THE ROUTES OF GLOBAL NOSTALGIA IN CRISTINA GARCIA'S DREAMING IN CUBAN 95

the color of undeveloped film" (47-8). Commodification, by contrast,
seeks to concretize. Celia asserts, "it was an atrocity to sell cameras at
El Encanto department store, to imprison emotions on squares of glossy
paper" (47-8). Nostalgia then, is both a product of the market and yet a
motivating force within it, necessitating the continual search for cul-
tural roots, and the commodified versions of them. Nostalgia functions
as an attempt to allay the damage done to affect by mass commercial-
ization in contemporary capitalism. Certainly, Celia's description of
the relationship of photography to memory and emotion serves as a
useful metaphor for this process.
 Even while Celia berates the function of the market, Pilar's mother,
Lourdes, views capitalism as a site of empowerment. As proprietor of
her own bakery, "Lourdes felt a spiritual link to American moguls, to
the immortality of men like lrenee du Pont" (171). The immortality
which the market provides Lourdes is envisioned through mass con-
sumption, literally: "She envisioned a chain of Yankee Doodle bakeries
stretching across America to St. Louis, Dallas, Los Angeles, her apple
pies and cupcakes on main streets and in suburban shopping malls
everywhere" (171). Not only is Lourdes "convinced she can fight Com-
munism from behind her bakery counter," but mass production also
allows her to identify herself with an alternate community, one that is
not Cuban (136). Lourdes becomes part of a nation-building project,
the United States' bicentennial celebration, engaging in the marketing
of American patriotism through products such as "tricolor cupcakes
and Uncle Sam marzipan" (136).
 Pilar stands somewhere in between these two extremes of Celia and
Lourdes: she sees the possibility for reconnection to Cuba via commodi-
ties such as the Beny Mor6 album or the Santeria herbs, yet she remains
ambivalent regarding the access these products supposedly provide.
Pilar alludes to this conflict when she describes the streets of Miami:

 All the streets in Coral Gables have Spanish names...as if they'd been
 expecting all the Cubans who would eventually live there. I read
 somewhere that the area started off as just another Florida land
 scheme. Now it's one of the ritzy neighborhoods of Miami...I suppose
 if enough people believe in the hype, anything is possible. (60)

 The problem and the potential of the global market lies in its ability
to create meaning out of fiction. On the one hand this process can
confuse origins, or lead to an inability to isolate local positions of re-
sistance. Pilar mentions her frustration with the system of co-optation