Constituting Central American–Americans

Maritza E. Cárdenas

• Publisher: Rutgers University Press
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9780813592848
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Hispanic American Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

Central Americans are the third largest and fastest growing Latino population in the United States. And yet, despite their demographic presence, there has been little scholarship focused on this group. Constituting Central American-Americans is an exploration of the historical and disciplinary conditions that have structured U.S. Central American identity and of the ways in which this identity challenges how we frame current discussions of Latina/o, American ethnic, and diasporic identities. By focusing on the formation of Central American identity in the U.S., Maritza E. Cárdenas challenges us to think about Central America and its diaspora in relation to other U.S. ethno-racial identities.  

Part 1

The Isthmus Imaginary

La Patria Grande Centroaméricana

1

Remembering La Patria Grande

Locating the Nation in Central American History

An excess of confidence has spread all over the world regarding the ontology of continental divides.

—Walter Mignolo, The Idea of Latin America

In 1986, the vice president of Guatemala, Roberto Carpio Nicolle, developed a “credo centroamericano” in which he proclaims in the last line, “Creo en una nación patria de los Centroamericanos. Yo nací guatemalteco de lo cual me siento orgulloso, pero quiero vivir y morir Centroamericano” (I believe in a nation of Central Americans. I was born Guatemalan, of which I feel proud, but I want to live and die Central American).1 Carpio Nicolle’s statement asserts two cultural identities—one Guatemalan and one Central American—that operate simultaneously although not quite equitably. Despite insisting that he is “proud” of his particular national identity as a Guatemalan, by portraying Guatemala as simply the place of his birth, Carpio Nicolle undermines the importance of such a claim, since his emotive attachment is reserved for another spatial imaginary—Central America. Guatemala becomes an incidental backdrop as he expresses his desire to experience the important milestones of his existence (life and death) as a Central American. By explicitly using the word patria (nation) to refer to Central America (and not Guatemala), Carpio Nicolle confers affective dimensions onto Central America. This avowal takes on greater resonance when we consider that he issued it during his time as vice president of Guatemala and did not suffer any negative consequences for his pronouncement. Although it is difficult to imagine an official of one particular nation-state publicly declaring his love for another nation-space and doing so without criticism or accusations of being “unpatriotic,” Carpio Nicolle not only avoided such defamations but also was honored by several regional institutions.2 In fact, some have asserted that it was Carpio Nicolle’s view of Central America as a patria that made him the perfect choice as the first president of el Parlamento Centroamericano (PARLACEN).3

It might seem odd to begin a project about the U.S. Central American diaspora with a political figure like Carpio Nicolle, since the Guatemalan state often enabled a brutal military regime that spurred the diasporic migrations from Guatemala to other countries like the United States.4 However, Carpio Nicolle’s framing of Central America as a nation or patria is often shared in the U.S. diaspora as well—perhaps by some of the very same people who were forced to migrate due to state-enforced violence. For instance, twenty-seven years later and more than 2,200 miles away, in September 2013, the Boston, Massachusetts–based cultural nonprofit organization Alianza Cívica Cultural Centroamericana (ACCCA) would share similar sentiments. In a letter inviting Leonel Vásquez Búcaro (then president of PARLACEN) to attend the celebration of Central American independence in the city of Boston, Alfonso Hernández (then president of the ACCCA) reasserted the notion of Central America as a patria, stating, “This event is unique in all of the United States, since just like in 2012, we will hoist the Central American flag and play the Central American hymn in the heart of the city of Boston, Massachusetts. . . . We hope that in some way the Central American Parliament will show interest in these initiatives and support our communities, since this project by the Alianza Cívica Cultural Centroamericana is a source of inspiration and a true example for all those who persevere in the dream of constructing the patria grande that Francisco Morazán dreamed of one day.”5 Although such material symbols (flags and anthems) are typically expected at celebrations of national independence, what makes this cultural act noteworthy, as Hernández highlights in his letter, is that the flag and the anthem to be sung at this event do not belong to any currently existing nation-state. Even though the ACCCA celebration showcases flags and national anthems from individual countries of the isthmus, Hernández emphasizes that it is the Central American hymn and flag that will be prominently featured. Hernández’s statement discloses how this affective notion of Central America serves as a site of national belonging for peoples both within the United States and on the isthmus when he asserts that he hopes his group’s commemoration will inspire those who still preserve “the dream of the patria grande.” A defining feature of such “imagined communities” is that individuals will never know or meet most of their fellow community members, “yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion.”6 Hernández expresses a confidence in the existence of “those” who, like him and his group, believe in and view Central America as more than just a region of the world and see it as their patria grande / grand nation.

Carpio Nicolle and the ACCCA’s articulations of what Elisabeth Militz and Carolin Schurr label as “affective nationalism”—the quotidian affirmation and feeling of national belonging7—toward Central America, as well as contemporary diasporic practices (e.g., the construction of civic groups, parades, and festivals) among U.S. Central Americans, force us to rethink the conventional geopolitical mappings and understandings of this term. Too often the term Central America is conceived as a stable ontological and geographical category such as a “region” or an “isthmus.” Edward Said reminds us that a region does not originate in specific geophysical characteristics but, rather, its ontological status is confirmed by a history and tradition of ideas and metaphors, “of thought, imagery, and vocabulary that have given it reality and presence.”8 Such is the case with Central America, which, as a signifier, has engendered its own tradition of figurations. Textbooks and epistemological repositories that emerged in the nineteenth century, such as dictionaries and encyclopedias, for instance, have cemented a particular ontological status on Central America by viewing it as a landmass that connects North and South America—one extending from the isthmus of Tehuantepec to the Isthmus of Panama. As part of that geocultural entity known as Middle America,9 the space is defined within geological discourse as a “tropic zone,” whose native inhabitants are “Indian peoples” lacking the ability to achieve the “full development of the human race.”10 This notion of Central America and its indigenous inhabitants as incapable of achieving and reveling in the progress of modernity is mirrored in the U.S. imagination, both in its political rhetoric and especially in the construction and use of the derogatory term “banana republic.”11 As Walter Mignolo’s work demonstrates, discursive constructions of geopolitical spaces like “Latin America” often fulfill the sociopolitical function of naturalizing a colonial logic. In this context, these variant ideas of Central America are effects of a longstanding Western imperial gaze that “tropicalizes” a particular Latin American “space, geography, group or nation, with a set of traits, images and values.”12

Although such representations of Central America are predominant, they fail to account for the emotive and affective qualities that the signifier “Central America” holds for some immigrants living in the United States or for those who still inhabit the isthmus. Cartographic and geographical discourses about a “landmass” and a “tropic zone” in and of themselves usually do not interpellate subjects to want to “live and die” as Central Americans. It is when territory, geography, and cultures become linked and imagined that a sense of belonging emerges in relation to that space. Carpio Nicolle’s statement and the emergence of “Central American” as a mode of identification in the United States demands that we inquire how a space that for so many others is viewed as an “isthmus” has come to signify not just a territory or geopolitical space but also a nation—that is, if other iterations of Central America have fulfilled the sociopolitical function of sustaining colonial logic, racialized discourses, and political projects such as U.S. imperialism, capitalism, and neoliberalism, then a different articulation of Central America—one that sees it as a site of belonging—engenders another effect: the production of a cultural identity.

While Central America is itself not a nation-state, between 1824 and 1838 there was a Central American federation—a self-proclaimed sovereign entity with concrete, legislated territorial borders. Attempts to secure some type of statehood for Central America continued well into the twentieth century until the last symbolic attempt was made in 1921. Although it is no longer an official political entity, this does not preclude one from seeing Central America as a nation, as evidenced in the words of Carpio Nicolle and the ACCCA. Central America in this context operates as what Lauren Berlant labels a “National Symbolic”—a space in which its members assume a relationship based on collective practices that generate an affective response to this imaginary.13 Such national formations fulfill an important social function, since as Craig Calhoun notes, they “produce collective identity, to mobilize people for collective projects.”14 Calhoun therefore echoes Benedict Anderson’s position that it is not sufficient to merely accept that nations are invented but, rather, it is the “style” in which they are imagined that should be equally considered.15

This chapter focuses on how Central America has been imagined by tracing a particular discursive legacy that views Central America as a nation, which I heretofore refer to as patria grande. Conceiving of Central America as a patria grande assumes that certain peoples in the isthmus are inheritors of a broader common history and culture and that despite their allegiances to a particular nation-state (sometimes referred to as patria chica) they all belong to a larger Central American collectivity.16 We witness this codetermined relationship in Carpio Nicolle’s pronouncement of wishing to live and die as a Central American while still inhabiting the patria chica (Guatemala). It is Guatemala that enables him to live (physically and culturally) in the patria grande (Central America). There is a symbiotic relationship between the patria grande and the patria chica, as one does not negate the other; via its histories, mythos, and political rhetoric, the patria grande is always spectrally present in the patria chica. We also see this type of synecdochical affinity at play in the U.S. Central American diaspora; in the production of independence festivals featuring the Central American flag and hymn alongside the flags and anthems of individual isthmian nations.

I map the contours of the patria grande by highlighting how Central America as a national imaginary is forged and sustained by a delimited view of this space—one that sees it as primarily Spanish and mestiza/o. Examining historiographies about the region and political documents from the Spanish independence period (1821–1823), I reveal how Central America gains and maintains an identity of its own via the disavowal of blackness, indigeneity, and other proximal burgeoning nation-spaces such as Mexico. Treating historiographies as space-making endeavors, I illustrate how they unintentionally reproduce a notion of Central America that renders it synonymous with Spanish colonial culture and history. I therefore begin this chapter by briefly discussing the limitations present within historiographies on the region, which proclaim an objective dimension to the study of this space but inadvertently serve to police and cement the geographical and social-racial boundaries of the patria grande. I then shift my attention to the nineteenth century in order to provide an alternative reading of historical events (colonial independence and Mexican annexation) that are routinely cited as the raison d’être for diasporic Central American (comm)unity. I illustrate how current understandings of Central American independence are grounded in a systemic form of forgetting. Revisiting this temporal moment not only troubles the accepted narrative that all countries wanted and proclaimed independence simultaneously but also foregrounds how racial logics of that period, specifically fears of indigenous and African political uprisings, played a pivotal role in Spanish independence. I also call attention to the ways that Mexico—as a geopolitical space—became a prominent site from which early representations of Central Americanness would define itself against.

It should be noted that this chapter does not locate a stable meaning for the signifier “Central America,” nor does it produce a formal historical treatment of the etymology of that term. Rather, I compose a necessarily selective history of a concept that has been imagined and deployed as a national formation that is Spanish-based and mestiza/o-centric. I therefore outline the predominance of one specific articulation of Central America that emerged during the nineteenth century in order to expose the colonial foundation of that idea and its impact on U.S. Central American identity in the diaspora.

Between History and Geography: Rereading Central American Historiographies as Social Memory

As with other group identities, the collective identity “Central American” is contingent on practices of remembering. Communities need powerful cultural texts not only to continuously interpellate members but also to construct collective memory—one that provides them with an assumed shared notion of space, culture, and history. An important and yet overlooked inadvertent “site of memory” for establishing Central American nationalism are historiographies of the region. Histories are not a neutral form of record keeping, nor are they mimetic texts; rather, they are forms of narrative production that validate a particular order of things. As Peter Burke asserts, history is a form of social memory that engages in “the complex process of selection and interpretation,” as it participates, though not always consciously, in the “social organization of forgetting . . . suppression and repression.”17 A brief examination of historiographies and historical documents on Central America reveals that despite variations in methods and definitions of this geopolitical space, for the most part, they partake in a Eurocentric logic that inscribes this signifier with two ontological features: (1) Central America is an isthmus and (2) five countries in that area share a common history. Ironically, with the exception of Ralph Lee Woodward’s Central America: A Nation Divided (1985), the title of which explicitly identifies Central America as a “nation,” most historians are reluctant to frame the area in this manner. In A Brief History of Central America (2007), Lynn Foster warns her readers that “there is, of course, no nation of Central America,” claiming instead that Central America is “a tiny region, broken into seven even smaller nations.”18 Almost twenty years prior, historian Hector Perez-Brignoli issued a similar declaration, stating that “there is the need to avoid an abstract idea of a Central American nation.”19 However, Perez-Brignoli does not necessarily share Foster’s assumptions, as he proceeds to assert that the problem is the slipperiness of the signifier “Central America” for historians of this area:

A history of Central America. The topic itself is fraught with problems. On one hand, a shared history forces us to limit consideration to five countries: Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. On the other hand, from a geographical viewpoint we might be expected to deal with a larger unit . . . Any of the views mentioned above can be supported by various criteria ranging from physical geography through human and political dimensions and demographics. For us to undertake a valid historical analysis of the region, however, something more than an operational definition of the region’s extent and scope is required. It is essential that what we define have common social origins. . . . The first perspective, which we will adopt, leads us to view the region in a restrictive way limiting it those five countries that until 1821 made up the Kingdom of Guatemala and which achieved independence under the name of the United Provinces of Central America.20

Perez-Brignoli displays here an acute understanding of the role played by the multiple ...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction
• Part I: The Isthmus Imaginary: La Patria Grande Centroaméricana
• Part II: The U.S. Diaspora: Little Central America
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• About the Author
• Read More in the Series