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Jose Marti and Cuba

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  1. Introduction
  2.  
  3. José Martí (b. 1853–d. 1895) was born in Havana, Cuba, and lived much of his life in exile: in Spain, Mexico, Guatemala, Venezuela, and the United States. In New York, where he lived nearly fifteen years, he supported himself by writing chronicles for US and Latin American newspapers such as The Hour and The Sun of New York, La Opinión Nacional of Caracas, and La Nación of Buenos Aires. He also served for a brief period of time as a foreign representative of several governments (Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay). He was the main organizer of Cuba’s last war of independence and although he was immensely popular among the émigré community in the United States, he was little known in Cuba, until the establishment of the Republic in 1902. During this period, Martí reached a political and literary prominence that few other men could aspire to or claim. He was praised for being not only a hero, but also one of Latin American’s leading thinkers and literary figures. His work went through numerous editions (Quesada y Aróstegui). His thoughts and life were praised in every major political speech, and his image was reproduced in multiple forms. Given Martí’s importance in Cuba, it comes as no surprise that there are so many biographies about his life and a vast bibliography on his work. This article covers Martí’s life and influential writings on Cuba, the United States, and Latin America. Due to the numerous citations and references to his work, this is only a survey of the most representative work that has been produced on his life and writings. I will concentrate on key aspects of his legacy, his biographies, his literary work, his political thought, and special topics that critics have explored.
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  5. Biographies
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  7. Martí’s first biographical notes appeared in American newspapers during the last war of independence and immediately after his death in Cuba. They emphasized his heroism and his plans for a new nation (Reno 1899). They were written in English for an audience that wanted to know more about the present war and its leaders. They generally praised Martí’s organizational skills, his intellectual abilities, and his plan to free his country. During the Republic, however, Martí’s biographies became highly hagiographical, with some using religious motifs to exalt his image. He was regarded as the “apostle” of Cuba (Mañach 1933), the “saint of America” (Rodríguez-Embil 1941), and a “myth” (Hernández Catá 1970). They also explore the “intimate” side of Martí in an effort to humanize him after so much mythologization (Zacharie de Baralt 1945, Quesada y Miranda 1939). After the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959, on the other hand, his biographers spoke of his “revolutionary” life, his commitment to Cuba’s independence, and his anti-imperialist thought (Martínez Estrada 1967, Toledo Sande 1996). They left out any reference to religion.
  8.  
  9. Hernández Catá, Alfonso. Mitología de Martí. Miami, FL: Mnemosyne, 1970.
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  11. This is a well-written but hagiographical account of Martí’s life, written by one of Cuba’s most important writers. The book originally appeared in 1929, and it traces Martí’s life from birth to death. It incorporates some of his thoughts, especially on religion and self-sacrifice, to better convey the idea of his “myth.”
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  13. Mañach, Jorge. Martí: El apóstol. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1933.
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  15. This is still José Martí’s most popular biography. It was written by one of Cuba’s leading intellectuals.
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  17. Martínez Estrada, Ezequiel. Martí: Revolucionario. Havana, Cuba: Casa de Las Américas, 1967.
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  19. Estrada, an Argentinian critic in favor of the Cuban Revolution, dedicated the last years of his life to writing this two-volume biography of Martí, where he emphasized his “revolutionary” commitment to his nation as well as characteristics of his personality.
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  21. Quesada y Miranda, Gonzalo de. Facetas de Martí. Havana, Cuba: Editorial Trópico, 1939.
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  23. In this book, Gonzalo de Quesada, the son of Martí’s inseparable friend, Gonzalo de Quesada y Aróstegui, speaks of Martí’s passion for women, books, palmistry, music, and other things that were previously overlooked by his biographers.
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  25. Reno, George. “José Martí, ‘The Master.’” In True Stories of Heroic Lives: Stirring Tales of Courage and Devotion of Men and Women of the Nineteenth Century, 311–320. New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1899.
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  27. Reno’s articles focus on Martí’s life and his political ideals, his popularity among the émigré community in the United States, and his death in Cuba. Reno refers to Martí as “the Master,” which is the nickname Cubans in the US gave Martí before he died.
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  29. Rodríguez-Embil, Luis. José Martí, el santo de América: Estudio crítico-biográfico. Havana, Cuba: Comisión Central Pro-Monumento a Martí, 1941.
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  31. Rodríguez-Embil’s biography of Martí received the first prize in the celebrations that predated the inauguration of Martí’s monument in Havana. It is a mixture of factual events and literary imagination. It follows Martí through his numerous trips to Spain, Mexico, Guatemala, Venezuela, Cuba, and the United States, and it gives considerable importance to religion, eroticism, his literary work, and his revolutionary activities.
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  33. Toledo Sande, Luis. Cesto de llamas: Biografía de José Martí. Havana, Cuba: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 1996.
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  35. Sande’s biography of Martí starts with Martí’s childhood in Cuba and finishes with his death in Dos Rios. It focuses on his political career. It is divided into several chapters and it follows Martí’s pilgrimage from Spain, to Mexico, Guatemala, Venezuela, the United States, and Cuba.
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  37. Zacharie de Baralt, Blanche El Martí que yo conocí. Havana, Cuba: Editorial Trópico, 1945.
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  39. This is Zacharie de Baralt’s personal recounting of Martí’s life in the United States. Zacharie de Baralt was one of Martí’s best friends in New York and a woman closely connected with the émigré community. She gives intimate details about his life.
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  41. Martí in the United States
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  43. The books González 1953, Poyo 1984, and Pérez 1995 recount Martí’s stay in the United States. They tend to focus on his revolutionary activities and are written from an academic perspective. Guerra 2005, on the other hand, also begins with a discussion of Martí’s political and racial ideas and ends with his reception in Cuba.
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  45. González, Manuel Pedro. José Martí: Epic Chonicler of the United States in the Eighties. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1953.
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  47. This is González’s introduction of Martí to American readers. It brought out Martí’s preoccupation with American foreign policy, and it is one of the first attempts to reach a larger audience in this country.
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  49. Guerra, Lillian. The Myth of José Martí: Conflicting Nationalisms in Early Twentieth-Century Cuba. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005.
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  51. Guerra’s book traces the multiple interpretations of Martí in Cuba after his death. These interpretations, she believes, were instrumental to different political agendas during the Republic, and showed different levels of radicalization. For more on Martí’s reception in Cuba during the republican period, see Ette 1995 (cited under Representations in Literature, Film, and Art) and Helg 1995 (cited under Views on Sexuality, Race, and Religion: Afro-Cubans).
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  53. Pérez, Louis, ed. José Martí in the United States: The Florida Experience. Tempe: ASU Center for Latin American Studies, Arizona State University, 1995.
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  55. This is a compilation of essays written by scholars working in different fields. It gives a general view of Martí’s interests, ideals, and whereabouts during his stay in this country. Special attention is placed on his relationship with Florida, where he gave two famous speeches to tobacco workers and sympathizers.
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  57. Poyo, Gerald Eugene. José Martí, Architect of Social Unity: Class Tensions in the Cuban Emigré Communities of the United States, 1887–1895. Gainesville: Center for Latin American Studies, University of Florida, 1984.
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  59. In this booklet, Poyo retraces Martí’s revolutionary campaign in the United States during the 1880s and 1890s, especially in his relationship with tobacco workers in Florida. He explains Martí’s nationalist/populist rhetoric versus the interests of the anarchist movement, and underlines the importance of race in his speeches.
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  61. Representations in Literature, Film, and Art
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  63. Together with his Biographies, there are many literary and artistic representations of Martí in Cuba. They are poems, sculptures, films, pictures, and paintings that exalt his life and commitment to his country (Ette 1995). Due to Martí’s highly politicized image, these artistic representations tend to serve an ideological purpose that is done either through the manipulation of his photographic image (Bejel 2009, Ette 1994) or as a counterdiscourse to dominant ideas in Cuban society (Bermúdez 2004, Camacho 2003). On the other hand, because of his stature in Cuba, Martí continues to be a topic of self-expression, sometimes serving as a vehicle to channel veiled criticism of Cuba’s political system (Pérez 2010), or a playful relationship with history (Ramón 2008). Overall, Martí has proven to be an endless source of inspiration for artists and writers through the years (Bermúdez 2004, Goldman 2004).
  64.  
  65. Bejel, Emilio. “José Martí: Iconografía y memoria.” La Habana Elegante 46 (2009).
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  67. This is another essay that traces Martí’s representation in Cuba, which Bejel later expanded into a book. Bejel analyzes some of Martí’s representations in pictures, sculptures, and paintings as a “metaphor for Cuban society and politics.”
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  69. Bermúdez, Jorge. Antología visual: José Martí en la plástica y la gráfica cubanas. Havana, Cuba: Letras Cubanas, 2004.
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  71. Bermúdez’s book gathers for the first time most of Martí’s iconography since his death. The emphasis is on Martí’s artistic representation during the republican period.
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  73. Camacho, Jorge. Los herejes en el convento: La recepción de José Martí en la plástica y la crítica cubana de los años 80 y 90. Espéculo: Revista de estudios literarios 24 (2003).
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  75. Camacho’s article focuses on a specific period in Cuba, the late 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s, and analyzes Martí’s representations in art and essays to show how his image changed during the last two decades of the 20th century in Cuba to incorporate a counterdiscourse of desacralization that questions his authoritative figure and the government’s power to represent him.
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  77. Ette, Ottmar. “Imagen y poder—poder de la imagen: Acerca de la iconografía martiana.” In José Martí 1895/1995: Literatura, política, filosofía, estética. Edited by Ottmar Ette and Titus Heydenreich, 225–297. Frankfurt: Vervuert Verlag, 1994.
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  79. In this article, Ette analyzes Martí’s photographic representations and their political intention. It is an important contribution to understanding the manipulation of his photographic image during his lifetime and after his death.
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  81. Ette, Ottmar. José Martí, apóstol, poeta, revolucionario: Una historia de su recepción. Translated by Luis Carlos Henao de Brigard. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1995.
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  83. Ottmar Ette wrote the first monograph on Martí’s reception in Cuba after his death. This is a voluminous book that compiles a great amount of information and covers almost a century of criticism, debates, and public use of Martí’s figure. The book was originally published in 1991 in German as José Martí, Apostel, Dichter, Revolutionär: Eine Geschichte seiner Rezeption (Tübingen, Germany: Niemeyer). It should be the first stop for anyone interested in reactions to Martí.
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  85. Goldman, Francisco. The Divine Husband: A Novel. New York: Atlantic Monthly, 2004.
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  87. Goldman’s novel traces Martí’s life during his time in Guatemala.
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  89. Pérez, Fernando, dir. José Martí: El ojo del canario. DVD. Havana, Cuba: Instituto Cubano de Arte e Industria Cinematográfica, 2010.
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  91. This film is Fernando Pérez’s re-creation of Martí’s life as a child in Cuba.
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  93. Ramón, Pedro. Cuba y Martí: En el ojo del huracán: La historia invisible o la comunicación como arte. Madrid: Editorial Betania, 2008.
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  95. Cuban painter Pedro Ramón presents Martí in different ways and historical contexts. The book includes essays written about his work.
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  97. Poetry
  98.  
  99. When Martí died in 1895, at age forty-two, he left several books published and what he called a “forest” of work that was later catalogued and published in twenty-eight volumes. He published his first poem and theater play in Havana, during the turbulent years of the first war of independence (1868), and he continued to write poetry everywhere he went in exile. While he was in New York, he published two books of poems: Ismaelillo (Martí 1882) and Versos sencillos (Martí 1891). In 1885, he also published his novel Amistad funesta (Martí 1940) for a Spanish-language newspaper. Critics consider Ismaelillo and Amistad funesta the first examples of a new writing style in Latin America called modernismo. Many anthologies of Martí’s poems were published after his death. Some of them include poems that he did not publish when he was alive and were supposed to appear under different titles: Versos libres, Flores del destierro, Polvo de alas de mariposa. With regard to these books, editors disagreed as to which selections and final versions of the poems would be included in each book (see Schulman 1960, cited under Literary Modernity), and to add to the matter, the original drafts of the poems are kept in Cuba, where access is by foreign scholars limited. In 1982, a group of Cuban researchers prepared the first critical edition of Martí’s poetry in two volumes (Martí 1985). They included the different drafts that Martí left of what they considered the final version of each poem. Most recently, another group of Cuban scholars finished another version of that critical edition for his Obras completas (Martí 2000–).
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  101. García Pascual, Luis, ed. Destinatario José Martí. Havana, Cuba: Casa Editora Abril/Centro de Estudios Martianos, 1999.
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  103. This is one of the best additions to Martí’s archive. The book is a compilation of all letters that Martí received during his lifetime. Before, we only had access to the letters that he wrote. Now, we can put them in context and imagine a dialogue.
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  105. Martí, José. Ismaelillo. New York: Thompson y Moreau, 1882.
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  107. In this book Martí speaks of his love for his child, José, in a way that is reminiscent of the story of Ishmael in the Bible. He also selected the illustrations that accompany each poem.
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  109. Martí, José. Versos sencillos. New York: Louis Weiss, 1891.
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  111. Many of these poems are autobiographical and are written in a popular Spanish rhyme.
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  113. Martí, José. Amistad funesta. Havana, Cuba: Editorial Trópico, 1940.
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  115. This is Martí’s only novel. It was originally published in 1885 by installments in the United States, and according to Martí it is based on real events that happened in one Latin American country. It tells the story of a beautiful young woman, Lucía Jérez, who is engaged to her cousin, Juan. But the couple’s love ends when Lucía, riddled with jealousy, starts behaving strangely and kills Sol del Valle, a woman she believed her fiancé was in love with.
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  117. Martí, José. Poesía completa. 2 vols. Edited by Cintio Vitier, Fina García Marruz, and Emilio de Armas. Havana, Cuba: Editorial Letras Cubanas, 1985.
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  119. This is the first critical edition of Martí’s poems, an indispensable source of information for anyone interested in understanding the evolution of his poems and the manuscripts available.
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  121. Martí, José. Obras completas. Vols. 14–16. Havana, Cuba: Centro de Estudios Martianos, 2000–.
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  123. These are the volumes devoted to his poetry in his Complete Works, critical edition. In this edition of his poetry, typos that appeared in the former critical edition were corrected and the editors changed the way they present the different available versions of the same poem.
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  125. Critical Approaches to His Poetry
  126.  
  127. There are many good readings of Martí’s poetry. Some have appeared in books devoted to multiple aspects of his life (Marrúz and Vitier 1981, cited under Literary Modernity; Santí 1996; Rojas 2000, both cited under Political Legacy), others have appeared in single volumes and journals. They deal with one or more of his books of poems and are written from multiple theoretical perspectives. Some good examples are Santí 1986, as well as Hernández-Chiroldes 1983 and its reading of Versos sencillos. There are also monographs devoted to Martí’s poetic work such as Schulman 1960 (cited under Literary Modernity), Teja 1990, and Javier Morales 1994. For a synthesis of some of the criticism of his first book of poems, see Atencio Mendoza 2008.
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  129. Atencio Mendoza, Caridad. La saga crítica de Ismaelillo. La Habana, Cuba: Editorial José Martí, 2008.
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  131. In this book, Atencio Mendoza gives brief summaries of the many critical approaches to Martí’s first book of poems.
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  133. Hernández-Chiroldes, Alberto. Los Versos sencillos de José Martí: análisis crítico. Madrid: Ediciones Universal, 1983.
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  135. Hernández-Chiroldes focuses on Martí’s second book of poems. It is one of the best close readings of his poetic work. It is also comprehensive and accessible to students and professors alike.
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  137. Javier Morales, Carlos. La poética de José Martí y su contexto. Madrid: Editorial Verbum, 1994.
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  139. Javier Morales engages with Martí’s poetry with erudition and insight. It is a voluminous work that focuses on many characteristics of Martí’s poems.
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  141. Santí, Enrique Mario. “‘Ismaelillo’, Martí y el Modernismo.” Revista Iberoamericana 52.137 (October–December 1986): 811–840.
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  143. In this essay Santí explores Martí’s connection with Romanticism, specifically to the figure of the poet-seer, and discusses his centrality to Cuban history and the project of modernity.
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  145. Teja, Ada María. La poesía de José Martí entre naturaleza e historia: Estudios sobre la antitesís y la síntesis. Cosenza, Italy: Marra, 1990.
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  147. Focuses on two of Martí’s most common poetical devices, antithesis and synthesis, which is explained from a philosophical as well as a literary point of view.
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  149. Translations into English
  150.  
  151. Martí 1997, Martí 2002, and Martí 2005 provide good translations of Martí’s poetic works into English.
  152.  
  153. Martí, José. Versos sencillos/Simple Verses. Translated by Manuel A. Tellechea. Houston, TX: Arte Público, 1997.
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  155. This is a translation of Martí’s last book of poems.
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  157. Martí, José. José Martí: Selected Writings. Translated by Esther Allen. New York: Penguin, 2002.
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  159. Allen’s edition includes poems from some of Martí’s books as well as also chronicles he wrote on the United States.
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  161. Martí, José. Versos Sencillos: A Dual Language Edition. Foreword by Pete Seeger. Translated by Anne Fountain. Jefferson, CO: McFarland, 2005.
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  163. This is another translation of Martí’s last book of poems. Fountain’s translation also mentions previous translations including those of the 19th century and describes the popularization of the verses through music.
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  165. Chronicles
  166.  
  167. Although Martí is considered “the father” of modernismo, which was better known for its poetic achievements, most critics recognized that Martí exercised his influence through his literary prose (González, Schulman). His articles reached a vast international audience that included the former president of Argentina, Domingo Faustino Sarmiento (b. 1811–d. 1888), and Rubén Darío (b. 1867–d. 1916), the Nicaraguan poet. In his “North American scenes,” as he called his chronicles of the United States, Martí depicted almost all aspects of this country in the 1880s: its culture, politics, art, literature, economics, sports, and crime. He introduced philosophers and poets such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman to Latin American and Spanish readers. He also exposed the corruption and imperialist intentions of several US politicians and spoke at length of the civil unrest caused by the country’s domestic policy: the immigration laws, the anarchist movement, the labor organizations, the Native Americans, and the blacks. Martí’s critics have explored many aspects of his chronicles, including his modernist aesthetic and his peculiar way of copying or translating news from different sources (Schwartz 1973). However, it was not until the 1980s that they started devoting more attention to this part of his work, and they explored topics such as the autonomy of the writer (Ramos 1989), the writer’s national or ethnic identity (Matzat 1994), and the writer’s political ideology (Rotker 1992, Lomas 2008). There are three monographs written on the topic (Lomas 2008, Ramos 1989, Rotker 1992), and several edited books that include chapters on this subject (see Belnap and Fernández 1998; Muñoz Rodríguez, et al. 2010; and Retamar and Rodríguez 2003).
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  169. Belnap, Jeffrey Grant, and Raúl A. Fernández, eds. José Martí’s “Our America”: From National to Hemispheric Cultural Studies. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1998.
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  171. These essays explore Martí’s relationship with the United States, with a focus on politics and a redefinition of Americanism. Some of the topics discussed are his “exile gaze,” his translation of Ramona, and his essay “Nuestra América” (“Our America”). Retamar is the critic most frequently quoted in this volume.
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  173. Lomas, Laura. Translating Empire: José Martí, Migrant Latino Subjects, and American Modernities. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008.
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  175. In her book, Lomas reinterprets Martí from the stance of the “migrant Latino subject” (p. 41), who looks critically to North American imperialism as he defends his own identity. Her perspective is similar to that of Retamar and other critics who have traditionally emphasized Martí’s criticism of “the monster” (meaning the United States), but instead of circumscribing Martí to Cuba’s national ethos, Lomas sees him as part of a larger ethnic identity in the United States that she calls the “migrant Latino subject” (p. 41).
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  177. Matzat, Wolfgang. “La imagen de México en las ‘Escenas mexicanas’ de José Martí.” In José Martí 1895/1995: Literatura, política, filosofía, estética. Edited by Ottmar Ette and Titus Heydenreich, 197–209. Frankfurt: Vervuet Verlag, 1994.
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  179. An essay on Martí’s chronicles in Mexico for different newspapers.
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  181. Muñoz Rodríguez, Mauricio, Caridad Atencio Mendoza, Carmen Suárez León, et al., eds. Aproximaciones a las escenas norteamericanas. Havana, Cuba: Centro de Estudios Martianos, 2010.
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  183. These are four essays that analyze Martí’s vision of North America through his articles and poems. The book discusses several topics, and at the end of the book, the editors include a useful chronology and a brief description of essays written in Martí’s “North American scenes,” from 1900 to 2002.
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  185. Ramos, Julio. Desencuentros de la modernidad en América Latina: Literatura y política en el siglo XIX. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1989.
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  187. Ramos’s book analyzes the process of modernization in Argentina and the United States, through the role played by politics and the printing press. Most of the book is devoted to Martí’s critique of US modernization, the autonomous status of literature, and the changes that were taking place at the time in the urban landscape. This has been one of the most influential books on Martí’s chronicles of the United States.
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  189. Retamar, Roberto Fernández, and Pedro Pablo Rodríguez, coords. José Martí en los Estados Unidos: Periodismo de 1881 a 1892. Madrid: Colección Archivos, 2003.
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  191. This is a critical edition of Martí’s chronicles of the United States. The chronicles are reprinted here the way they were originally published. The volume includes essays from Cuban and North American scholars.
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  193. Rotker, Susana. Fundación de una escritura: Las crónicas de José Martí. Havana, Cuba: Casa de las Américas, 1992.
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  195. Rotker’s book is an exploration of the aesthetic qualities of Martí’s chronicles of the United States. She proposes to understand them as a new literary genre that combines fiction and reality.
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  197. Schwartz, Kessel. “José Martí, ‘The New York Herald’ and President Garfield’s Assassin.” Hispania 56 (1973): 335–342.
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  199. A controversial essay on some of José Martí’s chronicles. Schwartz maintains that Martí copied and plagiarized from other newspapers’ articles. He later changed his mind and spoke of “the art of translation.” Available online for purchase or by subscription.
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  201. José Martí’s Translations
  202.  
  203. Even though Martí started translating when he was still an adolescent in Cuba, there are very few studies on his role as a translator (two exceptions are De la Cuesta 1996 and Arencibia 2000). In Mexico, he translated from French Victor Hugo’s Mes fils (Hugo 1875), and while living in New York, he rendered into Spanish several books that were commissioned by the Appleton publishing house: a treatise on logic (Jevons 1885), two books on ancient Greek culture (Wilkins 1883 and Pentland Mahaffy 1883), and Hugh Conway’s novel Called Back (1886). Martí also published his translation of Helen Hunt Jackson’s novel Ramona (Jackson 1888), and in 1893 the Argentine government asked him to translate a book into English with the purpose of presenting it to President Grover Cleveland (Camacho 2010). In addition to this, he translated poems of Horace, Edgar Allan Poe, Emerson, and other poets, and adapted and translated several children’s stories from French for his magazine La Edad de Oro (Lolo 1995, cited under Children’s Literature). Although apparently Martí had a better command of the French language, most of the scholarship on the topic tends to focus on his translation from English into Spanish. All his translations into Spanish appear in his Obras Completas (Martí 2000–, cited under Poetry).
  204.  
  205. Arencibia, Lourdes. El traductor Martí: Ensayo. Pinar del Río, Cuba: Ediciones Hermanos Loynaz, 2000.
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  207. Arencibia follows in the footsteps of De la Cuesta 1996 and analyzes Martí’s literary translations.
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  209. Camacho, Jorge. “Martí en inglés: Una traducción desconocida: Argument for the Argentine Republic upon the Question with Brazil.” La Habana Elegante 48 (2010).
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  211. Here Camacho analyzes a translation by Martí that was commissioned by the Argentine government in 1893 and was previously unknown. It is a diplomatic translation and for that reason his name doesn’t appear in the book, but according to Camacho, Martí translated part of this document into English and directed a group of translators that did most of the work.
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  213. De la Cuesta, Leonel-Antonio. Martí: Traductor. Salamanca, Spain: Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca, Cátedra de Poética “Fray Luis de León” 1996.
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  215. In his book, De la Cuesta, an expert in translation studies, analyzes Martí’s translations into Spanish. He focuses on his literary work and does a great job. This was the first monograph on Martí as a translator.
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  217. Hugo, Victor. Mis hijos. Translated by José Martí. Mexico City: La Revista Universal, 1875.
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  219. Martí’s translation of Victor Hugo’s Mes fils (Paris, 1874). This is Martí’s first published translation. It appeared in Mexico while he was there, and it shows his early admiration for Victor Hugo, the French romantic writer.
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  221. Jackson, Helen. Ramona: Novela americana. Translated by José Martí. New York, 1888.
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  223. Martí’s translation of Helen Hunt Jackson’s Ramona: A Story (Boston: Roberts Bros, 1884). Contrary to the other books, Ramona was Martí’s own project. He translated it from English into Spanish and distributed it in Mexico and Argentina. The novel was well received, mainly because it was Martí who translated it, but also because it tells a compelling story in the United States: the life of a mestiza woman who marries an American Indian and as a result suffers great discrimination and hardships.
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  225. Jevons, William Stanley. Nociones de lógica. Translated by José Martí. New York: Appleton, 1885.
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  227. Martí’s translation of Jevons’s Logic (New York: Appleton, 1885). This translation was also part of Appleton’s strategy to sell “scientific booklets” to schools in Latin America. The series included other scientific materials in history, physics, and microbiology. At the time, Latin America was going through a rapid development, and countries such as Argentina were fast increasing in population and in the number of schools.
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  229. Pentland Mahaffy, John. Antigüedades griegas. Translated by José Martí. New York: Appleton, 1883.
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  231. Martí’s translation of Pentland Mahaffy’s Classical Antiquities I: Old Greek Life (New York: Appleton, 1879). This translation was also commissioned by the Appleton publishing house and is about Greek life and costumes. It was marketed with the purpose of contributing to general education in Latin America. Paul Groussac, a well-known French-Argentinian intellectual who was then the director of a school in Tucuman, endorsed its publication in a letter that was included in the book.
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  233. Wilkins, Augustus S. Antigüedades romanas. Translated by José Martí. New York: Appleton, 1883.
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  235. Martí’s translation of Wilkins’s Classical Antiquities II: Roman Antiquities (New York: Appleton, 1880). This is a translation made by Martí for the Appleton publishing house while he was living in the United States. The book was geared toward the Spanish market and sold in Argentina and Mexico. It was a source of income for him, and it has a didactic nature.
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  237. Children’s Literature
  238.  
  239. Martí’s first book of poems was dedicated to his only son, José, when he was three. Later on, Martí edited a children’s journal, entitled La Edad de Oro (1889), that he distributed in the United States and Mexico. Despite its early success, however, La Edad de Oro had a short run and Martí had to abandon the project. In the journal, Martí published chronicles, poems, short stories, and translations with a moral and didactic purpose. All of the criticism on Martí children’s literature is based on these works. They show his great ability to communicate complex ideas to children, the origin of these texts if they were translations (Lolo 1995), the modernist aesthetic that inspired them (Arias 2001), and the political message behind each story (Swier 2009).
  240.  
  241. Arias, Salvador. Un proyecto martiano esencial: La Edad de Oro. Havana, Cuba: Centro de Estudios Martianos, 2001.
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  243. Arias’s book on La Edad de Oro also gives a general view of the magazine and devotes specific chapters to some of the chronicles and short stories that appeared there. Arias pays particular attention to the relationship between these texts and modernismo aesthetics.
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  245. Lolo, Eduardo. Mar de espuma: Martí y la literatura infantil. Miami, FL: Ediciones Universal, 1995.
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  247. Lolo’s book is the most complete guide to Martí’s children’s literature and particularly to his magazine La Edad de Oro. In this book, Lolo speaks of Martí’s intentions to write for children, discuss his work, and find the sources of some of the articles.
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  249. Swier, Patricia L. “The Maternal Bonds of Patriotism: Modernismo and the Nationalist ‘Discourse of Desire’ in José Martí’s ‘La muñeca negra.’” Confluencia 24.2 (2009): 49–60.
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  251. In her article, Swier takes Martí’s short story “La muñeca negra,” originally published in La Edad de Oro, as another example of Martí’s nationalistic agenda and conscious effort to instill a nation-building sentiment in his young readers. This time, Martí does it through the representation of Piedad, an eight-year-old girl, and her black doll as if they were mother and child. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
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  253. Political Legacy
  254.  
  255. In addition to his “North American scenes,” Martí also produced a large body of political writings, comprising speeches he delivered in the United States while organizing the last Cuban war of independence, a pamphlet he wrote to denounce the political penitentiary regime in Cuba, and articles that he published in Patria, the newspaper of the Cuban Revolutionary Party, which he founded in 1892. In these documents he showed a strong anticolonial stance, a fervent devotion to his country, a humanistic ideology, and a strong criticism of imperial rule everywhere in the world. However, when it comes to Martí’s perception of the United States and other Latin American political systems, opinions differentially emphasize his admiration for liberalism, his fear of US intervention, and his criticism of social inequities and injustices. These divergent ideological perspectives have tended to face one critic against the other and have led to the support of different views on his work (see Pinto Albiol 1946 and Marinello 1935, as well as Marinello 1958, cited under Literary Modernity). Typical examples of this have been key concepts of social inclusion such as “race brotherhood” or his phrase “with all and for the good of all,” which have been interpreted and reappropriated in different ways by political actors in different historical periods (Helg 1995, cited under Afro-Cubans). Furthermore, in 1940 Martínez Bello proposed to divide Martí’s work in two periods, an interpretation that later Marxist critics adopted (Martínez Bello 1940, Monal 1973). Nonetheless, this divide reached a turning point with the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959 when Martí’s political legacy was understood within the fundamental values that the Stalinist-Marxist-Leninist revolution defended: anti-imperialism, antiracism, pan-Americanism, the class struggle, and his “tercermundismo” (Third World perspective) (Monal 1973, Retamar 1972). On the other hand, Cuban exiles have stressed Martí’s criticism of communist ideology, his defense of democracy, and his republican values, criticizing what they consider is a gross misuse of his words and figure in Cuba’s political discourse (Estenger 1966, cited under Religion; Ripoll 1984, Rojas 2000, Santí 1996). A good source to comprehend the different perspectives on Martí’s legacy is Ette 1994 (cited under Representations in Literature, Film, and Art), which traces some of these conflicts of interpretation from the early years of the Republic to the 1980s.
  256.  
  257. Marinello, Juan. “Martí y Lenin.” Repertorio Americano 30.26 (January 1935): 50–61.
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  259. In this essay, never to be found in any of Marinello’s books on Martí, the Marxist critic argued that Martí was guided by the “liberal illusion” (p. 58) and that he was not the leader to follow in the new political scenario created after 1898. Lenin was the leader. Marinello was a central figure in the Cuban Revolution and a founder of Cuba’s Communist Party.
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  261. Martínez Bello, Antonio. Ideas sociales y económicas de José Martí: Prólogo de Andrés de Piedra-Bueno; carta-crítica de Juan Marinello. Havana, Cuba: Verónica, 1940.
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  263. Martínez Bello’s book, published in the emblematic year of 1940, is the first full-length Marxist interpretation of Martí. He proposed dividing Martí’s work into two different periods, with the point of division around the mid-1880s.
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  265. Monal, Isabel. “José Martí: Del liberalismo al democratismo antiimperialista.” Casa de las Américas 76 (January–February 1973): 24–41.
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  267. In this article, Monal reiterates the reasons for differentiating two periods in Martí’s life: his “liberal” period, which she believes ends around 1887, and his democratic–anti-imperialist critique of capitalism, which started after this time. Although Monal does not say it, this thesis was first proposed by Martínez Bello.
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  269. Pinto Albiol, Angel C. El pensamiento filosófico de José Martí y la Revolución Cubana y otros ensayos. Havana, Cuba: Editorial Jaidy, 1946.
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  271. Letters and essays exchanged among Angel Pinto Albiol, Juan Marinello, and Julio Le Riverend on the subject of Jose Martí’s political thought. In these letters and essays, Pinto Albiol defends the thesis that Martí was too conservative and did not really want to improve the lives of poor Cubans. Pinto Albiol was a black intellectual whose legacy has been largely ignored.
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  273. Retamar, Roberto Fernández. Calibán: Apuntes sobre la cultura en nuestra América. Mexico City: Editorial Diógenes, 1972.
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  275. This is Retamar’s most influential and well-known essay. Here Retamar defends the Cuban Revolution of 1959 and uses Martí as the prime example of its ideology.
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  277. Ripoll, Carlos. José Martí, the United States, and the Marxist Interpretation of Cuban History. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1984.
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  279. A critique of the misuses of Martí’s words and image in Cuba after 1959. Ripoll also found many of Martí’s chronicles in American newspapers that were previously unknown.
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  281. Rojas, Rafael. José Martí: La invención de Cuba. Madrid: Editorial Colibrí, 2000.
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  283. This is a collection of essays on Martí’s concept of modernity and republican ideals. According to Rojas, Martí’s attitude toward modernity needs to be explained in two ways: Martí was “antimodern” when it came to capitalism and promodern when he supported democratic values.
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  285. Santí, Enrico Mario. Pensar a José Martí: Notas para un centenario. Boulder, CO: Society of Spanish and Spanish-American Studies, 1996.
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  287. Santí’s book is a compilation of his articles on Martí, published previously in other venues. They explore diverse issues in his work, and the compilation is a source of great insights into his poetry and political legacy.
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  289. Literary Modernity
  290.  
  291. While living in Mexico, Martí started writing Chronicles and Poetry that were published in Revista Universal and granted him a strong popularity among Mexican intellectuals. Over the years, he developed a style that most readers recognized and made him famous. Manuel Pedro Gonzalez believed the change in Martí’s style came as a result of his knowledge of French literature, which he picked up in France, while he was on his way to Mexico, resulting in the first examples of modernismo in America. Other critics, however, believed that Martí went beyond the trademarks of modernismo and his work became a singular phenomenon in itself. They blasted modernist writers for representing the bourgeois values of late 19th century and exalted Martí for being a political writer more concerned with his country’s colonial situation than with France (Marinello 1958). Nowadays, most critics agree, however, that modernism did not simply represent the materialistic values that Marxist critics scorned, that it was not a case of “escapism,” but a criticism of the bourgeois life at the end of 19th century. In Octavio Paz’s words, it was a “revolution of the spirit” that revolutionized Latin American culture. Thus, much of Martí’s literary criticism is focused on his perception of modernity and style. Those who placed him within this movement tend to emphasize his criticism and “antimodern” ideology (Rama 1974), and they argue that through his writings, Martí criticized the logic of capitalism, the market, and the state (Hans-Otto 1975; Ramos 1989, Rotker 1992, both cited under Chronicles). They insist that for Martí, language became another way of protesting against the social injustices produced at the core of North American capitalist society. His voice was the voice of the impoverished multitudes or the anti-imperialist fighter rather than the voice of a system that he feared. Many authors have contributed to this reading of Martí, but perhaps the most influential has been Roberto Fernández Retamar. His book Calibán: Apuntes sobre la cultura en nuestra América (1972) became the standard interpretation of Martí in Cuba’s state-run media and educational system and among most postcolonial critics in the United States. All criticism on Martí, however, has not been about his political ideas. In the United States, particularly, Martí’s literary work became a central topic in modernist studies in the hands of Manuel Pedro González and Ivan Schulman (González and Schulman 1969, Schulman 1960). Since the 1960s, both scholars put Martí at the front of Latin America’s most important literary movement. In Cuba, Cintio Vitier and his wife, Fina Garcia Marruz, did the same with their book Temas martianos (Marrúz and Vitier 1981). In addition to these books and articles on Martí’s literary modernity, most of them written in Spanish, there are several others written in English that give a good idea of Martí’s position in matters related to modern politics and state formation. Kirk 1983 is a commendable effort to reconstruct Martí’s political thought and the plans he envisioned for Cuba after its liberation. Turton 1986, on the other hand, also focuses on Martí’s political thinking but pays more attention to other matters such as Martí’s relationship to modernization in Latin America and his coverage of the anarchist movement in the United States.
  292.  
  293. González, Manuel Pedro, and Ivan Schulman. Martí, Darío y el modernismo. Madrid: Editorial Gredos, 1969.
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  295. With this book, González and Schulman refocused the direction of modernismo studies in the United States and highlighted the figure of Martí within the movement.
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  297. Hans-Otto, Dill. Ideario estético y literario de José Martí. Havana, Cuba: Casa de las Américas, 1975.
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  299. Hans-Otto’s book explores Martí’s ideas on literature and politics. It won the Casa de las Américas essay award in 1975, which is Cuba’s most important international prize for academics. It reflects the Marxist-Leninist views of the Cuban government.
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  301. Kirk, John M. José Martí, Mentor of the Cuban Nation. Tampa: University Presses of Florida, 1983.
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  303. Kirk’s book is an introduction to Martí’s political thought, and the system he envisioned for Cuba after its liberation. This, no doubt, is a difficult task, since Martí’s political ideas for Cuba after its liberation are disseminated all over his work.
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  305. Marinello, Juan. José Martí, escritor americano: Martí y el modernismo. Mexico City: Editorial Grijalbo, 1958.
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  307. Marinello’s book, written from a Marxist perspective, criticized modernist writers such as Rubén Darío for copying French models. Martí, he believed, went beyond modernism.
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  309. Marrúz, Fina García, and Cintio Vitier. Temas martianos. Río Piedras, San Juan, Puerto Rico: Ediciones Huracán, 1981.
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  311. Here Cintio Vitier and Fina García Marruz analyze Martí’s contribution to different literary genres. Until his death, Vitier exercised a great influence on the rest of the Cuban scholars in the island, where his ideas are quoted frequently.
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  313. Rama, Ángel. “La dialéctica de la modernidad en José Martí.” Paper presented at a seminar held at the University of Puerto Rico in February 1971. In Estudios Martianos: Menoria del Seminario José Martí. Edited by José Martí Foundation, 129–197. San Juan: Editorial Universitaria, Universidad de Puerto Rico, 1974.
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  315. Ángel Rama was a leading Uruguayan scholar whose vision of Martí and modernity influenced later critics such as Julio Ramos and Susana Rotker. In this article, Rama ties modernismo to the incorporation of Latin America into the world market. He also analyzes Martí’s last book of poems.
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  317. Schulman, Ivan. Símbolo y color en la obra de José Martí. Madrid: Editorial Gredos, 1960.
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  319. This is Schulman’s first book on Martí. Later on, Schulman went on to write many others, but this one continues to be his most quoted and the most accessible to graduate students.
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  321. Turton, Peter. José Martí: Architect of Cuba’s Freedom. London: Zed Books, 1986.
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  323. Turton’s book gives a comprehensive, well-informed overview of Martí’s political thought and the economic context during which he lived. He provides the readers with the best explanation of Martí’s coverage of the United States labor crisis in the 1880s, and tries to strike a balance between conflicting interpretations made by scholars on both sides of the political spectrum.
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  325. Martí’s Influences
  326.  
  327. Martí was a cosmopolitan writer. He knew several languages, and in his essay “Nuestra América” he proposed that writers learn from different literary traditions as a way of avoiding the excessive influence of one of them. There are several essays and monographs on Martí’s reception of foreign literatures. Most of these works, however, concentrate on his relationship with North American authors, particularly Emerson and Whitman. Ballón 1986, on Martí, Emerson, and Blaine, is highly informative and opened the way to other interpretations (Schwarzmann 2010). Fountain 2003, however, written prior to Ballón’s work but published thirty years later, is more general and includes other US authors that Martí admired. When it comes to Martí’s relationship with European writers and philosophers, it is useful to consult Agramonte 1979 and Suárez León 2001.
  328.  
  329. Agramonte, Roberto. Martí y su concepción de la sociedad. San Juan: Universidad de Puerto Rico, Centro de investigaciones sociales, 1979.
  330. DOI: 10.2307/344724Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  331. This is one of several of Agramonte’s books on Martí. Here, Agramonte explains key concepts of Martí’s philosophy toward love, friendship, religion, and the law. As are his other books on Martí, this one is also an exercise in erudition and admiration.
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  333. Ballón, José. Autonomía cultural americana: Emerson y Martí. Madrid: Pliegos, 1986.
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  335. Ballón’s book analyzes Martí’s Ismaelillo (1882) and compares this book to Emerson’s writings about his child. He also discussed Martí’s method of writing his literary chronicles and Martí’s anticolonial stance.
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  337. Fountain, Anne. José Martí and U.S. Writers. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2003.
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  339. Fountain’s book is to this day the most extensive survey of Martí’s engagement with US literature. There are chapters dedicated to Emerson, Whitman, and Longfellow, and a concise discussion of many other North American authors whom Martí wrote about.
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  341. Schwarzmann, Georg M. The Influence of Emerson and Whitman on the Cuban Poet José Martí: Themes of Immigration, Colonialism, and Independence. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen, 2010.
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  343. Schwarzmann’s book explores the influence of Emerson and Whitman on José Martí and how it shaped the Cuban poet’s political and cultural vision of postcolonial America. One of the highlights of this book is Schwarzmann’s explanation of Martí’s ideas on foreign immigration.
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  345. Suárez León, Carmen. La sangre y el mármol: Martí, el Parnaso, y Baudelaire. Havana, Cuba: Centro de Estudios Martianos, 2001.
  346. DOI: 10.2307/4530452Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  347. Carmen Suárez’s book is a general overview of Martí’s relationship with French Parnasianism. Chapter 2 is devoted to Martí’s criticism of some of these poets, his views on the new aesthetic movement, and its possible influence on his poems, especially Ismaelillo (1882). In chapter 3, she also draws some parallels among Martí, Charles Bauldelaire, and Victor Hugo.
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  349. Views on Sexuality, Race, and Religion
  350.  
  351. Even though Martí enjoys great popularity among Cubans and Latin Americans in general, his legacy has never been a stranger to controversy. Most recent disagreements among his critics, however, come from two fronts: his perception of gender roles in society, and his remarks on race.
  352.  
  353. Women
  354.  
  355. Since the late 1980s, feminist critics in the United States have pointed to Martí’s attitude toward women, which clearly does not correspond with today’s society. They have highlighted his uneasiness with and criticism of the “new woman” in the United States at the end of 19th century. These new readings of Martí stand in opposition to previous interpretations of his work and have revealed a new perspective on the female characters in his novel Amistad funesta and several of his poems. These readings demonstrate that Martí had a profound fear of the active role women were taking in society (Uribe 1989), taking on a “misogynist” attitude toward them (Cruz 1992). For these critics, these attitudes also explain why Martí felt uncomfortable in front of strong and assertive women that seduced as well as threatened his virility (Díaz Quiñones 1995; Camacho 2001, cited under Men). For readings that are not feminist-oriented, see Olivera 1995 and Gomariz 2005.
  356.  
  357. Cruz, Jaqueline. “‘Esclava vencedora’: La mujer en la obra literaria de José Martí.” Hispania 75.1 (1992): 30–37.
  358. DOI: 10.2307/344724Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  359. Cruz’s essay explores Martí’s representations of woman as an angel and devil, and she discovers that, contrary to what critics had said before, his portrayal of woman is “profoundly misogynist” (p. 37).
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  361. Díaz Quiñones, Arcadio. “Las guerras del alma.” Apuntes Postmodernos/Postmodern Notes 5.2 (Spring 1995): 4–13.
  362. DOI: 10.2307/466225Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  363. Díaz Quiñones’s article focuses on Martí’s representation of woman in Ismaelillo: the opposition between his messianic duty (characterized by Moses) and the constant threat of female temptation.
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  365. Gomariz, José. “El artista e intelectual de la modernidad en Lucía Jerez de José Martí.” In Colonialismo e independencia cultural: La narración del artista e intelectual hispanoamericano del siglo XIX. By José Gomariz, 135–160. Madrid: Editorial Verbum, 2005.
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  367. In one chapter of his book devoted to the figure of the artist and intellectual in Latin America, Gomariz analyzes two of Martí’s characters, Lucía Jerez and Juan Jerez, and finds that Juan embodies a counterhegemonic discourse that stands in opposition to the bourgeois modernity that Lucía herself represents. Prologue by Ivan Schulman.
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  369. Olivera, O. “La mujer en la obra de José Martí.” Interamerican Review of Bibliography 45.1–2 (1995): 191–206.
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  371. Olivera’s article traces the different characterizations of woman in Martí’s poetry, especially though his romantic vision.
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  373. Uribe, Olga. “Lucía Jerez de José Martí o la mujer como la invención de lo posible.” Revista de Crítica Literaria Latinoamericana 15.30 (1989): 25–38.
  374. DOI: 10.2307/4530452Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  375. In this article, Olga Uribe reads Martí’s literary character, Lucía Jerez, as an example of a woman that goes against the traditional rules imposed by bourgeois society, and listens to her own voice. On the other hand, she also reveals the characterization of the other woman in the novel as either angels or monsters. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
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  377. Men
  378.  
  379. Critics working within the framework of “queer theory” have also signaled Martí’s ambivalent descriptions of the male body and social relations in his poems and letters (Molloy 1992, Morán 2010, Peluffo 2005, Sánchez-Eppler 1994). They have argued that his perception of masculinity does not fall into the molds traditionally upheld by patriarchal societies and that its roots have to be found in ancient concepts of sociability, androgyny, and male-to-male relationships (Camacho 2001, Morán 2010, Ripoll 2011). His readings of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman and the way they understood masculinity figure prominently in these discussions, especially in the United States and considering that Martí read and admired both authors. These readings openly controvert the official discourse on gender in postrevolutionary Cuba as well as the representations of Martí in state-run media.
  380.  
  381. Camacho, Jorge. “Los límites de la transgresión: La virilización de la mujer y la feminización del poeta en José Martí.” Revista Iberoamericana 67.194 (2001): 69–78.
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  383. Camacho’s article highlights Martí’s gender transgressions in poetry, his criticism of the “new American woman,” and his “feminized” representations of the male poet. Here Camacho introduces the notion of “androgyny” to understand Martí’s ideas on the self, connecting his representations of himself and others with Emerson’s and Whitman’s transcendental philosophy.
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  385. Molloy, Sylvia. “Too Wilde for Comfort: Desire and Ideology in Fin-de-Siècle Spanish America.” Social Text 31–32 (1992): 187–201.
  386. DOI: 10.2307/466225Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  387. Molloy’s article describes Martí’s ambivalent description of Oscar Wilde when he came to give lectures in New York. This is the first article to explore the masculine gaze in Martí. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
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  389. Morán, Francisco. “‘Hay afectos de tan delicada honestidad. . .’ Los laberintos del deseo homosocial en la relación José Martí-Manuel Mercado.” Revista canadiense de estudios hispanos 35.1 (2010): 121–140.
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  391. Morán’s article returns to the question of male-to-male friendship and discusses the relationship between Martí and his best friend, Manuel Mercado. In his reading of Martí’s letters to Mercado, Morán discovers a homosocial desire where the love that Martí feels for his soon-to-be wife is transferred to his Mexican friend. Morán bases his ideas on Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s book Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985).
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  393. Peluffo, Ana. “Homo-sentimentalismo, fraternidad y lágrimas en José Martí.” Confluencia: Revista hispánica de cultura y literatura 21.1 (2005): 79–94.
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  395. In this article, Ana Peluffo discusses the importance of sentimentalism in Martí. She asserts that Martí related to his best friend, Fermín Valdés Dominguez, through a sort of “homo-sentimental” rhetoric that was also necessary for his patriotic ideals.
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  397. Ripoll, Carlos. “Lo andrógino.” In Martí y la melancholia. By Carlos Ripoll, 118–132. New York: Editorial Dos Ríos, 2011.
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  399. In this book, Ripoll explains Martí’s life through his “traumas” during childhood. Among the topics he explores are his constant sadness and the idea of the androgynous self that he explains using Emerson’s work.
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  401. Sánchez-Eppler, Benigno. “Call My Son Ismael: Exiled Paternity and Father/Son Eroticism in Reinaldo Arenas and José Martí.” Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 6.1 (1994): 69–97.
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  403. Sánchez-Eppler’s article establishes a parallel between one of Reinaldo Arena’s characters and José Martí’s son in Ismaelillo (1882). He bases his argument on Arena’s own interpretation of Martí and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s idea of male homosocial desire.
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  405. Afro-Cubans
  406.  
  407. It has always been claimed that Martí was a staunch critic of racism and segregation policies (Ortiz 1953, Lamore 1995, Montero 2002). In several of his articles for Patria, he criticized racist prejudices and openly argued that to be Cuban was more than to be black or white. As a result, there are several books and articles devoted to Martí’s perception of blacks that emphasizes the thesis of “race brotherhood” (Helg 1995) and his relationship with Antonio Maceo (Helg 2001). However, lately this perception has been contested and Martí has been criticized for reproducing some of these prejudices and stereotypes. For example, Martí spoke with fear of blacks’ racial inheritance (Rojas 2000, cited under Political Legacy). He has also been criticized for silencing race in the name of the nation (Patterson 1996), and for stereotyping blacks in a way that matches racist discourses in the South (Camacho 2007).
  408.  
  409. Camacho, Jorge. “‘Signo de propiedad’: Etnografía, raza y reconocimiento en José Martí.” A Contracorriente: A Journal of Social History and Literature in Latin America 5.1 (Fall 2007): 64–85.
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  411. Camacho’s article on Martí shows two sides of his vision on race: On the one hand, Martí’s perception of blacks as biologically different from whites around the mid-1880s on his famous Charleston chronicle (1886). On the other, Martí’s later criticism of racism in Patria.
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  413. Helg, Aline. Our Rightful Share: The Afro-Cuban Struggle for Equality, 1886–1912. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995.
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  415. Although Helg’s focus in this book is not Martí but the Afro-Cubans and their struggle for equality, her discussion of Martí’s rhetoric of “race brotherhood” is essential to understanding his importance during the Republic and many critics’ attitude toward his race rhetoric.
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  417. Helg, Aline. “La Mejorana Revisited: The Unresolved Debate between Antonio Maceo and José Martí.” Colonial Latin American Historical Review 10.1 (2001): 61–89.
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  419. Helg’s article explains the intricate and symbolic relationship between Martí and Maceo during the last war of independence. It summarizes the most important works done in the United States by other historians (Ada Ferrer and Lillian Guerra) and takes “La Mejorana,” a famous last meeting between the two heroes, as the cornerstone to explain their differences on conducting the war: civil versus military control.
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  421. Lamore, Jean. “Martí y las razas.” Revista Casa de las Américas 35.198 (January–March 1995): 49–56.
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  423. Lamore’s article analyzes Martí’s perception of “race groups” in relationship to science, specifically 19th-century evolutionary anthropology. He arrived at the conclusion that Martí refuted racist ideology and hoped for the progressive perfection of humanity.
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  425. Montero, Oscar. “Racism in the Republic: Martí and the Legacy of the U.S. Civil War.” Ciberletras 7 (July 2002).
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  427. Montero’s article analyzes Martí’s depiction of the racial conflicts in the South of the United States in the late 1880s. He compares Martí’s writings on African Americans to those that appeared in US newspapers at the time.
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  429. Ortiz, Fernando. Martí y las razas. Havana, Cuba: Publicaciones de la comisión nacional organizadora de los actos y ediciones del centenario y del monumento de Martí, 1953.
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  431. Here Fernando Ortiz explains the concept of race in Martí as “culture” and underlines Martí’s criticism of racist ideologies.
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  433. Patterson, Enrique. “Cuba: Discursos sobre la identidad.” Encuentro del Instituto de Estudios Cubanos 2 (1996): 49–67.
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  435. In this article, Patterson traces the different visions and representations of blacks in Cuba’s history and finds that even though Martí’s essay on race was an attempt to overcome previous racist ideology, it falls short in light of the 21st-century development of the topic on the island.
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  437. Native Americans
  438.  
  439. On the question of Martí’s representation of Native Americans, critics have traditionally supported the thesis that Martí defended Native American rights everywhere he went and that his perception of them was radically different from that of Faustino Sarmiento and other liberals at the time (see Sacoto 1968 and Acosta 1985, as well as Retamar 1972, cited under Political Legacy). Furthermore, it has been argued that he wanted Mexican Indians to regain their lost dignity (Medrano 2010). That vision, however, has also been contested by critics that have pointed out his support of laws that were unfair to the indigenous population in North and South America and his remarks on the laziness of North American, Mexican, and Guatemalan Indians (Camacho 2006, Herrera and Rodríguez 2010). Furthermore, these new readings of Martí emphasize the importance of individual cultures within the national territories and look critically upon the actions of the government (Robles 2006). In one of his articles for the newspaper La América, Martí even supported General Julio Roca’s “desert campaign” in Argentina, a military campaign that virtually wiped out the indigenous population in La Pampa in the name of progress, civilization, and national unity. He also sympathized with liberal reforms in Mexico and Guatemala that stripped Indians of their land and favored their assimilation (Blanco 2008).
  440.  
  441. Acosta, Leonardo. “Prólogo.” In El indio de nuestra América. By José Martí. Edited by Leonardo Acosta, 7–19. Havana, Cuba: Centro de Estudios Martianos, 1985.
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  443. This is an anthology of Martí’s chronicles of Central American Indians. Acosta wrote the prologue, which is a defense of Martí’s stance against imperialism and the mistreatment of Native Americans.
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  445. Blanco, Juan. “Modernidad y metamodernidad en el discurso de José Martí sobre el indígena.” A Parte Rei: Revista de Filosofia 60 (2008): 1–33.
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  447. Blanco’s article focuses on Martí’s perception of Guatemalan Indians. He also criticizes Martí for his liberal stance and his assimilationist agenda.
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  449. Camacho, Jorge. “Etnografía, política y poder: José Martí y los indígenas norteamericanos.” Kacike: Journal of Caribbean Amerindian History and Anthropology 7.1 (2006): 1–18.
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  451. Camacho’s article explains Martí’s stance on North American and Guatemalan Indians through his liberal ideals. He points to Martí’s policies favoring assimilation in the mid-1880s in the United States, his admiration of the Friends of Indians organization, and his belief in progress and education. He concludes that Martí’s vision was driven by an ethnocentric perspective.
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  453. Herrera, Miriam, and Pedro Pablo Rodríguez. Ni “siervos futuros” ni “aldeanos deslumbrados”: Documentos: José Martí. Havana, Cuba: Casa Editora Abril, 2010.
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  455. This is a compilation of articles that Martí wrote on American Indians. It is a useful compilation, although it is not the only one of its kind (see Acosta 1985). It has, however, a good introductory essay written by Miriam Herrera, in which she updates Cuban readers on what has been said of Martí outside of Cuba of his portrayal of indigenous populations. It also follows a culturalist approach to his work.
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  457. Martí, José. “Buenos Aires: Mensaje del Presidente de la República al Congreso; paz, escuelas, inmigrantes, ferrocarriles.” In Obras Completas. Vol. 7, Nuestra América. By José Martí, 321–324. Havana: Editorial Nacional de Cuba, 1963.
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  459. In this article, written for the newspaper La América of New York, Martí warmly welcomes Julio Roca’s plans for more immigration and development in Argentina. He seemed satisfied with his victory over the indigenous population of La Pampa, and said that the Argentinian government should carry out similar campaigns to advance the nation’s progress.
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  461. Medrano, Hugo. “El destino echado al viento: Los indígenas mexicanos en la obra de José Martí (1875).” Intersedes 11.21 (2010): 57–65.
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  463. Medrano’s article explores Martí’s views on Mexican Indians, underlining his compassion and belief that they could redeem themselves through their intelligence, effort, and work. According to Medrano, Martí wanted Mexican Indians to recapture their dignity lost after the Conquest and during the colonial regime.
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  465. Robles, José. “Los mundos indígenas en José Martí: Problemática y crítica.” Persona y Sociedad 20.1 (2006): 53–70.
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  467. Robles’s article explores Martí’s indigenist vision. He contrasts Martí’s perception of the “sleeping” Indians in Mexico with the ideal model of man that Martí praised in Nuestra América.
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  469. Sacoto, Antonio. “El indio en la obra literaria de Sarmiento y Martí.” Cuadernos Americanos 156 (1968): 137–163.
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  471. Sacoto’s article emphasizes the differences between Sarmiento and Martí in their representations of the indigenous population.
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  473. Religion
  474.  
  475. Martí’s perception of religion has also been a point of contention among his critics and admirers. Most critics agree on his “anticlerical” stance (González 1954), although it has been argued that he believed in God and was influenced by Krausism (Oria 1987), transcendentalism (Ballón 1986, cited under Martí’s Influences), and Christian ethics (Cepeda 1991), although this type of criticism has also been underquestioned (Almenas Rosa 2010). Intellectuals in exile have also contended that the Cuban government manipulates Martí’s image when it hides the fact that he had a strong spiritual life and was not an atheist (Estenger 1966).
  476.  
  477. Almenas Rosa, Egberto. “Contralectura en torno a José Martí y la crítica de inspiración cristiana.” Intersedes 11.21 (2010): 118–125.
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  479. Almenas’s essay does a wonderful job of analyzing arguments in favor of and against Martí’s religious ideas. It puts them in context, and explains their ramifications in the 20th century.
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  481. Cepeda, Rafael. José Martí: Perspectivas éticas de la fe cristiana. San José, Costa Rica: Editorial Departamento Ecuménico de Investigaciones, 1991.
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  483. Cepeda’s book traces the roots of Martí’s Christian faith. It is good a source of information to understand his knowledge of sacred scriptures, the symbols he used, and his ethical conduct.
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  485. Estenger, Rafael. Martí frente al comunismo: Glosas de un contrapunteo entre el hombre libre. Miami, FL: Editorial AIP, 1966.
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  487. Estenger’s monograph, written when he was exile in the United States, explained that Martí could not be used as a propaganda figure by Fidel Castro’s regime because he held radically different ideas on freedom, family, and religion.
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  489. González, Manuel Pedro. José Martí, anticlerical irreductible: Estudio preliminar. Mexico City: Ediciones Humanismo, 1954.
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  491. González is one of the first to explore Martí’s criticism of church in a context that was highly hagiographic and usually referred to him as a “saint” or an “apostle.” He links this criticism to Martí’s liberal stance and his affection for the poor.
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  493. Oria, Tomás. Martí y el Krausismo. Boulder, CO: Society of Spanish and Spanish American Studies, 1987.
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  495. In this book Tomás Oria discusses the impact of Krausism on Martí. Karl Kraus was a German philosopher that had a tremendous influence in Spain during the time that Martí went to live there as an exile. Martí seemed sympathetic to Kraus’s ideas.
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