0.2 Close-reading tropical landscapes of the americas  (Page 3/4)

"the woman from the island of cuba"

Next, teachers can introduce this passage into a long-standing discussion of geographic mapping and environmental description. Many texts represent the nations, natives, and regions of Central and South America through strategies of “tropicalization.” To “tropicalize” means to “imbue a particular space, geography, group, or nation with a set of traits, images, and values” (8). Authors that tropicalize from the position of colonizer or imperialist, do so from a place of privilege, and, thus, assert power over that space by locating it within an encompassing set of characteristics. This strategy often connects the environmental factors of regions and places to ethnic characterizations of a place’s inhabitants. Often times, 19 ^th century travelers, especially Anglo-American travelers, described the residents of tropical locales as lazy and volatile due to the heat, tropical setting, and romance of the Southern Hemisphere. This type of characterization constructs ethnic stereotypes by which ethnicity reflects climate and location. Interestingly, the different authors of Spanish, Portuguese, and American Women both encourage and resist tropes of tropicalization. For instance, Guerrero initially contradicts the stereotypes of the tropics, refuting claims that the “the excessive heat of the tropics” “weakens the spirit” and causes “indolence” in natives (7). However, he also describes Cuba as space of exotic sexuality, where women come to blend with the beauty of the landscape. For instance:

If, by good fortune, all my readers had set foot upon those far beaches, I would not have to strain myself to praise Cuban women […] What did you expect? That women– who sway like poetic palm trees, who bend their waists like sugar canes caressed by a soft breeze, who bear the sun’s flames within their hearts, the moon’s the brilliant paleness in their faces, and the luster of the stars in their eyes– can be seen without opening the soul to great impressions? (6-7)

Despite his refutation of stereotypes, Guerrero presents Cuban women as sensual figures that blend into the tropical landscape. Teachers might discuss this passage by asking students: What is this passage about? Cuban Women or Cuba? For an in-class exercise, teachers might provide their students with a handout of this paragraph (as well as the previous one) or place this passage on a projector so that students both hear and see the words. Secondly, teachers might ask students: which words apply to Cuban women and which words apply to Cuba’s landscape? Asking questions that rely on reader's response can allow for teachers to guide students to the intersection of race, gender, and place. For instance, how do we understand Cuba as this author describes it? How do we understand the women of Cuba when they are placed in the context of “soft breeze[s]” and “the sun’s flames”? How is the author “praising” Cuban women? Calling students to consider these characterizations and how they reflect the basic details of a text’s setting, can show the different ways racial and gender dynamics influence our sense of space, landscape, and geography. To a certain extent, this passage performs the opposite function of pathetic fallacy or personification, “a figure of speech where animals, ideas or inorganic objects are given human characteristics” ( Glossary ). The bodies of Cuba’s women blend with the swaying palm trees, their waists become like sugar, and the sun is reflected in the passion of their hearts. Rather than attribute the landscape with human qualities, Guerrero attributes Cuban women with the qualities of Cuba’s tropical landscape.