Rituals of Exile: Cuban-American Effigies
Jorge Luis Morejón, University of California, Davis
In this study, I will present a personal testimony of what it was like to involuntarily play the role of an effigy in a ritual of violence during the 1980’s Mariel Boatlift Exodus in Cuba, and how that traumatic experience generated a lifelong commitment to the study of ritual and performance within the Cuban and the Cuban-American Exile Community. As a Cuban- American exile, I explore the liminal aspect of the Cuban American Exile enclave in South Florida as a manifestation of an emergent nation state within the U.S. borders with a distinct national, political, cultural and geographical identity. First, I define the specific characteristics of the Cuban-American enclave and how that enclave has facilitated the historical, cultural, economic and socio-political conditions which have allowed the performance of rituals of exile to arise. Then, I review relevant theories of collective behavior to point out the reasons why the Cuban Exile Community in South Florida has recurred to the performance of rituals to reorganize their social, cultural and psychological environment. Third, I argue that rituals have functioned as a form of alternative cultural performances used by Cuban-American exiles to cope with displacement and liminality. I explain how the performance of rituals of exile offers a frame within which I can explore the natural causes of the exiles’ social disorientation and their use of rituals to reorganize themselves. This exploration illustrates how Cuban-American exiles “unhinged from traditional roles and identities” have found in ritual-reintegration new collective identities; how the exiles’ secular socio-political order may be projected onto a symbolized socially approved cosmological plane on which they mirror their culture; how the “liminoid” aspect of ritual participation aids the recognition and analysis of specific cultural performances; how the exiles’ effigies represent a unique cultural archive, a repertoire of contentions that functions within new political forces; and how these effigies frame the emergence and practice of new surrogate rituals which used as a vortex of collective action stimulate the formation of a uniquely Cuban-American imagined nation. I also mention specific examples of Cuban-American rituals in order to explain their meaning within the ethos of the exile community. My evidence takes the form of investigation of effigies of specific ritual performances such as The Procession of the Virgin of Charity, The Characterization of El Comandante; the Elian Gonzalez Myth, Vigils and Protests, and An Effigial Destruction of Fidel Castro. Finally, I underline the importance of effigies in the ritual repertoires of the Cuban–American Exile not only as a tangible vortex of collective action and survival, as mentioned above, but as key element in the creation of methodologies oriented towards the mobilization of displaced communities into common cultural destinations and as a new way of belonging to the demarcations of a restored imaginary homeland recreated in the enclave.
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