“Swimming in Olive Oil”: North Africa and the Hispanic Caribbean in the Poetry of Víctor Hernández Cruz

Abstract

This essay examines selected poems from The Mountain in the Sea by US Puerto Rican poet Víctor Hernández Cruz, who sets out to complicate Puerto Rican, Spanish, and US notions of cultural identity. It demonstrates how Hernández Cruz is tropicalizing the Maghreb through the juxtaposition of and interplay between languages (Spanish, English, and Arabic), as well as imagery linked to Morocco, Spain, Puerto Rico, and New York. It also shows how the subversiveness of the collection reaches a new dimension through its depiction of the North African presence within the geopolitical borders of the United States in our post-9/11 context.