De solidaridades problemáticas y utopías sin armonizar: una lectura de Limón Reggae (2007), de Anacristina Rossi, y Big Banana (2000), de Roberto Quesada

Abstract

This article analyzes the limits of solidarity based on the decentering of the mestizo protagonists in Limón Reggae by Costa Rican writer Anacristina Rossi (2007), which portrays the Costa Rican descendants of immigrants from the Antilles (primarily from Jamaica), and Big Banana by Honduran author Roberto Quesada (2000), which describes the Garifuna people from Honduras. While Limón Reggae explores a solidarity that is both political and structural in nature in both Costa Rica and the United States as well as the possibility of interracial romantic relationships, Big Banana focuses on empathetic solidarity through the relationship between Eduardo and Mairena on American soil, thus problematizing the possibility of reinventing one’s identity in this “third space.” In short, neither text dares offer a simplistic and/or homogenous solution for coexistence and so both groups finally remain separate. There is no ambition to reorient the inferior experience or even the experience of “the other.” Moreover, both emphasize the place of proclamation and in that way avoid falling into the fallacy of fictional solidarities that are lost in their own fantasy of solidarity for not listening to “the other”.