Graduation Year
2019
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree
Ph.D.
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)
Degree Granting Department
Communication
Major Professor
Arthur P. Bochner, Ph. D.
Committee Member
Carolyn Ellis, Ph. D., Ph.D.
Committee Member
Eric Eisenberg, Ph. D., Ph.D.
Committee Member
Madeline Cámara, Ph. D., Ph.D.
Keywords
Autoethnography, displacement, exile, identity, memory, narrative, survivor, ambiguous loss, unfulfilled dreams
Abstract
In this dissertation, I draw on memories inspired and heightened by compassionate interviews in order to produce a unifying narrative of interactions with family and friends prior to and following my exile from Cuba in 1960. I use autoethnography and narrative inquiry to understand how I made the decision to leave Cuba and the life I have lived in exile for almost sixty years. My dissertation focuses on what it means to live as a reluctant immigrant and how historically constituted power relations define the identity of many Cuban exiles. I discuss and contrast the politics of passion and the politics of affection. The politics of affection undermine the goals of the politics of passion; the moral imperative of what ought to be is not achieved and becomes an antecedent of the necessity to exile. The story I tell draws attention to memory, identity, displacement, the experience of ambiguous loss, the sadness of unfulfilled dreams of return, and the decision to live in exile as a survivor not a victim regardless of my disenchantment and resistance to the Castro Revolution.
Scholar Commons Citation
Cotanda, Dionel, "Life as a Reluctant Immigrant: An Autoethnographic Inquiry" (2019). USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/etd/8018
