In Sofía Martín Morúa Delgado would stress that clothes are markers: markers of taste, cultural inclinations, socioeconomic status. They are also markers of place and geographic identifications, as Morúa would observe about the inadequate clothing worn by Americanized Cubans upon their return to the island after extended stays in the US, noting that their use of “lanas y franelas sencillas…conservaban una graciosa reminiscencia del tipo extranjero impreso en ambos por su larga estancia fuera de su país natal” (Morúa Delgado 1891, 102) (simple wools and flannels…retained an amusing reminiscence of the foreign type stamped on both because of their long stay outside of their countries of birth). He was not the only Latina/o author who found himself moving between spaces, on a Latino Continuum, on which clothing, like texts and life events, served as markers of that experience. Take for example the martyred Cuban poet, Juan Clemente Zenea (1832–71), who, although on a diplomatic mission to the island, was executed by Spanish authorities as a traitor to the Spanish cause in Cuba. He would likewise comment on the experience of living in a new country, but this time through the lens of emotions and desire in the doomed love affair of a displaced couple who yearn for their homeland as they walk down ...
Tres autores caribeños: la esclavitud y la esfera pública decimonónica en las obras de Mary Prince, Mary Seacole y Martín Morúa Delgado