‘Cuban’ by appropriation: The strange case of H. G. Carrillo

The story of fake Cuban exile and fake Latino writer “H. G. Carrillo” (really Herman Glenn Carroll from Detroit), who based his work and career on a fabricated persona and deceived practically everyone in his life for over 20 years, has already been covered here. Mainstream media has treated this elaborate fraud gingerly, not to say evasively–even in Miami, where it has been completely ignored. Go figure. By now, it is most unlikely to get further attention except from “those people” in South Florida (because you know how they are). Thus, we have this third Babalú Blog post on it, a sort of forensic examination. 

I should get a medal, because I had to force myself to do it; I did not enjoy it, and I’m not sure it was worth it. As a purely investigative exercise, I procured Carroll’s chief work and only novel, Loosing My Espanish (2004) and read it, all 322 pages–which should have been done by a paid professional journalist. However, Carroll was an African American gay man as opposed to a white straight writer posing as “Latinx,” who would get torn to shreds for that now. Public response, what there’s been of it, has been remarkably sensitive and studiously measured, avoiding even the term cultural appropriation, flagrant though it is. Again, go figure–besides, who cares if Cubans get short shrift and no respect?

The novel is about a mixed-race Cuban exile brought to the US as a boy, who’s being pushed out of teaching history at a Chicago Jesuit all-male school due to vague rumors of improper (homosexual) conduct. He employs his last weeks on the job to go on a rambling and seemingly endless monologue to his students (who are scarcely interested) about history, life and (supposedly) the Cuban experience both there and here. The plot also involves his mother’s unfolding dementia, her close Cuban female friends and associates, and a number of more peripheral male characters, including a former lover who died of AIDS. 

The name of the protagonist is Oscar “Delossantos,” not de los Santos, as in boxer Oscar de la Hoya. That’s the first tip-off, from the word go, since that is neither a Hispanic nor a Cuban surname. It is followed by numerous small tells throughout the book which would never have escaped notice by Cuban readers, who could hardly have been the target audience. Things like hyphenating first and middle names and referring to women as “doña” this or that, which Cubans don’t do. Words like “laundería” for laundry, “grocería” for grocery, “chancletos” with an o, “bisteca” for bistec, “ojo malo” for mal de ojo, “dulce con leche” for dulce de leche, “La Habana Pequeña” instead of La Pequeña Habana, “La Playa Girón” instead of plain Playa Girón, “carta conmemorativa” for a funeral recordatorio, the hotel “La Habana Hilton” or “Hilton Habana” instead of el Habana Hilton. You get the idea.

Want more? Use of non-Cuban words and expressions, like vato and pinche (Mexican) and “Ay, bendito!” (Puerto Rican). Placing merengue (Dominican music) in pre-Castro Cuba, which had plenty of its own musical genres, thank you. Saying “Look at the time” as “Mira el tiempo” instead of Mira la hora, or “¿A dónde estamos yendo?” instead of ¿A dónde vamos?, or dedicating the book to a dead lover with “En recuerdo de“ instead of A la memoria de. And there are other false touches. A photo of an old Havana school classroom as the book’s cover. The Acknowledgments section, not part of the novel, is titled “Agradecimientos” instead, and it gives the author’s siblings Hispanic names I’m sure they do not have, including “Susana” for his sister Susan (who revealed his true identity after he died). Again, you get the idea.

Which brings me to an important element of the book: the persistent use throughout of Carroll’s idea of Spanglish, continually peppering the text with Spanish words and phrases, almost as if done by artificial intelligence. The protagonist, a Chicago school teacher, uses it routinely even at his job with students, which is highly implausible. It feels like a gimmick and quickly becomes tiresome, but again, the novel was not aimed at Cubans, and some reviewers were taken by it as “inventive” and producing “beautiful effects.” The problem is that it’s not real Spanglish but something applied in an annoyingly clunky way, which ultimately feels artificial, calculated and contrived—obviously for “literary” effect, but maybe also as overcompensation for being neither Cuban nor Hispanic. In other words, the tactic feels like proverbial parches pegados.

Another very prominent element is “magical realism,” which is not surprising in an ostensibly “Latinx” writer who cited its high priest, the Colombian Gabriel García Márquez, as a major influence. Alas, it came off like wearing cologne that’s too strong and too much of it, as in overpowering—but maybe that’s just a Latin thing I wouldn’t understand. However, it felt overdone and exhibitionistic, as if intended to impress a certain crowd composed of literary critics and creative writing teachers (which is what Carroll became for a number of years). Frankly, I doubt he was aiming for mass readership or bestseller status, but rather a specialized audience that would secure him a respectable academic career, which is what he had. Too much success would have drawn too much attention, which could well have brought down his whole house of cards.

And what about politics in this novel? Ni fu ni fa, more or less. Vague and ambiguous. Carroll basically kept his distance, although a major female character, representing the old Havana upper class, is arguably the least attractive figure in the book (the protagonist’s black mother was her maid in Cuba). Possibly the most overt statement made is that all fidelismo really did as far as Cuba was concerned was to open a fissure that turned it into a country which neither Castro’s opponents nor his supporters would be able to name. In reality, of course, Carroll had nothing to do with Cuba and no skin in that game, so he could not be expected to be passionate about Cuba’s fate. Besides, being too pointedly political one way or the other would have invited notice he didn’t need and could hardly afford to risk–especially from “those people” in Miami.

So what’s the final verdict? Well, I was obviously predisposed against the book going in, and I wound up treating it like an onerous school assignment one does not want to do but must push through somehow (and it took me long enough). My main objection is not that Carroll chose to pass as something he absolutely wasn’t–that was his problem, and I definitely think he had one. What really bothers me is that he was a false witness and a false representative for a people and a culture not his own, and predictably enough, he was taken for the genuine article. Cuba and Cubans, and Cuban Americans in particular, have been distorted and falsified far too much and much too long as it is, and whether out of ignorance, malice or opportunism, the effects are always adverse.

Still, in a way, I feel somewhat sorry for him. Perhaps the saddest part is that, if he had gone with what he really was and truly knew, I have little doubt he would have done more legitimate and better work, maybe much better, and would have left a more valuable and lasting literary legacy.