Puerto Rican Obituary

Juan

Miguel

Milagros

Olga

Manuel

The Masses Are Asses

Pedro Pietri's The Masses Are Asses is both disturbing and hilarious. A couple living in a slum building (ex-hallway toilet) in the South Bronx are pretending to be on vacation in Europe, dining at a fine restaurant (La Plume de Ma Tante). During the short play, the man and woman argue, emulate the rich and poor (including speech patterns, slang, vacuous conservation, and ersatz ostentatious display of wealth), and do nothing as a series of crimes and a fire seemingly threatens to engulf their building. It's somewhat difficult to truly describe this bizarre play and its bitter satire, but it certainly does suggest that the masses are indeed asses. The main couple, whose voices are described as being the same as the various residents, criminals, and delinquents in the building, suggests that the main characters are part of an entire problematic worldview of the lumpenproletariat. 

Not only are they pretending to be rich, but there is a breakdown of social solidarity as they do nothing to assist victims of violent robberies, rape, and disasters. They have internalized the dominant ideology's view of the urban underclass that there is really no escape from the South Bronx. Perhaps Pietri wrote this as a response to the failure of the militancy of the Young Lords, Black Panthers, and other revolutionary groups to enact change. Of course, the cultural conservatism and consumerism of the 1980s, with the urban poor embracing much of neoliberalization openly or indirectly, perhaps also explains why Pietri's play suggests such a rather low opinion of the masses, both rich and poor. The righteous anger of Puerto Rican Obituary remains palpable in this play, but it's subtle and hidden beneath a rather dismal view of the masses, or mass. Cynicism appears to have infiltrated Pietri's work by the 1980s.

As a wild tangent, reading this brings to mind Ortega y Gassett's influence on Pedreira's classic study of Puerto Rican character. Although it would be difficult to argue for such an influence on The Masses Are Asses, perhaps it indirectly shapes the work as the revolt of the masses (through the lower classes and the pseudo-aristocracy) has succeeded in creating stagnant slums where the masses languish under the almighty dollar. Perhaps there is still lingering hope, as the "terrorists" described in the play continue their activities, disrupting the routine of the masses, but it seems unlikely. Regardless, one finds it hard to believe Pietri would ever go as far as Pedreira's classist views, but it would be interesting to explore this theme through his other works.

When I Was Puerto Rican

"That's part of being an imperialist. They expect us to do things their way, even in our own country."

Esmeralda Santiago's When I Was Puerto Rican is a beautiful memoir. It's always interesting when writers return to the magical world of youth and the experience of loss, which is inevitable in one's younger days. Her moving personal story takes her from the poor barrios of Puerto Rico to Brooklyn in the 1960s, chronicling her migrant experience, the bitter fights between her parents, and the colorful, tropical delights of her 'jibara' romanticized lifestyle. Her 'life' story during her youth seems to encompass every aspect of growing into adulthood, but I wonder how vivid and accurate can the memories of a four year-old child be? She surely embellished certainly memories with fiction literary techniques to enhance her story, which is really a tribute to a loss of life and culture due to urbanization, migration, and family discord. 

Despite some of her perhaps romanticized notions of Puerto Rican rural life (then again, I think I would rather live in rural Puerto Rico than a filthy slum like El Mangle), the other strength to this work is the attention to the experience of women as central to the narrative. Women work non-stop and get little recognition or respect, as Esmeralda Santiago's mother illustrates perfectly. The sexist, patriarchal world of Puerto Rico and New York affect young Esmeralda in ways she only begins to understand in her teen years, and highlight a factor lacking in other Puerto Rican writers, like Piri Thomas, whose famous work does not highlight themes of gender at all despite Puerto Rican women being the potomitan of Puerto Rican culture and society, too.

This memoir also reminded me of works by V.S. Naipaul, Patrick Chamoiseau and Dany Laferrière which also explored their childhoods in Martinique and Haiti. Overall, Laferrière's short fictionalized novel of his childhood in Petit-Goave is my favorite, but the parallels in all three's work is remarkable. Laferriere also shares with Santiago a narrative rooted in the influential women who raised him and the world of a child in provincial Haiti. Chamoiseau, on the other hand, shares a political subtext in his School Days that is present in Santiago's work but muted in An Aroma of Coffee. Naipaul's Miguel Street (arguably, A House for Mr. Biswas, too) also explores life in the Caribbean, provincial and urban, with similar local color, language, cultural miscegenation, and identity (including some rather humorous and intriguing conflicts along lines of gender).

Perhaps would be an interesting research topic to analyze Caribbean writers on the subject of childhood, because I am sure there are other writers who have returned to their youth and reached similar conclusions or observations on Caribbean societies, migration, gender, race, or language. There is something magical about nostalgia and youth, and I intend to read more on the subject.