Milli mála - 01.06.2016, Blaðsíða 126

CENTRAL AMERICAN COASTAL IDENTITY
126 Milli mála 8/2016
she appears and reappears in the text as a leitmotif which functions
as a reminder of the continuous presence of the ‘pure’ black ele-
ment. She appears as an illustration of Montobbio’s idea that verti-
cal cultural heritage is required for identity construction. Orlandus
is her firstborn and she has high hopes for him, which should ma-
terialize because he is hard-working, honest and true to his origins
(85, 98 and 130). In all his endeavors, which have both fortunate
and unfortunate consequences, his mother supports him every step
of the way.
Everything changes, however, for the young Orlandus when he
meets Leonor – “the minister’s wife” – in Limón.23 She is older than
him and lives in the inland village of Guácimo, where she serves as
the managing director of a banana plantation that she has inheri-
tedand. She is a mestiza woman who pursues what she wants, seduc-
ing the newly-arrived to satisfy her carnal desires. He attempts to
resist her seductive spell – he asks her not to play him (47) –, but
cannot and, gradually, Leonor and “her negro”, as she calls him,
begin a passionate but, ultimately, impossible love affair. When her
husband finds out and condemns her infidelity, she answers back,
demanding the same liberty he takes for granted to follow her de-
sires: she points out that his sexual needs and extra-marital affairs,
considered as a natural and almost divine right, are no more urgent
than hers. Furthermore, she questions the paradigm that her desires
are disgraceful and socially unacceptable, while his are acclaimed
and accepted. The presence of Leonor in the text serves multiple
functions, one being to refer to the evident gender divides; but her
character and actions also point to the conflicting interests between
races and classes, between white identity, the mestizo one, and that
of the black and mixed race inhabitants of the region. The reader is
reminded that the population of the Atlantic coast has always been
multi-racial, multi-lingual, and multi-cultural, and that Leonor’s
interests, for example, in African dance and dancers (61), confirm
the people’s continuous need for cultural belonging and cultural
integration. Here, Rossi can be seen to evoke Fernando Ortiz’s
theory of ‘transmutations of cultures’, since, in the novel, she re-
23 Rossi, Limón Blues, San José, Costa Rica: Alfaguara, 2002; “la mujer del ministro”, p. 39.