CHAPTER 16: Enacted Curriculum and the Search for Identity: Angst and the Cuban Search for Meaning after the Cuban Revolution

On a cold Monday night in Beatrice, Nebraska, I discovered my Cubanness. At a high school auditorium, I heard “Dos Gardenias,” played by Valle Son, a Son group from Pinar del Rio wearing Gap clothing and touring in the United States (Carillo, 1948/2000). The band and I spent several days speaking about identity; Miami, the United States, and of course, Cuba. We spoke of my family on the island, my mother’s stay in political prison, and how cold and windy Nebraska was. What we experienced was a conversation about living similar/parallel pasts (although we never met); similar ethnic realities, and uncertain futures which, as Cubans, we share. What I experienced was the terse existence of angst within a culture. Angst dominates Cuban culture. In this article, I argue that creativity in Cuban literature and poetry is driven by the angst of separation and the attempt by two nations to create a singular cultural hegemony by examining the vital role of angst in literature created by the post-1959 separation and the embargo that caused an expression driven by perception and language as forces of creation. This discussion is important because addressing our racial identity in the curriculum requires individualizing it within the school curriculum through the arts and literature that define our cultural identity (Cubanness). Additionally, by referencing traditional authors in comparison to Cuban authors, teachers, and curriculum developers might be able to incorporate Cuban literature to illustrate required course themes while appealing to identity issues for their minority students.