Dream Nation - (Latinidad: Transnational Cultures in the United States) by María Acosta Cruz (Paperback)

About the Book

In this provocative new book, Maria Acosta Cruz investigates why the rhetoric of independence is so pivotal to Puerto Rican culture, despite the fact that the island's voters have consistently rejected calls for national sovereignty. Weaving together texts from literature, history, and popular culture, Dream Nation shows how this seemingly revolutionary and populist iconography of independence has become an established orthodoxy.

Book Synopsis

Over the past fifty years, Puerto Rican voters have roundly rejected any calls for national independence. Yet the rhetoric and iconography of independence have been defining features of Puerto Rican literature and culture. In the provocative new book Dream Nation, María Acosta Cruz investigates the roots and effects of this profound disconnect between cultural fantasy and political reality.

Bringing together texts from Puerto Rican literature, history, and popular culture, Dream Nation shows how imaginings of national independence have served many competing purposes. They have given authority to the island's literary and artistic establishment but have also been a badge of countercultural cool. These ideas have been fueled both by nostalgia for an imagined past and by yearning for a better future. They have fostered local communities on the island, and still helped define Puerto Rican identity within U.S. Latino culture.

In clear, accessible prose, Acosta Cruz takes us on a journey from the 1898 annexation of Puerto Rico to the elections of 2012, stopping at many cultural touchstones along the way, from the canonical literature of the Generación del 30 to the rap music of Tego Calderón. Dream Nation thus serves both as a testament to how stories, symbols, and heroes of independence have inspired the Puerto Rican imagination and as an urgent warning about how this culture has become detached from the everyday concerns of the island's people.

A volume in the American Literature Initiatives series

Review Quotes

"An excellent book and an engrossing read. Highly recommended."-- "Choice" (10/1/2014 12:00:00 AM)

"Gutsy and provocative, Dream Nation explores the 'semantics of desire' of colonial tropes of independence, challenging readers to probe and explicate the gaping abyss between yearning and fulfillment in identity politics."
--Ivette Romero "author of Repeating Islands: Displacements and Transformations in Caribbean Cultures" (10/8/2013 12:00:00 AM)

"No other book weaves together so beautifully and completely the political, historical, social, economic, and cultural threads which make up the tapestry of Puerto Rican nationalism. Graceful, thought provoking, and deeply learned, Dream Nation will certainly have a lasting impact."--Frederick Luis Aldama "author of A Concise History of Latino/a Literature" (7/1/2013 12:00:00 AM)

About the Author

MARÍA ACOSTA CRUZ is an associate professor of Spanish at Clark University. Her work has appeared in the journals Hispanófila, Revista Iberoamericana, Revista de Estudios Hispánicos, and Chasqui Revista de Literatura Latinoamericana.