"Statues Made of Sugar": Martí, Monuments, and Hemispheric Ventriloquism

Abstract: Monuments speak; they shape citizens' political imaginations. Drawing on an essay by the Cuban intellectual José Martí about Confederate commemoration, I argue that his Confederate solidarities were the result of hemispheric ventriloquism. Widely lauded as an anti-imperial and anti-racist thinker, Martí's hemispheric ventriloquism was driven by: 1) fears of US imperial expansion; 2) a need to rebut critiques of republics as inherently unstable forms of government in light of post-independence civil strife in Latin America; and 3) his hopes for Cuban national unity post-independence. Martí's hemispheric ventriloquism illustrates the dangers of downplaying racist commemoration in the name of liberal pluralism or national unity.