Ramon Rivero Analysis

In Caribbean Negritos: Ramón Rivero, Blackface, and ''Black'' Voice in Puerto Rico Yiedy Rivero outlines the various prominent black ventriloquist traditions in Latin America and Miami from the 19th century to the present, each with great cultural and political significance. She begins with Cuban blackface in the 19th century in which it took on important political, social and cultural meanings because of its emblematic role in the Cuban fight for independence. As such, performances of black face and black voice contained very strong anti-colonial sentiments, so much so that these performance were outlaws for ten years. In fact, the political traditions of black ventriloquism was so strong that it continued to satirize U.S. imperial dominance

Under artists like Ramon Rivero, Cuban Negritos were reconceptualized as vehicles for the representation and articulation of Puerto Rico’s cultural, social, political, and economic negotiations of the 1940s and 1950s. In doing so, black face and black voice radio and television symbolically, criticized US.. colonialism and the oppressive conditions of the working class. This meaning was evident in shows like Rivero’s El tremendo hotel, which satirized American characters who represented U.S. imperialism, thus destabilizing the hotel’s normalcy and framing the U.S. and Americanness as a destructive influence in the Puerto. During a time when the U.S. and Puerto Rican governments were heralding Puerto Rico as a success of modernity black face characters of El tremendo hotel represented ideological reminders than many groups were still economically and socially struggling. Furthermore, in addressing social and political subjugation of the working class, black face actors like Rivero homogenized blackness creating a more broadly identifiable CubaRican black subject, while also recreating the complexities of race and the ideological negotiations within Puerto Rico. Lastly, blackface in Puerto Rico addressed and helped define Puerto Rican-ness and Puerto Rican nostalgia during very transitional