I was somewhat frustrated with our class discussion today, mainly because I think it was a reflection of the predominant frameworks in place that perpetuate identity conflict, classification, etc. in the Western world (or at least the US) The stories that Raquel Guerra shared were especially powerful and spoke directly to the power and prevalence of this rhetoric. This rhetoric, it seems to me, is a severe essentialization of culture. Puerto Ricans speak Spanish, as do Colombians, Mexicans, Spaniards, Catalans, but by identifying this as the dominant character of a culture there is no capacity to include a fluid definition of culture. Culture is not simply linguistics. Puerto Ricans have a culture complete with salsa and boleros that is not a part of the Chilean culture, (in the sense that it does not lay claim to its origins) although they share the same language. In the US we make the same essentialization of culture, Latin Americans speak Spanish, and similar such statements. I wonder if the essentialization exists outside of this American culture. That is, would a Puerto Rican in Puerto Rico say that a Puerto Rican must speak Spanish in order to claim such an identity? or from your experience would a Chilean do this? Essentializations breed conflict because they breed contradiction which within our framework is polar and volatile and not celebratory. In addition i think that they refuse to acknowledge the culture in its very definiton, it can not be identified so simply, because of its breadth and depth.
Reply to Alexandra Forter
Alexandra:
Your observations go to the heart of the question of how to define a culture, and even address the complex task of cultural definition itself. The role of language in culture is central to the discussion, but it should not be limited to a matter of linguistic performance.
Culture is constituted in language, that is for sure, so the answer to your question of whether a Chilean would or would not place the ability to speak Spanish as a requisite to claim national identity is, "probably yes". But this does not happen because language in general is a prerequisite for cultural belonging, but because in the specific circumstances of Chilean historical experience language has been constructed to fulfills that role; it's taken for granted (though mistakenly so) that all Chileans speak Spanish. In the case of contested or conflicting linguistic practices (Catalonia or other non-Castilian regions sucha as the Basque country or Galicia, the US, Puerto Rico, the Andes highlands, Guatemalan and Mexican provinces where indigenous languages are spoken) the issue is far less clear-cut, in other words, language does not have the definitory power it does have in other places. Raquel Guerra's experiences point out precisely to this reality: identity is reductively associated with language in a historical context (today's US) in which it's really not appropriate to do so, given the existence of a plurality of ways of being Cuban-American. This plurality is made of intersections of class, gender, or what Nick Vaccaro referred to as "infrastructure", i.e. the concrete material conditions in which a cultural practice is inscribed.