Racial Violence and Visual Media in Vista del amanecer en el trópico

What is the relationship between visuality, racial violence, and political hegemony in Cuba? In Vista del amanecer en el trópico (1974), Guillermo Cabrera Infante tries to answer this question by focusing on visual media and its manipulation over half a millennium. My analysis of the novel as a parody of a Latin American álbum de vistas—a book with idealized etchings, engravings, maps, and/or photos of places and people—uncovers the connection of engravings and photography to Cuba’s racialized political projects. Vista del amanecer underscores continuities in racist ideologies and policies that undermine indigenous people and Afro-Cubans, despite revolutions and changes in political configurations. My thematic and structural study of the novel’s engagement with engravings and photographs demonstrates how Cabrera Infante criticizes state actors who promote race-based violence through the production and dissemination of those two distinct media.