Aquí Está Alvarez Guedes: Cuban choteo and the politics of play

Abstract

This article examines the stand-up comedy of Cuban exile comedian Guillermo Alvarez Guedes and his use of a culturally specific form of Cuban humor called choteo. Despite being a popular topic of study throughout the intellectual history of Cuba, little scholarship has been dedicated to theorizing the deployment of choteo in exile. Scholarship and mainstream media depictions of the Cuban exile community have traditionally focused on the community's negative affective orientation. This emphasis has led to a lack of scholarship on the important role of the ludic in Cuban exile culture. By offering an analysis of Alvarez Guedes's use of choteo to narrate the evolving political landscape in Miami during the mid-1970s to early 1980s, this article demonstrates how his comedic production helped to consolidate a Cuban exile identity while simultaneously offering trenchant critiques of anti-Cuban sentiment in Miami at the time.