Taxidermy and the Environment in Cristina García’s The Agüero Sisters

Bibliographic Data

ID11272455
AuthorsFernando Varela (0000-0003-2574-579X, Texas Lutheran University, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume49
Issue3
Pages95-109
Publication date2024-12-31
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueMELUS Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0163-755X • E-ISSN: 1946-3170
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/melus/mlae048
OpenAlexW4402713058
LanguageEN
References cited21

Cristina García’s novel The Agüero Sisters (1997) centers on Constancia and Reina Agüero, two sisters whose mother, Blanca Agüero, died in Cuba during their childhood years in the first half of the twentieth century. Their father, Ignacio Agüero, was a renowned ornithologist and taxidermist with an interest in Cuba’s endangered species before suddenly committing suicide after his wife’s death. Constancia moves to the United States soon after the Cuban Revolution while Reina remains on the island. Reunited in South Florida after Reina also leaves Cuba during its Special Period, the sisters once again begin to wonder what happened to their mother. This article examines The Agüero Sisters’ representation of Cuban environmental history in the twentieth century and, more specifically, of taxidermy. Using Giovanni Aloi and Rachel Poliquin’s respective studies on the cultural significance of taxidermy, it argues that Reina and Constancia process their parents’ death by coalescing their past with embalmed specimens from endangered species. In doing so, they generate a conception of the Cuban nation and its diaspora that extends beyond the human. This article also studies the novel’s allusion to naturalist Thomas Barbour and his involvement in the establishment of the Harvard Botanic Station for Tropical Research and Sugarcane Investigation/Atkins Institution in Cuba at the turn of the twentieth century. Ultimately, this article claims, Constancia and Reina reconfigure taxidermy as a literary device that enables them to understand their family tragedy in relation to their homeland’s history of environmental destruction

Art · Garcia · Humanities · Latin American and Latino Studies · Materials Science · Spanish Literature and Culture Studies

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