Abstract
In this article, I explore recent cultural production about and by Central Americans in the United States, including the independent film Sin nombre, Sirias’s novel, Bernardo and the Virgin, and the autobiographical account, December Sky: Beyond My Undocumented Life by Cortez-Davis. Drawing on José Saldivar’s conceptualization of a “transnational imaginary,” I contend that these cultural works contribute to the formation and continuous redefinition of an emergent Central American transnational imaginary. In so doing, they provide insight into the identities and multiple subject positions taking shape among Central American immigrants in the United States. Moreover, because in all of these texts women play a central role, these works also call attention to the gendered dimensions and implications of such processes.
Padilla, Y. The Central American transnational imaginary: Defining the transnational and gendered contours of Central American immigrant experience. Lat Stud 11, 150–166 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1057/lst.2013.2.
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Notes
- 1.
Of these three works, Sin nombre is perhaps the text that has received the most attention given its relative success as a film. Still, to my knowledge, there are currently no scholarly articles in print written about the film and its focus on the representation of Central Americans. Despite its inclusion as part of the Latino Voices Series published by Northwestern University Press, Bernardo and the Virgin has likewise been overlooked, as has December Sky, a grassroots publication with relatively no exposure to mainstream audiences.
- 2.
According to the Epidemiological Bulletin of the Pan American Health Organization (1998), Honduras suffered the biggest losses, having an estimated 1.4 million people reported as either dead, disappeared, or wounded.
- 3.
As Repak (1995) details, Central American migration to the United States did exist before the period of civil conflict, though not to the same degree.
- 4.
During the 1980s, asylum policy for Central American refugees was heavily dictated by the Reagan administration’s foreign policy, including its financial and military support of “democratic” governments in El Salvador and Guatemala. Unlike Nicaraguan refugees who fled the socialist-based government of the Sandinistas, Salvadorans and Guatemalans were denied the same political status and were categorized as economic immigrants subject to deportation.
- 5.
In kee** with the figures reported in Statistical Portrait of the Foreign- Born Population in the United States, 2008, Table 5 “Country of Birth: 2008,” the Salvadoran foreign-born population in the United States numbers well over a million, while the number of Guatemalan and Hondurans is 700,000 and 450,000, respectively.
- 6.
Social scientist Portes discusses the “phenomenon” of transnationalism in terms of “transnational activities defined as those that take place on a recurrent basis across national borders and that require a regular and significant commitment of time by participants. Such activities may be conducted by relatively powerful actors, such as representatives of national governments and multinational corporations or may be initiated by more modest individuals, such as immigrants and their home country kin and relations. These activities are not limited to economic enterprises, but include political, cultural, and religious initiatives as well” (1999, 464). For further reading on transnational practices among Guatemalan, Nicaraguan, and Salvadoran immigrant communities, see Popkin (1999), Landolt et al. (1999), and Cervantes-Rodríguez (2006).
- 7.
The statistical information provided in “Remittance Trends in Central America” (Agunias, 2006) reveals that in 2004 remittances accounted for at least 10% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the majority of the countries in the region. In El Salvador, Nicaragua and Honduras, the figures reported were especially high. Remittances constituted over 15% of Honduras’ GDP, 16% of El Salvador’s GDP, and in Nicaragua they comprised over 17% of the GDP. With the exception of Panama and Costa Rica, remittances also outweighed private capital flows and official development assistance. As the study also noted, these percentages do not account for remittances that flow through alternate channels such as by way of couriers, which would make these figures rise significantly.
- 8.
The Central American Federation was established following the independence of Central America from Mexico in 1823 and included the following countries: Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica.
- 9.
The five original countries that agreed to participate in CAFTA were Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. They were joined by the Dominican Republic in 2004, prompting a change in the name to CAFTA-DR.
- 10.
Rodríguez, for example, proposes a “transisthmian” model that posits Central America as an “in-between discursive space linking regions, peoples, cultures, and material goods” (2009, 2).
- 11.
See Padilla (2012).
- 12.
Arias (2007) offers a preliminary discussion of the historical relationship between Mexico and Central America and how it has impacted Central American-American identity construction in the United States.
- 13.
- 14.
According to the 1970 US Census, close to 30,000 Nicaraguans resided in the United States.
- 15.
The gendered order and subordination of women to men upheld by Paulina’s familial structure follows with the designation and expectation of women’s roles in Nicaraguan society upheld by the Somoza regime and the Catholic Church during the 1950s and 60s. For further reading on this topic, see David Whisnant’s Rascally Signs in Sacred Places (1995).
- 16.
Department of Homeland Security, “Immigration Enforcement Actions: 2008.”
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Padilla, Y.M. (2024). The Central American Transnational Imaginary: Defining the Transnational Gendered Contours of Central American Immigrant Experiences. In: Torres, L., Alicea, M. (eds) Latino Studies: A 20th Anniversary Reader. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37784-6_3
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