Montes, Rafael Miguel

Dr. Rafael Miguel Montes is Assistant Professor of Communication Arts, English and Humanities at St. Thomas University in Miami Gardens, Florida. He has studied at Oberlin College and the University of Miami. His main areas of teaching and research are Cuban-American and Caribbean literature.

Generational Traumas in Contemporary Cuban- American Literature

2006 0-7734-5851-4
Through a critical examination of a number of artistic, musical, and literary productions created by the children of Cuban exiles, this book defines frameworks with which to discuss second-generation Cuban-American texts. Via the cultural critiques of exile produced by theorists such as Bhabha, Appadurai, Seyhan, and Rushdie, the work analyzes the social and political implications of works produced by Cristina García, Roberto G. Fernández, Virgil Suárez, Carmelita Tropicana, Albita Rodríguez, and several other artists all engaged in defining a cultural identity in exile. The overall study reveals a generational solidarity of much greater complexity than the common assumptions of assimilation and acculturation previously assigned to this generation’s cultural output. The art produced by this particular generation, born either wholly outside of Cuban territory or children at the time of their departures, considers the necessity of interrogating parental as well as grandparental narratives as they settle on the task of creating independent identity narratives. Primarily by accessing memories, childhood stories, tales of pre-Revolutionary Cuba, traumatic narratives of departure, and accounts of social (mal)adjustments, these texts offer a number of viable ways in which to produce and ultimately locate a multi-faceted cultural identity despite the potentially alienating condition known as exile.