94 ELENA MACHADo SAEZ

modes of reconnecting with her Cuban past (199). In the very same
record store where she speaks of her disillusion with punk music, Pi-
lar buys an old Beny More album. By taking the position of consumer,
she simultaneously engages in the commodification of Cuban culture
and bonds with a member of the Hispanic community, the record store
cashier, Franco. Thus, the market category of Latin music provides
Pilar with access to the cultural production of Cuba. In addition, Pilar
connects with a community that shares her interest in these objects of
Hispanic culture as well as her experience of exile. With Franco, Pilar
discusses "Celia Cruz and how she hasn't changed a hair or a vocal
note in forty years. She's been fiftyish, it seems, since the Spanish-
American war" (197-8). Interestingly, the figure of Celia Cruz retains a
certain timelessness and authenticity that the punk music loses after
entrance into the mass market.2
 During Pilar's visit to a botdnica, Cuban culture continues to be as-
 sociated with an immunity to the market's workings, or being outside
 of them altogether. Inside the botdnica on Park Avenue, Pilar finds reli-
 gious objects which are obviously produced for the mass market, but
 which are markers of Hispanic-Caribbean culture, such as "plastic plug-
 in Virgins" (199). Nevertheless, Pilar invests a special meaning in these
 objects, remarking that "the simplest rituals... are most profound"
 (199). It is of central importance then that the owner of the shop re-
 fuses payment for the objects he gives to Pilar, herbs, a white votive
 candle and holy water, with the explanation that, "This is a gift from
 our father Chang6" (200). The narrative situates Pilar's initiation into
 the rituals of Santeria outside of the marketplace, such that the ex-
 change is not a business transaction, and therefore uncorrupted by
 commodification.
 Although the text positions Santeria and Cuban culture outside mar-
ket influence, the narrative exhibits some discomfort with locating
cultural meaning within market commodities. The ambivalent repre-
sentation of globalization continues throughout the novel, wherein Celia
links the function of the market to the transformation of memory into
a commodity. Celia portrays memory as without confines, "slate gray,


 2 In a similar way to Dreaming in Cuban's representation of Celia Cruz, the movie
Buena Vista Social Club also casts Afro-Cuban music as timeless or outside of time.
The movie's exoticization presents an interesting example of the intersection of
music and global nostalgia and its appeal as a cultural product, a topic which Roman
de la Campa discusses in his lecture, "Postcolonial Marketing and Global Nostalgia."