Catalina

Karla Cornejo Villavicencio

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2024

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4-Epilogue

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

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Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

Khipus

Throughout the novel, khipus are an important symbol of the power of storytelling, controlling one’s own history, and the silence imposed on marginalized people. A khipu is an ancient Incan recording device made of string. The strings are knotted in a variety of ways to record data and other information. Some even believe that khipus might hold “poetry, celestial maps, genealogies, military reports, legal code. Potentially everything” (68). The khipus were made and read by individuals called quipucamayocs, “a priestly class” respected for “[holding] the power of documentation” (68). Prior to colonization, the Incan king had “an expansionist diplomatic policy” (68); he conquered other groups and brought them into the Incan empire. Part of this policy included killing the people’s quipucamayocs and destroying their khipus so that he could “erase their memories” and “control the narrative” (68). When the Spanish arrived, they killed more quipucamayocs and destroyed more khipus, and now, the method of reading the remaining examples has been lost. Many of the remaining khipus are housed in museums and studied by white anthropologists and archeologists. The khipu represents how generations of Indigenous knowledge and history have been lost to colonization; even now, the history that remains is out of the control of those to whom it pertains.

Museums

In Catalina, the title character often takes refuge in museums when she is feeling out of control in her life. When Catalina struggles to communicate and cope with her experience, she likes to be “with objects that also d[o] not care to speak” (185). In this way, museums become a symbol of Catalina’s search for belonging, her desire for a connection to her heritage, and how marginalized people struggle to control their own narrative.

The symbol of the museums is ambivalent because while these foster Catalina’s sense of connection to her “ancestry” and are places of refuge for her, they are also the locus of ongoing imperial attitudes. Museums such as the Peabody hold items, including the khipus, which have been forcibly or exploitatively removed from their places of origin. This dislocation echoes Catalina’s own experience in the United States. In the Peabody and other museums like the American Museum of Natural History, Catalina is surrounded by artifacts belonging to “annihilated peoples.” Neither the objects nor the people have the power to tell their own story; rather, their history is largely narrated by white curators, anthropologists, and archeologists like Dr. Murphy. This mirrors Catalina’s desire to self-narrate.

Harvard

In Catalina, Harvard is a symbol of the stereotypical “American dream” and the opportunity for upward social mobility. It is also a symbol of the elitist and exclusionary tendencies of Ivy League institutions and a means to highlight Catalina’s outsider status in the United States more widely. From the moment she arrives on campus, Catalina learned that one must not “act impressed” in Harvard’s gigantic, cathedral-shaped freshman dining hall. Doing so “ma[kes] you seem like a tourist” (39), suggesting that most Harvard freshmen are used to opulence and excess. Indeed, Catalina’s classmates include a “former American president’s granddaughter” and the son of a famous film director (99). Meetings at the university often start by reading through a list of past alumni, which generally consists of a “rainbow coalition of old white men” (82), constantly reminding current students of the legacy they are following. This tradition further highlights the difference between Catalina and the traditional Harvard student.

Even though Harvard is “the institutionest of institutions” (136), Catalina still faces an uncertain future because of her immigration status, suggesting that the promise of success that comes with an elite education is largely an illusion of privilege and entitlement. Catalina’s outsider status is emphasized because, unlike other students, Harvard is not her gateway to a promising career, despite her being offered good opportunities. In this way, the symbol of Harvard highlights the unfairness and arbitrariness that the novel explores in relation to immigration status.