks boomed and then
crashed. Financial bubbles historically are
linked to new technology, such as railroads,
electricity, or automobiles. The recent credit
market bubble occurred at a time when new
methods of financial engineering improved risk
management. The introductions of these new
technologies often coincide with speculative
periods that drive up prices of associated assets. Financial experts working in areas related
to these new technologies have an incentive to
exaggerate values, and investors often do not
understand how much an innovation is really
worth because it’s new.
The work being done in our department
is focused on understanding the logic behind
financial bubbles. It is not necessarily about
predicting when bubbles may occur or implode,
but knowing the kinds of symptoms financial
bubbles generate. Policymakers could watch
these symptoms and take preventive measures
to limit possible market fallout. Even if you
can’t detect a financial bubble for sure and
even if there are costs to intervening in the
situation, it doesn’t mean you should not do
it. It is for the same reason you do not cross
a busy street even if you are not certain that
you will be a hit by a car.
EA: How do you see the United States pulling out of the recession based on the lessons
from past crises?
JS: Every crisis is a little different, so it’s
difficult to say certain things need to happen
before we get better. Still, we do know that
the size of economic crises varies a lot, and
a big variable is how deeply a crisis affects a
country’s banking system. Starting from the
premise that a modern economy needs a financial
system that works well, which the economic
data show, the question for the future is: What
are the conditions that would make the U.S.
banking system more immune to the kind of
disasters it has had recently?
We also can examine why some countries’
economies fared better than the United States’
during this latest crisis. We talk about lax
regulation as one of the causes, and we see
that countries that had more rigorous banking regulations, such as Canada, experienced
a milder crisis.
While part of the story is still being told,
the evidence seems to call for a system in which
financial institutions are better regulated and
are restricted in the kinds of risks they take.
This time, taxpayer money covered the losses
that major financial institutions incurred by
taking large risks, and that is the worst of
all worlds.
Reprinted with permission from www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S26/86/62A45/
index.xml
13
Photo by Brian Wilson
TIENDA
BIEHL AWARDED WELLCOME
MEDAL FOR MEDICAL ANTHROPOLOGY
João Biehl, professor
of anthropology and
co-director of the Program on Global Health
and Health Policy, was
awarded the Wellcome
Medal for Anthropology
as Applied to Medical Problems for his
book Will to Live: AIDS
Therapies & the Politics of Survival.
Sponsored by the Wellcome Trust, this award
is given biennially by the Royal Anthropological
Institute of Great Britain and Ireland “for a
recent body of published work which makes,
as a whole, a significant contribution to research in anthropology as applied to medical
problems.” The Wellcome Medal is one of the
highest awards in anthropology, and the winning book is entered into the anthropology
collection at the British Museum. Biehl shared
the Wellcome Medal with Ron Barrett, author
of Aghor Medicine: Pollution, Death and Healing in Northern India.
In Will to Live, Biehl describes how Brazil
became the first developing country to universalize access to life-saving AIDS therapies
and why this policy is so difficult to implement among poor Brazilians with HIV-AIDS.
Biehl collaborated with photographer Torben
Eskerod on the book, which was published by
Princeton University Press in 2007.
In the official award letter, the judges commented that “Biehl’s study of AIDS and HIV
patients in Brazil is a beautiful and methodologically bold work. The study spans a 10–year
period and develops a life history approach
which moves seamlessly between the personal
and the institutional and global practices shaping the destinies of AIDS and HIV patients.
By using theory to understand rather than
dominate his materials Biehl enhances our
understanding both of the lives lived and the
global forces that shape them.”
Biehl joined the Princeton faculty in
2001, and his research has been supported
by Princeton’s Grand Challenges Program as
well as grants from the Guggenheim, MacArthur, Wenner-Gren and Ford foundations. His
previous book, Vita: Life in a Zone of Social
Abandonment, focused on mental illness and
received numerous awards. His current book
project is a history of a religious war among
German immigrants in 19th-century Brazil.
He also is editing a book on evidence, theory,
and advocacy in global health.
João Biehl was also named the Susan Dod
Brown Professor of Anthropology (effective
July 1, 2010).
Adapted from http://www.princeton.edu/
main/news/archive/S26/65/34K91/index.xml
Scholars from Latin America, the U.S., and Europe gathered in Princeton, September 18–19,
to participate in the PIIRS Advanced Seminar “Paper Leviathans: State Building in Latin
America and Spain, 1810–1930.” The workshop,
the first of two, was led by Miguel Centeno,
Princeton University professor of sociology and
international affairs, and Agustín Ferraro, an
associate professor of Latin American studies
at the University of Salamanca, Spain.
According to Centeno, the aim of the seminar
is to better understand the role played by classic liberal doctrine in political and economic
development from the birth of these states
to the collapse of the oligarchic republics in
the first third of the 20th century. A secondary goal is to create a network of academics
working on the analysis of state building in
Ibero-America. Universities from the U.S., Chile,
Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Spain, Germany, and
the U.K. were represented.
“These issues are important for the study
of contemporary Latin America,” says Centeno.
“The region’s current political and economic
development eerily parallels the 19th-century
experience. Now, as then, we see significant
commodity-fueled growth that has not alleviated the inequality or long-standing poverty.
Latin American states remain weak or contested. The exceptional path of Spain, and, to
a lesser extent, of Chile, cries for explanation.”
In Princeton, the scholars presented papers
on five themes: developing a state of law, the
state as developer, professional bureaucracies, the impact of ideas, and national and
political identities. A portion of the seminar
was devoted to comparative perspectives and
provided participants the opportunity to discuss the experiences of other regions in which
state building was more successful than in
Latin America.
The seminar’s next event will be a public
conference in Salamanca in fall 2010 to present
the finished papers. A selection of the papers
will be published in 2011. PIIRS Advanced
Seminar funding will also support construction of a website that will provide public access to statistical sources and bibliographical
materials, among other things.
PIIRS director Katherine Newman notes
that “it is important for scholars to be able to
work on important problems like this one face
to face, to be able to dig deep into the topic
and debate their conclusions. PIIRS support
made it possible to surmount the limitations of
‘e-mail collaborations’ and give our colleagues
a chance to work together the old-fashioned
way. I expect a remarkable volume to result.”
The PIIRS Advanced Seminars support faculty
research and new collaborations in the humanities, sciences, engineering, and architecture.
The Advanced Seminar on state building is the
third to receive funding since the program was
initiated. The first, held in fall 2008, was led
by Alejandro Portes, the Howard Harrison and
Gabrielle Snyder Beck Professor of Sociology,
and focused on institutions and development
in Latin America. The second, held last spring,
was led by Frank von Hippel, a professor of
public and international affairs, and examined
the transition to a nuclear-free world.
Reprinted from PIIRS NEWSLETTER Fall
2009, with permission.
14
Photo Credits: (top) courtesy of João Biehl; (bottom) by Denise Applewhite
STATE BUILDING IS FOCUS OF PIIRS ADVANCED SEMINAR;
COLLABORATION IS A GOAL
FREUD AND MEXICO, VIA VIENNA
BY KARIN DIENST
How did a scholar of modern Spanish America
become interested in Freud?
RG: For the past three years I have been
writing a book on Freud and Mexico. Part of
it is about the reception of Freud. Who was
reading Freud in the 1920s? How were books
like Totem and Taboo read by Mexican poets
and artists? Part of it is about Freud’s view of
Mexico. Freud collected Mexican antiquities,
read Mexican books—in Spanish—and corresponded with Mexican disciples. Surprisingly,
no one had explored this intriguing relationship.
There are books about Freud in Russia, Freud
in France, even one about Freud in Argentina
called Freud in the Pampas, but there was
virtually nothing about Freud in Mexico, so
I decided it would make a good book project.
Has living in Vienna helped you understand
Freud’s relationship to Mexico?
Absolutely! Not many people realize that
the histories of Austria and Mexico have been
intertwined for more than 500 years, and that
the two countries have had a complex—and
at times traumatic—relationship. It was a
Hapsburg King, Charles V, who ruled Spain
during the Conquest of Mexico in the 1520s,
and many of the Aztec treasures taken by the
Spaniards made their way to Vienna, where
they can still be seen today. And in the 19th
century, during one of the most surreal episodes of history, another Austrian, Maximilian
von Hapsburg, the younger brother of Kaiser
Franz Josef, became emperor of Mexico. He
was shot by a firing squad in 1867—a scene
that was painted by Manet—despite pleas to
the Mexican government by figures including
Victor Hugo and Queen Victoria. And in 1938,
Mexico was the only country to present a formal
protest at the Society of Nations against the
Nazi annexation of Austria, the event that led to
Freud’s exile. To commemorate this expression
of solidarity, Vienna named one of its squares
“Mexikoplatz” after the end of the war.
Living in Vienna has helped me to understand the relations between these two cultures,
and it inspired me to write a chapter called
“Freud’s Mexican Vienna,” where I document
all the “Mexican” places Freud would have encountered during his daily walks in the city.
What is it like to work in Berggasse 19?
It is an extremely moving experience. The
first time I entered the doorway and walked
up the stairs to Freud’s apartment, I thought
to myself: This is the birthplace of so many
ideas that transformed the world. So much
of 20th-century culture—the talking cure,
surrealism, the films of Luis Buñuel, our approach to the study of literature at Princeton,
everything down to the humor of New Yorker
cartoons—trace their origin to this modest
apartment in Berggasse. And what strikes me
most is to think that Freud altered the course
of history without weapons, money or power;
all he had were ideas and words. It was his
passionate relation to “the life of the mind,”
as Hannah Arendt called it, that changed the
world—and it was all done from a desk in this
very apartment.
batical year. In the evenings I usually attend
lectures at the university or at the Sigmund
Freud Museum; the last talk I heard was by an
economist who did a psychoanalytic study of
“Overconfidence and the Financial Markets.”
And a few times a week I have dinner at one
of Vienna’s famous cafés, like the Landtman,
or go to a concert at the Philharmonic.
Do you expect to teach about this work when
you return to Princeton?
Yes! I already have a few ideas for courses.
One will be “Freud at Large,” a seminar devoted
to the readings of Freud offered by artists and
writers in Latin America. The other will focus
on the literary and artistic representation of
the execution of Maximilian. Mexican novelists have been fascinated by this episode since
the 19th century, and there is a vast corpus
of novels, plays, poems, paintings—even an
opera—that tells us much about the relationship between literature and history.
Bulletin 99(5), November 9, 2009. Interview
conducted by Karen Dienst.
What is a typical day like for you in Vienna?
I have a quick breakfast in my apartment,
where from my window I can see the Stefansdom,
Vienna’s cathedral. I then head to the National
Library, located in a section of the Hofburg,
the Imperial Palace, where I read and write for
most of the day—this is the beauty of a sab-
15
Photos courtesy of the Sigmund Freud Foundation
A scholar of modern Spanish America, Rubén
Gallo is the author of Freud’s Mexico: Into the
Wilds of Psychoanalysis, forthcoming from MIT
Press, which explores Freud’s relation to Mexico.
His other publications in English include Mexican
Modernity: The Avant-Garde & the Technological
Revolution, which won the Katherine Singer Kovacs
Prize in 2005, and New Tendencies in Mexican
Art (2004).
Gallo is the 2009 Fulbright-Freud Visiting
Lecturer in Psychoanalysis and spent fall 2009
in Vienna as a guest of the Sigmund Freud Foundation, located at Berggasse 19. Freud lived there
for 47 years before emigrating to London after
Austria’s 1938 annexation by Nazi Germany. Gallo
had an office in what was once the bedroom of
Minna Bernays, Freud’s sister-in-law. In addition
to conducting research at the Sigmund Freud
Museum, he gave a series of lectures on Freud’s
relation to Mexico and taught a seminar at the
University of Vienna.
NEW GLOBAL COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH
FUND PROJECTS SELECTED
BY NICK DIULIO
Three teams of Princeton scholars have been
selected by the University's Council for International Teaching and Research to receive
research network grants for new studies of
migrant children, the global economic crisis
and the international language of photography.
Funded through the Princeton Global Collaborative Research Fund, which facilitates
international scholarly networks that enable
Princeton to engage with centers of learning
worldwide, these research networks will begin
in fall 2010. The grants total $532,500 over a
three-year period.
The Princeton Global Collaborative Research
Fund allocates grants to sustain collaborative
initiatives of significant global scholarship and
to promote career development of scholars at
all stages with the purpose of enhancing Princeton scholars' participation in global research.
The fund is part of a series of international
initiatives outlined by President Shirley M.
Tilghman and Provost Christopher Eisgruber
in fall 2007. Last year the fund's first grants
were awarded to six research networks that
will continue through 2012. Two of the three
teams include members of PLAS’s Associated
Faculty:
• Migrant Youth and Children of Migrants in
a Globalized World (Marta Tienda and Sara
McLanahan, sociology and Wilson School; and
Alicia Adsera, Wilson School). In response to
global economic and political integration, international migration has been rising. Today,
between 9 and 10 percent of the population
living in developed regions is foreign-born,
compared to 1.3 percent in developing regions.
Women and children represent a large share of
international migrants. This project seeks to
study children's involvement in international
migration and its consequences for their psychosocial, physical and economic well-being.
The group will convene interdisciplinary teams
of researchers from research hubs in the United
Kingdom, Spain, Australia and at the Wilson
School to foster crossnational comparative research about the well-being of children and
youth with migration backgrounds.
• The Itinerate Languages of Photography:
Images, Media and Archives in an International Context (Eduardo Cadava, English; and
Gabriela Nouzeilles, Spanish and Portuguese
languages and cultures). Photographs communicate across historical periods, national
borders and media outlets. This project will
study these “itinerate languages” of modern
photography and how they operate in international and global networks of collaboration
and exchange. Scholars will address questions
relating to the unprecedented speed of this
language’s spread, as well as examine the consequences of artificial memory and modern forms
of archiving. Tracing the movement of photographs within and between different national
photographic traditions -- especially within
the Latin American and Hispanic context -- the
research group hopes to understand not only
the shifting contours of this phenomenon, but
also the role and place of images within it.
Adapted from http://www.princeton.edu/
main/news/archive/S27/60/03K12/index.
xml?section=topstories
FACULTY MEMBERS RECEIVED
PRESIDENT’S AWARDS FOR
DISTINGUISHED TEACHING AT
COMMENCEMENT CEREMONIES
thought.”
As a pioneering figure in the field of
modern Latin American literary studies, Díaz
Quiñones seeks to foster understanding of
the diverse cultures of the Spanish-speaking
world in his research and teaching. “Arcadio
taught me that the best teachers assume
the challenge of helping their students
avoid hollow or stereotyped views of other
cultures and traditions,” wrote one former
graduate student.
Students noted Díaz Quiñones’ unyielding
dedication, citing examples such as returning
to campus from a sabbatical to attend a
play directed by one of his undergraduates,
and providing graduate students with
access to his private collection of work by
Puerto Rican authors for their research.
Students, in turn, are inspired to tackle the
intellectual challenges he sets before them.
“Growing up, I had read Spanish literature in
translation, never having the courage to grab
an original, but now with the encouragement
of Professor Díaz-Quiñones, I was reading
Cesar Vallejo and Xavier Villauruttia,” wrote
one current undergraduate. “The lectures he
Faculty members recognized with President's Awards for
Distinguished Teaching by President Shirley M. Tilghman
(right) were (from left): P. Adams Sitney, Jeffrey Stout,
Erhan Çinlar and Arcadio Díaz-Quiñones. The awards were
established in 1991 through gifts by Princeton alumni
Lloyd Cotsen of the class of 1950 and John Sherrerd of
the class of 1952 to recognize excellence in undergraduate and graduate teaching by Princeton faculty members. Each winner receives a cash prize of $5,000, and
his or her department receives $3,000 for the purchase
of new books.
A committee of faculty, undergraduate and graduate
students and academic administrators selected the
winners from nominations by current students, faculty
colleagues and alumni.
presented about the context and contours of
each poem motivated me to write my own in
Spanish and English.”
A colleague in the Program in Latin
American Studies, where Díaz Quiñones is
an associated faculty member, wrote, “It was
tempting to make anything Arcadio taught a
prerequisite for my courses. These students
have an engagement, an excitement and an
appetite that is just remarkable.”
Adapted from http://www.princeton.
edu/main/news/archive/S27/54/11K66/
index.xml?section=topstories
16
Photo by Denise Applewhite
Díaz Quiñones, who has taught at Princeton
since 1983, will retire at the end of this
academic year. His introductory classes on
Latin American literature and poetry are
considered “legendary” by students and
colleagues. His undergraduate and graduate
courses have included “Literature and
Memory in Latin America and the Caribbean,”
“Modern Hispanic-Caribbean Poetry,” “19thand 20th-Century Latin American Thought”
and “Literature of the Cuban Revolution.”
Students and colleagues noted that
Díaz-Quiñones’ lectures are a form of
poetry in their own right. “There are very
few professors who can match Arcadio’s
remarkable, mesmeric teaching talents
and the profound influence he has had on
the hundreds of students he has taught,”
wrote one colleague. Also, a former graduate
student wrote, “His words follow a deliberate
trajectory, a graceful arc that moves with
not only direction and determination, but
also form and elegance,” and added that,
“Complex ideas are rendered succinctly, and
his listeners absorb and appreciate them
in the moment as part of a performance of
Arcadio Díaz Quiñones
Arcadio Díaz-Quiñones is one of the finest and
most prominent Caribbean public intellectuals
of his time, a talented writer and scholar whose
essays already have
become classics in
the Latin American
and Latino/a modern
literary canon, and
an extraordinary
teacher who has
inspired generations
of undergraduate
and graduate students at Princeton
and elsewhere.
Arcadio earned
the B.A. and M.A. in
Hispanic studies from the University of Puerto
Rico, Río Piedras, and completed his graduate
training at the Universidad Central de Madrid,
Spain, with a doctoral dissertation on the uses of
the Spanish language in 16th- century colonial
archival documents, under the supervision of
the legendary Spanish scholar Rafael Lapesa.
He joined the Princeton University faculty in
1983, after having taught at the Universidad
de Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras. In recognition of
the excellence of his scholarship and teaching,
he was named the Emory L. Ford Professor of
Spanish in 1999. He also served as director
of the Program in Latin American Studies at
Princeton for six years, when with extraordinary
determination and inspirational leadership he
vigorously transformed the program into one
of the strongest and most visible programs on
campus, with a stellar interdisciplinary team
of faculty members and a thriving community
of undergraduate and graduate students.
Arcadio’s accomplishments as a scholar and
essayist are many and varied. His main fields
of interest have been Latin American cultural
and intellectual history and Caribbean poetry.
He has devoted many articles to the role of
poets and intellectuals in Hispanic-Caribbean
society, including Luis Palés Matos, Antonio S.
Pedreira, and Pedro Henríquez Ureña. Among his
many contributions to Caribbean intellectual
and literary history are his polished editions of
works by Caribbean writers and public intellectuals such as Luis Rafael Sánchez, Tomás
Blanco, Cintio Vitier, and José Luis González.
His publications include EI almuerzo en la
hierba (1982); an edition of EI prejuicio racial
en Puerto Rico, by Tomás Blanco (1985); an edition of works by Luis Lloréns Torres, Verso y
prosa (1986); a study on the Cuban poet Cintio
Vitier: La memoria integradora (1987); and
an edition of Sánchez’s Puerto Rican classic
La guaracha del Macho Camacho (2003). But
it is perhaps within the long and prestigious
tradition of the Latin American essay where
Arcadio has left his most indelible mark, with
classics such as La memoria rota: ensayos sobre
cultura y política (1993) and El arte de bregar:
ensayos (2000), both preoccupied with tracing
the elusive archive of experiences born from
a long and contradictory colonial history. El
arte de bregar offers a dazzling exploration of
the Puerto Rican local uses of the word bregar
as a symptomatological signifier condensing
the traumatic traces of a Caribbean political
unconscious.
In Sobre los principios: los intelectuales
caribeños y la tradición, published in 2006,
Arcadio directs his erudition and elegant writing to the study of the anxious relationship of
Caribbean writers with the notion of tradition,
as it was conceived by Latin American leading
intellectuals such as Pedro Henríquez Ureña,
José Martí, Fernando Ortiz, Ramiro Guerra y
Sánchez, Antonio S. Pedreira, and Tomás Blanco,
or figures related to the Hispanic transatlantic such as the Spaniard Marcelino Menéndez
Pelayo, who was interested in the role of the
last Spanish colonies in modern Hispanism.
In Arcadio’s exquisite analysis, Caribbean intellectuals see themselves confronted with a
continuous dilemma between a sense of belonging to a “Hispanic” common tradition and the
threat of its dissolution, which forced them
to re-visit over and over the question of the
origins of a national culture.
Besides being a distinguished scholar,
Arcadio has been an extraordinary teacher.
He has always stressed that teaching is one
of the highest and most challenging forms of
intellectual engagement. Whether leading a
graduate seminar on the question of memory
and power, analyzing a poem by Chilean poet
Gabriela Mistral, or directing a senior thesis
or a doctoral thesis, he has brought the excitement of scholarship and the passion of
literary writing to all his students. Two of his
regular offerings at Princeton, “Introduction
to Spanish American Literature” and “Introduction to Latin American Poetry,” became
legendary courses within the undergraduate
community. For many students, the “Princeton
experience” was not complete until they had
the opportunity to attend Arcadio’s famous
lectures. The powerful, enduring effects of his
commitment to teaching have created a vast
web of enthusiastic and grateful heirs and
disciples, forever touched by his knowledge,
his wit, and the love of learning.
Adapted from text written by Gabriela
Nouzeilles, found in Princeton University
Honors Faculty Members Receiving Emeritus
Status, May 2010.
THE ART OF LA BREGA (Fragments)
When and how did the concept of bregar (with
its complex meanings as coping, dealing, handling, withstanding, resolving, surviving) become
Puerto Rican currency? Bregar, a word both
witty and wise, hovers above the many stages
of Puerto Rican life, in Cidra and Cabo Rojo on
the Island as much as in such outposts of the
Diaspora as Hartford and Newark. Men and
women use the word incessantly and deploy it
with freedom and intelligence. Puerto Ricans
are forever in the brega (in the lurch), forever
vulnerable and alert. And should an outcome
prove disappointing, they disparage those who
show themselves incapable or inept at maneuvering the skills of bregar (quienes no bregan
o no saben bregar). Mastery of these skills, on
the other hand, elicits unstinting praise. Bregar
is, one could say, another system of knowledge,
a diffuse and subtle method of navigating the
day to day, in which all things are extremely
precarious, unstable and violent as attested
to by the history of twentieth century Puerto
Rican migration and as continues to be the
case throughout the entire width and length
of the Island.
More often than not, Puerto Ricans will
respond to a polite and ritualistic ¿Como estás?
with a laconic or playful rendition of Aquí, en
la brega (hanging in there, or, perhaps more
literally, here, in the thick of things), an acquired
phrase as predictable as a musical refrain (pie
forzado). La brega is a way of being and not
Photo credits: (top) by Denise Applewhite; (bottom) from Wikipedia
BY ARCADIO DÍAZ QUIÑONES
17
RECENT
FACULTY
WRITINGS
BY STAN KATZ
BRAINSTORM
Stan Katz is a lecturer with the rank of professor in public and international affairs and
a PLAS faculty associate; he also directs the
Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies at
Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School. He is a
past president of the American Council of Learned Societies, the Organization of American
Historians, and the Society for Legal History.
He comments frequently on policy issues relating to higher education, particularly liberal
education, and on the humanities and social
sciences, philanthropy, scholarly relations with
Cuba, and the interplay of civil society, constitutionalism, and democracy. And on his beloved
Chicago Cubs. The following entries appeared
during fall 2009 and spring 2010 on Katz’s
chronicle.com blog.
NOVEMBER 29, 2009
QUICK TRIP TO HAVANA
I made a quick trip to Havana just before
Thanksgiving. I had two objectives. The first
was to complete arrangements for the Woodrow
Wilson School undergraduate seminar that will
be held at the University of Havana this spring.
Each of our WWS juniors must take what we
call a Policy Task Force each term, in order to
learn the techniques of public-policy analysis.
We offer several of these PTF’s abroad, with
our students enrolling in other host university
courses for the remainder of their program.
Some, but not all, of these PTF’s are taught in
local languages, and the one in Havana will be
in Spanish. It will be organized by the Cuban
Center for Demography (CEDEM), and will
focus on a variety of Cuban human migration problems. We have nine students signed
up, and I think they are going to have a very
good experience at the University. Several other
U.S. universities are running programs at the
University of Havana, and I was impressed by
their quality when I visited them last spring.
My second purpose was to assist the Ford
Foundation in expanding its programming in
Cuba. I chair the Working Group on Cuba for
ACLS-SSRC. This is a group Ken Prewitt and
I established when we were the presidents
of the two organizations in 1997, hoping to
encourage better academic contact between
the two countries. The Working Group was initially quite active, but as political relations
between the two countries deteriorated in the
late 1990s, we have found it more and more
difficult to mount programs that comply with
the legal requirements of both countries, though
in recent years we have emphasized cultural
heritage preservation work in Cuban libraries
and archives with some success. I keep hoping
for improvement in political relations between
the U.S. and Cuba, but so far there has been
little change under the Obama administration.
Still, we are committed to keep trying to do
something useful, and I was gratified to find
that the new president of the Ford Foundation
was interested in expanding its work in Cuba.
Mario Bronfman, the Ford rep in Mexico City
(himself a distinguished medical sociologist),
has responsibility for Ford’s Cuba funding, and
wants to increase his Cuban programming.
So on this trip, Sarah Doty, the incredibly
able SSRC staffer for the Working Group, and
I arranged to meet Bronfman in Havana to
investigate possible convergences between
the Foundation’s interests and those of the
Cuban academic community. We had a series
of interesting meetings. Sunday night we had
dinner with the Cuban representative to the U.N.
Population Fund (and a former graduate student
of Bronfman’s in Mexico). Monday we spent at
a fascinating German arts organization, the
Fundación Ludwig, and later had dinner with
the Foreign Secretary of the Cuban Academy of
Sciences (the formal SSRC partner organization
in Cuba). Tuesday we visited the University of
Havana both to discuss the WWS program this
spring and to explore possible U.S, research
collaboration on problems of human migration.
Then we visited a new university institute on
human sexuality directed by Mariela Castro
(Raul Castro’s daughter). At that point I had
to leave for the airport, while Sarah and Mario
went on to the well-known and highly-regard
Pedro Kouri Institute, Cuba’s leading tropical
public health research institute. We’ll have to
wait to see what develops from these contacts,
but they are promising.
My trip began last Sunday when my taxi
driver overslept and did not turn up at 5:15
a.m. to take me to Newark airport (I jumped
into my car and just made the flight). It ended
when I discovered at José Marti airport in
Havana that I had lost my exit visa. My first
thought was that I was going to have a much
longer stay in Cuba than I had intended. But
my next thought, that the Cubans wouldn’t
know what to do with me if they kept me,
proved correct. So I arrived back in Princeton
at 1 a.m. last Wednesday, ready to help prepare
for our eight Thanksgiving guests!
FEBRUARY 16, 2010
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO
«INTERNATIONALIZE»
HIGHER ED?
Apparently one of those large associations of
higher education administrators, this one dealing with “international education,” has been
meeting in Washington. I use quotations around
“international education,” since the term does
not have a fixed meaning—and I am pretty sure
that it means something different to me than it
does to the Association of International Education Administrators. Or to Martha Kanter, the
Obama under secretary of education, who told
the meeting that the administration is committed to internationalizing American education
from K through 16. The Chronicle report on
the meeting quotes Kanter as announcing that
“international education cannot be seen as an
add-on…. The skills and knowledge acquired
in international education are the same skills
graduates need to succeed in the economy.”
Speaking today at the same conference, Nancy
Zimpher, president of SUNY, urged participants
to act to implement international-education
programs on their campuses. Zimpher stressed
that “universities’ international work had to be
done in the context of trade and immigration
policy.” According to The Chronicle, Zimpher
concluded that “vision trumps everything.”
Indeed, but whose vision? What vision?
Judging by the excerpts in The Chronicle, the
vision of “international education” at the AIEA
meeting is crudely utilitarian—education as
a strategy for economic growth. I can understand why government officials and public
university presidents feel the need to make
such arguments, but I hope they also have
a broader and deeper sense of the cognitive
potential of international education. The skills
needed to succeed in the economy are indeed
appropriately taught in our universities, but
if those skills are too narrowly construed they
will not be as useful as their proponents claim.
We have been discussing international education for many years, and “internationalization”
has been one of the poster children for educational leadership for the past quarter-century,
but we are still not agreed on what the markers
of such education might be. Study abroad?
Foreign-language acquisition? Knowledge of
“foreign” cultures? Internationalized faculties
and student bodies? Internationalization of
curricula? Each of those approaches has its
proponents, and one might name other approaches, but there is no consensus as to what
these phrases mean. What should we do to
“internationalize” the curriculum? How should
18
BRAINSTORM
we present foreign cultures? And so forth.
Further, what programmatic steps must
be taken to implement internationalization
on our campuses? Do we have adequate faculty resources for teaching about the world
outside our borders? Area studies have been
dramatically weakened, for instance, and have
tended to disappear in many social science
fields—would Henry Rosovsky, a specialist on
Japan, get tenure in today’s Harvard Economics Department? Is the Fulbright Program as
effective in supporting the foreign area training of American graduate students as it once
was? What sorts of foreign study programs are
educationally most effective—or should we
simply be concerned to get American students
out of the United States for at least a year?
More of our students are studying abroad,
and at some level that must be a positive development, but are we doing all that we might
to enhance their understanding of the experience? Does it matter where they go to study
abroad? Are we truly succeeding in encouraging
our students to acquire deep facility in foreign languages, especially the less commonly
learned languages? Or, on a completely different
level, are American universities playing a truly
active (and reactive) role in the international
educational arena?
I certainly agree with President Zimpher
that vision is the key, but her vision of internationalization is not mine. What concerns
me is enhancing the cognitive experience of
undergraduates, and I would prioritize those
programs that address student learning directly.
Until students have deeply internationalized
cognitive experiences, they will not fully benefit
from international education. Au fond, I think
we have to think and talk about the problem
as educators, not marketers.
MARCH 11, 2010
TRAVEL TO CUBA
For those of us who are committed to the notion
that it is important for the United States to
open up intellectual and cultural relations with
Cuba, the last year has been quite frustrating.
We had hoped that the Obama administration
would reject the exceptionally restrictive policies
of George W. Bush’s presidency since Obama
would not be as self-evidently obligated to
the Cuban-American hardliners as Bush had
been. Indeed, since a Latin American summit
was scheduled to take place only a month after
President Obama’s inauguration, we thought
there was a good chance that the new admin-
istration would signal its commitment to open
engagement with the southern hemisphere by
announcing that it was abandoning most or
all of the Bush restrictions on travel by Americans to Cuba.
But of course Senator Menendez lost no
time in signaling that he would use his considerable power to oppose any relaxation of the
Bush policies, and the new policy announced
by Secretary of State Clinton merely removed
restrictions on Cuban American family travel
and remittances—in other words, the Obama
policy was basically a return to the policies of
President Clinton, which advocates of openness
(like myself) had thought needlessly restrictive.
There has been considerable pressure on
Congress to lift the travel restrictions and to
increase U.S. food sales to Cuba, thanks to an
unlikely coalition of advocates of more open
cultural and political relations with advocates
of increased commercial relations between Cuba
and the U.S. There was in fact a hearing in the
House on H.R.4645, a bill to open travel to all
U.S. citizens and to facilitate food sales. There
have been quite a few votes for such bills,
but none has passed in both Houses, and the
administration has yet to signal its support
for a new beginning in Cuba policy.
On March 9, Paul Basken covered for the
Chronicle a meeting in Washington of the
Emergency Coalition to Defend Educational
Travel (ECDET), an informal group, largely of
university faculty, that was formed in 2004 in
response to the announcement of new restrictions on travel by the Bush administration
(admission: I have been a supporter of ECDET).
The meeting (which I could not attend) was
presumably aimed at supporting the pending
legislation in the House.
Basken reports learning that “only 63 American students from 10 universities” are now
studying in Cuba. If so, a high proportion are
the nine Princeton students in my department
who are currently enrolled at the University
of Havana—and who, so far as I can tell, are
having a very good academic experience there.
The point is that the Bush regulations forbade
short visits by student groups, such as the 15
or 20 students Princeton’s Program in Latin
American Studies used to send during the spring
break, and permitted students only to study
in Cuba by registering in a Cuban institution
for at least 10 weeks. This policy has been
continued by the Obama administration.
But American institutions, faculty and
students are also hampered by the licensing
procedures maintained by the Office of Foreign
Assets Control (OFAC) at Treasury, by the visa
procedures maintained by the State Department,
and more. All of these have made it difficult for
American faculty and students to go to Cuba
to do research, study and the like.
Basken reports some skepticism that it is
worthwhile for American faculty to attempt
to do research in Cuba on the grounds that
the Cuban government makes it impossible to
do “real research.” There is some truth to such
concerns, and they will not surprise any of us
who have earlier worked in the Soviet Union,
China, Vietnam or Eastern Europe prior to 1989.
Of course there are restrictions, especially
in some areas of the social and natural sciences.
There are some kinds of research that simply
cannot be done in such political environments.
Needless to say, there are comparable limitations
on research, especially social science research,
in many other countries around the world.
But there are also important opportunities
in such countries, and in Cuba, for significant
work in many fields of the sciences, humanities, and even the social sciences. And there are
great opportunities for collaboration between
Cuban and American scholars. We have a lot to
learn about one another, and from one another.
So apart from appeasing the Cuban-American
hardliners (who are surely no longer a majority
of the Cuban-American community), why has
the Obama administration been so reluctant
to remove most or all of the restrictions? Last
year in Istanbul the President asserted that
“exchanges can break down walls between us,”
echoing the spirit of J. William Fulbright on
the need for mutuality in cultural exchange.
The newly appointed Assistant Secretary
for Latin American Affairs (a serious academic
from Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service),
recently said in Spain that the administration
would open relations with Cuba “to have much
more communication from one society to the
other society.” I hope he follows through. I am
committed to the view that enhanced openness
would be good for both societies, whereas the
tired policy of embargo has not in all these
year achieved its objectives. Let’s give mutual
understanding a chance!
19
A TALE OF THREE BUILDINGS:
BRAZIL’S ESTADO NOVO
BY BRUNO CARVALHO
Greek columns, in Thomas Jefferson’s designs
for the University of Virginia, might evoke democracy. In Albert Speer’s designs for Berlin
during the Third Reich, similar columns serve
to project imperial power. Perhaps more so
than other art forms, architecture faces that
paradox: outside of their historical contexts,
very similar buildings or design elements
can signify very different things. In a sense,
this paradox is even more present in Latin
America, where architecture has stood at the
crossroads of ideological battles through much
of the 20th century.
In Rio de Janeiro, Brazil’s capital until the
inauguration of Brasília in 1960, architectural
design keenly reflected both local political
pressures and the country’s aspired place on
the world stage. One of the most top-down,
orchestrated examples was the construction
of the Avenida Central (now known as the Ave-
Bruno Carvalho (assistant professor, Department of
Spanish and Portuguese Languages and Cultures)
earned the B.A. in Comparative Literature from
Dartmouth College and a Ph.D. in Romance Languages and Literatures from Harvard University.
His research interests focus on some of the
intersections between urban development and
cultural expressions. He has published articles on
topics like the relation between Rio de Janeiro’s
beaches and modernity, as well as on how Brazil
functions as a cultural space in the fiction of
Jorge Luis Borges. He has also collaborated (with
Kenneth Maxwell) on a forthcoming introduction
and critical edition in Portuguese of the earliest
versions of the United States constitutions, which
circulated in 18th century Brazil and played a
role in movements to overthrow the monarchy.
Currently, he is working on a book tentatively
entitled Porous City: Afro-Jewish Cultural Spaces
of Rio de Janiero (1810–1945). Forthcoming is
«From Iberia to Recife: Mysticism and Modernity in
Manuel Bandeira’s Earlier Poetry» to be publised
in the Luso-Brazilian Review.
(traditional painted ceramic tile-work) made
reference to Portuguese heritage. Although the
extent of Le Corbusier’s direct role in the final
design has been the object of controversy, his
influence remains undeniable.
Another two buildings, which have received
considerably less attention from architectural
historians, are just as crucial to understanding what University of Maryland historian
Daryle Williams terms “culture wars” in his
book Culture Wars in Brazil. These internal
tensions pervaded Brazil’s political and social
life from 1937 to 1945—the period of Getúlio
Vargas’ authoritarian Estado Novo. The buildings
were designed to face the monumental Avenida
Presidente Vargas, and were inaugurated in
1944, at the same time as the avenue. The two
neighboring skyscrapers, though, share certain
architectural elements that immediately set
them apart from the MEC, which stood on the
In the 1930s, a new generation of Brazilian architects
were at the forefront of architectural modernity, exuding confidence and determined not to lag behind the
newest trends.
nida Rio Branco), from 1904-1906. Inspired by
Haussmann’s 19th century reforms in Paris,
Rio’s own urban intervention was in some ways
born outdated. Its façades, variations on the
French Eclecticism of the École des Beaux-Arts,
would be considered old-fashioned within a
little over a decade of their construction.
In the 1930s, a new generation of Brazilian
architects were at the forefront of architectural
modernity, exuding confidence and determined
not to lag behind the newest trends. The design team for the fourteen-story building that
was to host the Ministry of Health and Education (later, the Ministry of Education and
Culture, or MEC), an organ created during the
Getúlio Vargas regime, included Lúcio Costa,
Affonso Eduardo Reidy, and Oscar Niemeyer,
who would go on to become some of the country’s most influential architects. The building,
completed in 1942 but only inaugurated in
1945, was located on the site of the leveled
Castelo Hill landmark. It was among the first
to incorporate bold elements of the International Style—reinforced concrete, pilotis, and
a shading system known as brise-soleil. The
use of Cândido Portinari’s modernist azulejos
other side of downtown Rio, towards the bay.
Like the MEC, both of these imposing projects
were commissioned by the state, were widely
covered by the press, and sought to project the
image of a modern nation. The three buildings,
however, embodied competing versions of what
modernity meant.
The monumental designs for the buildings
facing the new avenue no longer took their cues
almost exclusively from architecture based
in France. Brazilian urban historian Evelyn
Furquim Werneck Lima suggests the influence
of Hugh Ferriss’ The Metropolis of Tomorrow
(1929), which conceives of numerous toweredifices resembling Mesopotamian towers
known as ziggurats for the business district
of Manhattan (Avenida Presidente Vargas: uma
drástica cirurgia).
In his designs for the Quartel General do
Exército (now known as the Palácio Duque
de Caxias) Cristiano Stockler das Neves, a
graduate of the University of Pennsylvania,
sought to ally the Beaux-Arts classic spirit with
practical aims developed by North Americans.
The building, planned and built before Brazil
20
Photo courtesy of Bruno Carvalho
RECENT
FACULTY
WRITINGS
ESTADO NOVO
of the press. For example, the April 10, 1943
Revista da Semana celebrates the new Central
Station as a “brilliant demonstration of labor
and of progress.”
In the following year, similar terms would
be employed during the official inauguration
of the Avenida Presidente Vargas. In a period when the World War dominated the front
important in the universe […], it will give to
the city features worthy of its grand nature.”
The portrayals of the three major buildings
in the tightly-controlled press clearly favored
the version of architectural modernity represented by the Army Headquarters and the
Central do Brasil. As early as September 1937
(the month of Brazil’s independence day) the
Perhaps symbolically, the Central Station has its back
to the Morro da Providência, the very first of the city’s
favelas.
pages of newspapers, the September 3rd, 1944,
edition of the newspaper A Manhã, directed
by the modernist writer Cassiano Ricardo,
dedicated its prime spot to a picture of the
new avenue and buildings, under the heading
“it will be one of the greatest avenues in the
world!” The caption read: “one of the most
Revista da Semana published the project for
“The New Palace of War,” along with photographs
of the president and other authorities laying
down the foundation stone. In the pages of
that same publication, the nearly ubiquitous
21
Photo courtesy of Bruno Carvalho
joined the Allies on August 22, 1942, also has
elements bearing great similarity to projects
by Albert Speer and Wilhelm Kreis in Third
Reich Germany, reminders of the Estado Novo’s
ideological affinities to the Axis Powers. The
imposing symmetric spatial arrangement of
its façade—vast ten-story wings on both sides
of a twenty-three story tower building—were
meant to evoke a general marching in front of
his divisions. The layout and position of the
building in relation to the avenue take into account its use as a stage for military parades—a
function highlighted by weeklies with nationwide distribution in their Independence Day
spreads, which covered the very first parades
after Brazil’s official entrance into the war. The
Revista da Semana and O Malho, distributed
throughout the country, dedicated several pages
to photographs of marching soldiers, with the
building’s massive façade and tower frequently
in the background.
Right beside the Army Headquarters, the
new main railway station Central do Brasil
certainly seems to echo its neighbor through
the iconic tower, scale and use of similar materials. Begun in March 1936, the building’s
design was altered during the Estado Novo
to dramatically increase its proportions and
monumentality, ending up with an Art Déco
tower of twenty-nine floors upon its inauguration on March 29, 1943. Adorned on its four
faces with enormous clocks spanning six of
the top floors, the new building was Rio de
Janeiro’s tallest skyscraper, and Brazil’s second after the Edifício Martinelli in São Paulo.
Media coverage of the inauguration, timed to
coincide with the station’s 85th anniversary,
highlighted the clock as one of the four largest in the world. Architects Adalberto Szilard
and Geza Heller were primarily responsible
for the final design, a modification on Roberto
de Carvalho’s original project.
All three buildings seem to embody the
Vargas regime’s vision for a new, modern nation,
drawing on different versions of progress in
various architectural forms. The buildings were
intended for major institutional functions: the
national army, transportation (and indirectly,
industrial labor—represented by the clock),
education and health. Official rhetoric—particularly in regards to the avenue—attempted
to insert the constructions within discourses
of the Departamento de Imprensa e Propaganda (Department of Press and Propaganda,
or DIP). The goal was to substitute the culture
of malandragem and bohemianism with the
exaltation of discipline, highlighting a work
ethic. The echoes are clear in the language
Rubén Gallo (Spanish & Portuguese) was promoted to full professor in the Department of
Spanish and Portuguese Lanugages and Cultures, effective February 1, 2010.
The launch of Review 80 (Mexico: The
21st-century Issue), on May 20, 2010, featured
comments, readings,
and discussion with
Rubén Gallo (Freud’s
Mexico: Into the Wilds
of Psychoanalysis), the
issue’s guest editor.
Gallo moderated a discussion with authors
Mónica de la Torre (Talk
Shows), Fabrizio Mejía
Madrid (Tequila, DF), Guillermo Sheridan (Poeta
con paisaije [biography of Octavio Paz]), and
Martín Solares (Los minutos negros; The Black
Minutes). The work of the preceding appears
in the special issue, together representing an
idiosyncratic cross-section of contemporary
Mexican writing. This Americas Society program was co-presented by the Mexican Cultural
Institute of New York.
Review 80 is comprised of articles by leading
scholars and writers Christopher Domínguez,
Viviane Mahieux, John Mraz, and Juan Villoro,
on key figures and iconoclasts in Mexican literature including Heriberto Yépez, Cube Bonifant,
the Casasolas brothers, and Roberto Bolaño;
and fiction, poetry, and essays by the above
writers as well as by Humberto Beck, Valeria
Luiselli, Antonio Ortuño, and Ignacio Padilla.
Leon-François Hoffmann
(French & Italian)
Haïti: Regards (L’Harmattan, 2010).
Faustin Soulouque d’Haïti dans l’histoire et la
littérature (L’Harmattan, 2009).
“Representations of the Haitian Revolution in
French Literature.” In The World of the Haitian
Revolution. D.P. Geggus & N. Fiering, eds. (Indiana
University Press, 2009).
“La République dominicaine et les Dominicains
dans la fiction haïtienne.” In The Caribbean Writer as Warrior of the Imaginary. K. Gyssels & B.
Ledent eds. (Rodopi, 2009).
“L’haïtienne fut-elle une révolution?” Haïti
1804: Lumières et ténèbres. (Vervuert, 2008).
“La Littérature d’Haïti: quelques repères.” In
Analyse et enseignement des literatures francophones. Marc Quaghebeur, ed. (Peter Lang, 2008).
James Irby
(Spanish & Portuguese Languages & Cultures)
Selected Recent Publications:
“Speaking to the Living & the Dead: Lezama’s
Ode to Casal.” La Habana Elegante: Revista Semestral de Literatura y Cultura Cubana, Caribeña,
Latinoamericana, y de Estética (March 2010).
Translations of two poems by José Lezama
Lima: “Thoughts in Havana” and “Ode to Julián
del Casal.” In The Whole Island: Six Decades of
Cuban Poetry, M. Weiss, ed. (University of California Press, 2009).
Robert Karl
(History)
H-Net/H-Diplo roundtable review of Bradley Lynn’s,
Colombia & the United States: The Making of an
Inter-American Alliance, 1939–1960. www.h-net.
org/%7Ediplo/roundtables/PDF/Roundtable-XI-17.pdf
Douglas S. Massey (Sociology and Public Affairs) delivered the second talk in this year’s
President’s Lecture Series, titled “America’s
War on Immigrants: Causes, Consequences &
Solutions” on Thursday, December 10, 2009, in
Friend Center. Massey studies international
migration, race and housing, discrimination,
education, urban poverty and Latin America.
In his lecture,
Massey addresses U.S.
border enforcement efforts from the 1980s to
the present. He argues
for a new course based
on a philosophy of immigration management
rather than immigrant
repression, following
the successful model of economic integration
under the European Union.
Massey earned the Ph.D. in sociology from
Princeton in 1978 and joined the faculty of
the Department of Sociology and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public & International
Affairs in 2003.
Selected Recent Awards and Honors:
President, American Academy of Political and
Social Science, 2006–present.
Distinguished Career Award, International
Migration Section, American Sociological Association, 2009.
Award for Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship in Population, for “From Illegal to Legal:
Estimating Previous Illegal Experience among New
Legal Immigrants to the United States” (published
in Demography).
Connor, Phillip, and Douglas S. Massey. “Economic Outcomes among Latino Migrants to Spain
and the United States: Differences by Source
Region & Legal Status.” International Migration
Review (2010).
Pedro Meira Monteiro (Spanish & Portuguese
Languages & Cultures) has been appointed Chief
Editor of ellipsis, the peer-reviewed journal of
the American Portuguese Studies Association
(2010–16). In addition to the printed edition,
ellipsis has an online open-access version:
www.ellipsis-apsa.com.
Professor Meira Monteiro recently lectured
in Mexico at the Instituto Mora, in Brazil at
the Instituto Cultural Itaú and the University
of São Paulo, and in Canada at the University
of Toronto.
“As raízes do Brasil no espelho de Próspero.”
In O Código Morse: ensaios sobre Richard Morse. B.
Domingues & P. Blasenheim, ed. (Belo Horizonte:
Editora da UFMG, 2010).
“Afterword: No pertenecer perteneciendo:
En torno a las cinco estaciones del amor.” In
Las cinco estaciones del amor, by João Almino.
(Buenos Aires 2009).
“O último conto policial de Borges e o que
havia no labirinto.” Translation of “El últmo cuento
policial de Borges y lo que había en el laberinto,”
by Pablo M. Ruiz. Revista do Instituto de Estudos
Brasileiros (48, 2009).
“Richard Morse, a paixão latino-americana.”
In Um enigma chamado Brasil: 29 intérpretes e
um país. A. Botelho & L.M. Schwarcz, eds. (São
Paulo, 2009).
Ignacio Rodríguez-Iturbe (Civil and Environmental Engineering) an environmental engineer
and pioneer in the field of ecohydrology, has
been elected to membership in the National
Academy of Sciences, one of the highest honors
in all areas of science.
Rodríguez-Iturbe, the James S. McDonnell
Distinguished University Professor of Civil
and Environmental Engineering, is a leading
figure in the field of ecohydrology, which combines hydrology and ecology to understand
how the flow of water through the landscape
interacts with living organisms and ecosystems. In a paper published in Nature in 2008,
Rodríguez-Iturbe and colleagues developed a
simple model for predicting the biodiversity
of fish in river networks.
He has been widely recognized for his
contributions, including the Stockholm Water Prize in 2002 and the Bowie Medal and
Edward O. Wilson Biodiversity Technology
Pioneer Award in 2009.
Rodríguez-Iturbe was among 72 new members and 18 foreign associates elected April 27,
2010, at the academy’s 147th annual meeting.
Adapted from http://www.princeton.
edu/main/news/archive/S27/23/98C53/index.
xml?section=people
22
Photos (left to right) courtesy of the Sigmund Freud Foundation, Douglas Massey
FACULTY UPDATES
WORK-INPROGRESS
FALL 2009
LUNCH SEMINARS
JOCELYN OLCOTT
The PLAS lunch seminar series
is designed to foster intellectual exchange among Latin
Americanists at Princeton and
to encourage dialogue among
various disciplines.
During the 2009-10 Academic Year, seven members of
PLAS’s Associated Faculty presented their current research
projects.
Shelby Cullum Davis Center for Historal Studies & Duke University • September 23, 2009
Pulled out of the Closet?: International Women’s Year and the Event of the Mexican Lesbian
Mexican feminist literature on the 1975 International Women’s Year Conference in Mexico City
presents starkly dichotomous views of its importance. Although the historiography on transnational
feminism often depicts the conference as a watershed moment, Mexican feminists, many of whom
received their political education during the 1968 student protests viewed these officially endorsed
proceedings with suspicion and mentioned them principally as a backdrop to the more radical
counter-conferences orchestrated by leftist and feminist organizations. Lesbian feminists, however,
continue to point to the 1975 conference as the moment that Mexican lesbians emerged, as activist
Claudia Hinojosa put it, “out of the darkest corners of the closet.” Olcott’s lecture considers
what philosopher Alain Badiou might call the “event” of the Mexican lesbian—the “interpretive
intervention” during which a subject is named and interpreted as such—and argues for the critical
role of cosmopolitanism in framing this interpretive intervention.
ROBERT KARL
History • October 7, 2009
Community Development and Colombia’s Cold War, 1960—1966
Karl recasts Colombia’s Cold War experience in the 1960s by emphasizing peaceful forms of political
participation in community development programs rather than the traditional focus on violence
and insurgency. No government initiative in the 1960s involved as many people as the community
development movement, which also brought in Colombian academics, clergy, and students, making
it a dense site of Cold War activity, as contesting groups sought to define the direction and content
of community development. Karl highlights the transnational nature of the movement, going beyond
U.S. foreign aid programs to consider how different kinds of transnational networks influenced the
movement. He also underscores the deep ambivalence of “progress” in Latin America’s so-called
“decade of development.”
GUSTAVO GUERRERO
Program in Latin American Studies & Université de Picardie Jules Verne • November 11, 2009
Latin American Literature Looking East
The relationship between contemporary Latin American literature and the cultures of Asia, which
until now has received little attention, are long-standing, extensive, and significant. Indeed, these
relations, which began with modernism, run through nearly the entire twentieth century. The early
travels of Mexican José Juan Tablada (1871–1945) to Japan in 1900 reconnect two histories which
earlier had been united by the Spanish Empire for several centuries. Tablada was followed by
Argentine Ricardo Buiraledes (1886–1927) and Chilean Pablo Neruda (1904–1973), who visited Asia
in the 1910s and 1920s. Later, rediscovering their common past and creating new ways of rethinking
their identity, twentieth-century Latin American writers like Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986), Octavio
Paz (1914–1998), and Severo Sarduy (1937–1993), distanced themselves from Westerners’ visions of
Asia and opened the way for a different and unique intercultural dialogue. Beyond examining these
individual cases, Guerrero approaches the larger phenomena from a comparative perspective, tracing
the evolution of these relations over time.
BEATRIZ JAGUARIBE DE MATTOS
Program in Latin American Studies & Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro • December 9, 2009
Memories of the Future:
Images, Narratives, Monuments, and the Aesthetics of Memory in Brazil and Argentina
Jaguaribe examines how the future, envisioned as access to a redemptive national modernity, was
projected via narratives, images, and monuments during the Vargas era (1930–1945) in Brazil and the
Perón regimes (1946–1955) in Argentina. From a contemporary perspective, she examines how these
fabrications of the future were converted into modernist ruins, consumer nostalgia, media products,
and monumental sites. By exploring public photography, the rhetoric of propaganda in graphic
design, specific architectural constructions, and imagined monuments, she seeks to understand what
has become of these legacies, how they respond to current cultural predicaments, and how they are
disputed in contending politics of national memory.
23
SPRING 2010
RACHEL PRICE
Spanish & Portuguese Languages & Cultures • February 8, 2010
The Uses and Abuses of “The Atlantic”
Price evaluates the promises and pitfalls of working within an “Atlantic” frame by returning to the
history of the Atlantic as a concept. Even before Columbus’ first voyages, the Atlantic existed as a
theological and philosophical idea, one that would persist throughout the work of modern philosophers
such as Hegel and Ortega y Gasset. To use the Atlantic as a productive frame today, it is crucial to
address its ambiguous role in the history of philosophy and in philosophies of history. While pioneers
of “Atlantic studies” frequently highlight the extent to which the Caribbean and the Atlantic are at
the center of “modernity,” rather than peripheral to it, Price argues that Atlantic studies must go
beyond demonstrations of the modernity of the Atlantic to suggest the extent to which “modernity” as a
concept—not a historical condition—is indebted to trans-Atlantic historiography.
LILIA KATRI MORITZ SCHWARCZ
Program in Latin American Studies & Universidade de São Paulo • March 1, 2010
Lima Barreto: The Anxious Thermometer of a Young Republic
Schwarcz examines the political and social vitality in Brazil at the end of the 19th century. On one hand,
the abolition of slavery in May 1888 held out the promise of equality present and future; on the other, the
Republican project of November 1889 heralded a liberal political ideology and a utopia in the practice of
free will, something previously unknown in a nation built upon forced labor. Yet, while politicians and
ideologues waved the banner of citizenship, the evolutionary science of the times precluded full citizenship.
Being black or mestizo in such a context was to be denied real equality, liberty, and intellectual autonomy.
This was the core dilemma faced by black intellectuals of the time as they strove to combat scientific
racism, even if that meant drawing politically upon the notion of race. The few individuals who took up
a strong public position, writers such as Lima Barreto, ended up living a dilemma of permanent conflict:
in their struggle to recuperate their social identity, they ran up against a science that categorically
denied the essence of their human dignity.
BRUNO CARVALHO
Spanish and Portuguese Languages and Cultures • April 19, 2010
Writing the “Cradle of Samba”: Carnival, Race, and Urban Reform in Rio de Janeiro (1930–1945)
Intended as the fifth and final chapter of a cultural history of Rio de Janeiro’s Cidade Nova, Carvalho’s
lecture explores the role of the neighborhood’s street carnival in incipient racial discourses, through
a reading of texts that became influential during the 1930s, especially Graça Aranha’s A Viagem
Maravilhosa and Arthur Ramos’ O Folk-lore Negro do Brasil. Despite the porosity that characterized
Cidade Nova’s history within Rio’s urban fabric, throughout that decade it was increasingly portrayed
as heterotopic, a space of the “other.” Considering changes at a national level–the 1930 coup that
brought Getúlio Vargas to power and the development of radio–Carvalho turns to a discussion of the
first comprehensive urban plans for Brazil’s capital after the “belle époque,” commissioned to the
French urbanist Alfred Agache.
CHECK THE PLAS
WEBSITE FOR THE
FALL 2010-11 EVENTS
SCHEDULE
24
FELLOWS
PLAS VISITING SCHOLARS, 2010–11
CAROLA BARRIOS DE ADAM
Visiting Research Scholar, PLAS and Visiting Professor, PLAS and the School of Architecture
(Fall 2010-11)
Carola Barrios is assistant professor at the Instituto de Urbanismo at the Universidad Central de
Venezuela, Caracas. In Fall 2010-11 Barrios will teach LAS 406/ARC 411/SPA 406 Latin American
Studies Seminar Modern Architecture Goes South: Museum, Mass Media and Pan-Americanism.
The seminar will closely examine the displacement of the architecture of the Modern Movement
from Europe and the United States to Latin America. Using comparative case studies of Venezuela
and Brazil, the course will analyze the common influences of MoMA’s cultural strategies and the
impact of mass media on the dissemination of Modern Architecture to the «South» in the context of
WWII. By putting these two relevant experiences in parallel, the architectural journey intends also
to make a comprehensive review of Latin American contributions to Modern Architecture through
some of the most significant projects developed in both countries.
AGUSTÍN FERRARO
Visiting Research Scholar, PLAS and Visiting Associate Professor, PLAS and the Department of Sociology
(Spring 2010-11)
Agustín Ferraro is associate professor in the Institute for Iberoamerican Studies at the University
of Salamanca. His research interests include the public administration in Latin America, and
governance and theory of state. Most recently, he has published Reinventando el Estado. Por una
administración pública democrática y profesional en Iberoamérica (2009), a research essay which
received an award in 2008 from Spain’s Instituto Nacional de Administración Pública, and “Friends
in High Places. Congressional Influence on the Bureaucracy in Chile” ( Latin American Politics and
Society, 2008). In Spring 2010-11, Ferraro will teach LAS 402 Latin American Studies Seminar:
Surviving Good Governance: Public Administration after the Reforms.
CHRISTINA HALPERIN
Lecturer in the Council of the Humanities and Art and Archaeology;
Latin American Studies-Cotsen Postdoctoral Fellow in the Society of Fellows (2010–2013)
Images courtesy of named individuals
Christina Halperin, a Meso-american archaeologist, will teach LAS 302 Gender and Latin American
States in Spring 2010–11. Halperin’s course will examine the intersection of gender, power, and
identity in various states in Mesoamerica. It will explore states of different time periods and political movements (e.g., pre-Columbian, colonial, national and transnational state systems), bisecting
traditional divides in prehistory and history. Rather than approach gender from an evolutionary
perspective, readings and discussions will focus on comparative analyses that both challenge monolithic perspectives of social power and underscore historical contingency in the constitution of gender.
25
ROUND-UP:
2009-10
PLAS
VISITING
SCHOLARS
Gustavo Guerrero (Université de Picardie Jules
Verne, Amiens, France)
Visiting Research Scholar, Program in Latin
American Studies, and Visiting Associate Professor,
Program in Latin American Studies and Spanish &
Portuguese Languages & Cultures (2009–2010)
José Lezama Lima/Recordando a José Lezama
Lima.” Included presentations by Princeton
faculty members Gustavo Guerrero, James Irby,
and Rachel Price; moderated by Arcadio Díaz
Quiñones, May 4, 2010, Prospect House Library.
Fall 2009-10
Course:
LAS 406/COM 411/EAS 406/SPA 406 Latin
American Studies Seminar: Borges, Paz and
Sarduy: A Window on Asia
Research:
Finishing bibliographic research for the Project
“El llanero: historia de un símbolo nacional”.
Activities:
Participation in the symposium Beyond the
Nation in Twenty-First Century, Latin American Literature and Criticism, October 9-10,
2009 at the Whitney Humanities Center, Yale
University (paper: “A Post-national Latin American Literature?” to be published in Revista
Iberoamericana)
PLAS Work-in-Progress Lunch Seminar: “Latin
American Literature Looking East”, November
18, 2009, Princeton University.
Research:
Final editing for Cuerpo Plural, an anthology
of contemporary Latin American Poetry. (58
poets of the global era from 23 countries and
Spanish speaking areas of the Americas, selected and edited, with a general introduction
to XXI century Latin American Poetry).
Bibliographic research for the project “El llanero:
historia de un símbolo nacional”.
Spring 2009-10
Course:
LAS 403/COM 420/SPA 407 Latin American
Studies Seminar: Latin America, Literature
in Movement Between Two Centuries, 1990-2010
Activities:
Participation in the symposium V International
Congress of the Spanish Language, The Americas and the Spanish Language at Valparaiso
University, Chile, March 1-7, 2010 (Congress
suspended after the earthquake of February
27th; paper: “Bello and globalization” published
on the Website of the Congress http://www.
congresodelalengua.cl/programacion/seccion_i/
guerrero_gustavo.htm)
Presentation of “New poetry from the Americas”,
in the occasion of the publication of Cuerpo
Plural (Editorial Pre-Textos and Instituto Cervantes, Valencia-Madrid-Buenos Aires, 2010,
640 pp. and a DVD, with interviews with the
poets) at Santiago de Chile, March 11, 2010.
Attendance at the conference “Literature and
globalization in Latin America, 1990-2010,” The
Kronik Lectures Series at Cornell University,
April 27, 2010.
Participant in the roundtable “To Remember
Beatriz Jaguaribe de Mattos (Universidade
Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)
Visiting Senior Research Scholar in the Program
in Latin American Studies, and Visiting Professor,
Program in Latin American Studies and Spanish &
Portuguese Languages & Cultures (2009–2010)
During the fall 2009-10 semester my initial
endeavors were geared toward adjusting my
course syllabus in order to meet the needs and
interests of the Princeton undergraduates I
was teaching in the course LAS 401/SPA 410
Latin American Studies Seminar: Latin American Cities: Realism and Urbanism, which was
not envisioned as an overall survey of Latin
American cities but consisted of a selective
exploration of the cultural repertoires of key
Latin American cities and how they are represented in literature, photography and film.
The course stressed the link between the use
of realist aesthetics and the emergence of new
social protagonists, urban violence, and political testimony. It emphasized, in this sense,
the production of new films, photographs and
novels that make use of a diversity of realist
aesthetics in their attempt to diagnose the urban
uncertainties of Latin American metropolitan
experiences. Each case study had a specific
theme such as the visibility of the favelas in
Rio de Janeiro, the politics of memory and the
emergence of new immigrants in Buenos Aires,
and the implosion of the urban in Mexico City.
The students in this course came from a
variety of disciplines. While seeking to engage
their diverse research interests, my attempt
was also to provide them with an informed
conceptual and theoretical analysis that would
be exemplified by the case studies. While dealing with the case studies, they were shown
photographs and films not readily available
in the United States.
In the spring 2009-10 semester, I taught LAS
404/SPA 409/POR 409 Latin American Studies
Seminar: Memories of the Future: National
Imaginaries in Brazil and Argentina, which
had a reduced number of students. In the first
part of the course we focused on an analysis
of the imaginaries of the nation and the future
and on how these were enacted during the
Vargas era in Brazil during the Estado Novo of
26
ROUND-UP
1937-45 and the Perón governments of the late
1940’s and 50’s in Argentina. Through public
propaganda, photography and architectural
constructions, we examined how the national
future was depicted. In the latter part of the
course, we questioned how these memories of
the national past are now recast in museums,
media products, and testimonies. In contrast
to the previous semester, this course had a
much more defined historical and aesthetic
agenda. The discussions were enthusiastically
undertaken, class attendance was absolute and
we were able to establish a very personalized
dialogue.
In contrast to the first course, the students
were offered a denser historical background on
Argentina and Brazil, just as they were exposed
to the contending national formations during
the period of the Second World War. As in the
first course, they were given a rich variety of
iconographic material.
Research Activities:
As a visiting scholar, I attempted to make the
most of Princeton’s extraordinary libraries and
research facilities. During my research period
I had to both amass information regarding
the project that I was researching, namely the
cultural imaginaries of the future during the
Estado Novo of Vargas in Brazil and the first
Perón governments in Argentina, as well as
researching and writing for my book “Through
the Eye of the City” that will be published
by Routledge in 2011. While at Princeton, I
wrote an essay for the Americas Society entitled
“Devouring Cities: Cannibal Metaphors in the
Works of Dias & Riedweg” and wrote a paper,
“Beyond the Real: Realities, Myths and Revelations,” to be submitted for academic publication
this year. I also wrote three chapters of the
aforementioned book for Routledge and completed the research on my project “Memories
of the Future”.
Rio de Janeiro.
Other seminars I gave during my period
as a PLAS fellow were:
“Nobody is like Anybody Else: Realist Aesthetics and the Inventions of the Self.” Paper given
at the seminar “ The Politics of Transparency:
New Uses of Realism in Spanish and Latin
American Film” organized by Professor Alberto
Medina, Spanish and Portuguese Department,
Columbia University, November 13–14, 2009.
“Favela Tours: The Tourist Gaze and the
Representations of the Real”. Paper presented
at the University of Texas, Austin, March 31,
2010 organized by Professors Arturo Arias and
Sonia Roncador, of the Spanish and Portuguese
Department.
“Beyond the Real: Realities, Myths and
Revelations”, Paper presented in a seminar
with Consuelo Lins (ECO/UFRJ, Brazil) and
Sandra Kogut (Independent Filmmaker), organized by Professor Marta Peixoto, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, New York
University, April 20, 2010
“Favelas: Violence, Agency, Media”. Paper
presented at a seminar at Fordham University
together with Professor Jean Franco (Columbia
University), organized by Professor Arnaldo
Cruz, Spanish and Portuguese Department,
April 27, 2010.
Lima Barreto and a nostalgic generation: Brazilian intellectuals in the beginning of the XX
century.
Lilia Katri Moritz Schwarcz (Universidade de
São Paulo, Brazil)
Visiting Senior Research Scholar, Program in
Latin American Studies, and Visiting Professor,
Program in Latin American Studies and History
(Spring 2010)
“Um Beethoven Húngaro em NY,” Brasil Econômico
(3 de abril de 2010).
Spring 2009-10
Course:
LAS 402/HIS 402/POR 410 Latin American Studies Seminar: History of Brazil: An Introduction
History of the intellectuals: Latin-American
interpreters: race, culture and history.
A complete anthology of Lima Barreto’s short
stories (Companhia das Letras, forthcoming).
“Culture in the begining of the XIX century in
Brazil”. In O final do período colonial brasileiro,
Costa and Silva, org. (Madrid, forthcoming).
“O medo que vem do Haití,” Brasil Econômico
(30 de janeiro de 2010).
‘É a promessa de vida” Brasil Econômico (13
de fevereiro de 2010).
“Entre tigres e mijões, ” O Estado de São Paulo,
Caderno Aliás (21 de fevereiro de 2010).
“A neve sabe onde cai,” Brasil Econômico (27
de fevereiro de 2010).
“Tim Burton: você ainda vai ser um!” Brasil
Econômico (13 de março de 2010).
“A generosidade do livreiro-mor: homenagem
a José Mindlin,” O Estado de São Paulo (1 de
março de 2010).
“Dilemas de um nariz,” Brasil Econômico (27
de março de 2010).
“No templo dos modernos,” Brasil Econômico
(10 de abril de 2010)
“No Museu dos bichos mortos,” Brasil Econômico,
(24 de abril de 2010).
Lectures Presented:
“Quota system and affirmative action in Brazil”.
February 24, 2010, at Columbia University.
“Lima Barreto a difficult barometer of Brazil”.
March 1, 2010 at Princeton University.
“Racial theories in Brazil”. March 30, 2010 at
Princeton University.
Seminars:
While at Princeton, I gave two talks at the PLAS
Work-in-Progress sessions. The first entitled
“Memories of the Future” was about my ongoing project on the imaginaries of the national
future undertaken during Vargas’ Estado Novo
and Perón’s first governments in Argentina and
how these national memories are now evoked
in contemporary Argentina and Brazil. The
second talk given together with Bruno Carvalho
from the Department of Spanish and Portuguese Languages and Cultures was focused
on the phenomenon of the “Favela Tours” in
“3 Mulatos,” with José Miguel Wisnick, Arcadio
Díaz Quiñones, Pedro Meira Monteiro (moderator), April 9, 2010, at Princeton University.
“The Brazilian sun: Nicolas-Antoine Taunay
and the French Mission in Rio de Janeiro:
1816-1821”. (The presentation was selected
as a John H. Parry Lecture at Harvard), April
16, 2010, at Harvard University.
“Lima Barreto, and his nervous Brazil,” April
22, 2010 at the University of Columbia.
Research Topics:
27
STUDENT NEWS
PLAS 2010 SENIOR THESIS PRIZES AWARDED
On May 31, 2010 PLAS held its annual Class
Day Ceremony during which the winners of
the Stanley J. Stein Senior Thesis Prize in Latin
American Studies and the newly established
Kenneth Maxwell Senior Thesis Prize in Brazilian and Portuguese Studies were announced.
This was the first year in which PLAS awarded
the Kenneth Maxwell Senior Thesis Prize in
Brazilian and Portuguese Studies, given to the
best thesis on a topic related to Brazil. Kenneth
Maxwell received his Ph.D. from Princeton in
1970 and went on to become one of the most
eminent historians of Brazil and Portugal.
Alex Kerbel Gertner ‘10, a major in Anthropology, won the Stanley J. Stein Prize and
the Kenneth Maxwell Prize for his senior thesis Pharmaceutical Care, Public Experiments,
and Patient Knowledge in the Brazilian Public
Healthcare System. Gertner’s thesis is an anthropological study of the delivery of high-cost,
complex medical treatments through Brazil’s
ailing public health system and efforts to expand treatment access through rights-based
judicial mobilization and South-South technology exchange programs. As his adviser João
Biehl reports, “Alex Gertner is a mature and
socially-minded intellectual, committed to
hand-on learning, and who moves comfortably
between the social and the medical sciences
as well as the humanities.”
Gertner shared the Maxwell Prize with cowinner Andrew Michael Segal ‘10, a major
in Spanish and Portuguese Languages and
Cultures, with a certificate in Latin American
Studies. Segal’s thesis, Imaginação Geográfica:
An Examination of the Instituto Histórico e
Geográfico Brasileiro’s 19th Century Efforts
to Territorialize Brazil, provided a carefully
researched and nuanced analysis of that institution’s response to the dangers of national
disintegration in the first decades of the Brazilian empire. His adviser Pedro Meira Mon-
teiro compliments the work as “outstanding”
and a “real contribution.” Second reader Lilia
Schwarcz deems it “a magnificent thesis that
deserves to be published.”
Ruth Ngolela Byrnes Metzel ’10, a major
in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, with a
certificate in Latin American Studies, won an
honorable mention for the Stanley J. Stein Senior Thesis Prize in Latin American Studies for
her thesis From “Finca” to Forest: Forest Cover
Change and Land Management in Los Santos,
Panama. Her thesis successfully integrates the
natural and social sciences and, according to
Stephen Pacala, Metzel’s adviser, “because she
has caught the process right at its beginning,”
Ruth’s “work should lead to a remarkable case
history of spontaneous reforestation that could
serve as model for the rest of Latin America.”
Ruth Metzel ’10 has been selected to receive
the prestigious Henry Richardson Labouisse
’26 Prize for
2009–10. Administered by
PIIRS to support
postgraduate
work, research,
or study, the
$25,000 prize
will fund Metzel’s work as a
staff member of
the Azuero Earth
Project (AEP), an
NGO dedicated
to conserving
biodiversity on
the Azuero peninsula in Panama.
Metzel’s interest in the region developed
when she studied abroad on the ecology and
environmental biology–sponsored semester in
Panama in spring 2008. She met AEP Board
President Edwina von Gal and Vernon Scholey,
director of the Achotines Laboratory (a field
station of the Inter-American Tropical Tuna
Commission), through one of her courses and
was inspired by their work.
The Azuero peninsula, Metzel explains, has
been used for cattle ranching and agriculture for
centuries. The people who work the land range
from cattle barons to subsistence farmers. A
recent trend to develop the coast for tourism
is pushing the cost of property out of reach
for many and putting pressure on the existing
ecology. The AEP, she says, is working to preserve the ecosystem of the peninsula, protect
its biodiversity, and promote sustainable development by being a resource for information
for farmers, ranchers, and developers.
“When I heard Edwina speak about [AEP’s]
vision for the peninsula and the opportunity
for economic development to be coupled with
environmental sustainability ... I got really
interested,” says Metzel. “I wanted my [senior] thesis to contribute to [their] efforts to
develop a cohesive conservation strategy for
the peninsula.”
Her thesis about forest conservation on the
peninsula began with a graphic information
system project estimating the area’s current
forest coverage. The Labouisse prize will support
Metzel as she expands her thesis by using the
map she is creating to designate priority areas
for conservation and environmental education.
This undertaking will include mapping forestcover change and surveying local landowners on
past, current, and projected land-use practices.
The funding also enables her to assist AEP
Executive Director Omar Lopez in producing
events and educational activities in this, the
organization’s first operational year.
“I am very excited about this opportunity,” says Metzel. “It is a wonderful chance to
translate the conclusions of my senior thesis,
written in an academic setting, into practical
environmental solutions.”
Metzel, who grew up in northern Virginia,
will live and work at the AEP offices in Pedasí,
Los Santos. Her year there begins in September
2010; when it ends, she plans to enroll in a
graduate program in environmental management and/or international development.
The Labouisse prize enables a graduating
senior to engage in a project that exemplifies
the spirit of Henry Richardson Labouisse’s
life and works. Labouisse was a diplomat and
international public servant who championed
the causes of international justice and international development. During his long diplomatic
career, Labouisse not only designed policies
aimed at rebuilding war-torn and crisis-ridden
societies around the globe but also played a
leading role in implementing those policies,
beginning in post–World War II Europe.
The Labouisse prize was established by
his daughter and son-in-law, Anne and Martin
Peretz, in 1984.
Adapted from PIIRS NEWSLETTER
Spring 2010, with permission.
28
Photo courtesy of PIIRS
RUTH METZEL ‘10 2010 LABOUISSE PRIZE
Five Undergraduates Named Scholars in the Nation’s Service
The Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs has selected five students (Jared Crooks, Kevin McGinnis, Megan McPhee, Marian Messing,
Elias Sánchez-Eppler) to be the 2010 undergraduate cohort of the Scholars in the Nation’s Service Initiative (SINSI), a scholarship program designed to
encourage and prepare exceptional students for careers in the U.S. government.
“This year saw a particularly rich pool of applicants for the SINSI scholarship program,” said SINSI director Barbara Bodine, a former U.S. ambassador
and career senior Foreign Service officer and a diplomat-in-residence at the Wilson School. “Those selected represent the best that Princeton has to
offer—academically strong, deeply committed to public service and enthusiastic about the opportunities to apply their talents, skills and ambitions to
the most daunting challenges facing us as a country, a people and a government going forward in the years ahead.”
All Princeton juniors are eligible to apply for the competitive program. Selected students devote the final three semesters to completing their majors
along with courses in public policy, develop a familiarity with career opportunities in the federal government, and spend the summer after their junior
year in a federal government internship.
Upon earning their bachelor’s degrees, students are admitted into the Wilson School’s two-year master in public affairs (MPA) program. After completing
their first year of graduate study, students work for two years in federal government as part of the SINSI fellowship then return to campus to complete
the MPA program. Scholars also have the opportunity for intensive language training during one summer.
The five 2010 scholars include three Latin American Studies certificate candidates:
• Kevin McGinnis, a Wilson School major and certificate candidate in Latin American studies from
Salisbury, Md., who studies environmental issues—specifically sustainable water resource management—
and Latin American politics. McGinnis has gained experience in his areas of interest through serving with
Engineers Without Borders in Ethiopia and interning with the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington,
D.C. He will participate in the Wilson School’s inaugural semester abroad program at the University of
Havana this spring. He is exploring internships and long-term career options at the U.S. Department of
State, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the U.S. Department of Justice.
• Megan McPhee, a native of Sudbury, Mass., is a Wilson School major and certificate candidate in
Spanish, Latin American studies, and musical performance. She held a PLAS-funded summer internship
with La Asociación Pro Arte y Cultura, a non-profit organization in eastern Bolivia, and spent a semester
abroad in Buenos Aires, Argentina. McPhee hopes to combine her passion for music and the arts with her
interest in international affairs, public diplomacy and stabilization initiatives through a career at the
U.S. Department of State or USAID. She has accepted an internship for this summer at the Department
of State’s Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization working on Haiti, Cuba and an
emerging initiative on Central America.
Kevin McGinnis ‘11
• Elias Sánchez-Eppler, of Amherst, Mass., who is interested in Latin American issues and hopes to
promote international development through a career in the U.S. Foreign Service. He is a Wilson School
major and certificate candidate in Latin American studies. Sánchez-Eppler has lived in Costa Rica,
Spain and Chile. This spring he will join the Wilson School’s study abroad program at the University of
Havana and study demography and development through a policy task force at the University’s Center
for Demographic Studies. He is pursuing a summer internship with USAID or the Millennium Challenge
Corp. Outside of Princeton, Sánchez-Eppler serves on the governing corporation of the American Friends
Service Committee.
Elias Sánchez-Eppler ‘11
Adapted with permission from www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S26/27/13I98/index.xml?section=topstories.
29
Photos courtesy of the Woodrow Wilson School
Megan McPhee ‘11
“The need for talented and committed men and women to enter public service has never been greater.
The challenges we face at home and abroad require a new generation of policy innovators with excellent
analytical skills, a deep understanding of substantive policy issues and a wealth of experience,” said
Wilson School Dean Christina Paxson. “These outstanding individuals demonstrate the remarkable range
of talents among Princeton students as well as a common passion for public service.”
The purposes of the scholarship program, modeled after the Rhodes and Marshall scholars, are twofold.
The first is to raise awareness and the prestige of career government service among a new generation of
college students. The second is to provide these students with the firsthand experience in federal service
and the rigorous academic preparation, language skills and workplace skills needed to succeed. Princeton
formally launched SINSI in February 2006. In February 2007, the Wilson School expanded the program
to include up to five scholarships (two years of study combined with a two-year federal fellowship) for
any U.S. citizens who apply for enrollment in the school’s MPA program. To date, scholars have pursued
internships and fellowships with the departments of State (including a number of embassies abroad),
Defense, Treasury and Agriculture; the Central Intelligence Agency; USAID; the Millennium Challenge
Corp., the Department of the Army; the Council of Economic Advisors; and the White House.
STUDENT AWARDS
GRADUATE STUDENT FIELD RESEARCH FUNDING, SUMMER 2010
NAME
DEPARTMENT
PROJECT
LOCATION
Gavin Arnall
Comparative Literature
Marxism and Psychoanalysis: Art, Literature, and Philosophy
Argentina
Felipe Cala Buendia
Spanish and Portuguese
Culture and Transitional Justice in Peru
Peru
Duanel Diaz-Infante
Passions of the Real, Dialectics of the Revolution (Cuba 1959-2009)
Cuba
Daylet Dominguez
Ethnography, Narration and National Projects in the Hispanic Caribbean (1820-1920)
Dominican Republic &
Puerto Rico
Maria Fajardo
History
When Economists from the North and South Meet: ECLA and IMF Missions to Latin America
Colombia & Chile
Laura Gandolfi
Narrated Objects: Material Culture and Literature at the Turn of the XIX Century in Mexico and
Uruguay
Argentina & Mexico
Camilo Hernandez-Castellanos Spanish and Portuguese
The Ethics of the Gaze: Enrique Metinides and the Mexican Photojournalism of the Fifties
Mexico
Vinay Jawahar
Politics
Decentralization and Police Control in Post-Authoritarian Latin America
Peru
Alejandra Josiowicz
Discourses of Childhood in Argentina and Uruguay (1850-1970)
Argentina & Uruguay
Pablo Landa Ruiloba
Anthropology
Housing, Modernization and the Shifting Histories of Mexico and Brazil
Brazil & Mexico
Noam Lupu
Politics
Party Breakdown in Argentina
Argentina
Marco Martinez
Trans-Migrant Artists in the Jazz Age: Covarrubias, Lam, Homar and Canepa
Mexico & Cuba
Jason McMann
Politics
An Analysis of the Buenos Aires Protocol: Understanding Mercosur's Failed Attempt to
Harmonize Member-State's Foreign Direct Investment Regulation
Uruguay & Argentina
Iwa Nawrocki
History
Church-State Relations in Greater São Paulo, 1970-1989
Brazil
Andrea Oñate-Madrazo
History
Transnational Revolutionary Alliances: Mexico, Cuba, and Central America, 1968-1992
El Salvador, Nicaragua,
Guatemala, & Honduras
Daniel Polk
Anthropology
Water Scarcity and Latin America: A Study of the Politics and Ecology of Infrastructure in Costa
Rica
Costa Rica
Ana Sabau
Between Art and Politics: A Research on Teresa Margolles
Mexico
Adedoyin Teribe
Art and Archaeology
Afro-Brazilian Artisans and Their Architecture in Brazil from the Eighteenth to the Twentieth Century
Brazil
Matthew Treme
Theater & Resistance: Colombia's Children and Mexico's Women
Mexico & Colombia
Enea Zaramella
Musical Enterprise in the Modernist Era: Dialogues Between Political and Literary Languages
Argentina & Mexico
SENIOR THESIS FIELD RESEARCH FUNDING, SUMMER 2010
NAME
DEPARTMENT
PROJECT
LOCATION
Adrian Gallegos ‘11
Photographic Experimentation, Researching the Researchers
Honduras
Daniel Growald ‘11
Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Red Soil, Black Charcoal, Green Grass: A Recipe for Productivity, Carbon Sequestration, and Soil
Improvement on Degraded Lands?
Panama
Ryan Huynh ‘11
Effects of Climate Change on Anole Species in the Bay Islands and Consequences for Habitat Honduras
Loss and Competition
Pauline Nalikka ‘11
Changing Relationship between Brazilian Funk Carioca, Music of the Rio de Janeiro Favelas, and
the Brazilian State
Brazil
Emily Nguyken ‘11
Politics
Voting Policy in Latin America
Chile, Peru
Juliet Phillips ‘11
Large Mammal Population Structure in Response to Human Activity and Disturbance
Honduras
Patricia Sever ‘11
Macedonio Fernández & Jorge Luis Borges
Argentina
Julia Tsui ‘11
Music
Cross-Cultural Analysis of Street Musical Performance
Brazil, Ecuador
Kaya Zelazny ‘11
Correlation between Leaf Character & Nitrogen Fixation in Tropical Forests
Panama
30
SIGMUND SCHOLARS, SUMMER 2010
NAME
PROJECT
LOCATION
Stephanie Alvarez ‘12
Displaced Populations in Bogotá, Medellín, & Florencia
Colombia
Luciana Chamorro ‘12
CIPPEC internship (via IIP)
Argentina
Courtney Crumpler ‘13
The Art of Healing in Brazil: Alternative Approaches to Health Promotion and Care Delivery
Brazil
Aparajita Das ‘12
Terra de paixão e futebol (documentary in Rio de Janeiro)
Brazil
Hannah (Cybil) George ‘12
Sorata: El pueblo de perros
Bolivia
Ricardo Mayo ‘13
Educando a Cuba Nueva
Miami, Florida
PLAS CERTIFICATES, CLASS OF 2010
NAME
DEPARTMENT
SENIOR THESIS TITLE
Carolina Isabel Ardila-Zurek
Politics
“The Rise and Fall of the Medellín and Cali Cocaine Organizations”
Felipe Gutiérrez Cabrera
“Responses to Latin American State Terrorism in Literature and the Visual Arts”
Denzel R.B. Cadet
“The Indelible Stain of Blackness: Expressions of Nationalism in Dominican and Haitian Poetry”
Andrés Rodrigo Guerra
Anthropology
“Pride, Polvo, and Pharmaceuticals: A Case Study on the Asthmatic Anomaly in Puerto Rico”
Carlos Santiago Imberton
Politics
“Understanding Patterns of Violence in El Salvador: Gangs, Governmental Policy and Civilian Response”
Maria J. Lacayo
History
“A Fervent, Frail Hope: Fragile Democracies and the Human Rights Conventions in
Europe and Latin America”
Thomas Vincent López
Woodrow Wilson School
“Combating Coca: From the District of Columbia to el Distrito Capital”
Eric Javier Macías
“Assessing the Cycle of Poverty in the Evaluation of Oportunidades and Bolsa Família: A Cross-national
Study of Conditional Cash Transfer Programs”
Ruth Ngolela Byrnes Metzel
“From Finca to Forest: Forest Cover Change and Land Management in Los Santos, Panama”
Anna Trumbull Moccia-Field
“Worker Participation in Latin American Pension Systems: Lessons from the Reforms in Chile, Argentina, and
Uruguay”
Rafael G. Palomino Badilla
Sociology
“Take It or Leave It: Perceptions towards a Victim Compensation Fund in Northern Mexico”
Kalyani Parthasarathy
Economics
“Capacity Utilization and Economic Policy: Argentina and Brazil: 1970–2004”
Alejandro Perez
“A Devious Odyssey: Roberto Bolaño’s Anti-epic”
Mónica Teresa
Ramírez de Arellano
“Drilling through the Layers of Uncertainty: Brazil’s Social Gain or Resource Curse?”
Fernando Salvador Sánchez
Sociology
“Keeping the Planner’s Promise: The Impact of Building for Olympic Events on the Social and Economic
Demography of the City”
Andrew Michael Segal
“Imaginação Geográfica: An Examination of the Instituto Histórico e Geográfico Brasileiro’s 19th Century Efforts
to Territorialize Brazil”
Gustavo Andrés Silva Cano
“The Worst Solution Except For All the Others: A Cost-Benefit Analysis of Drug Prohibition and Legalization in
Colombia”
Catalina Valencia
Politics
“Colombia: Bending the Rules to Reparative Justice”
Christine Elizabeth Vidmar
Sociology
“Ironbound: An Ethnographic Study of Brazilian Immigrants in Newark, New Jersey”
CONGRATULATIONS!
31
ALUMNI NEWS
JILL JANAÍNA OTTO ’02 NAMED YOUNG GLOBAL LEADER
Jill Janaína Otto ’02, Vice-President of Companhia Financiera Otto, Brazil, has been named a 2010 Young Global Leader by the World
Economic Forum (WEF), which reports, “The Forum of Young Global Leaders is a unique, multi-stakeholder community of exceptional
young leaders who share a commitment to shaping the global future. Each year the World Economic Forum identifies 200–300 extraordinary individuals, drawn from every region of the world. Together, they form a powerful international community that can dramatically impact the global future. Otto is a share holding manager of her 75–year old family business, one of Europe’s largest waste haulers
and recyclables traders as well as the world’s largest waste logistics equipment company. Otto also is President of the Rio Leadership
Institute (ILRIO), a Brazilian think tank. She serves on the Boards of ORT (Organização, Reconstrução e Trabalho) Brasil and the Durham (NC) Nativity School, an inner-city school; and as adviser to Princeton University’s Council on International Teaching & Research. Otto earned the B.A. from
Princeton University with a certificate in Latin American Studies, and a Master’s from the School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University in 2004.
She is fluent in Portuguese, English, German, Spanish, and French.”
KRISTA BRUNE ’06
With a ReachOut ’56 fellowship, Krista Brune ’06 spent a year researching arts programs in prisons, jails, and juvenile detention
centers throughout the United States. Prison Arts is a site created by Brune as a resource for those in the field. As a Fulbright recipient, Brune more recently spent a year in Brazil studying the social and political role of popular Brazilian music during the 1960s
and 1970s. She is currently working toward a Ph.D. in Hispanic Languages & Literatures at the University of California, Berkeley,
focusing on Luso-Brazilian literature.
AMANDA FULMER ’01
After leaving Princeton I worked at two non-profit think-tanks in Washington, D.C. As a Project 55 fellow at the National Policy
Association (NPA), I travelled with NPA President Anthony Quainton ’55 to Lima, where we organized a conference on sustainable
development. Later, I spent a year working with Oxfam America in Lima, working on extractive industries and indigenous communities, the eventual focus of my graduate studies. In 2005 I entered a doctoral program in political science at the University of
Washington-Seattle, and in September 2009 began a year of fieldwork funded by the Inter-American Foundation. My dissertation
concerns citizen participation in mining projects, focusing on three mines that affect indigenous populations; two in Peru and
one in Guatemala. I am researching how these communities respond to and resist the projects, with an eye to how they use (or
do not use) legal means and conceptions of human rights. I will be interested in the region for the rest of my life, and have fond
memories of several excellent LAS classes and other experiences at Princeton—Amanda Fulmer ’01
ANADELIA A. ROMO ‘96
PLAS ALUMNI:
LET US HEAR FROM
YOU! SEND NEWS TO
[email protected]
32
Photo courtesy of Jill Janaína Otto
Published by the University of North Carolina Press, Brazil’s Living Museum: Race, Reform, and Tradition in Bahia is Anadelia A.
Romo’s most recent publication. Says Seth Garfield of the University of Texas at Austin, “In her historical analysis of Bahia’s contemporary claim to embody the essence of Afro-Brazil, Anadelia Romo demonstrates the critical role played by local elites, foreign
anthropologists, and state officials in promoting cultural images that have stymied redress of the deep-seated and racially-based
socioeconomic inequalities in the region. This book will be of considerable interest to students of anthropology, history, and
cultural studies.” Romo is an assistant professor in the Department of History at Texas State University - San Marcos.
MICHAEL HIDALGO ’08
Sometimes it’s difficult to believe that less
than a year ago I wouldn’t have thought twice
about skipping my 9:00 am biology lecture. Now
my day starts at the break of dawn with the
sound of my cell phone alarm. Within twenty
minutes I leave my apartment, built on the
slope of a steep mountain that overlooks the
enormous city below. After an hour-long commute on a Bogotá metro bus, I enter the office
around 7:00 am, ready to start class at the
charter school where I have been teaching
since September 2008.
At Alianza Educativa, an organization
founded by the city’s most elite university and
private schools that run five charter schools
in the poor southern sections of Bogota, I am
one of two people who administer the English
newspaper, recently brought attention to the
fact that the expanse of cinder block homes,
pool halls, and furniture shops 100 yards down
the street from the school is the neighborhood
with the most homicides in the capital.
Nevertheless, in this same neighborhood
one can find a well maintained tourist information center—the only one of its kind in the
capital. I pass by the module twice a day and
in eight months have not once seen a tourist
use it. Apparently that’s not why it’s there. The
information center, like the equally pristine
school down the street where I work, are symbolic of the pride Bogotanos take in their city
and, more importantly, their eternal optimism
that the future will be far better than the past.
These two values—pride and optimism—best
This placement has not only been tremendously gratifying, but it has also helped
me develop an invaluable set of skills that
will serve me in my future endeavors.
describe the attitude in the schools administered by Alianza Educativa. They are what
make them extraordinary among schools in
disadvantaged neighborhoods and my placement particularly rewarding. Their consistent
optimism is no easy accomplishment in a country that is often reminded of its violent past.
The school where I teach, Jaime Garzón, was
named after a popular comedian and satirist
who was murdered by paramilitary forces less
than a decade ago, and just last week, the father
of one of my 12th–grade students was killed
while eating in a bakery.
Despite the numerous hardships these
students face, everyone, from the custodian
who comes in on Saturdays to make sure the
grounds are spotless, to the principal who
seems to know the name of every one of the
1,250 students at the school, is committed to
making Alianza’s motto a reality: academic
excellence for a better quality of life.
Reprinted from PiLA’s April 2009 newsletter, with permission.
33
Photo courtesy of Michael Hidalgo
program. One of my primary responsibilities
was to design the majority of the curriculum
for grades 5–12 by reinforcing the teaching of
grammar (which for years was inconsistently
taught in the schools), writing, and test taking
with the teachers. I have created workbooks
that include grammar lessons, exercises, and
readings specific for each grade level, to inform teachers what material they should be
teaching at each level.
It’s a good deal of responsibility. I chose
what grammar the students will learn at each
grade level and pick a large portion of their
readings for English class. In addition, I meet
weekly with the 26 English teachers from the five
schools to improve their English and teaching
skills. I spend most of my time at the school
where I teach English to 7th and 12th graders,
and an ethics course in Spanish.
As a teacher I am learning far more than
I ever could have imagined. Since I started
working with Alianza, I have been constantly
perfecting my administrative capabilities, my
preparation and planning skills, and my public
speaking ability. This placement has not only
been tremendously gratifying, but it has also
helped me develop an invaluable set of skills
that will serve me in my future endeavors.
This unique job has also given me the
opportunity to see a side of this city rarely
visited by outsiders. El Tiempo, the national
SPOTLIGHT
MARIO VARGAS LLOSA
2010 PLAS DISTINGUISHED VISITOR
CONVERSACIÓN CON MARIO VARGAS LLOSA:
LA MODERNIDAD A CUALQUIER PRECIO
ENTREVISTA REALIZADA EN PRINCETON POR ARCADIO DÍAZ QUIÑONES Y
TOMAS ELOY MARTÍNEZ EN MAYO DE 1993 Y PUBLICADA EN EL DIARIO ARGENTINO PÁGINA 12
Mario Vargas Llosa vuelve a Buenos Aires tras una
larga década de ausencia. En vísperas del viaje,
tuvo una conversación a puertas cerradas con
Arcadio Díaz Quiñones, director del Latin American
Studies Program, de la Universidad de Princeton,
y Tomas Eloy Martínez, editor de este suplemento.
Habló de su autobiografía, de Borges, de Sarmiento,
de los avances del liberalismo en América Latina
y de los tiempos que se vienen, tanto aquí como
en los Estados Unidos. Lo que ahora se publica
es una síntesis de dos horas y media de diálogos.
En la primavera, la noche cae temprano sobre
Princeton. A las ocho ya no se ve a nadie caminando
por las avenidas arboladas, siempre silenciosas.
Las torres austeras de la Universidad se deslíen
en la penumbra. En la calle principal, Nassau
Street, se cierran casi a un tiempo las persianas
de las tiendas Woolworth y de la bien nutrida
librería Micawber. Enfrente, tras las verjas que
circundan el campus, unas luces tenues iluminan
las ventanas del edificio amarillo donde funciona
el Latin American Studies Program, dirigido por
Arcadio Díaz Quiñones.
Adentro hay una sala de conferencias con
una gigantesca mesa oval, a cuya cabecera
se han sentado algunos de los más notables
investigadores del continente. Contra la pared
yacen, vacías, algunas decenas de sillas. Fue
allí donde, a fines de abril, el Latin American
Studies Program y este suplemento de Pagina 12
organizaron una conversación a puertas cerradas
con Mario Vargas Llosa, quien llegó a Princeton
a comienzos de año como profesor visitante del
Council of the Humanities.
Un par de veces por semana, el novelista de
Conversación en la catedral y de La guerra del
fin del mundo, ex candidato a la Presidencia del
Perú, dicta allí clases en ingles sobre seis narradores latinoamericanos ya traducidos: Arguedas,
Bioy Casares, Borges, Cortázar, Onetti, Rulfo.
Cada tanto, da conferencias a las que acuden
multitudes (lo que se entiende por multitudes
en el ámbito exclusivo de una universidad como
la de Princeton: nunca más de cien personas),
o toma el tren de la noche para ir al teatro, en
Nueva York. No puede ocultar su entusiasmo por
la última obra de David Mamet, Oleanna, que lo
mantuvo durante dos horas “sentado”, como él
34
Photo by Fiorella Battistini
Born in Peru, Mario Vargas Llosa (1936–) is
one of Latin America’s most influential writers.
Dr. Vargas Llosa, who holds a doctorate from the
Universidad de Madrid (1959), has asserted that
“reading is an essential part of being a citizen.”
He has taught at Princeton, Harvard, and the Sorbonne—among numerous other institutions—and
he is a member of the Real Academia Española.
Among the most prominent figures of the
so-called Latin American literary “Boom,” Vargas
Llosa has authored numerous volumes, including
La ciudad y los perros (The City and the Dogs,
1962), La casa verde (The Green House, 1966),
Conversación en la catedral (Conversation in the
Cathedral, 1971), Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter
(1978), The War of the End of the World (1981),
Los cuadernos de don Rigoberto (The Notebooks of
Don Rigoberto, 1997), La fiesta del chivo (The Feast
of the Goat, 2000), El paraíso en la otra esquina
(The Way to Paradise, 2003), and Travesuras de
la niña mala (The Bad Girl, 2006).
Two of Mr. Vargas Llosa’s novels have been
turned into films, directed by Francisco J. Lombardi:
The City and the Dogs (1985), and Pantaleón y
las visitadoras (2000).
During much of the 1980s and 1990s, Vargas
Llosa turned his attention to politics, journalism,
essay writing, and the theatre; he also ran for the
office of president in Peru in 1990. Vargas Llosa
has been on the short list for the Nobel Prize for
literature, and has received the most important
awards and distinctions, including the Cervantes
prize. As a critic, he has published essays on
the work of Flaubert, Victor Hugo, Gabriel García
Márquez, Onetti and Borges.
Of particular relevance are the Mario Vargas
Llosa Papers (1944–2000), deposited in Firestone
Library’s Rare Books & Special Collections, Manuscripts Division. The collection consists of the
author’s notebooks, novel manuscripts, plays and
screenplays, short stories, nonfiction, correspondence, documents, and miscellaneous printed
and recorded material.
Most recently at Princeton, Mario Vargas Llosa
delivered the Spencer Trask Lecture “Onetti and
the Shadows of Faulkner and Borges” on April
22, 2008. During his campus visit, Mr. Vargas
Llosa also met privately with members of the
Program in Latin American Studies associated
faculty, in an open-ended conversation about his
most recent novel, Travesuras de la niña mala.
During Fall 2010, Vargas Llosa will teach
two courses: LAS 401/SPA 410 Latin American Studies Seminar: Borges and Fiction and
CRW 345/LAS 375/SPO 360 Special Topics in
Creative Writing: Techniques of Novel Writing.
VARGAS LLOSA
La Autobiografía
T.E.M. —Tu obra abunda en confesiones personales como las de La tía Julia y el escribidor,
en rendiciones de cuentas políticas como las
de tus artículos periodísticos, en reflexiones
sobre las mudanzas de tu propio pensamiento
intelectual como las que se compilan en los
dos volúmenes de Contra viento y marea. Que
ahora aparezca una autobiografía titulada El
pez en el agua parece casi un pleonasmo. ¿Cómo
lo explicas?
—La razón fue la campaña política por la
Presidencia del Perú. Después de la campaña,
la revista inglesa Granta me pidió una crónica
o memoria de esa etapa: La escribí, y se publicó con el título de El pez fuera del agua,
que indicaba lo excéntrica que esa experiencia
había sido en mi vida1. Quede insatisfecho.
Me pareció que al circunscribir mi crónica
a lo político estaba dando una versión falaz
de mi mismo. Soy algo más que un político,
o al menos algo distinto, aunque haya hecho
política profesional. Así surgió la idea de un
texto que diera una impresión más matizada y
compleja de lo que fue aquella experiencia. La
pensé, al principio, como una crónica limitada
a esos tres años de participación en la política
peruana. Pero no bien empecé a escribir, me di
cuenta de que era imprescindible ubicar esos
(left to right) Arcadio Díaz Quiñones, Mario Vargas Llosa, and Tomás Eloy Martínez
Soy algo más que un político, o al menos algo distinto,
aunque haya hecho política profesional.
años en el contexto de mi actividad intelectual,
de mi vocación literaria y de la relación que he
tenido con mi país. Así, termine intercalando
el relato de la campaña con el de los primeros
veintitrés años de mi vida, en los que se cuajó
todo lo que yo seria.
T.E.M. —Y El pez fuera del agua termina
convirtiéndose en El pez en el agua. No entiendo, de todos modos, la razón profunda de
tanta abundancia autobiográfica.
—Seguramente conoces el esfuerzo de Sartre por recurrir a todas las disciplinas de su
tiempo para explicar el caso Flaubert. Eso lo
lleva a escribir un libro inmenso, El idiota
de la familia, que deja sin terminar porque,
al cabo de miles de páginas, Sartre llega a la
conclusión de que no hay escritura capaz de
agotar la vida de un solo hombre. Todo escritor
utiliza su experiencia personal como materia
prima de su trabajo. En algunos eso es más
consciente, obsesivo e inevitable. Tal es mi caso.
En El pez en el agua asumo por primera vez, de
manera deliberada, el relato de historias que
han marcado no sólo mi vida sino también mi
trabajo literario. Un ejemplo es la relación con
mi padre. Mi padre es uno de los personajes
centrales del libro. Tuve con él una relación
difícil, traumática, que acabo por condicionar
mi vocación—si él no se hubiera opuesto a mi
vocación de manera tan drástica, tal vez yo
no me habría entregado a ella con terquedad.
T.E.M. —Los obstáculos te estimulan.
—Sí, siempre lo han hecho, desde el punto
de vista intelectual. Mis novelas son diferentes
entre sí porque cada una era para mí un desafío nuevo. Lo mismo me ha sucedido con la
política. En el libro refiero, un poco en broma,
lo que le respondí cierta vez a un periodista:
que si la Presidencia del Perú no fuera el oficio
más peligroso del mundo, nunca se me habría
ocurrido ser candidato.
A.D.Q. —Estoy pensando en otros escritores
que también fueron candidatos a la Presidencia de su país, que perdieron en esa batalla y
que también reflejaron esa experiencia en su
autobiografía. Es el caso de José Vasconcelos
y de su Ulises criollo,2 donde ajusta cuentas
consigo mismo, con su formación literaria y con
el vendaval político que termina marginándolo.
Me pregunto si tuviste a mano modelos como
ese al escribir El pez en al agua.
—No. Nunca tengo modelos, al menos de
manera consciente, mientras escribo cualquiera de mis libros. Trabajo aislándome casi por
completo del contorno. Las novelas, las obras
de teatro y esta autobiografía exigieron una
especie de reclusión en un mundo muy privado,
casi egoísta. No puedo decir que tenga presente
ni siquiera a los lectores potenciales. En esa
ceremonia se produce, por supuesto, una suerte
de desdoblamiento, porque para utilizar la
escritura de una determinada manera, tienes
que estar siempre desdoblándote y tratar de
reaccionar como un lector.
A.D.Q. — ¿Cómo deslindas lo público y lo
privado? Por lo que dices, en tu autobiografía
parecieran fundirse esas dos esferas.
—No, no se funden. El pez en el agua cuenta
dos periodos de mi vida y lo hace con la mayor
sinceridad. No hay ánimo de justificación. Es
un libro tan autocritico como crítico. Es muy
Cf. Granuta 36, Summer 1991, «Vargas Llosa for President». Incluye el texto al que alude Vargas Llosa y otro de su
hijo Álvaro, que luego formaría parte de un libro de este ultimo sobre la campaña presidencial, publicado en 1992
por Seix Barral.
2
Vasconcelos fue candidato a la Presidencia de México en 1929. El Ulises criollo fue publicado en 1935.
1
35
Photo courtesy of Arcadio Díaz Quiñones
dice, “en el borde de la butaca”.
Teme que su viaje a Buenos Aires, previsto
para el 14 de mayo, sea una maratón de fatiga.
No ha regresado desde el estreno de La señorita de Tacna, hace más de una década, y aun
recuerda con añoranza el momento en que llegó
por primera vez, en 1965, y pudo caminar por
Corrientes, Florida y Santa Fe con el anonimato
que le consentían su juventud extrema (tenía
entonces menos de treinta años) y la difusión
restringida de sus dos primeras novelas, La ciudad
y los perros y La casa verde.
Entrara a Buenos Aires con el polvo de un
largo camino. Pasara primero por México, donde
va a presentar su autobiografía El pez en el agua,
y por Guatemala, cuya geografía piensa recorrer
de cabo a rabo.
La conversación que sigue duró dos horas y
media y fue grabada tanto para el archivo oral de
la Universidad de Princeton como para su publicación en este suplemento. En la transcripción,
las intervenciones de Arcadio Díaz Quiñones y
de Tomas Eloy Martínez van en letras cursivas,
precedidas por las iniciales de sus nombres
(A.D.Q. y T.E.M.). Las intervenciones de Vargas
Llosa están en letras redondas, sin indicación
de nombre.
ODA A JULIÁN CASAL
(CONTINUED FROM PAGE 5)
que lo detiene en su visita a la corista.
Le entrega las flores y el maniquí
se rompe en las baldosas rotas del acantilado.
Sus manos frías avivan las arañas ebrias,
que van a deglutir el maniquí playero.
Cuidado, sus manos pueden avivar
la araña fría y el maniquí de las coristas.
Cuidado, él sigue oyendo cómo evapora
la propia tierra maternal,
compás para el espacio coralino.
Su tos alegre sigue ordenando el ritmo
de nuestra crecida vegetal,
al extenderse dormido.
that halts him in his visit to the chorus girl.
He gives her the flowers and the mannikin
breaks on the broken tiles of the cliff.
His cold hands enliven the drunken chandeliers
that are going to swallow the beach mannikin.
Be careful, his hands can enliven
the cold chandelier and the chorus girls' mannikin.
Be careful he goes on hearing how
his own maternal earth evaporates,
keeping time with the coral space.
His happy cough goes on structuring the rhythm
of our vegetal growth,
as it extends in sleep.
Las formas en que utilizaste tus disfraces,
hubieran logrado influenciar a Baudelaire.
El espejo que unió a la condesa de Fernandina
con Napoleón Tercero, no te arrancó
las mismas flores que le llevaste a la corista,
pues allí viste el aleph negro en lo alto del surtidor.
Cronista de la boda de Luna de Copas
con la Sota de Bastos, tuviste que brindar
con champagne gelé por los sudores fríos
de tu medianoche de agonizante.
Los dormidos en la terraza,
que tú tan sólo los tocabas quejumbrosamente,
escupían sobre el tazón que tú le llevabas a los cisnes.
The forms in which you used your disguises,
could have managed to influence Baudelaire.
The mirror that connected the Countess of Fernandina
with Napoleon III didn't extract from you
the same flowers you took to the chorus girl,
because there you saw the black aleph at the top of the fountain.
Chronicler of the wedding of the Moon of Cups
to the Page of Wands, you had to offer a toast
with champagne gelé because of the cold sweats
of your midnights as a dying man.
The sleepers on the terrace,
whom you only touched as you complained,
spat on the breakfast bowl you were taking to the swans.
No respetaban que tú le habías encristalado la terraza
y llevado el menguante de la liebre al espejo.
Tus disfraces; como el almirante samurai,
que tapó la escuadra enemiga con un abanico,
o el monje que no sabe qué espera en El Escorial,
hubieran producido otro escalofrío en Baudelaire.
Sus sombríos rasguños, exagramas chinos en tu sangre,
se igualaban con la influencia que tu vida
hubiera dejado en Baudelaire,
como lograste alucinar al Sileno
con ojos de sapo y diamante frontal.
Los fantasmas resinosos, los gatos
que dormían en el bolsillo de tu chaleco estrellado,
se embriagaban con tus ojos verdes.
Desde entonces, el mayor gato, el peligroso genuflexo,
no ha vuelto a ser acariciado.
Cuando el gato termine la madeja,
le gustará jugar con tu cerquillo,
como las estrías de la tortuga
nos dan la hoja precisa de nuestro fin.
Tu calidad cariciosa,
que colocaba un sofá de mimbre en una estampa japonesa,
el sofá volante, como los paños de fondo
de los relatos hagiográficos,
que vino para ayudarte a morir.
El mail coach con trompetas,
acudido para despertar a los dormidos de la teraza,
rompía tu escaso sueño en la madrugada,
pues entre la medianoche y el despertar
hacías tus injertos de azalea con araña fría,
They didn't respect the fact that you had glassed in the terrace
and taken the waning of the hare to the mirror.
Your disguises, like the samurai admiral
who blotted out the enemy squadron with a fan,
or the monk who doesn't know what he expects in the Escorial,
could have produced another chill in Baudelaire.
Those somber scratches, Chinese hexagrams in your blood,
equaled the influence your life
could have left on Baudelaire,
just as you managed to astonish Silenus
with his toad-like eyes and frontal diamond.
The resinous ghosts, the cats
who slept in the pocket of your star-studded vest,
were intoxicated with your green eyes.
Since then, the biggest cat of all, the dangerous kneeling one,
hasn't been caressed anymore.
When it finishes the skein,
the cat will like to play with your bangs,
just as the creases on the tortoise
give us the exact page of our end.
Your caressable quality,
that put a wicker sofa in a Japanese print,
the movable sofa, like the backdrops
of the hagiographic tales
that came to help you die.
The mail coach with trumpets,
arriving to wake the sleepers on the terrace,
interrupted your scant early-morning hours of sleep,
for between midnight and waking
your graftings of azaleas onto cold chandeliers
36
ODA A JULIÁN CASAL
que engendraban los sollozos de la Venus Anadyomena
y el brazalete robado por el pico del alción.
engendered the sobs of the Venus Anadyomene
and the bracelet stolen by the kingfisher's beak.
Sea maldito el que se equivoque y te quiera
ofender, riéndose de tus disfraces
o de lo que escribiste en La Caricatura,
con tan buena suerte que nadie ha podido
encontrar lo que escribiste para burlarte
y poder comprar la máscara japonesa.
Cómo se deben haber reído los ángeles,
cuando saludabas estupefacto
a la marquesa Polavieja, que avanzaba
hacia ti para palmearte frente al espejo.
Qué horror, debes haber soltado un lagarto
sobre la trifolia de una taza de té.
Haces después de muerto
las mismas iniciales, ahora
en el mojado escudo de cobre de la noche,
que comprobaban al tacto
la trigueñita de los doce años
y el padre enloquecido colgado de un árbol.
Sigues trazando círculos
en torno a los que se pasean por la terraza,
la chispa errante de tu errante verde.
Todos sabemos ya que no era tuyo
el falso terciopelo de la magia verde,
los pasos contados sobre alfombras,
la daga que divide las barajas,
para unirlas de nuevo con tizne de cisnes.
No era tampoco tuya la separación,
que la tribu de malvados te atribuye,
entre el espejo y el lago.
Eres el huevo de cristal,
donde el amarillo está reemplazado
por el verde errante de tus ojos verdes.
Invencionaste un color solemne,
guardamos ese verde entre dos hojas.
El verde de la muerte.
May anyone be damned who blunders and tries
to offend you, laughing at your disguises
or at what you wrote in La Caricatura,
so successfully that no one has been able
to find what you wrote for fun
so you could buy the Japanese mask.
How the angels must have laughed
when in astonishment you greeted
the Marquise of Polavieja, who came forward
to pat you on the back in front of the mirror.
How awful, you must have let loose
a lizard on the trefoil of a teacup.
You make after your death
the same initials, now
on the wet copper shield of the night,
that had been evidenced by touch
by that dark-haired twelve-year-old girl
and her crazed father hanging from a tree.
You go on tracing circles
around the people strolling on the terrace,
the errant spark of your errant green.
We all know now that none of these were yours:
the fake velvet of green magic,
the steps counted out over carpets,
the dagger dividing the decks of cards,
so as to join them again with swan soot.
Nor was yours the separation
that the evil tribe attributes to you,
between the mirror and the lake.
You are the glass egg
where the yellow is replaced
by the errant green of your green eyes.
You invented a solemn color,
we keep that green between two leaves.
The green of death.
Ninguna estrofa de Baudelaire,
puede igualar el sonido de tu tos alegre.
Podemos retocar,
pero en definitiva lo que queda,
es la forma en que hemos sido retocados.
¿Por quien?
Respondan la chispa errante de tus ojos verdes
y el sonido de tu tos alegre.
No stanza of Baudelaire's
can equal the sound of your happy cough.
We can retouch,
but in the last analysis what remains
is the form in which we've been retouched.
By whom?
Let the answer come from the errant green of your green eyes
and the sound of your happy cough.
37
ODA A JULIÁN CASAL
Los frascos de perfume que entreabriste,
ahora te hacen salir de ellos como un homúnculo,
ente de imagen creado por la evaporación,
corteza del árbol donde Adonai
huyó del jabalí para alcanzar
la resurrección de las estaciones.
El frío de tus manos,
es nuestra franja de la muerte,
tiene la misma hilacha de la manga
verde oro del disfraz para morir,
es el frío de todas nuestras manos.
A pesar del frío de nuestra inicial timidez
y del sorprendido en nuestro miedo final,
llevaste nuestra luciérnaga verde al valle de Proserpina.
The vials of perfume you began to open
now make you rise up from them like a homunculus,
an image-entity created by evaporation,
bark of the tree where Adonai
fled from the boar to attain
the resurrection of the seasons.
The cold of your hands
is our fringe of death,
it has the same frayed edge
as the green-gold sleeve of the death disguise,
it is the cold of all our hands.
Despite the cold of our initial timidity
and the cold suddenly found in our final fear,
you took our green firefly down to the valley of Proserpina.
La misión que te fue encomendada,
descender a las profundidades con nuestra chispa verde,
la quisiste cumplir de inmediato y por eso escribiste:
ansias de aniquilarme sólo siento.
Pues todo poeta se apresura sin saberlo
para cumplir las órdenes indescifrables de Adonai.
Ahora ya sabemos el esplendor de esa sentencia tuya,
quisiste llevar el verde de tus ojos verdes
a la terraza de los dormidos invisibles.
Por eso aquí y allí, con los excavadores de la identidad,
entre los reseñadores y los sombrosos,
abres el quitasol de un inmenso Eros.
Nuestro escandaloso cariño te persigue
y por eso sonríes entre los muertos.
The mission entrusted to you,
to go down to the depths with our green spark,
you chose to carry out right away and that's why you wrote:
longings for annihilation are all I feel.
For all poets hasten unknowingly
to carry out the indecipherable orders of Adonai.
Now we know the splendor of that statement of yours,
you wanted to take the green of your green eyes
to the terrace of the invisible sleepers.
That's why, here and there, with the excavators of identity,
among the reviewers and the murky ones,
you open the parasol of an immense Eros.
Our scandalous love pursues you
and that's why you smile among the dead.
La muerte de Baudelaire, balbuceando
incesantemente: Sagrado nombre, Sagrado nombre,
tiene la misma calidad de tu muerte,
pues habiendo vivido como un delfín muerto de sueños,
alcanzaste a morir muerto de risa.
Tu muerte podía haber influenciado a Baudelaire.
Aquel que entre nosotros dijo:
ansias de aniquilarme sólo siento,
fue tapado por la risa como una lava.
En esas ruinas, cubierto por la muerte,
ahora reaparece el cigarrillo que entre tus dedos se quemaba,
la chispa con la que descendiste
al lento oscuro de la terraza helada.
Permitid que se vuelva, ya nos mira,
qué compañía la chispa errante de su errante verde,
mitad ciruelo y mitad piña laqueada por la frente
Baudelaire's death, muttering
over and over: Sacré nom, Sacré nom,
has the same quality as your death,
since, having lived like a dauphin dead tired,
you managed in the end to die laughing.
Your death could have influenced Baudelaire.
The one who among us said:
longings for annihilation are all I feel,
was covered by laughter like a layer of lava.
In those ruins, concealed by death,
now reappears the cigarette that was burning between your fingers,
the spark with which you went down
to the slow darkness of the chill terrace.
Allow him to return, he sees us now,
what great company the errant spark of his errant green,
half plum tree and half pineapple lacquered in front.
Translated by James Irby
From The Whole Island - Six Decades of Cuban Poetry, A Bilingual Anthology; edited by Mark Weiss
38
LIFE’S WISDOM
for Princeton and for the staff we have here.”
Passionate yet unassuming, Lajeunesse
drives a taxi until the early morning hours
after finishing his duties at Princeton to support his five children, who now all live with
him in New Jersey, and his extended family
in Haiti. Even with his intense schedule, he
finds time to help students in the dormitories where he works and has completed two
human resources learning and development
programs.
“Working at Princeton, you have opportunities to move up to another level and improve
yourself economically and socially,” he said.
“Anyone who comes here to work, they take you
in with two hands and arms open.” Through
his hard work, Lajeunesse has been able to
send money and supplies to bring purified
water to his hometown of Lasource, where
villagers once traveled to a nearby mountain
for clean water.
“When I was a little boy, I asked my dad
how can we do better and get clean water for
our town,” Lajeunesse said. “Since then, this
idea has always been in my mind.”
While in the military in Haiti, Lajeunesse
said he was able to get the government to
commit to bring water to his village, but the
project never happened because of political
unrest in the country. In addition to providing
support to his family in Haiti since moving to
the United States, Lajeunesse began sending
funds to his brother in 2003 so the two could
take on the water project themselves.
They have brought a clean water source
closer to the village and are now raising money
to build cisterns so that each house can have
water all the time. The film shows Lajeunesse
during a trip to Lasource in summer 2008
breaking down in tears as he speaks of the
responsibilities that rest on his shoulders.
“Now where they have water, the town is
green—there is life,” he said. “But the job is
not finished.”
His connection to Haiti is why Shen said
he and Bennick selected Lajeunesse for the
documentary. The filmmakers contacted the
University about researching possible candidates for the film, and Lajeunesse was one of
a handful of janitors recommended by Baer.
“In speaking with Josue we instantly knew
we had a very compelling individual on our
hand. When we went with him to Haiti, we
were blown away by the poor living conditions
there but also so impressed with his water
project,” said Shen, adding that the film is now
helping raise money for the project through a
partnership with the nonprofit organization
Generosity Water.
Still striving to do more for his home,
Lajeunesse is now seeking help from doctors
in Haiti and New Jersey to create a health
clinic in the remote area of Lasource. Lajeunesse said he also hopes to raise funds to buy
computers for the local school and to build
solar panels to power the machines because
the village does not have electricity.
As a janitor in Blair and Buyers halls, Bowman expects the student residents to treat
the buildings with as much respect and care
as she does.
“If I come in to work and clean the building, when I come back the next day I expect
that you have tried to keep it clean. I tell the
kids that if they want a maid, they have to
pay for a maid,” Bowman said with a laugh.
“I’m the same way at home with my family.”
Bowman grew up in Lawrence Township
with her seven sisters and a brother, and she
has two daughters, three sons and six grandchildren. Princeton runs in her family, with one
sister also working in Building Services and
two other sisters working in Dining Services.
“Natasha is someone who tells it to you
straight and will speak her mind,” Baer said.
“She possesses a wisdom about life that I
think is needed in this world.”
After cleaning academic buildings for a
number of years, Bowman said she enjoys the
relationships she’s developed with students
who live in the dorms.
“I have a lot of foreign students in my
dorms, and I enjoy seeing the students from
different backgrounds and nationalities,” she
said. “There also have been a few special kids
who I’ve looked after while they were here.”
Bowman recalled a particular student from
the class of 2008 who she “got a feeling” about
when seeing him around the building while
she cleaned. The student admitted he was
having trouble getting to an early morning
class, so Bowman knocked on his door at 7
a.m. twice a week to make sure he woke up.
“I took a liking to him, and I told him ‘Your
parents sent you here to go to class, so I’m
going to make sure you do,’” Bowman said.
She and the student remained friendly,
and he included her name in the dedications
for his senior thesis, according to Bowman.
As a fellow dormitory janitor, Bowman
said she’s known Lajeunesse for many years
but had no idea about his work in Haiti until
“The Philosopher Kings” movie.
“I’m really proud of Josue for what he’s
doing for his country,” Bowman said. “The
janitors that work in the dorms all know each
other, but we don’t sit down often and talk
about our personal lives.”
Also an immigrant to the United States,
Flites shares with Lajeunesse the experience
of adjusting to life in a new country on his
own. He’s worked at the University for about
seven years, cleaning academic and administrative buildings from 4 p.m. to midnight.
“We try to create the best working environment for the people who work and study
in the buildings,” Flites said. “The way I look
at it, we all want Princeton to be the best
university. If we as janitors can contribute
a little bit, I think that’s great.”
Flites was pursuing his master’s degree
in literature in Algeria when civil war jettisoned his studies.
After leaving the country in 1996, he worked
as a building supervisor and mechanic in
Philadelphia and also met his wife, who is a
teacher and native of New Jersey.
Whether it’s traveling to U.S. Civil War
battlefields or listening to books on tape
while he cleans, Flites is constantly soaking
up knowledge.
“I would consider Mohamed an expert on
the Civil War. He is always teaching me new
things,” Baer said.
On campus, Flites said he usually keeps
a small camera in his pocket to document
the inspiring architecture and scenery or the
interesting people he meets.
Although it was once his dream, Flites
said he is no longer interested in finishing
his graduate degree.
“My friends, my family, the people I’ve
met at Princeton, that’s the best education
for me,” he said.
“Being a janitor is just a title. It’s what I get
from my experiences every day that matters.”
Bulletin 99(6), December 14, 2009.
39
VARGAS LLOSA
explicito en todo aquello que ayuda a entender
mi vida como candidato y como escritor. Eso
me ha llevado a revelar ciertas intimidades.
Pero ya que no se puede contar todo, ya que
una autobiografía no puede ser una mera acumulación de informaciones, he seleccionado
lo importante, tal como lo hace un novelista.
La diferencia es que en este libro hay afán de
objetividad. He tratado de no desnaturalizar el
recuerdo. La excepción son algunos episodios
donde ya no tengo muy claro que es lo verídico
y que lo ficticio. Uno de esos episodios es un
viaje a la selva que hice en 1958, por el Alto
Marañón, y del que han salido varios relatos
e historias fértiles para mí. He hablado y escrito tanto sobre ese viaje que ya no puedo
discriminar entre lo que viví entonces y lo
que fantasee después. Pero en lo político, que
es muy cercano, he tratado de ser muy objetivo. Siempre creí que, si llegaba a escribir mi
autobiógrafa, lo haría después de los setenta
años. La etapa política fue lo que me movió a
escribirla ahora. Temí que, con el tiempo, se
diluyera la memoria de esa experiencia.
El Escritor Comprometido
A.D.Q. —Me llama la atención que en tus
ensayos sobre otros escritores—sobre Flaubert, sobre García Márquez, sobre Sartre, sobre
Borges—parezcas estar hablando de ti mismo
tanto como de ellos, de tu propia vocación
literaria y de tus proyectos.
—La crítica literaria ha sido siempre una
forma creativa, donde la imaginación tiene
su propio derecho. Es para mí un género tan
personal, tan comprometido como la ficción.
T.E.M. —Quiero conectar el tema de los
ensayos con el de los modelos, aunque has
negado tenerlos. No has escrito todavía, creo,
sobre ninguno de esos creadores latinoamericanos en cuya tradición pareces inscribirte: la
tradición del intelectual que diseña naciones
a la medida de sus sueños. Pienso en Alberdi,
en Sarmiento, en Martí, en Vasconcelos, en
Rómulo Gallegos.
—Me forme en una época de América Latina
en la que ser escritor era inseparable de una
cierta forma de compromiso político. Para un
peruano de mi generación, era imposible vivir
de espaldas a los enormes problemas sociales
y políticos. En el mundo universitario, por otra
parte, la influencia de existencialismo era decisiva. Me eduqué en un clima marcado por las
ideas de Sartre, Camus, Merleau-Ponty y, para
los católicos, Gabriel Marcel. La preocupación
ética no se disociaba entonces de la vocación
artística. Y creíamos, además, que la literatura
era un instrumento de acción para cambiar la
realidad. Las palabras son actos, enseñaba
Me forme en una época de América Latina en la que ser
escritor era inseparable de una cierta forma de compromiso político. Para un peruano de mi generación, era
imposible vivir de espaldas a los enormes problemas
sociales y políticos.
Sartre. Asumí esos postulados con gran convicción, como se refleja en mis primeros libros.
La manera como se debía obedecer al mandato
del compromiso varió en muchos escritores;
también en mi caso. Pero nunca he cuestionado
esa idea. He cambiado mi manera de pensar en
política, pero no he cambiado de principios.
No he podido nunca separar al escritor de
su preocupación social. Son muy pocos, en
mi generación, los que de buena o mala gana
no se sintieron empujados a formas diversas
del compromiso político. Eso, por supuesto, se
inscribe dentro de una tradición antiquísima
en América Latina.
Quiero añadir algo. Si la evolución del
continente continúa en la misma dirección en
la que va, tal vez los nuevos escritores sean
radicalmente distintos. En una América Latina
más democrática, con instituciones más consolidadas, la literatura se irá despolitizando.
Y quizá también ira dejando por el camino las
inquietudes sociales, tal como ahora sucede
en los Estados Unidos y en Europa occidental.
A.D.Q. —En tu obra veo las dos líneas. Por
un lado, está la vocación política y una relación
con el Estado tan fuerte que te lleva a querer
ocupar el lugar central del Estado. Pero por
otro lado veo también una fuerte vocación por
conferir autonomía a lo literario. Me pregunto
si no hay en ti una tensión profunda entre el
escritor que duda, el escritor que sabe decir “no
se, de eso no se” y busca respuestas a través
de las novelas, y el hombre público que está
obligado a ofrecer afirmaciones, a veces tajantes
y aun intransigentes: el político que no tiene
derecho a dudar.
—Hay una tensión, en efecto, pero no de esa
índole. La tensión se da en el hecho de que la
política y la creación artística son actividades
muy absorbentes. Ambas exigen una entrega
total. No se hacen con horario. Te las llevas a
tu casa, duermes con ellas. Lo difícil es hacer
que coexistan, porque asumir una significa
inevitablemente el sacrificio de la otra.
T.E.M. —No siempre. Hay intelectuales que
asumen el ejercicio político con voluntad pedagógica, y el mismo afán didáctico los impulsa
a escribir. Son los casos de Sarmiento, de Martí,
y ahora mismo, el de Vaclav Havel.
—Si, pero yo me refiero al creador, al que
asume la literatura no para desarrollar deter-
minadas ideas sociales o políticas sino para
crear mundos que a veces se alzan como un
desacato frontal contra lo establecido. Havel,
claro que sí, ha superado esas barreras. Pero
el suyo es un caso excepcional. Era un creador autentico, movilizado por pasiones de
tipo social. Y esas pasiones, creo, han acaban
por prevalecer en el. Ahora es sobre todo un
político que felizmente no ha sepultado al creador, como se nota en sus discursos.
Entre Dos Fuegos
T.E.M. —Ante esa alternativa de vida
completa, de tiempo completo, deduzco que,
si conquistabas la Presidencia del Perú, estabas
decidido a renunciar a la literatura durante
el lapso de tu mandato.
—Había decidido, por supuesto, cumplir
con los compromisos asumidos en la campaña,
aunque eso significara no escribir una sola
línea de literatura. Pero también estaba decidido a que la experiencia durara los cinco
años del mandato y no más. Esas decisiones
son racionales, ¿pero cómo adivinar lo que va
a pasar en el día a día? Recuerdo la angustia
de ciertos momentos ante la idea de que, si
ganaba, tendré que dejar de lado mi vocación
durante cinco largos años. Me angustiaba, sobre todo, que ciertos instrumentos centrales
para mi vocación, como el uso del lenguaje, se
convirtieran en algo muy diferente.
A.D.Q. —Por eso, precisamente, hablé de
dos registros dispersos. Un novelista puede
darse el lujo de ser ambiguo y de negarse a
dar definiciones, pero un político no puede
hacerlo. Es, por definición, aseverativo.
—Es así. Un político profesional no puede
ser ambiguo. El político tiene que persuadir,
ser no sólo didáctico sino también llegar a
un público muy heterogéneo. Y es muy difícil
llegar a él si no se hace por lo bajo, a través de
simplificaciones y repeticiones. Porque así es el
lenguaje del político: simple, reiterativo. Todo
lo contrario del lenguaje literario. El escritor
trabaja con un lenguaje condensado, personal,
tratando de diferenciarse del lugar común. El
mensaje político, en cambio, es más eficaz mientras más cerca esta de la lengua del común.
En un político, el compromiso con la verdad
es transitorio y relativo, porque el político
se mueve en el mundo de lo práctico. Eso no
40
VARGAS LLOSA
significa que sean mentirosos irremediables
o ventrílocuos estereotipados. Una gran parte
de ellos sí lo son, y por eso admiro a quienes
han sido capaces de superar esos escollos
manteniendo en pie una actitud ética y una
coherencia de ideas.
Hay algo que no quisiera dejar incompleto.
No me parecería honesto descalificar al político
y afirmar, en cambio, que todo intelectual es
puro e integro ante la verdad. Eso no es cierto.
La pureza es más fácil, por supuesto, cuando
se es un intelectual. Pero eso tiene que ver
con la responsabilidad que cada quien asume.
Ante un papel en blanco se puede decir o hacer
cualquier cosa Con impunidad el político, en
cambio, debe saber que con sus actos puede
desencadenar situaciones apocalípticas.
La Modernidad
A.D.Q. —Yo no hablé de pureza, sino de autonomía ante el poder. Voy a tomar un ejemplo
concreto: he observado en tu discurso publico
sobré la modernidad y en tus celebraciones del
progreso una cierta intransigencia can los que
no están de acuerdo y una cierta condena del
multiculturalismo, mientras que en el conjunto
de tu obra narrativa la modernidad se ve, en
cambio, como alga muy problemático.
—La modernidad sólo es problemática
para los que ya son modernos. Porque si eres
moderno, puedes darte el lujo de desacreditar la modernidad y reivindicar en cambio lo
primitivo, lo arcaico. Pero vista desde la perspectiva de un peruano, o de un paraguayo, o
de un somalí, la modernidad es un problema de
vida o muerte para inmensas masas que viven
en el primitivismo, no como si fuera un juego
intelectual de antropólogos y politicólogos, sino
como gente desamparada ante un mundo cada
vez más hostil. Si eres un político y tienes un
mínimo de responsabilidad, no puedes plantear la modernidad como un tema de debate
académico. En el Perú, la modernidad significa
trabajo para los que no trabajan, instrucción
básica para los que no tienen instrucción, y un
mínimo de oportunidades para gentes condenadas a la marginalidad desde su nacimiento
puedan ganar su vida.
T.E.M. —Pero ganarse la vida puede significar, cuando la modernidad es algo impuesto
o forzado, perder la vida que ya se tiene. En
casos como los de los indios de la etnia quiche
en Guatemala o la etnia yanomami en Venezuela y Brasil, la modernidad (o cierto símil de
modernidad) se consigue con el mismo lenguaje
de tierra arrasada que esgrimieron nuestros
modernizadores del siglo XIX. En la Argentina
se consiguió acabar con el gaucho, con el indio
y con el negro casi al mismo tiempo. Be alcanzó
a costa del exterminio.
—Así es. Pero la modernidad a la que yo
me refiero y a la que tú te puedes también
referir en estos finales del siglo XX no es ya
la de quienes creían que el único modo de ser
moderno en América Latina era matando indios
e importando italianos. Lo extraordinario de
esta época es que la modernidad puede ser
alcanzada por cualquier sociedad o por cualquier cultura, a condición de que se pague
pensar que puede haber resistencias en esos
sujetos a los que convertimos en objetos, que
puede haber en ellos el deseo de que su modernidad sea de otra manera.
—Supones que las culturas son todas
equivalentes. Y no lo son.
T.E.M. — ¿Estás postulando, entonces, que
algunas culturas son superiores a otras? ¿O
entiendo mal?
—Quiero decir que hay culturas retrogradas y culturas progresistas. Hay culturas
La modernidad es la lucha por la civilización.
el precio. Ese precio no es el exterminio, por
supuesto. Al contrario. Ciertos indígenas de la
selva peruana, por ejemplo, son diezmados por
los narcotraficantes, por los terroristas y por
las fuerzas contrainsurgentes. No tienen como
defenderse porque no son modernos. Si se los
hiciera acceder a la modernidad, se los ayudar
la a que sobrevivan. Naturalmente, no todo lo
que ellos han creado va a sobrevivir. Pero eso
ocurre con todas las formas de cultura. La
modernidad es la lucha por la civilización. Y en
nombre de cierta pureza racial (porque ahora
hasta la raza parece que se ha convertido en
un valor) no puedes condenar al exterminio a
sociedades enteras que viven al margen.
A.D.Q. —Hay, sin embargo, otras concepciones de la civilización y de la modernidad,
que son mas criticas...
—¿Cuáles son? A ver si me convences de que
hay una forma alternativa de la modernidad
a la que estamos aludiendo.
A.D.Q. — Cuáles? Por ejemplo, una forma
de la modernidad que pone el énfasis en una
palabra que hasta ahora no hemos usado: la
palabra “democracia”.
—Para mí, la modernidad es la democracia.
A.D.Q. —No hablo en un sentido electoral...
—Mi campaña electoral estuvo basada
en la necesidad de modernizar al Perú: modernizarlo políticamente, con la democracia
política; económicamente, con el mercado, e
internacionalizar la vida peruana.
A.D.Q. —Pero la democracia también es
reconocer que hay sujetos múltiples en una
sociedad...
—Desde luego.
A.D.Q. —...y no un solo proyecto nacional.
—La democracia es la diversidad, y es también la coexistencia en la diversidad.
A.D.Q. —Al aludir a los indígenas de la
selva peruana has dicho que hay que “hacerlos
acceder a la modernidad”. Hacerlos acceder.
Ese nosotros imperativo que habla es antidemocrático. Seriamos “nosotros”, entonces,
los que vamos a hacer que otros accedan a
la modernidad que “nosotros” definimos, sin
que reprimen el desarrollo del individuo. A
esas no las llama ni siquiera primitivas. Las
llama bárbaras. Un ejemplo, en comparación
con la cultura occidental y democrática, sería
el fundamentalismo islámico. Ahí tienes una
cultura que reprime a la mujer, considerándola
un objeto; que sanciona aberraciones tales como
imponer justicia mediante la amputación de
miembros, que permite la castración femenina.
Nadie me va a convencer de que yo debo condenar a inmensas masas humanas a padecer
esa cultura sólo por el accidente geográfico de
haber nacido en determinado lugar.
T.E.M. —Repruebo esas costumbres, por
supuesto. Pero también repruebo el afán de
imponer, en nombre de cierta superioridad
civilizadora, una determinada cultura sobre
las otras.
—Sucede que hay culturas incompatibles.
Y esa incompatibilidad está representada para
mí por polos que son los de la civilización y la
barbarie, los de la modernidad y el arcaísmo.
A.D.Q. —Veamos si hay algún modo de
zafarnos de esas oposiciones tan drásticas.
Civilización o barbarie. Creo reconocer ese
discurso. Ese discurso viene acompañado de
otro: el del darwinismo social. El discurso de
las sociedades fuertes y las sociedades débiles.
—No. La modernidad es justamente la
ruptura de esos esquemas dogmaticos. Es el
reemplazo de la idea de cultura por la idea de
individuo. Un individuo construye su cultura,
escapando a los condicionamientos religiosos
y étnicos: eso es la modernidad. Y la única cultura que permite esa inmensa diversidad en la
que uno puede ser lo que quiere es la cultura
democrática. En esa cultura, no hay otro modo
de medir lo que quiere la gente que a través
de las elecciones. Tú eres puertorriqueño. Y
Puerto Rico es, para mí, uno de los ejemplos
más interesantes del espíritu pragmático de un
pueblo capaz de hacer concesiones en puntos
que a primera vista parecen irrenunciables
para alcanzar su modernidad y su desarrollo.
41
VARGAS LLOSA
Puerto Rico, México y la Soberanía
A.D.Q. —En ideas como la de nación y la
de Estado.
—Así es. En ideas como la de nación y la
de soberanía. Esas ideas están ya devaluadas
por la cultura democrática. Mucho antes de
que eso se convirtiera en una evidencia, los
puertorriqueños—por intuición, por voluntad
de supervivencia y por espíritu de superación
nacional-pasaron el deseo de soberanía a un
segundo plano. Con lo cual, parecieran haberse
anticipado a una de las metas del mundo actual.
A.D.Q. —Esa anticipación ha derivado, sin
embargo, en una catástrofe social que se expresa en la música y en la literatura.
—Claro, siempre hay un precio doloroso
que pagar. Pero si tú cotejas la situación de
Puerto Rico con la de países latinoamericanos
equivalentes, como Honduras o la Republica
Dominicana, hablar de “tragedia puertorriqueña”
resulta una broma de mal gusto.
A.D.Q. —Los modernizadores puertorriqueños de los años 50 tenían una consigna cuyas
consecuencias se ven ahora. “Gobernar”, decían,
“es despoblar”. Era una consigna que se alzaba
en nombre de la razón, de la democracia y del
futuro. Contra esa modernización hubo una
resistencia cultural.
—Pero el pueblo puertorriqueño, con un
olfato más afinado que el de muchos de sus
intelectuales, ha preservado cosas esenciales
como el idioma, sin sacrificar sus posibilidades de desarrollo material. O sea que no
se dejó colonizar culturalmente, a la vez que
económicamente supo convertir su condición
colonial en algo beneficioso para las mayorías.
Si los intelectuales hubieran decidido la suerte
de América Latina, todo el continente sería
ahora un inmenso Gulag. Hoy la democracia
ya es algo asumido, pero en un principio fue
una decisión instintiva de los pueblos y no
un movimiento que los intelectuales hayan
encabezado. No: los intelectuales fueron a
remolque de esa decisión.
T.E.M. —No siempre. En el caso de México,
por ejemplo, fueron los intelectuales, desde Azuela, Reyes y Vasconcelos, los que contribuyeron
a poner orden en el caos postrevolucionario
ya afianzar la democracia. Has hablado de un
precio que se debe pagar. ¿Crees que en tu país,
el Perú, hay que pagar el inmenso precio de la
soberanía nacional para alcanzar una modernidad para la que nadie te ofrece ninguna
garantía previa? ¿Crees que México debe pagar
ese precio para ingresar en el Tratado de Libre
Comercio con los Estados Unidos y Canadá?
—Lo que sí creo es que la modernidad
significa la disolución de la soberanía. Si te
acercas a un campo decisivo como el económico,
descubres que las fronteras son ya algo muy
relativo, que está desapareciendo. Los mercados comunes están convirtiendo la idea de
nación en una idea retórica. Si las sociedades
primitivas quieren modernizarse ahora no
tienen otro remedio que abrir sus fronteras.
Si quieres mantenerlas, estas condenado a
la suerte de Cuba o a la de Corea del Norte.
Un país pequeño, que no figura en el pelotón
de los países modernizados, tiene muy pocas
posibilidades de decidir sobre las cuestiones
políticas centrales que le conciernen. Fíjate
en un país tan poderoso como Rusia. Pues
bien: buena parte del destino de Rusia se está
decidiendo fuera de Rusia. Y lo que vale para
Rusia, ¿cómo no va a valer para Argentina o
Perú? Empujemos esa realidad. Acabemos con
las fronteras. Por primera vez en la historia de
la humanidad, eso es ahora posible.
T.E.M. —La utopía que acabas de exponer
es la que se puede expresar desde un país
desarrollado, no desde la periferia. Los países
exporta masas de hambrientos. No niego que
haya dificultades en este proceso. Las hay. Fíjate
en la internacionalización creciente de la cultura. Las comunicaciones han hecho volar las
fronteras. Por primera vez, todos los hombres
son ahora contemporáneos.
T.E.M. —Tu frase me recuerda a lo que
escribía Octavio Paz hace cuarenta años, cuando los tiempos eran otros, al final de su
libro El laberinto de la soledad. Escribió, si la
memoria no me traiciona, “Somos, por primera
vez en nuestra historia, contemporáneos de
todos los hombres”.
—Cuando Paz lo escribió, era mucho menos
cierto de lo que es ahora. Hoy es una realidad flagrante. Si haces a todos los hombres
contemporáneos, los grandes beneficios de la
modernidad van a convertirse en un apetito,
en un deseo.
T.E.M. —Sigo sin ver como Mexico pagaría
con su soberanía el precio de la modernidad.
No cree que el Tratado de Libre Comercio valga
un precio tan alto.
—Soy un defensor acérrimo del Tratado
de Libre Comercio. Creo que es el más rápido
Es que el mercantilismo destruye el liberalismo. La única
manera de afrontar la competencia es compitiendo. Si
las industrias no están en condiciones de competir,
deben reformarse o desaparecer: ese es el principio
básico de la libertad.
desarrollados pueden predicar, mientras les
convengan, la apertura de fronteras económicas,
pero simultáneamente están cerrando cada vez
más las fronteras políticas. No hay barreras ni
aduanas para recibir los dividendos económicos de los pueblos subdesarrollados, pero las
barreras se alzan de inmediato cuando se trata
de recibir a los emigrantes de esos mismos
pueblos. Les pasa a los turcos en Alemania, a
los árabes en Francia y les pasaba o les pasa
a los sudacas en España. O el liberalismo se
da en todos los terrenos a la vez, o hay que
desconfiar de su sinceridad.
—El proceso de la modernización es largo,
esta llene de reveses y retrocesos, pero no es
utópico. La utopía da sensación de irrealidad y
no es irreal lo que postulo. Lo que ya ha pasado
en el campo económico abre la puerta, de hecho,
a una internacionalización creciente también
en otros campos. ¿A quienes Europa les pone
visas? A los dominicanos y a los peruanos,
pero no a los chilenos. ¿Por qué los chilenos
pueden hoy entrar adonde quieren? Porque
tienen trabajo en su país y porque Chile no
instrumento para la democratización de Mexico.
Si el Tratado se hace realidad, será muy difícil
que pueda sobrevivir un sistema como el del
PRI,3 que está montado básicamente sobre
el patrimonialismo, es decir, sobre el poder
mantenido en base a prebendas y privilegios.
En el momento en que haya una liberalización
económica, no creo que el PRI pueda mantenerse. A ese Tratado deben incorporarse todos
los demás países que vayan abriendo sus
economías. Chile puede muy bien postularse
para ser admitido. Mientras más empujemos
al mundo y a América Latina en el camino de
la integración económica, lo que equivale a
una disolución de las fronteras comerciales,
hay más posibilidades de acabar con aventuras bélicas y con aventuras imperialistas,
puesto que nadie va a querer conquistar a
quien ya le sirve y es su socio. Y en América
Latina es donde se puede llegar más rápido.
Las nacionalidades son allí más artificiales, se
han montado de modo arbitrario, sin obedecer
a criterios geográficos, étnicos o históricos.
Sigla del Partido Revolucionario Institucional, del que han salido todos los presidentes de Mexico en las últimas
seis décadas.
3
42
VARGAS LLOSA
En la Era de Clinton
T.E.M. —Habría que saber si los Estados
Unidos coinciden con ese punta de vista.
—La última campaña electoral en Estados
Unidos ha mostrado la capacidad de regeneración que tiene el sistema. Había hartazgo y
pesimismo con la recesión y con los reveses
económicos internos. Se eligió entonces a una
figura joven, de otro partido. Y eso ha despertado nuevas ilusiones en el sistema como
instrumento de cambio. Para mí eso es muy
positivo, porque creo en el sistema. Ahora bien:
Clinton representa un peligro en el campo de
la internacionalización. En el veo el riesgo de
una vuelta al proteccionismo y de un nuevo
confinamiento en el localismo. Lo que vaya a
ocurrir no está claro, porque Clinton envía
señales aun equivocas.
T.E.M. —Había desanimo antes de Clinton,
dijiste. ¿Por qué había desanimo? Pues justamente porque había fracasado una política
de mercados abiertos, porque, al llegar a sus
extremos, el liberalismo estaba mostrando
sus grietas.
—No. Si Bush fracasó es porque frenó el
impulso hacia la liberalización, que había sido
muy fuerte en tiempos de Reagan. Sucede que
Bush nunca fue un liberal. Fue un conservador.
T.E.M. —Bush, de todas maneras, pone al
descubierto el hecho de que, tras ocho años de
impulso liberalizador, como dices, tras ocho
años de Reagan, Estados Unidos habra perdido
todas las ventajas que tenía en su competencia
con los japoneses, por ejemplo.
—Es que el mercantilismo destruye el
liberalismo. La única manera de afrontar la
competencia es compitiendo. Si las industrias
no están en condiciones de competir, deben
reformarse o desaparecer: ese es el principio
básico de la libertad.
T.E.M. —La experiencia histórica demuestra, sin embargo, que el liberalismo económico
rara vez va acompañado por el liberalismo
político. Más bien sucede al revés.
—Pero a los países que han llevado más
lejos su liberalismo les ha ido mejor. Los países
con grandes sectores públicos están en desventaja ante los que ya han descentralizado
su economía. Esas son leyes generales para
las que no hay excepciones.
T.E.M. —Uruguay, sin embargo, decidió
democráticamente, a través de un plebiscito,
oponerse a la venta de sus empresas públicas. Y no me parece que le esté yendo tan mal.
—Ellos eligieron regresar a la idea de la
tribu. No es infrecuente si no les va mal ahora
es por la apertura sensata que se aplicó durante la presidencia de [Julio María] Sanguinetti. Su sucesor, Luis Lacalle, quiso llevarla
un poco más lejos, y los uruguayos le dijeron
“No queremos”. Pues bien. No quieren. Eso
debe respetarse, porque no creo que esos procesos se deban hacer a la fuerza. ¿Quieren un
Estado fuerte? Entonces hay que darles un
Estado fuerte. Pero si existe la democracia,
van a terminar descubriendo que esa política
los pone en desventaja.
De Sarmiento a Borges
A.D.Q. —A esta altura de la conversación,
advierto que el verdadero modelo de Mario Vargas
Llosa para el espacio público es Sarmiento, con
su discurso civilizador y modernizador, y sus
ideas de civilización y barbarie. No Borges, al
que dedicaste un ensayo en el que lo oponías
a Sartre, sino Sarmiento.
—Sarmiento me parece un escritor extraordinario. Facundo es, pienso, la gran obra narrativa del siglo XIX. Pero, a diferencia de él,
no creo en la europeización racial. Su racismo
es para mí inaceptable.
T.E.M. —Vuelvo a Borges, entonces. Por
un lado están las erráticas ideas políticas de
Borges, que se le han perdonado para dejar
que prevalezca la grandeza innegable de su
obra. Pero por otro lado esta, también, la intención de Borges, a través de sus declaraciones
públicas y de conferencias como “El escritor
argentino y la tradición”, de que su visión o
no visión del mundo, su anti sentimentalismo,
el pudor y la elusión que eran característicos
de su obra, se conviertan en paradigmáticas
para la literatura argentina: la intención de
que toda la literatura argentina sea como era
la literatura de Borges.
—Borges no fue un político y no puede
juzgárselo como tal. Fue un escritor que descreía ya no solo de la política sino también
de la realidad. Pero eso que racionalmente tal
vez sea un disparate, produjo en su caso una
obra magistral. De todos modos, tuvo actos
de extremo coraje. Se opuso a la guerra de
las Malvinas cuando su país estaba ganado
por la histeria nacionalista, fue antifascista
cuando las mayorías abrazaban el peronismo,
que era en aquel momento la forma argentina
del fascismo. Pero lo que queda de Borges no
es eso, como tampoco es el lado político lo que
ha quedado de Neruda, con quien habría que
ser severísimo. Lo que queda de Borges es su
extraordinaria capacidad para transformar
la lengua literaria española con una fuerza
que no se conocía desde los clásicos del Siglo
de Oro. Y queda también su originalidad, que
nace de sus carencias personales. Reemplazo
cierto tipo de experiencias no vividas con una
erudición monstruosa. Y, además, nos ayudo a
todos los escritores de América Latina a romper
con un complejo provinciano de inferioridad.
A.D.Q. —Hacia el final de ese mismo ensayo,
“El escritor argentino y la tradición”, Borges
afirma que el escritor latinoamericano es como
los judíos, que pueden innovar más fácilmente
en la cultura occidental porque actúan dentro de esa cultura pero no se sienten atados
a ella. Pareciera estar marcando así nuestra
marginalidad frente al centro, que es la cultura occidental. ¿Esa es también tu posición?
—Borges refuta allí el nacionalismo con
argumentos contundentes. Para él, la cultura
está en un plano distinto del de la historia,
4
En su libro de 1950, Octavio Paz define a los “pachucos” como a “bandas de jóvenes, generalmente de origen
mexicano, que viven en las ciudades del Sur [de Estados Unidos] y que se caracterizan tanto por su vestimenta
como por su conducta y su lenguaje”. Los pachucos son también conocidos como “chicanos” y constituyen ahora
casi un tercio de la población en el sur de Texas y de California.
43
Photo of (left to right) Mario Vargas Llosa and Tomás Eloy Martínez courtesy of Arcadio Díaz Quiñones
que también es, el lo insinúa, una rama de
la ficción. Pero creo que Borges representa
la cultura occidental. No hay otro escritor en
América Latina que sea tan universal como él.
Antes de Borges, tal vez haya que citar a Ruben
Darío, quien fue también capaz de decir: Yo
me apodero de lo que me gusta. Y lo que me
gusta es mío.
A.D.Q. —Pero eso sólo se puede hacer desde
el margen. Desde el centro es imposible hacerlo.
—Cuando ellos lo hicieron no se podía, en
efecto. Creo que ahora si se puede, cada vez
mas. Aun así, no ser nada o ser todo es una
de las maneras más autenticas de ser latinoamericano. Es el caso de Darío, a quien no se
puede encasillar en una tradición concreta,
porque está en todas a la vez. Lo concreto es su
obra, que tiene un sello muy personal. También
Borges y Octavio Paz son eso. Octavio Paz es un
caso notable de universalismo que se expresa
claramente en algo muy personal.
A.D.Q. —No entiendo entonces muy bien
porque Paz, en el comienzo mismo de El laberinto de la soledad, se refiere despectivamente
al “pachuco”,4 que es justamente producto de
la hibridez y de la mezcla.
—No creo que Octavio Paz haya hablado
despectivamente del pachuco.
A.D.Q. —No lo ve como una cultura. Lo
describe como un no ser.
—Lo ve como a la encarnación de una falta
de identidad. Y en eso descubre un símbolo.
Pero no lo trata de modo despectivo. Más bien
hace de él una descripción trágica.
A.D.Q. —Yo veo una actitud despectiva: la
misma actitud despectiva que hay en ciertos
intelectuales del Caribe ante la emigración. Cuando sales de tu territorio, pierdes tu identidad.
—No lo creo. Ahí tienes a grandes escritores del Caribe como Alejo Carpentier que
se construyen su propia identidad, lo que les
permite elaborar una obra muy rica en la que
no están presentes sólo el Caribe, Francia y sus
culturas, sino todo eso: una mezcla admirable
en la que aparecen también las curiosidades
históricas del propio Carpentier. Otro caso notable de creación de identidad es [José] Lezama
Lima. Ahí tienes a un hombre que, sin salir
de Cuba, se inventó un mundo que pasa por
todas las geografías y todas las culturas, tal
como había hecho Darío.
donde esta lo afro. Pero lo afro nos rodea por
todas partes. Ahí tienes un serio problema de
identidad.
—Creo que la identidad es un mito, una
ficción. Lo afro es tan ficticio como lo blanco
o como lo judío. La identidad es un producto
de la ideología. Se trata de hacernos pensar
que existen comunes denominadores a los que
no podemos escapar, y eso no es verdad. Sólo
adviertes que hay una identidad autentica cuando te vuelves hacia lo individual. Mira tú
lo de las identidades nacionales: eso es una
pura ficción, una invención de los antropólogos.
A.D.Q. —Cuando veo a los puertorriqueños
bailando sus plenas en Nueva York, no necesito
hablar con los antropólogos para darme cuenta
que allí hay una identidad, algo que es propio
de ellos y solo de ellos.
—Pero ese es sólo un nivel donde yo también puedo ser un puertorriqueño. Oigo una
plena y lloro. Me produce una emoción infinita.
La bailo mal, pero no por eso me conmueve
menos. Si de la plena hablamos, yo también
soy puertorriqueño.
A.D.Q. —Sucede que en América Latina se
tiende a negar lo que es inmediato, no lo que
es remoto: Insisto, con Henríquez Ureña, uno
de los grandes escritores del Caribe. Henríquez
Ureña no podía ver lo afro.
—No lo veía. Pero la identidad tampoco
puede ser acumulativa, porque entonces desembocas en el artificio. Hablar de identidades
puede ser equivoco y peligroso.
A.D.Q. —Pero si se puede hablar de construcción de identidades. Lo que pasa es que
la negación de lo afro, sobre todo en el Caribe,
revela un conflicto cultural muy vivo todavía
en la tradición latinoamericana.
—En lo que veo en peligro es en establecer
un esquema intelectual, ideológico, político,
y en juzgar una obra exclusivamente en función de ese esquema. Eso es una distorsión,
la vieja distorsión ideológica, de la literatura
y de la cultura en general. Según eso, quienes
son políticamente correctos son buenos y son
validos, y quienes no, no lo son. Así se establecen unas jerarquías aberrantes. Quiero añadir
algo sobre la identidad. Hay identidades que
aproximan a ciertos seres, pero no en función
de la geografía o de la religión, por ejemplo,
sino en función de sus propias semejanzas
como individuos. Lo demás es artificio.
FACULTY UPDATES
Magaly Sánchez R.
(Office of Population Research)
“Distant but Linked: Venezuelan Immigrants
in United States” In Multicultural Americans: The
Newest Americans (Westport, CT: Greenwood,
forthcoming).
Massey, Douglas S., & Magaly Sánchez R.
Brokered Boundaries: Creating Immigrant Identity
in Anti-immigrant Times (Russell Sage Foundation, 2010).
“Latino Youths: From Exclusion to International
Migration.” Urbana (39, 2009).
Massey, Douglas S., & Magaly Sánchez R.
“Restrictive Immigration Policies & Latino Immigrant Identity in the United States.” UNDP Human
Development Research Papers 43 (United Nations
Development Program, 2009).
Alexandra Vazquez (African American Studies and English) is
the recipient of a
2010–2011 Woodrow Wilson Career
Enhancement Fellowship, awarded
by the Woodrow
Wilson National
Fellowship Foundation.
Selected Recent Publication
“Can You Feel the Beat? Freestyle’s Systems of Living, Loving, & Recording.” Social
Text, special issue, “Politics & Sound Recording” (March 2010).
Photo courtesy of Alexandra Vazquez
VARGAS LLOSA
La Identidad
A.D.Q. —Admiro profundamente a Lezama
Lima, pero tanto el cómo [Pedro] Henríquez
Ureña y otros intelectuales caribeños de primera magnitud tienen una ceguera plena ante el
mundo afro. No pueden verlo como un mundo
capaz de generar cultura. La otredad empieza
44
LA BREGA
being there, an imprecise mode of struggle, a negotiation between presence and absence. In
situations that announce themselves as less than propitious or outright impossible, a different
tone of voice is struck and the expression becomes: Yo con eso no brego (that is not for me to
take on or, more idiomatically, I wouldn't touch that with a ten-foot pole).
Where could such a deep familiarity with la brega have come from? For some twenty or
thirty years now, the word has been embedded in the oral idiom, in the ethos and specific laws
of cultural memory. It has made its way into pithy and straightforward expressions, as when
a query about someone's behavior is answered with a Si tú bregas bien, ella brega bien (If you
handle it well, she'll handle it well; in other words, expect measure for measure). Bregar, even
when we account for all its twist and turns, essentially bears the imprint of three elements.
Work, and by implication discipline and talent, comprises the first term. Next, we have bregar
in its sexual sense in which the two spheres of work and eroticism intersect with the rhythms
of the body. The third term is marked by intense psychological, spiritual, and political dilemmas that have a direct effect on individuals as well as the community. The third term, with its
back and forth between indecision and decision in the face of precarious situations, is the one
that interests me most in this essay.
The word may be uttered in hope or melancholy. Whether it be in Chicago or on the Island,
the concise expression, hay que bregar (you gotta do. what you gotta do) can be an appeal to new
ideas and initiatives, including those with a certain militancy, that seek to confront policies,
behaviors and tecbnical challenges. In different contexts, however, as in other duplicities of
Puerto Rican life, it can come across as a lifeless response that allows the speaker to disconnect
while saving appearances, a formula without beginning or end running circles around itself.
The appeal of this nonepic mode of the brega is in its sanction for life to proceed so that some
part may be salvaged from the ruins.
For many decades many Puerto Ricans placed their hopes on the avant-garde poet and politician Luis Muñoz Marín; certainly, he would know how to deal (bregar) with the North Americans,
how to negotiate with the disproportionate Empire without compromising dignity or resorting
to violence. And indeed, Muñoz Marín, whose father
and forebear was Luis Muñoz Rivera, responsible
for the “posibilismo” school of Puerto Rican politics,
succeeded, with the help of his remarkable charisma
and a noteworthy democratic consensus, in making
the unyielding yield. In the post Cold War years, he
took on the role of the doubleagent of political culture.
Muñoz Marín seemed to be the perfect embodiment
of la brega: he was two in one, perfectly bilingnal,
with solid Creole and modern affiliations and loyal
to both Puerto Rico and North America.
In political terms, the brega efficiently served to buttress social action. A great finesse in
negotiation, expertise in translation and dexterity in times of flight were some of the qualities
it exacted. Bilingualism cannot be under-emphasized as one of the credentials that gave political validity to Muñoz Marín's brega. A key work in this respect is the heretofore little known
Historia del Partido Popular Democrático. This brief work, written in the 1940s, includes an
"unfinished autobiography," a first-person chronology that was not published until 1984. The
anonymous editor informs us that the early chapters that make up the incomplete life were
written between 1941 and 1942, in the wake of the great political triumph of 1940. In the sketchy
retelling of his childhood in New York, Muñoz Marín lays claim to some very telling beginnings:
"I do not recall any moment at which I did not speak English, just as I do not recall any moment
at which I did not speak Spanish." His persona was to be invariably engaged on this mental
and linguistic frontier.
In the self that Muñoz Marín constructed, fluency in both American English and Puerto Rican Spanish would in the end constitute the real difference. In his self-portrait, he speaks like
a man secure in his own role, like one entrusted with a mission. One could almost describe his
exposition as utopian—a translator's utopia where poet and politician can merge. In this way the
figure of the translator, that most secret and strange and nostalgic of writers, to borrow Maurice Blanchot's words, was given greater substance. What follows is a sampling of what Muñoz
Marín somewhat self-contentedly thought of himself in the text that dates from 1941 or 1942:
In the sketchy retelling of his childhood in New York,
Muñoz Marín lays claim to some very telling beginnings: “I do not recall any moment at which I did not
speak English, just as I do not recall any moment at
which I did not speak Spanish.”
45
LA BREGA
In that bout of giving names to things—
that day-in-day-out imperturbable christening by way of which a child configures the
habitat of his soul-things, it turned out,
had two names. They had their Spanish
name and their English name. This went
well beyond the mere translation of syllables whose equivalents dictionaries seek to
provide. Dictionaries may translate a series
of parallel connotations, but these continue
to be differentiated by their meanings—
connotations that carry whole histories in
their innermost recesses, a whole way of
seeing, a whole mentality [ ... ] Through
fortuitous accidents in the comings and
goings of my early years, I think that
English, in its American expression, and
Spanish, in its Puerto Rican expression,
understand each other quite well in my
person.
In its political sense, the brega also exacted a mastery of the art of the fugue, that tradition with so many moorings in maroon communities. In the second volume of Memorias, also
posthumously published in 1992, Muñoz Marín relates an enlightening parable of the brega
and exposes it for the finely-honed instrument of political practice it is. In the years that the
Dominican Republic was under Trujillo's dictatorship, Admiral Barbey, a commander in the
United States Naval Fleet in the Caribbean which was headquartered in Puerto Rico, agreed to
accept an honor that had been conferred on him by the dictatorship. Unbeknownst to Governor
Muñoz Marín who had not been consulted beforehand, arrangements were made to hold the
ceremony in San Juan. This sequence of events resulted in an extremely awkward diplomatic
and political dilemma: "I did not wish," Muñoz Marín wrote, "to create an embarrassing situation for the government of the United States in its dealings with a government that it officially
recognized, but I, for one, was not about to receive the high officials arriving from Santo Domingo
to attend the ceremonies." How was one to escape without upsetting political relations? Muñoz
Marín's solution to the dilemma is an illustration of the methodical duplicity and craftiness
that are characteristic of the brega.
The account is introduced under the following seemingly innocuous heading: Con café no
se puede brindar (You Can't Toast with Coffee). Indeed, there was to be neither an open denunciation nor a justification of the military men in attendance. Muñoz Marín needed a roomier
exit and found his escape in the Caribbean archipelago. When, as an older man, Muñoz Marín
recorded this incident in Memorias, he recalls the intellectuals and poets. Among them, Luis
Palés Matos, who is directly quoted and who accompanied him in the escapade. Together with
his complicit friends, he pitched camp in a free zone, a private world beyond the reach of the
imperial state for "four days of elation and superlative talk." With irony, he narrates how the
double game of concealment and disclosure was played, trusting that hindsight would enable
his readers to recognize the virtue of his moves. This parable could be a mirror in which the
colonial brega can contemplate its image:
... as I did not want to create international
complications for a matter of tin-ware ...
I decided to make myself scarce for a few days
and went on a small boat to the Virgin Islands
along with a handful of friends: Jaime Benítez, Antonio Colorado, Mariano Villaronga ...
the poet Luis Palés Matos and the future
Senator Ramón Enrique Bauzá.
I left Sol Luis Descartes, the Treasurer of
Puerto Rico, in charge of the government,
with instructions to honor the medal-recipi-
46
LA BREGA
ents at the reception at La Fortaleza with
black coffee instead of the customary champagne that is the de rigueur tradition on such
occasions. Had they been served champagne,
they would most certainly have raised their
glasses to the Leader of the Government of
Puerto Rico, that is me, which would have
left Descartes no choice but to drink to the
health of Trujillo. But, "you can't toast with
black coffee."
Four days of elation and superlative talk
were had on those "lagging island” waters, as
Palés had said, whose luminosity and magic
could only be compared to the seas of Greece
such as the one before me as I sit composing
this page. Palés, in the most renowned phase
of his poetic work, wrote his Afro-Caribbean
poems without once setting foot outside
Puerto Rico. Some years ago, I had wanted to
take him with me to New York to publish a
literary journal of projected hemispheric
reach, but his shyness and a marriage promise
held him back in Puerto Rico. As we walked
the sandy streets of a forgotten village on the
island of St. John, Palés, with all the openness
of a profound poet, said: "This looks a lot like
what I've written."
Descartes received the delegation and
served coffee. There were not toasts. The
medal was pinned on the Admiral at his
residence on the Naval Base. I could have
opposed adamantly the reception of the
representatives of the dictatorship at La
Fortaleza. By deciding not to do so, I expressed my attitude that when it comes to
things of this kind, once the principle has
been clearly stated, what's the point of
causing further disruptions to the normal
functioning of government. The Puerto
Rican nation understood the lesson in
democracy and that was enough. There was
no need to over-dramatize.
He advances by retreating. Is this a stance of cautious resignation in the face of a formidable foe? Or, is Muñoz Marín, late in the day, writing only for the imaginary time of posterity,
attempting to have a hand (bregando) in his place in history? The serpentine paths taken by the
political brega in "You can't toast with coffee" are a clear exposition of the colonial drama and
the narratives it eventuates. Politics were, in fact, seen as a theatrical proceeding that frowned
on “over-dramatization." A frontal attack, given the enormous disparity of powers, was, by
defInition, impossible; hence, even a politician at the height of his power had no other recourse
but to deploy the arts of the brega—to come up with a way to be both present and absent. To
this day, both epigones and apologists acknowledge Muñoz Marín's clever move and applaud
his nimble wit in handling the situation.
There are, of course, other ways of reading this passage. An alternate reading forcibly gives
rise to an image of helplessness and sets a whole slew of interpretive discrepancies in motion.
There are those who, in the name of anti-imperialism, will prove incapable of resisting a reproach to Muñoz Marín for his deceptive duplicity, or, who, at the very least, will condemn his
retiring servility in the face of military authority. Perhaps. There are, nonetheless, doubts of
47
LA BREGA
a completely different nature that must also be addressed. Lest we forget, the anti-imperialist
tradition may very well be heroic, but it has not always been democratic. We need only compare
the course of the Cuban Revolution or the authoritarianism of certain leftist sectors of the
Puerto Rican "revolutionary" movement, whose belligerence has frequently proved humiliating,
or what is worse, demoralizing, to so many adherents, with any equivocal maneuver that can be
attributed to the brega. That said, for many present-day readers of Muñoz Marín the disappointment is inescapable. But the ideal readers for this work were his contemporaries, “the people"
who could appreciate the deployment, craft and skill of the Maestro because they shared in the
same consciousness and ironic sensibility when faced with the high stakes exacted by an open
confrontation with power. Today, the thread has been cut short.
( ... ) What may strike some observers as an absurd hieroglyphic is, in fact, absolutely coherent and necessary to many Puerto Ricans. All that was needed was for a figure such as the
poet-translator-politician Muñoz Marín to ply his skill at extracting the riches of the brega,
uprooting it from its popular context and introducing it into an active discourse for social and
economic change. During the thirties and forties, the bilingual Vate Muñoz Marín reinvented
himself many times. He constantly relied on the term to legitimize his policies, always insisting
on the necessity for flexibility in the relations with the metropolis.
An awareness of the profound orality that still held cultural sway was behind Muñoz Marín's
understanding that the vernacular brega was a byword for identity. He reclaimed the word and
recast it, precisely because of its vagueness and ambivalence, as the catch phrase for a poetics
of action. It was the essential word for casting what Roger Bartra has called the imaginary nets
of political power with which one tries to ensnare "the quick-silver fish of legitimacy." If we are
to understand the nuanced ways in which Muñoz Marín used the term, we need look no further
than his speeches, even if the texture of his measured eloquence is not entirely conveyed on the
page. His speeches, especially when compared to the banalities from the governors who preceded
him, excepting Rexford G. Tugwell, and to the superficiality of almost all those who succeeded
him, are historical documents of undeniable substance. The radio was his medium of choice,
an ideal means as he saw it for a society that was in large part illiterate or semi -literate and
where oral exchange was the mainstay of social intercourse.
He did not, however, shun the printed word. During the War, in 1942, while he was the President of the Senate, he delivered a passionate speech in which he reiterated the slogan of Manos
a la obra! (Operation Bootstrap) and called on "All hands to avail themselves, as human hands
should, to the brega of the present and the future!" And again, in his 1950 "Mensaje" that was
an exposition on the necessity of attracting capital investment and of amassing contributions
to assist the needs of public education and health, he said: "This is the difficult dilemma with
which we are dealing (estamos bregando)." Ten years later, his 1960 "Mensaje" opened with a
statement that confirms the word's political ascent: "We dedicated the decade that began in 1940
to the initiation of the brega (struggle) for the abolition of poverty." Even toward the end of his
life, as attested to in Memorias, the word crops up time and again. He even used it to characterize
Rexford G. Tugwell, the last North American to govern Puerto Rico, who was both his sometime
ally and sometime rival during the years of World War II. There is a key definition of the word
to be found among the virtues Muñoz Marín ascribed to Tugwell: "He had an emphatic sense
of social responsibility, of innate radicalism, and a serene and firm disposition with which to
tackle (para bregar) the root of the problems reality sets before us without resorting to theoretical dogmas." The brega, therefore, finds itself accordingly aligned with the politics of the New
Deal in which Tugwell played a notable role. What is certain, irrespective of the ways in which
the word may have come to him, is that Muñoz Marín endowed it with dignity and introduced
it as a worthy term of the political fray. The leap would be irrefutable.
Muñoz Marín's unexpected break from the Independence movement is most succinctly stated
in articles that made their appearance in June 1946 and was entitled "Nuevos caminos hacia viejos
objetivos" ("New Ways Toward Old Objectives") to which we must now turn our attention. These
fundamental texts were written in the wake of the massive destruction of World War II and of the
terrible massacre at Hiroshima. In them we witness a dramatic political shift and an emended
dedication. For today's reader, its optimism and enthusiasm for a futurist technological civilization,
will, no doubt, prove perturbing, Fundamentally, these articles establish a dichotomy between
progress and nation and makes a distinction between what it dubs the "foolish imperialism" of
the political policies of the United States and the "aggressive and controlling” imperialism of its
economic policies. Modernization, according to Muñoz Marín, is inevitable, a destiny that must
48
LA BREGA
ESTADO NOVO
be embraced if one is to escape destruction by
the forces of progress. La brega achieves the
status of a mighty and vigilant deity, standing in for a "reality" that may turn vengeful
when "Destiny" is hindered. "If our thinking is
capable of handling (bregar) that reality, then
we can change it, improve it, defend it. But if
our minds balk at handling (bregar) it, then
that reality will mishandle us (bregará con
nosotros) as freely and capriciously as it sees
fit." Modernity expected no less than a tabula
rasa—a foregone adaptation to the new and
a shedding of old notions. In the process, la
brega ceased being synonymous with conciliation and reverted to its warlike dimension.
The Free Associated State was a partial
solution in which the disproportionate power
of Empire, its imposing machinery, and the
Cold War's centers of grayity were implicit.
We cannot overlook the fact that the so-called
Commonwealth was established in 1952, in the
midst of the Korean War and one year before
the end of New Deal policies and the change
of government in the United States. The utopia
consisted in separating present action from its
eventual problematic consequences; in supplying a buffer, as wiping the slate clean was
not an option, to a tremendous colonial power.
The Island was, and continues to be, a frontier
military outpost for the United States. We must,
if we are to understand the uneasy existence
of that brega and its uninterrupted dialogue
with the heroic figure of Pedro Albizu Campos,
read what Muñoz Marín himself had to say in
the pages of his very melancholy Memorias.
The work was conceived as a long chronicle, a
montage of documents and fragments written
against the perpetual backdrop of Empire; the
gaps and lapses are many. This was the swan
song with which Muñoz Marín perhaps hoped
now, as his life was ending and the future had
become present and irremediable, to exorcize
the loss of faith and attain an illusion of peace
in the shelter of the brega's generous shade.
This is a translation of fragments from
the first essay in El arte de bregar (San Juan:
Ediciones Callejón, 2000). Reprinted with permission from Latino(a) Research Review (4)3,
Winter 2000. Translated by Nadia Benavid
and revised by the author.
advertisements for the brain tonic “Neurobiol”
contained images like an executive working,
with similarly ziggurat-styled skyscrapers in
the background, and the announcement: “In
the maelstrom of modern life, victory belongs
to the strong brains!”
On the other hand, newspapers initially
condemned the slow pace and high costs of
the MEC building, as Zilah Quezado Deckker
shows in Brazil Built: The Architecture of the
Modern Movement in Brazil. In a time of war,
criticism of the building as a “Palace of Luxury”
must have resonated in particularly negative
ways with the reading public. But then, New
York MoMa architect Philip Goodwin praised
the MEC as the “most advanced building in
America” on a visit to Rio with the architectural writer George Everard Kidder-Smith.
The tide began to turn. Nonetheless, while a
headline in the July 2, 1942 edition of A Notícia repeated the phrase, it also tempered the
enthusiasm by referring to the construction
as “long and extremely expensive” (Longas
e caríssimas as obras do Palácio do Ministério da Educação, reproduced in Deckker,
p. 189.) The MEC’s prominence in the 1943
“Brazil Builds” exhibition at the MoMA and
in Kidder-Smith and Goodwin’s book (Brazil
Builds: Architecture New and Old, 1652-1942),
though, catapulted the building, as well as
those Brazilians involved in the project, into
the vanguard of architectural practice.
Although the MEC design’s version of
modernity “won” and remained, in a sense
becoming canonized even before its inauguration as the ministry’s office building, in a
historical context the MEC’s design did not
signify modernity or progress any more than
the new architecture of the Presidente Vargas
Avenue. An argument could be made that the
Avenue’s and the MEC’s respective buildings
responded to antagonistic currents within
Getúlio Vargas’s regime: one, led by the Departamento de Imprensa e Propaganda, more
aggressively nationalist and with totalitarian
leanings; the other “softer” and more willing
to compromise, centered around education
minister Gustavo Capanema—whose name
would be used to designate the building to
host the ministry.
Today, the Central do Brasil and the Palácio
Duque de Caxias might stand together not just
physically but in how passersby experience
them—as two iconic relics of a long-gone vision of what the future should look like. It
is clear that the designs of the Central do
Brasil and the Palácio Duque de Caxias were
rendered to highlight the effects produced
by the avenue’s open spaces. The version of
modernity and progress represented by the
avenue and its accompanying architecture,
as well as the Brazil that they sought to replace, also become clear once we consider the
building’s locations. Perhaps symbolically, the
Central Station has its back to the Morro da
Providência, the very first of the city’s favelas.
In order to allow for the new vistas, much of
the neighborhood of the Cidade Nova, including its Praça Onze, had to be destroyed. The
Praça Onze, a public square, had served as
the epicenter of Rio’s “Little Africa” and of
a vibrant Ashkenazi Jewish neighborhood.
It had also hosted the city’s most popular
street carnival, and figured in the collective
imaginary as the “cradle of samba.”
At the same time, the differences between
them should not be overlooked. To invert the
old adage of composition teachers, buildings
might show, but they do not necessarily tell.
Despite sharing certain aesthetic elements
and general influences, details that can go
unnoticed today can be quite revealing in the
context of the 1930s and early 1940s. There is
a relevant, if obvious difference in their functions—one serves as a public space, the other
forbids entry to the non-authorized. One also
thinks immediately of the Central do Brasil’s
ribbon windows, which simultaneously evoke
industrial architecture, give an impression of
openness and provide light. Ribbon windows,
not coincidentally, were one of Le Corbusier’s
five points of new architecture.
In other words, the architects involved
in the pioneering design for the MEC by no
means held a monopoly on elements of the
International Style in Brazil. The Central do
Brasil can be seen as a type of compromise
among the aesthetic programs and political
currents vying for control of the country’s
representation of itself during the Getúlio
Vargas regime—at least from a historical
perspective, a compromise amidst “culture
wars.” When it comes to architecture, it is
perhaps the case that politics, like beauty,
lies in the eyes of the beholder.
From ReVista Harvard Review of Latin
America Spring/Summer 2010, with permission.
49
From The Princeton Club of Brazil
Rio de Janeiro, May 21, 2010
The Princeton Club of Brazil today laments the loss of one of its most outstanding members. Francisco Gros ’64 succumbed May 20,
2010 to a brain tumor, after months of valiant struggle.
Francisco was no stranger to struggle. He was an integral and upright professional, dispassionate and well-reasoned, absolutely
unafraid of challenges. He was called upon to serve his nation as head of the Central Bank twice (1987 and 1991), both times in the
middle of severe economic crises. Previously he had been the Superintendent of CVM, still in its relative infancy, and the President of
BNDES. He then accepted appointment as President of Petrobras, where he introduced his world vision to a still closed corporation.
“Princeton in the Nation’s Service” defines his public life.
As if that were not enough, he had an equally distinguished career in the private sector. Kidder Peabody, Multiplic Corretora and
Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, where he was Managing Director for Brazil, were financial concerns where he shone. In industry, he became
the head of both Fósfertil S.A. and OGX Petróleo & Gas, followed by Board positions in many well-known companies.
Most important to those of us in the Princeton family, he was instrumental in the re-structuring and rejuvenation of the Princeton
Club of Brazil in 2008 and 2009. He was a member of our Advisory Board, participated in our events and gave unwavering support.
Last year, still recovering from surgery, he graciously granted an interview to a rising Princeton senior whose thesis topic was the
Brazilian energy market.
That was the last time I saw my classmate François. I wish it were not so.
Michael R Royster ‘64
Francisco Gros ‘64 died on May 20, 2010 at the Hospital Sirio Libanês in São Paulo, Brazil. Slated to be
a member of the PLAS Advisory Council, Gros was the Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors for OGX
Petoleo e Gas, Ltda., where he had previously served as President and Chief Executive Officer.
Gros earned the B.A. from the Woodrow Wilson School and later pursued courses in the Masters in
Economics Program at Columbia University. He began his career as an investment banker in the 1970’s
when he spent several years originating and executing international corporate finance transactions at
a major Wall Street firm. Later, he became Executive Director of Unibanco, in charge of capital market
transactions, when Unibanco was the Brazilian market leader for both equity and debt transactions
(1981 to 1985). As a leading figure in his field, he was employed in many roles including President and
CEO of Petroleo Basileiro S.A. and of the Brazilian Development Bank; as a Managing Director of Morgan
Stanley, governor of the Central Bank, Chairman of the Board for Wilson Sons, Ltd., and served on the
Boards of several companies including Energias do Brasil S.A. and Globex Utilidades S.A.
He is survived by his wife, Isabel; and three children.
50
Photo from O Globo
Francisco Roberto André Gros ‘64
(1943-2010)
2010–11 LAS Course Offerings
See the PLAS website (www.princeton.edu/plas/Courses) for a complete and updated listing of LAS cross-listed courses and courses of interest.
Fall 2010–-11
LAS 401/SPA 410 Latin American Studies Seminar: Borges and Fiction
This course will study the sources Borges used in writing his short stories and will examine the prose and writing techniques he utilized. The course will also devote special attention
to the relationship between Borges’ short stories and essays as many stories are disguised as essays, and several essays are short stories in disguise. Mario Vargas Llosa.
Schedule: S01 1:30pm-4:20 T.
LAS 406/ARC 411/SPA 406 Latin American Studies Seminar: Modern Architecture Goes South: Museum, Mass Media and Pan-Americanism
This seminar closely examines the displacement of the architecture of the Modern Movement from Europe and the United States to Latin America. Using comparative
case studies of Venezuela and Brazil, the course will analyze the common influences of MoMA’s cultural strategies and the impact of mass media on the dissemination of Modern Architecture to the “South” in the context of WWII. By putting these two relevant experiences in parallel, the architectural journey intends also
to make a comprehensive review of Latin American contributions to Modern Architecture through some of the most significant projects developed in both regions.
Carola Barrios. Schedule: S01 1:30pm-4:20 Th.
Spring 2010–-11
LAS 302 Gender and Latin American States
This course examines the intersection of gender, power, and identity in various states in Mesoamerica. It explores states of different time periods
and political movements (e.g., pre-Columbian, colonial, national and transnational state systems), bisecting traditional divides in prehistory and
history. Rather than approach gender from an evolutionary perspective, readings and discussions focus on comparative analyses that both challenge
monolithic perspectives of social power and underscore historical contingency in the constitution of gender.
Christina T. Halperin. Schedule S01 1:30pm–4:20 M.
LAS 402 Latin American Studies Seminar : Surviving Good Governance: Public Administration after the Reforms
This seminar introduces students to the main issues in state and public administration reform carried out in Latin America over the last fifteen
years. The three main points to be discussed are Classical Weberianism, New Public Management and Neo-Weberianism. The seminar will present
a critical review of each, both in theory and implementation. In addition, the seminar has the practical goal of providing students with the capacity
not only to understand, but also to reproduce and further elaborate arguments for and against each of the main reform models, generally and in
specific cases of application.
Agustín Ferraro. Schedule S01 1:30pm–4:20 T.
PROGRAM IN LATIN
AMERICAN STUDIES
Princeton University
309–316 Burr Hall
Princeton, NJ 08544
51

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