Dennis L. Seager (Oklahoma State University)
Jesús Díaz, in a documentary film, a testimonio, and a series of novels, addresses the issues of national identity and exile. Francisco López Sacha observes that the short testimonio, De la patria y el exilio, contributes to the discussion of the problem of nationality and “the certainty of Cubanness, the psychological, human, and social profile that defines our ethnicity”. Díaz considers what it means to be a part of the Cuban diaspora in Dime algo sobre Cuba (1998) and Siberiana (2000). In these novels Díaz delineates the importance of the theme of exile for any Cuban not on the island and makes evident the notion of “Cubanity” for the cultural identity of his protagonists. However, it is in Las cuatro fugas de Manuel (2002) where he establishes the possibility of a post-Cuban, post-national, post-exile identity … a transnational identity.
Manuel, the protagonist of Las cuatro fugas de Manuel, wants to protect himself from the sort of loss that Edward Said discusses in his “Reflections on Exile”. Like Jesús Díaz himself, Manuel receives an indirect threat from the Cuban authorities and decides to go into exile. He can’t return to Cuba and he can’t continue with his studies in Ukraine. So, with the help of friends and a professor, he attempts to cross the border with Switzerland first, and then Sweden. Failing in both attemps, he manages to get to the U.S. Embassy in Berlin where his request for asylum is also rejected. The reason for this is that Manuel loves his country, his nationality, his Cuban identity so much that he doesn’t want to lose them. Not able to deny his identity, Manual can’t destroy his official, red passport, the symbol of his identity. Finally, on his fourth attempt to cross a border, Manuel tears up the passport, abandons his Cuban identity and discovers his true ethnicity. He learns that he is not Cuban after all, and not an exile, but a transnational. He realizes that he speaks Ukrainian and Russian like a native, and learns that his last name, Desdín, identifies him as of French origin, and that his ancestors were Huguenots who had fled to Germany seeking freedom and hoping to avoid persecution. As a descendant of Germans, Manuel receives political asylum and accepts his family’s nationality.
At the end of the novel, Manuel discovers his true identity and reconciles with his position as member of what Benedict Anderson has called “an imagined political community.” That is, Manuel Desdín, like Jesús Díaz, discovers that in order to put an end to all nationalisms, in order to not suffer from the loss that exile requires, we must all realize what we are … transnationals.
