GUAMÁ’S CYBER-HUMOR IN EXILE: ABORIGINAL-AFROCUBAN IDENTITY AND POLITICALLY INCORRECT TRANSLATIONESE WORKING FOR ANOTHER CUBA

Guamá is a graphic-humour online publication and an outstanding cultural phenomenon of Cubans in exile. Its creator, Alen Lauzán Falcón, was born in Cuba in 1974, and before he managed to escape the Castros’ island, he had already had a successful career in the field of graphic humour. What followed was astonishing for the whole Cuban Diaspora. Upon his arrival in Chile, where he remained, working for and inspired by the graphic humour style of The Clinic, a popular Chilean humoristic publication, he created his own online journal, adopting the name of the best known Cuban aboriginal fighter against Spanish conquistadors. Through incisive and constant ‘politically incorrect’ humour, Lauzán Falcón has been ridiculing many Castroist publications through spicy comments and upturned Cuban propaganda slogans. This became a kind of creative ‘translationese’. His efforts are significantly contributing to criticizing and redirecting the meaning of Castroist ideological indoctrination concepts – efforts enriched with a strong flavour of Cuban Aboriginal (Taíno) and Afro-Cuban humour. Lauzán Falcón aims to show a critical perspective on Cuban affairs for Cubans, and for anyone else who can feel and understand the Cuban situation and show solidarity with the difficulties of the people living under the longest-running extreme-left-wing regime in Latin America In this article, I first analyse the ‘translationese’ phenomenon from a complexity point of view, meaning historically and culturally rebinding the Cuban case study to the historical antecedents of ‘translationese’. Second, I analyse ten graphic Guamá ‘front pages’ (satiric imitations of Castroist publications), published by Lauzán Falcón between 2008 and 2014 in his eponymous blog, starting with the main banner of Guamá itself. Third, I operate a complex rebinding of the results demonstrating that the same spirit of creative resistance that the Taíno and African slaves showed in Cuba during more than four centuries is still in action today in Cubans’ efforts to deal with the consequences of a long-lasting extreme-left-wing regime. A selected glossary of Guama’s AfroCuban words and expressions analysed here will appear at the end of the article.


INTRODUCTION
In this article, I link the Cuban cultural tradition of mockery, called el choteo (Ortíz 1993(Ortíz [1913), with the 'politically incorrect' 2 translationese of Cuban Aboriginal and Cuban African origin in ten graphic 'front pages' from Guamá, which are Cuban Exile satiric imitations of Castroist publications. I also show how the critique that Fernando Ortiz expressed in his early work on this feature of Cuban identity, one that in his opinion impeded at that time on the social and economic progress of the new nation, no longer carries the same weight because today's Cuban context is radically different. This analysis is possible because of a complex rebinding of the most prominent of the factors involved: the multicultural and multilingual features that characterise Cuban identity, a diachronic analysis of translationese and how it works in the building of a new language and identity, and choteo as a cultural tradition that expresses the paradoxical nature and present condition of the Cuban people, which was created through the worst social engineering of modern times. These include the almost total extermination of the Aboriginals, the four centuries of African slavery and the not yet fully understood degradation of the human nature and values of the 'rulers' (the Spaniards, other Europeans and their descendants). A complexity perspective, i.e. historically and culturally rebinding those phenomena to the historical antecedents of 'translationese', allows the needed 'distanciation' (Elias 1999) to arrive at more general and prospective conclusions. One of these conclusions is of the utmost importance here, namely that this cultural heritage, materialized and recycled in Cuban political life, is one of the main factors preventing Cuban society from evolving not only into a democratic society but also into a 'hypercomplex society' (Qvortrup 2003) as many others in its close vicinity had been doing. A selected glossary of Guama's Afro-Cuban words and expressions analysed here appear at the end of this text.
On 24 April 2019, the BBC published an article about the profusion of ostrich memes on online social networks that mocked a Cuban government official's proposal that ostrich could be the needed alternative or 'nutritious supplement to the Cuban diet'. 3 After more than 60 years in power, with the last 30 years characterized by considerable reductions in protein consumption (i.e., occasional pork and chicken and almost no beef), for Cubans 'to change' their sources of protein looked like a sardonic joke. It was inevitable that such a statement would invite ridicule. As Cubans are used to saying: 'se lo buscaron' [they looked for it]. 4 Mocking the authorities is a long-standing tradition in Cuban history. Fernando Ortíz, the world-renowned Cuban anthropologist and creator of the concept of transculturation, (whom I quoted at the beginning of the article) linked choteo [mockery] in Cuban Spanish to Cubans' inability to deal with inspiring or serious issues. He stated that 'entre cubanos no andamos con boberías' [between Cubans there is no room for dummies]. In 1913, when Ortíz wrote the series of articles and letters that constitute the body of his early work, Cuba was just an 11-year-old democracy, heavily influenced by the United States. It also had a heritage of four centuries of colonial rule in which slavery was a key factor in the construction of social relationships. As in the 'deep American South', former social and psychological traditions and habits did not disappear with the end of Spanish colonial rule (or the British one for the south of the United States) (Nisbett 1996). These traditions and habits continue to permeate Cubans' life because of their economic and moral cultural groundings. As Nisbett states: … if resources are in scarce or unpredictable supply, and if they are sufficiently portable that theft is a practicable route to bounty, then toughness has great economic value … To maintain credible power of deterrence, the individual must project a stance of willingness to commit mayhem and to risk wounds or death for himself. Thus, he must constantly be on guard against affronts that could be construed by others as disrespect. When someone allows himself to be insulted, he risks giving the impression that he lacks the strength to protect what is his. Thus, the individual must respond with violence or the threat of violence to any affront. (1996, p. xv) In the case of Cuba, hyper-sensitivity to honour and respect (by individuals and particularly by the State) is a vicious cycle in a society inured to economic deprivation. Maintaining permanent economic warfare with its closest neighbour -the most powerful country on earthis a key tool by which the island's State keeps its population struggling to survive. However, if in 1913 for Ortíz, el choteo was not useful to create a psycho-social state of mind favourable to aligning with external ideas of progress and economic development, today things have changed. Mockery through online social networks is a powerful way for the Cuban Diaspora to challenge Castroist government propaganda and the government's desperate efforts to control not only the minds of those who stayed on the island but also those who have left.
The online graphic humour blog Guamá has been, since its first posts, the fiercest of el choteo efforts. Created in June 2008 by Alen Lauzán Falcón during his Chilean exile, it was initially planned to run for 50 issues over six months. It instantly became a cultural phenomenon in Cuban exile circles, and by the end of the six-month run, the 86 th issue was already hitting the Internet. Lauzán Falcón himself defined his motivation as follows: 'Nadie hace humor por gusto, por lo menos se divierte el que lo hace. El humor no es un género, más bien es un arma, es la hiel del poder' [Nobody makes humour for pleasure, even though the one who does it has fun. Humour is not a genre, rather it is a weapon, it is the gall of power] (Lauzán in Enrisco 2009). For Cubans outside the island, like Lauzán Falcón, criticizing the government is a risky endeavour. They must comply with the 'rules of good behaviour' that the Cuban government has established for the 'loyal Diaspora' 5 , if they want to see or keep close contact with their family members who remain on the island. Not all choose the path of submission. Lauzán Falcón was one of them. In an interview in one of the main Cuban media instruments in exile, Cubaencuentro, he defines Guamá's main purpose: Ese es el único sentido que le veo a Guamá, reírnos de nuestra falta de sentido crítico, moral, vacilar al miedo, además de ridiculizar a todos los que se mantienen en el panal del poder por 50, 30 ó 10 años y se hacen los de la vista gorda con los presos, los exiliados, la gente. Guamá trata de parar (o al menos denunciar) a ese... ¡saco de zánganos ideológicos! [That's the main goal Guamá have I think, to laugh at our lack of critical, of moral sense, to mock fear, in addition to ridiculing all those who remain in the hive of power for 50, 30 or 10 years and turn a blind eye to the {political} prisoners, to those who have been exiled, to the people in general. Guamá tries to stop (or at least denounce) that ... bag of ideological drones!] (Lauzán in Enrisco 2009).
Most of the statement is understandable in translation, but there is a need to explain what 'hive of power' means in that precise Cuban context. In 2009, as the interview with Lauzán was being conducted in Chile, several senior officials of the Castroist elite were purged in Cuba. Afterwards, an already mortally sick and 'retired' Fidel Castro said on Cuban television that the former vice-president, the minister of foreign affairs and a senior official from the feared Ideological Department of the Cuban Communist Party were 'seduced by the honeys of power and prospects of the enemy'. 6 Lauzán Falcón, following the Cuban tradition of magnifying the statement one wants to ridicule, transforms Castro's expression 'honeys of power' into 'hive of power'. This implies that it was not just the purged group of officials (all of whom had held power for only ten years) who merited firing but also the officials who had been in the 'hive' for 30 or even 50 years, the latter groups being even more deserving of dismissal.
That is the spirit that Guamá offers to its readers. It will do so by frequently using words and expressions of Taíno and Afro-Cuban origin that are, to a greater or lesser degree, part of oral Cuban Spanish. These are not established and recognized Spanish words. Most of them are not to be found in dictionaries or glossaries. These words have not been studied in the linguistic context in which they are used, and they constitute a 'translationese' feature in that context. Taíno is essentially a dead language, and the African languages at its origin evolved differently on the eastern side of the Atlantic Ocean.
So, the first aspect that I analyse is the phenomenon of translationese in translation studies, in the Spanish language and the Cuban context. I intend to make that analysis, from a complexity-thinking point of view, an epistemological frame that allows one better to understand the diachronic and synchronic nuances of these cultural and linguistic manifestations and their recursive character in any society. Complexity thinking can allow further historical and cultural rebinding of this case study to the historical antecedents of translationese.
Second, I analyse ten graphic 'front pages' from Guamá, starting with the main banner of Guama itself and considering the presence of words and phrases of Taíno and Afro-Cuban origin to analyse their function in the overall message.
Third, I rebind the results by comparing these humoristic and subversive contemporary efforts with the spirit of creative resistance that Taíno warriors and African slaves showed in Cuba during almost four centuries, a spirit that is still present in Cubans' contemporary efforts to deal with the longest extreme-left-wing regime in Latin America.

TRANSLATIONESE, OR HOW LANGUAGES ARE BORN, EVOLVE AND REBORN
In the 10 th century, an erudite monk of the Suso monastery in today's La Rioja province of Spain set out to translate Latin religious texts into the local Ibero-Romance dialect. He did this since few people, including his fellow monks, understood Latin at the time. This work laid the foundations for what is now the second most common spoken language on the planet. In 2019, Spanish was spoken as a native language by 480 million people, and adding all other categories of Spanish speakers, the sum reaches 577 million (Instituto Cervantes 2018) So, even if we might never know in advance where translation processes will lead us, it is definitively better to start studying them sooner rather than later. The need to translate implies knowledge and familiarity with the source language and experience in the target language. Inevitably, there will be interference in the process. As stated by Koppel & Ordan: interference from the source language spilling over into translation in a source-languagespecific way, [and] general effects of the process of translation that are independent of source language [are both] effects [that] exist and …, moreover, there is a continuum between them. (2011, p. 1) Both ways of interfering are known, but what seems to be less studied is that continuum between them that is capable of showing, from a complexity point of view, the recursiveness in the formation process of a language, or from a larger point of view, one communication system becoming another. It is been said that 'humans invent and implicitly negotiate a shared communication system' and that 'differences in social intelligence can have a big impact on success in communication' (Galantucci in Steels 2006, p. 347). That is why what had been said about oral communication can be extrapolated to written communication as well.
The gloss-translation done by the Suso monk in 10 th century Spain was in many senses a process of introducing 'significant innovations at all levels of language: new ways of conceptualising the situation, new meanings for existing words, extensions of existing grammatical constructions [etc.]' (Steels 2006, p. 348). The need for written 'clarifications' of Latin texts, created by a generalized oral communication in the Ibero-Romance dialect, started to consolidate a language that later, at the peak of its world dominance, influenced almost all of its neighbours' languages in the 16 th and 17 th centuries (Schevill 1907;Mathorez 1914).
Translationese phenomena are a process of the consolidation of an emerging language or the evolution of one into another empowered by the mix. This process takes place in close contact with at least one other language but also and frequently with several of them. The translationese processes that we observe in almost every major language today, due to globalization, are the slow but persistent process of evolution and emergence of the languages of tomorrow.
I chose the above to analyse and evaluate the influence of vernacular Aboriginal and African languages in today's Cuban Spanish. The relevance of this approach is its applicability to major languages in the rest of the Americas', and most probably everywhere else.

CORPUS ANALYSIS
Guamá was the first of Lauzán Falcón's satiric imitations of publications by the Cuban regime. It was also the most important because the humorist targeted the Cuban Communist Party newspaper, Granma, which is the regime's main printed voice on the island. So, imitating Granma's typography and its characteristic red-and-black ink style, Guamá became a kind of alter ego to Granma and, so doing, the biggest manifestation of 'ideological diversionism' 7 in contemporary Cuban history. Later Lauzán Falcón continued to create satiric imitations of almost every known Cuban communist publication, most of them long out of publication because of the 'Special Period'. 8 The choice of 10 front pages from Guamá, published by Lauzán Falcón between 2008 and 2014, for this analysis should allow the reader to create a general idea of the topics treated by the author and the main aspects of translationese of Taíno and Afro-Cuban origin in his work.
As stated before, Guamá's main banner itself is already an example of translationese, here a construct with a humorous purpose. 'Kubana Yana Yagua Coacoa Fotuto', is a mix of words of Cuban Aboriginal origin (Yana, Yagua, Coacoa) and the Afro-Cuban term (Fotuto). This, at first glance Jabberwocky-ish expression, starts to make sense when the reader gets to knows the Cuban argot. Fotuto indeed has a political connotation, meaning 'a cudgel to silence and dismiss those who express political opinions different to the speaker's' (see the term in the glossary). So, with this statement, Guamá pretends to be a re-semanticised cudgel that Cubans will use humorously to fight Castroist propaganda. It is also important to point out that, by situating the actual Cuban context in the first years of Spanish colonization in Cuba, Lauzán Falcón is saying that this present Cuban regime is as brutal and unjust as that of the Spaniards. For example, the first front page (see Figure1) contains an editorial titled 'Reflexiones del compañero Diego Velazquez' [Reflections of comrade Diego Velazquez] (the second Spanish governor of Cuba), which direct references Fidel Castro's series of writings called 'reflexiones', frequently Jabberwocky-ish too due to his deteriorating mind. Castro, who was still influential in Cuban political life during his long period of illness (2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012)(2013)(2014)(2015)(2016), frequently published his 'reflections' in Granma. So, in the hands of Lauzán Falcón, the name of the most brutal Spanish governor of the island is linked to Castro's 'reflections', resulting in strongly derogative and humorous wordplay. However, there is more. The headline of this first reflection in Guamá is 'Hatuey es tremendo gay' [Hatuey is a hell of a gay], which not only makes reference to the Taíno leader who died in the Inquisition's flames by Velazquez's orders but also to the homophobic nature of the Castroist regime, which is historically documented in the concentration camps for homosexual people in the early 1960s. 9 This Velazquez-like homophobic outburst against a symbol of Cuban aboriginal resistance is just a reminder of the type of verbal treatment that Castro directed at political opponents. The second Guamá front page that shows a clear influence from the Taíno and Afro-Cuban lexicon is number 501 (see Figure 2). My choice is motivated by its reflection on a special moment in recent Cuban history, namely the death of Fidel Castro and Raúl Castro's rise to power out of the shadow of his older brother.
Several expressions in this second example take their sources from everyday Cuban Spanish. One of them is 'Nació cuando el morro era de guano, murió cuando el morro es del hermano' [He was born when the morro's roof was made with guano and died when the morro belongs to his brother]. El Morro is the oldest Spanish fortress in Cuba (1585), at the entry of the Havana harbour. Even if that type of fortress has been obsolete from a military point of view for centuries, for Cubans it became a symbol of Cuba itself. In this context, the Taíno term and the expression 'He was born when the morro's roof was made with guano' is a synonym for something and somebody very old, far from reality and not particularly wise. The second expression in which there is an Afro-Cuban term is 'Que nadie se confunda, ¡moriremos como Cafunga!' [Let no-one be fooled. We will die like Cafunga!]. In Cuba, the expression 'Murió como Cafunga' [He died as Cafunga] is commonly used to mean a horrible and ridiculous death. In this context, put in Raúl Castro's mouth (Discursos de Secundina means 'speeches of the segundón, subordinate or second in line'), it is a hysterical and ridiculing statement of an insecure and terrified second player's arrival into absolute power. There is a particularly interesting phenomenon in Guamá's front page number 506 (see Figure 3). At the bottom of a photoshopped photo of José Martí, shown with a Detroit Tigers cap, it says 'Glolia etedna al autol inteledtual del Chupi chupi.' In an English 'creolish' translation, it reads: 'Etednal gloly to the intelledtual authol of "Chupi chupi"' (oral sex in Cuban context). See: 'Osmani García' in Wikipedia.
These words mock the Castroist slogan in which José Martí, the leader of the last war of independence against Spain at the end of the 19th century, is proposed to be the 'intellectual author' of the attack on the Moncada army barracks in Santiago de Cuba under the Batista regime. This was the moment when Fidel Castro and his followers violently entered political Cuban history in 1952. So, 'Gloria eterna al autor intelectual [del Moncada]' in formal Spanish [Eternal glory to the intellectual author (of the Moncada army barracks of Batista regime)] here is not only put in a visual and textual humorous context, ironizing Fidel Castro's attempt to legitimise his reign 'by association' with Martí, but the text is also a reference to the poor grasp of Spanish that characterises the Castroist police. This deficiency sprang from the fact that the regime had to 'import' to the capital rural men from Eastern provinces to fill the ranks of the police force, avoided or deserted by Havana citizens. In those Eastern provinces a closer to Dominican Republic dialect of Spanish is spoken, which is considered as a 'lesser variant' of the language by people from Western Cuba (Sobrino Triana 2016 p. 173).
The assimilative use of 'l' for 'r' is generally well documented in Cuban phonetics studies (Terrel 1976). In contrast, the assimilative use of 'd' for 'r' had been less analysed until recently when Montero Bernal (2007) signaled this phonetic variant in her study of Cuban phonetics. It is characteristic of rural pronunciation in Cuba's Eastern provinces and a recurrent motive of mockery by the 'Habaneros', i.e. citizens of the capital.
In this front page, there is another slogan which is in a way an act of collective selfmockery. The contraction 'pa'l' (from 'para' [-for] and 'el' [the-]) is generalized colloquial use in the Spanish world, particularly in Cuba. This contraction probably shows the influence of several languages of Latin descent that coexist in the Iberian Peninsula together with Castilian (Mott 2015 -and later in the Americas, the result also of influences from Aboriginal and African languages. The phrase 'Esas sí son guyanas, la Guyana es la visa pa'l Edén' [Those are real Guyanas, Guyana is the Eden's visa] is an example. The ironic meaning in this phrase is the fact that, at that time, Guyana was the only South American country allowing Cuban citizens to enter without a visa, resulting in thousands of Cubans exiting the island for Guyana. The following front page, 507 (see Figure 4), is an example of Afro-Cuban translationese inserted first in the national identity through popular music, then in the popular imagination and consequently also in popular humour. 'Bururú Barará' is an onomatopoeic expression of African-Cuban origin. It refers to joy going to its 'inevitable' end, meaning that it needs to stop. In common parlance, it would be, 'Everybody out, this party is finished' (Basterrechea Sosa 2012). It is also the title of a famous Cuban son (a Cuban popular-music genre), composed by one of the members of the Septeto Habanero [Havana Septet], and directed by the famous composer and bassist Ignacio Piñeiro . The song's complete title is 'Bururú Barará (Cómo está Miguel)' as it seems that the bracketed part was in the original title (See 'Septeto Habanero' in Wikipedia). Here this title is taken without modifications because it refers to the actual president of Cuba, the non-democratically elected Miguel Díaz Canel. The hilarious remake of the song title is saying to the reader: 'This is more of the same, the fun [i.e. that could have arisen from Raúl Castro's retirement from power] is over'. Guamá's front page 511 (see Figure 5) was devoted to the referendum for the fifth Cuban constitution in February 2019. 10 The slogan that appears at the top says 'El país de la Siguaraya: O votas o te ponemos en raya' [Siguaraya's country: You vote, or we scratch you (from the obedient citizens list)]. The Siguaraya is a Cuban tree (Trichilia havanensis), but not an ordinary one. It plays a huge role in the Afro-Cuban belief system. Considered sacred and medicinal, it is rarely logged because it is forbidden under religion. A recent article in the Mexican press puts is as follows: … it has the strength to destroy the enemy fúmbi (dead); 'he covers the way', because it prevents the fúmbi from interfering in the path of his nfumo [Tribal Chief/Royal King], helps to avoid obstructions, and 'opens the way' because it disrupts all evil and facilitates the life of man by breaking through ... In being a taboo to uproot, despite being such a common tree, there is perhaps the origin of the Cuban expression 'This is the country of the siguaraya'. It symbolizes the frustration over the impossibility of being able to strip away evil or retaliating before a grievance. (García Acosta 2018) It is evident that the expression as used by Guamá is the frustration cited in the article by García Acosta below. The 'impossibility of being able to strip away evil' as a result of totalitarian rule imposed to Cuban society is even clearer in the larger slogan of front page 511: 'Votes sí, Votes no, o no votes ná [nada], pasarán 60 años má [más] [Whether you vote yes, no, or do not vote at all, 60 more years will pass]. Cubans, like many other peoples, are coping with societal distress through the capacity to laugh at their own miseries. As stated before, Lauzán's long-term project seems to be to satirise all Castroist publications, and the transformed title of the latter is usually the main feature in each satire. Even if the corpus was thought to consist exclusively of Guamá's front pages, there is another example that fits well. The author states in the subtitle of Opinga (Figures 6 and 7) that it is in fact 'Guamá's supplement'. So, Opinga originates in Opina, which was, as Pedraza Ginori, a former Cuban journalist and TV programmer, wrote in his blog: … a magazine in tabloid format that revolutionized the politicized and monochromatic world of the Cuban press. It was founded and managed by the Cuban Institute of Internal Demand Research and Orientation, directed by Eugenio Rodríguez Balari. For the first time since the fidelist regime had consolidated in the '60s, there were word ads in a magazine, which in newspapers before 1959 were called 'clasificados' [classified ads]. In Opina, individuals promoted home swaps as well as sales and purchase offers. The classified ads pages became the magazine's most popular feature, and contributed to the magazine's great success, with runs that reached half a million. It was common that copies flew from outlets as soon as they were released. (Pedraza Ginori 2015).
The homophonous proximity between Opina, from the verb opinar [to have or to give an opinion], and pinga, which in colloquial Caribbean Spanish means 'penis' (Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] 2019), and then Opinga, which sounds like a combination of the exclamation 'Oh!' and the word for penis, is the obvious reason for Lauzán Falcón's choice but not the only one. The fact that Opinga is Guamá's supplement points out the futility of 'opinion' in the Cuban totalitarian context. The text in the two front pages below (Figures 6 and 7) reaffirms this statement.
In the Figure 6, we can ascertain in the assimilative use of 'd' for 'r', typical of Cuban Spanish, a phrase permeated with guapería11: 'Do not mess with Martí or with Fifo [Fidel's colloquial name, used by his sympatizers] not even a bit, they are both neighbours. I do not want you to create problems! In the Ifigenia neighborhood, 12 one carries more than the other. Pepito [Martí] in his five floors and the other in his big ugly rock. Do not mess with Patrea [Rockland]! neither with his sister!' In Cuban slang, 'formar foco' [to create problems] also means to create a scandal or public altercation. The regime views dissident activities as merely a public altercation, a criminal scandal. The term Patrea is a neologism that Lauzán creates from two words, namely patria [homeland] and pétrea [stony] to point out Fidel Castro's stubborn and egocentristic ambition to be considered a Cuban patriot in being buried close to José Martí in the same cemetery. The 'sister' refers to Raúl Castro, long considered a closeted homosexual. 'Political correctness' has not been part of Cuban political life, probably since before the republic was born. Political humour from both sides still reflects that trend. In Figure 7 one can see the photo of the actual Cuban president Díaz Canel, with the Twitter logo used just as little bird that give an ethereal and out-of-reality meaning to his persona. The text that acompanies this photo is again an Afro-Cuban expression that means the following, as the Cuban scholar Cossío Woodward wrote in his PhD thesis: … in Cuba, the voice 'fú', in popular speech, means something that already is or will be bad, perhaps due to lucumí influence, while for the dictionaries of the Spanish language the expression 'neither fú nor fa' indicates, in a familiar context, that something is indifferent, neither good nor bad. (Woodward 2008: 103) Another popular and common practice in the Hispanic world, similar in meaning to the former, is to adopt a 'translation' of a strictly Afro-Cuban concept. This practice serves also to reinforce a statement, so the proverb 'Ni chicha ni limoná' [lemonade in Andalusian Spanish, in which the 'd' at the end of the word is missing: limonada, is the 'correct' word in Spanish] originated from a comparison between a strong alcoholic beverage called chicha, made of corn, with Hispanic American Aboriginal roots, and the traditional drink from Spain, namely lemonade. This comparison is generally made in a context where something or somebody is neither strong enough nor soft enough to be taken seriously, as, at best, it should be a feature of some kind of second-rate individual (López, 2019). In the three final front pages from Guamá, I want to point out some of the more important Afro-Cuban and Afro-American topics that have been on the front page of this publication since it started in 2008. It will be done, of course, together with the analysis of the Aboriginal and/or Afro-Cuban features in the text. hungry! What we really need is jama [Cuban slang for 'food']!' This scene was published on YouTube, most probably by one of the reporters, and since then, Pánfilo has become a symbol on Cuban digital networks of the truth that ordinary citizens cannot voice aloud.
In the front page designed by Lauzán Falcón, Pánfilo appears as a presidential candidate in a spoof campaign poster. The slogan plays on the pun and homophony between jama [food, term of caló-Spanish gypsy origin] (Diccionario de la lengua española 2019) and jamás [never]. The later term is written here in the colloquial oral form without a final 's' so the text in big black letters reads: 'Panfilo will never be beaten!' This is of course a reference to the Chilean and Latin American revolutionary slogan and song 'El pueblo unido jamás será vencido' [The people, united, will never be defeated] 13 . Below in white letters, we read 'Yes, Yuca!', which is a curious mix of languages (English and Taíno or/and Maya). 14 The Cuban regime always conveniently accuses any opposition as 'American made and financed', which is why Lauzán Falcón uses English here with the Aboriginal term, which is a synonym for food as the Taíno bread was precisely made of yuca [cassava, yuca or manioc]. The repetition of Jama in red capital letters at the bottom of the three 'campaign' photos of Pánfilo is but a reinforced statement that giving food to a starved population will be the priority of the candidate. Guamá's front page 59 (see Figure 9) is devoted to Obama's winning of the USA presidential elections on 4 November 2008. It is also inspired by the 'reflection', written by Fidel Castro on 3 November 2008 and published in the Cuban official press on the same day 15 on which Castro lectured the Democratic Party candidate on what to do should he win. Paraphrasing fragments of the well-known Afro-Cuban lullaby Drume negrita,16 Lauzán Falcón still seems sceptical about Obama as he chooses a rather naïve image of the future president and puts the following words in Fidel Castro's mouth, saying to Obama: '¡No drume negrito!'[(Don't sleep my little black baby!]. Below in capital red letters, he writes: 'Y si tú drume yo te traigo un babalao' que da pao pao' [If you do so, I will bring you a babalawo, who will spanky spanky spank your butt]. The song in its original meaning is a call to a baby to go to sleep. In the context of Guamá's front page it is, however, a patronizing call to Obama to stay alert or face the consequences, which generally was Castro's approach to everybody but himself. Guamá's front page 97 (see Figure 10) is also devoted to Obama. It occurs 38 front pages after the one in the previous example, precisely when Obama came into the White House as President and evidently at the summit of the world's euphoria with what was happening in the USA at the time. So, Lauzán Falcón re-examines the same topic, also with a text in a lullaby code. 17 He here takes the beginning of the poem's third stanza (Salga y despierte, que el sol abrasa [Come out and wake up, that the sun burns]. The image Lauzán Falcón uses here ( Figure 10) belongs to the iconic 'Hope', 'Change' and Progress' posters. However, the slogan is not used, only the image. In a smaller subheading in the bottom right corner of Obama's picture is a slogan in red capital letters: '¡Que viva ChangObama!' [Long live ChangObama]. This is a kind of compliment taken from Afro-Cuban mythology as the author is identifying Obama with Changó. In Cuban Santería, the latter is the god of lightning, strength and virility, admired but feared. 18 Then, in black capital letters, Lauzán Falcón puts in Obama mouth: 'Quieren que yo baile rumba, y la rumba yo no la sé' [They want me to dance rumba, but I don't know how]. Rumba is of course a dance of Afro-Cuban origin, (Olavo 2010), but this fragment can be related to the song of the Chicano-Texan singer and composer Miguel Acevedes Mejía, 'Baila Negrita', (Aceves Mejías Dictionary) which goes as follows:

CONCLUSION
A complex rebinding of the corpus analysis is the objective of this conclusion. Through the 10 front pages selected from Guamá, I tried to analyse not only the textual features of each front page, namely the etymology, use and abuse of these terms but, most importantly, the context of the content presented. The analysis includes the existent cultural, historical and political links, to the best of my knowledge, of each and every significant statement with Aboriginal or Afro-Cuban connotations. The diachronic and synchronic nuances of these cultural and linguistic manifestations and their recursive character in Cuban society become evident.
Lauzán's work shows, through this frequently acid and 'politically incorrect' humour, the same spirit of creative resistance that first Cuba's Aboriginals and later African slaves had shown in Cuba during almost four centuries of colonialism. This spirit is still present in Cubans' contemporary efforts to deal with a long-lasting totalitarian regime because, most probably, only humour can help to build a different and better Cuba.
At the same time, the paradoxical nature of the cultural heritage of choteo is that it works for and against the purposes of those who use it. It has been materialized and recycled in Cuban political life since the beginning of the republic in 1902, and it constitutes one of the main factors that prevent the island society and parts of the Diaspora from evolving into not only a democratic society but also a 'hypercomplex society' (Qvortrup 2003), as many in its close vicinity are doing. This is also the case for a considerable part of the exiled Cuban community in Florida where a huge similarity in the political discourse, characterised by a strong emotions and strong public ridicule of the enemy, still exists. It is the main factor that prevents the Cuban exiled community from becoming in a predominant way an 'hypercomplex ethnic group' inside the hypercomplex society that is the USA. New generations of Cuban-Americans and recent Cuban migrants to USA and to almost everywhere else in the world can eventually make a qualitative different input into this internally and externally blocked situation -hopefully before the 22nd century.

Guano:
The etymological dictionary of the Spanish language has the following: 'guano 2. (De or. taíno; cf. miraguano). 1. m. Cuba. Nombre genérico de palmas de tronco alto y redondo, sin ramas, con hojas en forma de abanico.' [guano 2. Word of Taíno origin; cf. miraguano. 1. m. Cuba. Generic name of tall, round trunk palms, without branches, with fan-shaped leaves]. Guano is still used in Cuba for the roofing of rural farm and barn housing and is logically a synonym of old and not very modern way of doing things. (https://dirae.es/palabras/guano), accessed 28 August 2019.
Patatún (also patatú, patatús o patatuz): This word originated in Cuba and Hispanic America and means fainting or swoon (http://www.tubabel.com/definicion/46693-patat-n). Following the humorous Floridan 'Cuban to English Dictionary', it means 'Attack of obscure origin that can strike at any time. Could be serious enough to require hospitalization, yet is undetected by medical technology. Victims tend to be males and females over the age of 50 years' (https:// muybueno.homestead.com/files/Lenguaje/cubantoeng.htm), accessed 16 August 2019.
Sirimba: It is a word of Cuban and Hispanic America origin, meaning fainting, swoon (http:// www.tubabel.com/definicion/49086-sirimba). Following the humorous Floridan 'Cuban to English Dictionary', it means 'Attack with similar symptoms as the Patatu's but not as serious and with shorter duration. Can be alleviated by lying on a bed with a wash-cloth soaked in alcohol on the forehead' (https://muybueno.homestead.com/files/Lenguaje/cubantoeng.htm, accessed 16 August 2019).
Yana: It is a Cuban word, of Taíno origin. It means a rare and strangely shaped old tree. Following a Cuban tourist Website definition, 'La Yana (aka La Llana) is an ancient tree reputed to be over 500 years old. It is certainly the oldest living being in Cayo Largo, and perhaps it was already on the island to welcome the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1492! Legend has it that pirates used the tree as a landmark to hide their treasures' (http://www. cayolargo.net/layana.html, accessed 16 August 2019).

Yagua:
The word is Cuban and Caribbean, of Taíno origin. As stated in a short but precise Wikipedia article, 'It is a fibrous tissue that surrounds the upper and most tender part of the trunk of the royal palm, from which all the moonings naturally come off, and serves several uses and especially to wrap tobacco in the branch.1 The Cuban yagüeros use them to protect the leaves of tobacco in their homes' (https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaguas). The Royal palm and its parts as the 'yaguas' are emblematic of Cuba, being even present in the country's national symbols (https://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/namerica/caribb/cuba/ cusymbols.htm), accessed 16 August 2019.