[In the following essay, Rodriguez provides a brief literary and political history of the Caribbean, focusing mainly on its female writers and their place in traditional Caribbean cultural society.]

If we agree that the Caribbean is a fragmented, small region because of its political, economic, and language differences, we must also agree that even within so-called common language sectors, great differences exist. The countries of this region were formed by European economic enterprises in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries: Spain, England, France, and Holland determined the ethnic groups, the economy, and the political system that would prevail in the twentieth century.

After Spain had lost the last of its colonies in the New World in 1898, the legacy of the plantation system, the economic interest of the United States, and the international power games between first and second world countries further determined the fragmentation of the Spanish-speaking Caribbean region. Simón Bolívar's project to make the Antilles part of the Latin American countries and José Martí's and Eugenio Maria de Hosto's attempts to form an Antillean federation remained idealistic endeavors never to become reality.

During the nineteenth century the Dominican Republic was torn by internal power struggles and by political leaders who at various times wanted to join the United States or rejoin Spain or become an independent nation. Invasions by Haiti and the United States and long-ruling dictatorships such as that of Rafael Leonida Trujillo from 1930 until his assassination in 1961 hampered progressive economic and political development. Cuba went from being the puppet state of United States sugar interests to long and bloody dictatorships under Gerardo Machado from 1925 until 1933 and Fulgencio Batista on and off from 1940 until 1958. Puerto Rico remained in the hands of the United States from 1898; it went from a military government and governors appointed by the U.S. president to a populist movement led by Luis Muñoz Marín, which culminated in 1952 with the recognition of a particular relationship with the metropolis called a free associated state, a sophisticated term for colony.

The 1950s were decisive years politically for the Spanish Antilles. Since then the Dominican Republic has become more and more dependent on U.S. investments while maintaining a very fragile democracy sustained by consent of the military and the large landowners. To the chagrin of the United States and Latin American dictatorships, Cuba is the first socialist country in the New World. Puerto Rico holds elections every four years to debate its present political status and the economic benefits of becoming part of the most powerful country in the world or of establishing a socialist democracy in peace and friendship with all countries. The result is always the same: the free associated state remains with little political power but apparent economic gains.

Because of the power play, Cuba and Puerto Rico, which enjoyed good neighbor policies in the 1930s and 1940s, now seem as far apart as Grenada and Australia. No goods from Cuba (including books) can be circulated. Cultural exchanges have been limited to the whims of U.S. governments—more in Carter's time, less and less in the last seven years. Puerto Ricans have become alienated from the island of Cuba, and the only contact has been the so-called true stories brought back by the exiles who came to Puerto Rico in large numbers in the 1960s and 1980s. According to these “witnesses,” Cuba is an enormous prisonhouse where no one eats, plays, or reads. All they do is work; they never speak for fear of being imprisoned or killed. Groups such as the Puerto Rican Socialist party and the Antonio Maceo Brigade, universities, and cultural organizations are responsible for presenting the Puerto Rican people with another view of Cuba. Singers such as Pablo Milanes, Sylvio Rodriguez, and Amaury Perez and writers such as Nancy Morejon, Miguel Barnet, and Cinthio Vitier have shown that Cuba is alive and well despite the blockade and the lies. Still, to acquire books or records from Cuba is a very difficult and costly task. Traveling to an island that is so close is legally impossible or so expensive it is easier for the average citizen to travel to the Dominican Republic or New York or Disney World.

Because of the growing influence of the United States in the Dominican Republic, that country has become closer to Puerto Rico. Thousands of illegal immigrants live in Puerto Rico and have established their own ghettos working in the jobs that Puerto Ricans refuse because of low wages and living in run-down places abandoned by working-class families. To encourage tourism, the Dominican government has made it easier to enter the country. For example, during Trujillo's reign and while the military ruled the country, even if there was a civilian government, a blacklist of people belonging to or associated with leftist groups existed. Puerto Ricans can now enter with no passport, only a birth certificate; the plane fares are cheap; several airlines serve this route; and there is even a ferry from the west coast of Puerto Rico. Yet literature does not flow in the same way.

Dominican Republic presses are known for ignoring copyrights and publishing anything they think will sell well. Publishing a book in the Dominican Republic is very cheap compared to Puerto Rico or Spain. Yet books by Dominican writers seldom if ever circulate in Puerto Rico unless they are published by a Mexican, Argentinean, or Spanish press. An exiled Cuban press in Spain is one of the few that has published literature from the Dominican Republic, either as a whole book dedicated to this national literature, Lecturas Dominicanas,¹ or in Caribbean anthologies.² The only way to get books from this country is to bring them out personally. Ironically, Cuba and the Dominican Republic have better access to Puerto Rican literature than this island, which is always cited as a model of democracy and freedom but never receives books from neighboring countries.

From the moment that Spanish Antilleans were defined as Cubans, Dominicans, and Puerto Ricans, a sense of nationhood was established which identified a distinct culture separate from that of Spain. By the 1840s writers born on these islands were writing poems, describing customs particular to the region—jibaros and guajiros took the place of peninsulares. Interestingly enough, women were always present in cultural groups dedicated to the promotion of the arts, literature, and progressive ideas like abolition and independence. An example is Lola Rodriguez de Tio in Puerto Rico.³ Most of these women were wives and daughters of landowners, who were able to move about because of their wealth and status in society. Gertrudis Gomez de Avellaneda from Cuba was a very outspoken woman who lived many years in Spain and became a prominent romantic novelist.⁴ These women were able to become a part of struggling political or intellectual groups because they were brave enough to tolerate society's attacks on their behavior. Many had to endure exile for voicing their political convictions.

During the nineteenth century the number of women writing novels in the Antilles was minimal, but their voices were heard in poetry. Fiction has been a difficult realm for women to enter. Those few who have, have seldom been able to pursue a writer's career and publish more than one novel or collection of stories. For Puerto Rican women, this situation has changed dramatically in the last fifteen years.

In the Spanish Antilles, literary movements have excelled in poetry. Some of the best poets of the time have belonged to the modernist movement and its branches. Later La Poesia Sorprendida and the Generacion del 48 in the Dominican Republic, the Minoristas and the Origenes group in Cuba, the writers who founded the magazine Indice and later Asomante, promoted poetry in which women participated if on a small scale. Carmen Natalia Martinez and Aida Cartagena Portalatin were Dominican women who were very active in political and literary groups.⁵ Mercedes Torrens de Garmendia and Dulce Maria Loynaz from Cuba were women poets who, if not part of the established poetic movements, were at least recognized by these intellectuals.⁶ Fina Garcia Marruz was the only woman in the group Origenes.⁷ Julia de Burgos from Puerto Rico was a poet who moved away from various closed literary groups to become a lone voice of feminine consciousness.⁸ In Puerto Rico the literary magazine Asomante was edited by two women, Nilita Vientos Gaston and Monelisa Perez Marchand.

In the past fifteen years, women have continued to write poetry and to publish their work in book form or as contributions to various magazines. In the Dominican Republic Jeanette Miller and Sherezada (Chiqui) Vicioso are two poets whose development continues with every new poem.⁹ Both women seem to write poetry in the very few seconds they are able to steal from lives dedicated to other aspects. Miller is an art critic and Vicioso has traveled as far as Africa as a consultant for UNESCO. Both now reside in the Dominican Republic and are very active in the country's cultural life. Women poets are very numerous in post-revolutionary Cuba. Their works have won prizes from UNEAC (the Writers and Artists Union) and from Casa las Americas. Nancy Morejon has continued writing poetry and growing and changing her work as her country and her own perception of life have changed.¹⁰ She has published seven books of poetry beginning with Mutismos in 1962. Her most recent book is Piedra Pulida published in 1986. She is a black revolutionary woman, and her poetry goes from intimate revelations to the cry of protest for the invasion of Grenada. In Puerto Rico, Aurea Maria Sotomayor has just published a book entitled De Lengua, Razon y Cuerpo (About language, reason, and body) in which she gathers the work of nine recent women poets whom Sotomayor believes express a new voice. Among them, Rosario Ferre and Olga Nolla have written fiction but continue to write poetry.

Angela Maria Davila, Etna Iris Rivera, Luz Ivonne Orchart, Nemir Matos, Lilliana Ramos, and Vanes Droz write poetry in spite of holding demanding jobs. Each has published at least one book, and some have been involved in editing literary magazines such as Reintegro.

Aurea Maria Sotomayor states that it is more difficult to publish poetry than fiction because publishers believe that poetry does not sell well. This is true in the Caribbean, where publishing can be a very expensive enterprise. Yet there is no doubt that more women write poetry in the Spanish Antilles than stories or novels. In the Dominican Republic, Aida Cartagena, a critic, historian, and poet, published a novel in 1970 hailed by critics, Escalera para Electra. But it was a voice in the desert because this publication did not encourage other women to publish fiction, it was not followed by a second novel by Cartagena. Lately another Dominican woman, Hilma Contreras, has published two books of fiction: a novel, La Tierra Esta Bramando (1986), and a collection of stories, Entre Dos Silencios (1987), which have become available to readers outside the country through special distributors such as the Bilingual Publications Company in New York.

The absence of women in fiction is most noticeable in today's Cuba, just as their absence as film directors draws attention because of other radical changes in this society. Women have been recognized for their storytelling capability throughout the years in children's literature. At some time in their lives, Dora Alonso and Rosa Hilda Zell have written for children, but they have been slow to achieve recognition as adult storytellers. Dora Alonso, who is now seventy-eight, overcame the limitations imposed on a woman writing in male literary circles. Her first stage was in the novella criollista o “de la tierra” with Tierra Adentro. She was part of the Minorista group and changed her style as Cuba went from dictatorship to revolution. Her excellent collection of stories, Ponolani, won a Mencion Especial from the jury of Casa de las Americas in 1966. Since then she has published stories, Once Caballos, memoirs, essays, and children's stories. Aida Bahr is only thirty-eight years old, but she is one of the few women fiction writers in Cuba today. Her collection of stories, Hay un Gato en la Ventana, published in 1984, is an impressive first work in which technique and theme blend to create a particular style that stays away from the well-known, almost standardized, male narrative modes. Women have written some of the best literature in recent years. Rosario Ferre is perhaps the most prolific with a collection of stories in 1976, Papeles de Pandora; three children's books for adult readers, El Medio Pollito, La Mona que le Pisaron la Cola, Los Cuentas de Judn Bobo; a collection of essays, Sitio a Eros, and a book of narrative poems or poetic narratives, Fabulas de la Garza Desangrada. In 1986 she published her first novel, Maldito Amor, which, although she calls it a novel, is more a long story or novella. Other women writing stories who have only published one book are Magali Garcia Ramis, La Famila de Todos Nosotros, Carmen Lugo Filippi, Virgines y Martires, a collection she shares with Ana Lydia Vega; and Carmen Valle, Diarios Robados. Of the women who have decided to dedicate their souls to the writing of stories, Ana Lydia Vega seems to keep her promise with Virgenes y Martires, Encancaranublado, and the 1987 collection, Pasion de Historia. Language is the essence of her writing, and her books are very popular in Latin America, especially in Argentina, where a Buenos Aires publisher is responsible for this last collection of stories.

Just as Rosario Ferre has tried her hand at writing a novel, Magaly Garcia Ramis published Felices Dias Tio Sergio, which seems more a recollection of childhood than a bildungsroman. The one writer who has been able to tell a story using all the techniques available to a novelist is Mayra Montero. In her novel, La Trenza de la Hermosa Luna, she sets a story of love, political dilemma, and internal struggle in a setting of turmoil: Haiti a few weeks before Duvalier fled to France.¹¹ Montero has not only written a superb novel, but she has made it a Caribbean novel. It is interesting that Montero's protagonist is not a woman, as is the case with the other women writers mentioned. Jean Leroy is a man with a particular sensitivity—perhaps a “feminine” feeling. Yet this character is baffled when the woman he has loved for years rejects him to live with an old and ugly man—in Leroy's view, of course.

The Dominican Republic, Cuba, and Puerto Rico are islands with so much in common that we are amazed at the little knowledge that exists about contemporary Caribbean writers. These three countries are experiencing a cultural awakening and an awareness that women's voices have a distinct style and a very particular narrative discourse. It seems that literature and the performing and fine arts are dangerous to those who play power games. We notice that there is no problem in listening to and purchasing records of the latest merengue or salsa number. As long as lyrics deal with sex, games, and women as objects, all is well in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. Protest songs from these countries are known only in their own backyard. Cuba, on the other hand, has been isolated in every respect because even a popular song or a cartoon supposedly carries a revolutionary message that could endanger the freedom enjoyed by the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico.

I believe women can take advantage of the negative way they are perceived in the Spanish Antilles. Women are seen for the most part as harmless, emotional, almost hysterical if pushed too far, unable to make a reasonable argument, and playing at being independent just to come home running to a man who will offer security in exchange for submission. So when women write, they are not taken very seriously. It is all right if they want to compete in a woman's writing contest (letras femeninas). They can be tolerated if they are relatively good and make us laugh. When they get too serious, like Rosario Ferre and Aida Bahr in their stories, they become dangerous and must be closely watched. There is more tolerance of women poets because they tend to deal with intimacies—their own, not men's. But fiction is a problem; it resembles life too closely.

Women share common experiences; they establish bonds based on mutual help and understanding. Their writings deal with themselves and their rituals. They are not out to destroy but to find a meaning that will guide them in their childbearing and rearing, in their love relationships, in the fulfillment of their abilities, and in their social and political involvement. Women writers must explore this common bond and in that way break the barriers that have fragmented the Caribbean.

Notes

1. Carlos Fernandez-Rocha and Danilo de los Santos, Lecturas Dominicanas (Madrid: Playor, 1977).

2. Eliseo Colon Zayas, Literatura del Caribe: Antologia (Madrid: Playor, 1984).

3. Lola Rodriguez de tio, Posias Patrioticas, Poesias Religiosas (Barcelona: Ediciones Rumbos, 1968).

4. Gertrudis Gomez de Avellaneda, SAB (1841); Guatemozin (1846).

5. Carmen Natalia Martinez, “Oda heroica a las Mirabal,” and Aida Cartagena Portalatin, Vispera del Sueño (1944); Del Sueño al Mundo (1945); Una Mujer Esta Sola (1955); Mi Mundo, el Mar (1956); Una Voz Destada (1962); La Tierra Escrita (1967).

6. Mercedes Torrens, Fragua de Estrellas (1935); Jazminero en la Sombra (1942); La Flauta del Silencio (1946); Fuente Sellada (1956). Dulce Maria Loynaz, Versos (1938); Juegos de Agua (1947).

7. Fina Garcia Marruz, Transfiguracion de Jesus in el Monte (1947); Las Miradas Perdidas (1951); Visitaciones (1970).

8. Julia de Burgos, Poema en Veinte Surcos (1938); El Mar y Tu (1953).

9. Jeanette Miller, Formulas Para Combatir el Miedo (1972); Sherezada (Chiqui) Vicioso, Viaje Desde el Agua (1981); Un Extrano Ulular Traia el Viento (1985).

10. Nancy Morejon, Richard Trajo su Flauta (1967); Parajes de una Epoca (1979); Octubre Imprescindible (1983); Cuaderno de Granada (1984); Piedra Pulida (1986).

11. Mayra Montero, La Trenza de la Hermosa Luna (Barcelona: Editorial Anagrama, 1987).