Entangled cultures and hybrid identities: the construction of the female diasporic subject in Cristina García s Dreaming in Cuban and Achy Obejas s Memory Mambo

Abstract

The aim of this dissertation is to analyze the novels Dreaming in Cuban, by Cristina García, and Memory Mambo, by Achy Obejas. This work investigates how exile and hybridity may interfere in family relationships. In both novels, by contemporary Cuban-American writers, the characters have to negotiate with their own families and with different cultures. In these novels, the construction of identity of the female diasporic subject is intensively permeated by family relationships and politics, even though families may or may not be separated by political issues. In Dreaming in Cuban, by means of postmodern narrative strategies, Cristina García inserts voices silenced by patriarchy, deconstructing official history and providing the reader with a female perspective of events. In Memory Mambo, memory plays an important role in the narrative, demonstrating that memory can be contradictory and that history is a social construct. Both novels challenge traditional modes of representation and offer a compelling portrait of life at the crossroads of cultures