Nicaraguan poet Rubén Darío once posed the following question concerning the effects
of U.S. domination of Cuba 15 years following the Spanish American War: “¿Qué
espectáculo ofrece hoy día ese pueblo al espectador imparcial? El de una colonia
disimulada donde a las aspiraciones de veinte años de lucha ha sucedido un oscuro
servilismo al oro yanqui” (“Refutación” 111). Darío suggests that readers visually perceive
the situation, that they trust “impartial spectators” in order to truly comprehend the U.S.
domination in the region. Spectacles are events based on the optics of the consuming
observers; viewers who, at their own leisure, decipher visual productions and
performances. Unsurprisingly, Darío himself is the informed spectator and enlightens
readers to the colonialist and financial burdens imposed on Cuba. The poet continually
implemented this didactic maneuver to uncover the “spectacles” of U.S. domination
following el desastre of 1898. The spectacle of the “lucha” of U.S.-Latin American
relations, as construed by Darío, is no more evident than in the first printing of his
seminal poem “A Roosevelt” in Madrid magazine Helios in 1904.