THE ROUTES OF GLOBAL NOSTALGIA IN CRISTINA GARCIA'S DREAMING IN CUBAN 99

 is for sale" (164). The narrative's nostalgic look backwards into the
 past is particularly obsessed with the presence of U.S. commerce on
 the island. Interwoven with Celia's narrative are reminders of the al-
 ready globalizing influence of American culture. The American motion
 picture industry promotes the dispersion of U.S. products and fash-
 ion. Celia notes that although her "Tia Alicia considered the American
 films naive and overly optimistic" they were "too much fun to resist"
 (94). Consequently, Tia Alicia "named her two canaries Clara and Lillian
 after Clara Bow and Lillian Gish" (94). Celia also recalls how,

 My girlfriends and I used to paint our mouths like American starlets,
 ruby red and heart-shaped. We bobbed our hair and...tried to sound
 like Gloria Swanson. We used to go to Cinelandia every Friday after
 work. I remember seeing Mujeres de Fuego with Bette Davis. (100)

 Not only is pre-Revolution Cuba marked by the globalization of
American culture, but the island is also a site of American tourism and
commerce. During her days working at the major department store, el
Encanto, Celia's biggest camera sales went to Americans (38).
 Upon her arrival in Cuba, Pilar is fascinated by the remains of this
influence, seeing the evidence left of this connection between the U.S.
and Cuba:

 The women on Calle Madrid are bare-armed in tight, sleeveless
 blouses. They wear stretch pants and pafiuelos...A pair of frayed
 trousers stick out from beneath a '55 Plymouth. Magnificent finned
 automobiles cruise grandly down the street like parade floats. I feel
 like we're all back in time, in a kind of Cuban version of an earlier
 America. (220)

 Not only does it appear that this is all that is left of Cuba's connec-
tion to American capitalism, but also, Cuba appears to be stuck in time,
as if history has ceased its progress. The character of Felicia embodies
the destructive effects of the Revolution upon the Cuban people. In the
novel, there is a recurring memory of Felicia as a child, playing at the
beach before the arrival of the tidal wave, which appears in both Felicia
and Celia's narratives. Felicia remembers "The sea's languid retreat into
the horizon and the terrible silence of its absence" (11). As a result, the
sand lies exposed for Felicia to read. The "archaeology of the ocean floor
revealed itself" as a narrative of memory and history (213). The sea floor
serves as a metaphor for the recording of history, while the catastrophic
and unpredictable events within History reshape or erase what is
written on the sand. The tidal wave, symbolic of the Revolution, breaks