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STUDIES OF THE AMERICAS
Narratives of
Migration,
Relocation and
Belonging
Latin Americans in London
Patria Román-Velázquez
Jessica Retis
Studies of the Americas
Series Editor
Maxine Molyneux
Institute of the Americas
University College London
London, UK
The Studies of the Americas Series includes country specific, cross-
disciplinary and comparative research on the United States, Latin
America, the Caribbean, and Canada, particularly in the areas of Politics,
Economics, History, Sociology, Anthropology, Development, Gender,
Social Policy and the Environment. The series publishes monographs,
readers on specific themes and also welcomes proposals for edited collec-
tions, that allow exploration of a topic from several different disciplinary
angles.
This series is published in conjunction with University College.
London’s Institute of the Americas under the editorship of Professor
Maxine Molyneux.
More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14462
Patria Román-Velázquez · Jessica Retis
Narratives
of Migration,
Relocation
and Belonging
Latin Americans in London
Patria Román-Velázquez Jessica Retis
Institute for Media and Creative School of Journalism
Industries The University of Arizona
Loughborough University Tucson, AZ, USA
London, UK
Studies of the Americas

ISBN 978-3-030-53443-1 ISBN 978-3-030-53444-8 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53444-8
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2021
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights
of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and
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The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc.
in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such
names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for
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the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with
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Acknowledgements
This book would not have been possible if were not for the people that
collaborated with us by sharing their experiences of migration, to them all
our sincerest gratitude.
We would also like to thank Prof. Maxine Molyneux, editor of this
series, for believing in this project from the start and for her words of
encouragement when we most needed them. A very special thank you to
Deborah Bowen at Loughborough University for carefully proofreading
our draft chapters. We are eternally grateful to Alejandra García-Vargas
and Ramon Burgos at the Universidad Nacional de Jujuy in Argentina for
hosting Patria Román-Velázquez during her shortened study leave period.
Despite having to rush back to the UK due to the coronavirus outbreak,
she would always be grateful for the intellectual discussions, the fun and
inspiring asados, and the lovely terrace from which parts of this book were
finalised.
We would like to acknowledge the British Academy Small Grant
Scheme for support to Dr. Patria Román-Velázquez with the project Latin
Americans in London; Migration, place and identity (SG090716). We
would also like to thank the Institute for Media and Creative Indus-
tries and Institute of Advanced Studies at Loughborough University for
funding Jessica Retis’ visit to London and the organisation of the inter-
national symposium Latin American Media: Power, Inequality and Repre-
sentation (June 2018) from which some of the ideas for Chapter 6 in this
book emerged.
v
vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
A special thanks to our close ones for their encouragement and support
throughout the process of writing this book. Leon and Oscar, Alba and
Alberto, thank you for helping us understand and embrace the chal-
lenges and opportunities of motherhood in academia and in the migratory
experience. To our partners, thank you for your constant support.
Contents
1 Introduction: Narratives of Migration, Relocation

and Belonging 1
2 Migration, Transnationalism and Diasporic Identities 7

2.1 Transnationalism 9
2.2 Super-Diversity and Transnational Networks 10
2.3 Place and Identity 13
2.4 Identity 15
2.5 Digital Diasporas 18
2.6 Latina/o Critical Race and Communication Theories 20
2.7 Understanding British Latinidad 23
References 25
3 Latin American Immigration to Europe: The Case

of London 31
3.1 The Constitution of Contemporary Latin American
Diasporas in Europe 34
3.2 European LAC Diasporas: A Historical Perspective 38
3.3 LAC Diasporas in the UK 43
3.4 Latinos in Global Cities 47
3.5 Latin American Diasporas in London 49
3.6 Latin Migrant and Ethnic Business 54
vii
viii CONTENTS
3.7 Narratives of Migration, Self-Representation

and Belongingness 55
References 56
4 Narratives of Migration and Relocation 63

4.1 Narratives of Migration: Routes,
Routines and Roots 65
4.2 Routes into London 67
4.3 Mobility and Routes Across London 70
4.4 Multiple Feelings of Belonging: Loneliness
and the Idea of Return 76
4.5 Routes and Routines 79
References 80
5 Narratives of Migration Around Work 83

5.1 Social Networks and ‘Migrant Division
of Labour’ in London’s Service Economy 84
5.2 The Role of Social Networks in Getting Work 88
5.3 Workplace Relationships: Integration, Solidarity
and Conflict 90
5.4 Workplace, Home and Family 97
References 99
6 Latino Media Spaces in London: The Interstices

of the Invisible 105
6.1 Diasporic Media Across Europe 108
6.2 Latinos and Their Media in London 113
6.3 The Origins: Ethnic Media for the Newcomers
en español 115
6.4 Print Outlets: Looking for noticias de aquí y de allá 120
6.5 Diasporic Latinx Airwaves and Digital Platforms
in London 126
6.6 Challenges of Mapping Latinx Media in the UK 130
6.7 Latinx Media Dynamics 131
Appendix 1: Latino Media Outlets
and Social Media (July 2012) 132
Appendix 2: Latino Media Outlets in the UK (Dec 2019) 143
CONTENTS ix
Appendix 3: British Latinx Cultural Projects

and Events in London 2019 147
References 152
7 Latin Urbanisms: Resisting Gentrification, Reclaiming

Urban Spaces 157
7.1 Latin Urbanisms Under Review 159
7.2 Latin London: The Making of London’s Latin Barrios 162
References 189
8 British Latinidad as Social and Spatial Justice 193

8.1 On British Latinidad 199
References 201
Index 203
List of Maps
Map 7.1 Migrant, ethnic and independent business directory

Elephant and Castle Shopping Centre, October 2017 164
Map 7.2 Latin American businesses in Elephant and Castle,
October 2017 165
Map 7.3 Latin American businesses in Southwark, October 2017 166
Map 7.4 Brazilian London: Brent, October 2015 169
xi
List of Tables
Table 3.1 European LAC diasporas by nationality and countries

of residence 40
Table 3.2 European LAC diasporas by country of residence (2011) 41
Table 3.3 Latin American diasporas in the UK (2011) 46
Table 3.4 Latin Americans in London (census 2011) 52
xiii
CHAPTER 1
Introduction: Narratives of Migration,

Relocation and Belonging
‘I am Senorita Rita’, so hailed a vibrant self-defined drag queen at the

opening night of the first Festival of Latin American Women in the Arts
(FLAWA) in London. As Senorita Rita made her way to the stage in a
cabaret-style performance, she warned the audience about her accent, act
and dress code. It was a bold act from Peruvian artist Pepa Duarte, with
a strong commentary on gender inequality, racism and cultural difference
achieved by challenging and interrogating preconceived ideas of what
being a Latina is all about.
The first Festival of Latin American Women in the Arts took place in
a range of venues across London between 15 and 19 May 2019, aiming
to celebrate the creativity of Latin American women, ‘whether cisgender,
transgender, queer or non-binary creators’. Organised by a group of four
Latin American migrant women settled in the UK, this group is comprised
of a young generation of professional Latin American women creating a
cultural space and voice for under-represented UK Latinx women in the
arts.
Latin Americans in London gain empowerment through culture and
the arts. They do so by creating cultural spaces to recover and heal their
memories of the past—whether it be positive memories, or memories of
violence related to oppressive dictatorships or civil wars. Such is the case
of Sin Fronteras, a youth group led by Latin American Women’s Right
Services; the Latin American Women’s Aid Change Makers programme;
© The Author(s) 2021 1

P. Román-Velázquez and J. Retis, Narratives of Migration,
Relocation and Belonging, Studies of the Americas,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53444-8_1
2 P. ROMÁN-VELÁZQUEZ AND J. RETIS
the cultural magazine Ventana Latina by Latin American House; and

more grassroots projects such as Bordando la memoria by Jimena Pardo
and other self-organised poetry and reading groups such as Sonia
Quintero’s Poetry groups across various East London libraries. These
programmes use art and crafts as a catalyst for empowerment, resistance
and healing. They are safe spaces within which discussion about identity
and everyday experiences to enrich and build common ground around
migration can take place. It is about gaining visibility as much as it is about
providing a space for greater recognition, and an opportunity to build
communities of resistance, belongingness and a sense of social justice.
Music and dance are also used as forms of resistance and assertions of
spatial justice. For example, Talentos Group takes over urban landmarks in
the capital (e.g. Tower Bridge or Big Ben) to assert a form of Latin Amer-
ican identity through its dance and colourful folkloric costumes. This
takeover of city space invokes a fusion of styles by overlapping folkloric
rhythms, dance and dress on London’s most recognised urban landmarks.
New generations of DJ’s and music promoters such as Movimientos,
Latinos in London and Latino Life or music groups such as WARA and
music festivals such as Cimarron, all use dance and music as a means of
expressing solidarity through resistance practices by supporting charitable
causes.
The development of local and translocal media outlets is another way of
creating spaces of recognition and solidarity for a group whose everyday
news consumption needs are almost absent from the UK’s mainstream
media outlets. Multimedia consortiums such as Express News and Extra
Radio, for example, appear as a combination of platforms providing
mostly local and transnational news and events. More specialist news
outlets such as The Prisma provide bilingual digital content and in-depth
analyses of current affairs; or the political news magazine, Alborada,
which mostly provides in-depth analyses of Latin American politics.
These expressions are about new ways of belonging by invoking
cultural heritage and fusions in London’s familiar, and less familiar, urban
surroundings. It is about creating spaces of self-representation, of having a
voice and unravelling trajectories of migration. Again, it is about asserting
greater recognition and belongingness to the city that Latin American
migrants now call home.
Whilst cultural and media spaces emerge as a response to past and
current events and as a way of forging networks of solidarity, Latin
Americans also become empowered and bring significant cases in support
1 INTRODUCTION: NARRATIVES OF MIGRATION, RELOCATION … 3
of workers in the cleaning sector, through trade union memberships.

Take, for example, the following legal cases represented by the relatively
new trade union, United Voices of the World.
‘Topshop 2: Victory!’1 ‘Former Topshop cleaner Susana wins bumper
pay-out’2 declared United Voices of the World Union after Carolina
Caceres3 and Susana Benavides,4 two of its trade union members, won
their legal cases for unfair dismissal by Britannia Services Group Limited
due to their trade union activities in demanding the London Legal
Wage for subcontracted cleaners at Topshop’s flagship store on London’s
Oxford Street.
The cases of Ms. Caceres and Ms. S. Benavides (Claimants) against
Britannia Services Group Limited (cleaning services contracting company
for Arcadia group—which includes Topshop) were led by United Voices
of the World (‘UVW’), a relatively new union that represents predom-
inantly low-paid migrant workers—many of whom are Latin American
cleaners. Both cases were heard separately by the employment tribunal,
and, in the case of Ms Benavides, it concluded that: ‘it is clear beyond
any argument that the Claimant was dismissed for the reason that she
had taken part in the activities of the independent trade union’ (Employ-
ment tribunal case 2208186/2016, p. 15).5 The court ruled that both
workers were unfairly dismissed because of their trade union activities.
These two Latin American women found solidarity and were empow-
ered to demand the London living wage, through their trade union
activities. Their gains were significant for workers in the cleaning sector
who were demanding better working conditions and union representa-
tion in a sector that is largely operated by subcontracting firms. Unionism
amongst low-paid workers, and particularly in the cleaning sector, is
almost non-existent. United Voices of the World fills an important gap
in unionist work amongst low-paid, and often subcontracted, work in
1 https://www.uvwunion.org.uk/news/2018/9/top-shop-2-victory. Accessed 24 June

2019.
2 https://www.uvwunion.org.uk/news/2019/2/susana-wins-bumper-payout-topshop.
Accessed 24 June 2019.
3 Ms. Caceres Employment Tribunal case number: 2208251/2016.
4 MS Benavides Employment Tribunal case number: 2208186/2016.
5 https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5c37606340f0b67c6c8d07eb/
Miss_S_Benavides_-v-_Britannia_Services_Group_Limited_-_Case_2208186_2016_-_
Full.pdf. Accessed 17 June 2019.
the cleaning sector in high street chains, office blocks, hospitals and
universities.
These are just a few examples of the many voices and diverse expe-
riences emerging from politically aware groups of Latin Americans in
London who are challenging institutionalised everyday racism and sexism
via the arts, media, unionisation and protest as a way of asserting their
rights and place in London.
In this book, we try to capture some of the many narratives through
which Latin Americans recognise themselves as such in diasporic and
transnational spaces, and how they develop strategies to navigate the city
and the system whilst also capturing how they claim their space in the
global city. The next chapter provides a conceptual map that allows us to
think through the myriad of spaces, narratives and practices we engage
with whilst doing the research that informs this book. The chapters that
follow capture the journeys undertaken by Latin Americans in their migra-
tory circuits: from arrival through to gaining recognition and claiming
their right to the city. Chapter 3 begins by capturing some of the mega
narratives around migration of Latin Americans to Europe, and London
in particular. The fourth chapter builds upon this by navigating some of
the narratives we encounter whilst exploring routes and routines into and
across London, some of which are traumatic, others, less so. The partic-
ipants of the experiences highlighted in this chapter are often embraced
on economic and political matters that either stimulate or constrain their
movement and thus, possible migratory circuits. We capture a diversity of
experiences that are testament to journeys into London. Some are stories
of enjoyment and adventure, whilst others are stories of resilience and
endurance. We soon realised that most people we spoke to spend a long
time travelling to and from work, and so Chapter 5 explores narratives of
solidarity and conflict in the workplace. Chapter 6 moves into mediatic
spaces to explain how Latin Americans are creating spaces of recogni-
tion, self-representation, production and consumption through digital
channels, now more available than ever, in diasporic transnationalism
conditions. This occurs despite, and because of, the underrepresenta-
tion of Latin American-related issues (whether in London or in Latin
America itself) in London’s media spaces. Chapter 7 captures contempo-
rary struggles over space which are due to gentrification processes that are
affecting London’s largest Latin American business clusters and spaces. It
focuses how cultural expressions are used as tools to resist gentrification
and invoke equity and equality around spatial justice.
1 INTRODUCTION: NARRATIVES OF MIGRATION, RELOCATION … 5
At times when large sections of the population face uncertainty and

displacement due to gentrification, stronger female voices emerge to
capture an active community where, through their activism, women are
the drivers of social change. This is seen in most leading charities in
cases of gentrification where women outnumber men and lead signifi-
cant campaigns against gentrification; it is also seen in attempts to resist
exploitation by multinational corporations, aided by strong unionisation
and also by celebrating the myriad of perspectives emerging from the arts
and cultural spheres.
These contrasting examples capture the diverse experiences and
discourses emerging from Latin Americans in London, whilst asserting
their right to the city from cultural, labour or urban perspectives. These
multiple voices and experiences are presented here as examples of claims
to the right to belong, to assert one’s place in the city, to seek social
and spatial justice, and are testament to different levels of belongingness,
engagement and trajectories of Latin Americans in London.
As we undertake the task of writing about the relatively new and
growing presence of these groups in the British capital, we examine
their narratives on the processes of migration, relocation and belonging.
We seek to provide resources to fill a gap on triangulation of research
methods and theoretical approaches to fuel a much-needed debate on
the invisibility of these communities. We are mindful of the limitations
of this project. Therefore, we intend to present mainly the beginning of
a larger discussion on the economic, social and cultural settings of Latin
Americans in London. Throughout this book, we use the terms Latin
Americans, Latino, Latina, Latino/a or Latinx to refer to these diverse
and heterogeneous communities. Latin Americans are the peoples born
in Latin American countries, although they can relate to different ethnic
or racial backgrounds. Thus, we are not referring necessarily to a common
or unique ethnicity, but to a geographical liaison to a region where our
interviewees trace their origin to. Whilst in the United States the pan-
ethnic terms Hispanic and Latino have been used interchangeably since
the mid-twentieth century, our sources in London use mainly Latino or
Latin American to self-identify. In the United States, the term Hispanic
refers to peoples of Spanish-origin populations whereas Latino is mostly
used to refer to people who trace their cultural liaisons with Spanish- or
Portuguese-speaking countries. At the change of the century, the terms
Latino/a Latina/o were incorporated to denote the masculine and femi-
nine endings and to promote gender inclusion. With the digital era, the
term Latinx was adopted as a gender neutral and alternative to Latino

and Latina and it has had its supporters and detractors. More recently, it
has been adopted by academia to promote inclusiveness and reinvigorate
the intersectional debate. All these pan-ethnic labels have been used in
the United States in various momentums on the one hand by political
administration, marketing discourses or media campaigns whereas they
have been also embraced by various groups in self-identification, coali-
tion building and critical approaches. This was the case of the emergence
and development of the conceptualisation of the US Latinidad. Towards
the conclusion of this book we bring these discussions into our own
understanding of British Latinidad.
CHAPTER 2
Migration, Transnationalism
and Diasporic Identities
Transnational practices capture the diverse geographical, cultural and

political networks that migrants forge across borders. We argue that dias-
poric transnationalism (Georgiou 2006) allows us to consider what we call
the circuits of migration, to capture migrants’ multi-local networks and
practices. The research presented in this book engages with transnation-
ality by exploring multiple narratives, networks and practices emerging
from the experience of migration into London via primary, secondary
and tertiary routes. We seek to contribute to the increased debate on
how multiple and mixed forms of migration and mobility become more
common and demand an interdisciplinary approach (King and Skeldon
2010; Castles 2007; Portes 1997; Retis 2014).
The scale and diversity of transnational practices amongst migrant
populations in London has led to what Vertovec (2007) has called ‘super-
diverse’ cities. Thus, for us it is also important to understand the multiple
dimensions that contribute to increasingly changing and malleable iden-
tities and a sense of belongingness to places. This is compounded by
an ever more complex circuit of migration that ties people to multiple
localities and feelings of belongingness. We extend the concept of transna-
tionalism beyond the two-layered (country of origin and host country)
perspective that has dominated transnationalism studies, to incorporate
multiple migratory circuits. This will lead us to explore the experiences
© The Author(s) 2021 7

P. Román-Velázquez and J. Retis, Narratives of Migration,
Relocation and Belonging, Studies of the Americas,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53444-8_2
of those Latin Americans who settled in London via first, second or third
migration routes.
Drawing on Castles (2010), we seek to examine the complexity,
diversity and contextuality of migratory processes. As Castels argues,
researchers should seek to integrate the insights of the various social
sciences to understand the regularities and variations of a range of migra-
tory processes within a given historical and socio-economic contexts
(Castles 2010, p. 1582). In examining Latin American diasporas in
London, we pursue an examination of the factors that influence these
migratory processes and the connections between them.
Transnational migratory circuits are marked by intersectionality. This
approach retains its explanatory power in an increasingly transnational
world in which people’s experiences are shaped within country and
between country structures (Purkayastha 2012, p. 59). By this, we
mean that diasporic movement and resettlement are intercepted by wider
discourses and discriminatory or exclusionary practices based on religion,
gender, class and race. For us, it is important to consider the complex ways
in which intersectionality is played out in people’s narratives of migration,
everyday working practices, the media and urban environments—particu-
larly so in response to asserting their rights to the city in their search for
social and spatial justice.
The exponential growth of new forms of digital communication,
including social networks, amongst international migratory circuits that
led to the twin forces of mass mediation and electronic mediation as
human motion and digital mediation, is in constant flux. As a result, the
circulation of people and mediatised content occurs across and beyond
nation-state borders and provides ground for alternative community and
identity formations (Leurs and Ponzanesi 2011). Scholars have argued
that new theoretical and empirical perspectives meet up at the transdisci-
plinary junction of media and migration research: ‘These include, but are
not limited to, the ways this scholarship understands the symbolic power
of the media in shaping social imaginaries on migration; the increased role
of data in the enactment of security and humanitarian responses to migra-
tion; and, the growing significance of digital technologies in imagining,
organising and surviving migrant journeys’ (Smets et al. 2019, p. XLVII).
In this section, we build a conceptual map to frame the research
material that we include in subsequent chapters. We begin by mapping
out transnationalism; we then link this discussion to super-diversity and
proceed to consider re-conceptualisations of place and identity. We reflect
2 MIGRATION, TRANSNATIONALISM AND DIASPORIC IDENTITIES 9
on the implications of these discussions for our understanding of digital

diasporas in the context of migration and mobility, and we use this
material to map out our understanding of what we call British Latinidad.
2.1 Transnationalism
Transnationalism involves the crossing of borders and the interconnec-
tion of ‘people, ideas, objects and capital across borders of nation states’
(Glick Schiller 2007, p. 449). However, this process does not go unchal-
lenged and ‘it is often accompanied by increased expressions of inequality,
uncertainty, ethnic conflict and hostility’ (Anthias 2010, p. 230). Glob-
alisation, on the other hand, refers to a ‘period of intensified integration
of the world through capitalist systems of production, distribution and
communication’ (Glick Schiller 2007, p. 449). In this sense, globalisation
processes place emphasis on a greater system that regulates, facilitates or
hinders movement of culture, capital, labour and communication (Anthias
2010).
Whilst globalisation is used to describe systems that affect the world
on a global scale, transnationalism is linked to ongoing practices and
processes across specific geopolitical borders. As succinctly summarised
by Anthias (2002), ‘globalisation … with its attendant to transnational
movements of capital and ideas as well as communication flows, has
made issues of location more central to people’s understandings’ (p. 500).
Anthias (2002) implies that globalisation goes beyond the national lens—
for example, financial markets do not depend on physical boundaries for
transactions to occur across nations. Transnationalism, on the other hand,
is about the impact of global processes at a local level and thus the signifi-
cance of place and locality. In this context, transnationalism is ‘the process
by which immigrants forge and sustain multi-stranded social relations that
link together their societies of origin and settlement. We call this process
transnationalism to emphasize that many immigrants today build social
fields that cross geographic, cultural, and political borders’ (Basch et al.
1994, p. 6). Transnationalism allows ‘researchers to take into account the
fact that immigrants live their lives across national borders and respond to
the constraints and demands of two or more states’ (Glick Schiller et al.
1995, p. 54), and to explore ‘simultaneous embeddedness’ amongst those
who live across borders (Glick Schiller 2007). In this sense, transnation-
alism acknowledges multi-local perspectives to migration studies in that it
considers transactions across borders as much as practices linking migrants

to different places, including, but not restricted to, place of origin.
Drawing on Vertovec (2001), our study seeks to examine transnation-
alism and identity as concepts that are in juxtaposition. As we explore
connections between Latin groups in London and back to the Latin
American region, we attempt to contribute to the idea that many peoples’
transnational networks of exchange and participation are grounded upon
some perception of common identity. In other words, we seek to under-
stand how identities of numerous individuals and groups of people are
negotiated within social worlds that span more than one place across the
Atlantic.
2.2 Super-Diversity and Transnational Networks

Transnational networks have intensified and diversified migrant transna-
tional practices across borders (Vertovec 2007). The density and diversity
of transnational networks and practices not only occurs when facilitated
by technological advancements, but also as a response to hostile or unre-
ceptive responses in the countries in which migrants have settled (Glick
Schiller et al. 1995).
Transnational migration is not new. However, it is the increased
density and diversity of transnational networks and practices that deem
them worthy of study. Such exchanges and transactions take place under
increasingly sophisticated technological and financial contexts and in an
ever more complex and, at times, hostile environment towards migrants.
The scale and diversity of transnational practices amongst migrant popu-
lations worldwide has led to what Vertovec (2007) has coined ‘super-
diverse’ cities. These include cities such as London which, according to
the 2011 census, has the smallest percentage of White British people, at
44.9%,1 with 270 nationalities and 300 languages represented.2 However,
super-diversity is not just about country of origin, it also accounts for
other significant differences and forms of identification. Super-diversity
refers to ‘the differential convergence of factors surrounding patterns
1 See https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/uk-population-by-ethnicity/nat
ional-and-regional-populations/regional-ethnic-diversity/latest. Accessed 1 March 2020.
2 See https://www.standard.co.uk/news/270-nationalities-and-300-different-languages-
how-a-united-nations-of-workers-is-driving-london-6572417.html. Accessed 1 March
2020.
of immigration since the early 1990s’ (Vertovec 2007, p. 1049). These

factors include country of origin, migration channel, legal status, human
capital, access to employment, locality, transnationalism and responses by
local authorities, service providers and local residents.
These differences are also captured in the diversity of local and
transnational practices used by migrant populations to assert new and
different forms of belongingness. Transnational ways of belonging refer
to conscious awareness of those practices and actions that signify or enact
an identity:
If individuals engage in social relations and practices that cross borders as

a regular feature of everyday life, then they exhibit a transnational way of
being. When people explicitly recognize this and highlight the transnational
elements of who they are, then they are also expressing a transnational way
of belonging. Clearly, these two experiences do not always go hand in
hand. (Levitt and Glick Schiller 2004, p. 1011)
Thus, a transnational way of belonging is about how activities are

‘represented, understood and translated into an identity politics’, whilst
‘transnational ways of being include everyday life actions and interac-
tions across borders’ (Glick Schiller 2007, p. 458). Transnational living
will include the practices and social relations that individuals engage into
form transnational networks (Guarnizo 2003). In assessing the economics
of transnational living amongst migrants, Guarnizo (2003) calls for an
approach that considers the cross-border relations and practices that link
migrants with different places (in and outside of Britain). Transnational
living is a ‘dynamic social field that involves and affects simultaneously
actors (individuals, groups, institutions) located in different countries’
(Guarnizo 2003, p. 670). It accounts for how migrants’ transnational
practices influence and transform countries of origin and new localities,
but it is equally important for the unintended global economic conse-
quences of such practices (finance, trade, production and consumption of
culture).
Thus, a focus on migrants’ transnational practices provides a different
account of global processes, one that is ‘driven from below by migrants’
(Guarnizo 2003, p. 668). Not all migrant communities participate in
transnational practices on equal terms. Different migrant groups will have
differentiated and unequal access to the exchange of information and
resources. As Portes et al. (1999, 2002) have highlighted, most migrants,
regardless of sharing the same space, have differentiated access to, and
uses for, the technologies at their disposal. This brings power at the
centre of the analysis, in that transnational links are embedded in fields
of interaction which are, as indicated above, not only multi-local, but also
multi-layered (Alexandre 2013; Levitt and Glick Schiller 2004).
The multi-layered and multi-local nature of transnational practices
is best exemplified in the case of business formation by migrant
entrepreneurs whereby their activities involve ties and connections across
a diversity of locations. Their economic transactions are dependent upon
global financial exchange and the importation of goods, subject to local
regulations:
Migrants’ transnational engagement has significant influence and trans-

forming effects not only on the development of their localities and
countries of origin, but also on global macroeconomic processes, including
international finance arrangements, international trade, and the production
and consumption of culture. (Guarnizo 2003, p. 667)
The degree to which migrant entrepreneurs can have an impact upon

new locations and countries of origin is dependent upon the resources at
their disposal and the specific contexts in which they relocate.
Thus, a focus on transnationalism will facilitate our analysis in a
super-diverse city such as London, by considering the complexity of
transnational social fields embedded in our discussion of Latin American
entrepreneurs, media and community organisations. Transnational prac-
tices would include the activities of migrant entrepreneurs in the supply
and demand chain, as much as the activities of organisations promoting
cultural events that would reinforce national identity abroad (Portes et al.
1999, 2002). A focus on transnationalism will also facilitate ‘the analysis
of structures of power that legitimate social inequalities’ (Glick Schiller
2007, p. 449).
So far, we have discussed how globalisation processes and transnation-
alism are better understood from below, that is by the very practices,
transactions and social relations that make possible transnational move-
ments and networks. However, in the context of London, the concept of
‘super-diversity’ has been used to describe how globalisation and transna-
tionalism have accelerated the changing character of global cities, and
particularly relevant for us, the multiple ways in which transnational prac-
tices materialise in cities. What stems from these discussions is a renewed
interest in localities, places and identities—a discussion to which we now
turn.
2.3 Place and Identity

Processes of globalisation, transnationalism and migration have led to
conceptual shifts in understandings of place and identity (Massey 1993,
1999; Giddens 1990; Harvey 1989, 1993; Foucault 1988; Hall 1990,
1995; Butler 1990; Gilroy 1993; Bhabha 1994). If, throughout moder-
nity, places were conceptualised as fixed, bounded and stable, during the
period of late modernity and as part of globalisation discourses, places
are thought of as fluid, porous and open to transformation. This shift
is partly explained in terms of the changes brought about as part of the
spread of modernity around the globe (Giddens 1990) or the develop-
ments of capitalism (Harvey 1989). Ideas about identity have also shifted
from being stable, homogeneous, unified and dependent on society, to
being unstable, fragmented, heterogeneous and displaced—as part of
modern thought, identities were considered to be collective and depen-
dent on territorial belongingness. If modern thought brought stability
to ideas about identity, late modern thought incorporates feelings of
ambiguity, difference and exclusion to contemporary understandings of
identity. However, it is still the case that identity is explored in terms of
the positive relationships developing with and across places, leaving aside
questions about how this relationship might be dominated by feelings of
fear, anxiety, antagonism and non-belongingness.
The bulk of research on place and identity can be divided into two
main strands—one that mainly focuses on the identity of places; the other
sets out to explore the links that different groups of people, defined
by either their ethnic or geographical background, establish with places.
These studies have been significant in that they adopt a progressive
sense of place and anti-essentialist position with regard to identity. Re-
conceptualising place as unbounded, multi-layered and not exclusively
territorial has been a central concern in these writings—whilst identity
is taken to be unfixed and in a continual process of transformation.
Both strands of research tend to regard places and identities as active,
porous and open to transformation and contestation. Some of the work
produced under the umbrella of place and identity (Orum and Chen
2002; Hall 1990) has been pivotal in highlighting the particular ways
in which people establish a link with places, and for understanding the
practices through which places are transformed and, in this process, given
particular identities.
In the first instance, it is often the case that identity is vaguely explored
and illustrated via a series of visible signifiers. Identity seems to be
regarded as the physical characteristics of individuals, groups and places.
In this sense, identity is treated as a matter of representation, and in the
process of de-codification, a series of assumptions are made about certain
people, their practices and their place of origin. What was once regarded
as a novel approach to identity and place has, more than ever, become
a descriptive account of the series of visible characteristics about a place
and the people that inhabit and exist in those places. To rethink places
and identities as unfixed, hybrid and open to transformation, does not
solve the problem of how they have been researched. It is not a matter of
describing places and identities in terms of their conceptualisation—that
is to describe them in terms of being hybrid, unbounded and unfixed—
but to consider the historical and material practices that contribute to
our understanding of places and identities as such. To reduce identity to
its representation will only result in a superficial exploration of the rela-
tionship between place and identity. Instead, we suggest an approach that
considers the way in which identity and place are embedded in longer
historical processes and material practices.
Second, the relationship between place and identity all too often
appears in terms of attachment, solidarity and belonging. We suggest
that feelings of detachment, ambiguity and of not belonging are equally
important for how we are to understand the relationship between place
and identity. Feelings of detachment and non-belonging are positive
forces contributing to further understand how, if at all, the relationship
between place and identity develops. However, further understanding of
how this happens is needed and very little has been done in this area.
The point here is that the relationship between place and identity could
be in the form of attachment, bond and solidarity and/or detachment,
ambiguity and feelings of not belonging.
We suggest the need for an approach that considers identity not just
in terms of its representation, but through a thorough understanding of
the historical processes and material practices which contribute to the
changing character of identities. We also urge a reconsideration of identity
in terms of feelings of ambiguity and detachment as invaluable for under-
standing the often unstable, uncertain and malleable sense of identity or
experience of identity. As such, we argue that feelings of detachment,
ambiguity and of not belonging are equally important for how we are to
understand identity formation or the experience of identity.
2.4 Identity
Identity has become increasingly significant in the social sciences. Modern
identities were thought of as stable, unified and static; in late moder-
nity or postmodernity, these are regarded as unstable, fragmented and
open to transformation. This re-conceptualisation has played a key role
in the pursuit of present and future research projects and agendas across
disciplinary boundaries.
Identities invoke history, language and culture as a matter of becoming
as well as of being. Thus, identities are not grounded in an essentialised
past, but refer to how we position (or understand) ourselves in relation
to historical and cultural discourses, but also, to how that might change
(Hall 1990). In this sense, then, identity, as Gilroy (1993) has expressed
it, is about difference as much as it is about a shared sense of belonging. In
this respect, identification entails the demarcation of boundaries, in terms
of not only what is of common ground or shared characteristics amongst
individuals, but also most importantly what is left outside of those bound-
aries. Thus, identities are constructed through difference. This notion
of identity also points to the idea that identities are constructed within
discourse. This approach is an attempt to move from the idea of identity
as a shared sense of belonging through history, solidarity and allegiance,
to one that considers identities as fragmented, fractured, in a constant
process of transformation and that ‘multiply constructed across different,
often intersecting and antagonistic discourses, practices and positions’
(Hall 1996, p. 4).
A distinction needs to be made concerning the use and application of
the concept of identity that circulates amongst psychoanalysis, sociology
and cultural studies. The problem seems to be that each approach uses
the term in a rather limited and exclusive way. In sociology, identity is
still explored with reference to issues of class, gender, religion, family and
community; in cultural studies, the emphasis is on the discursive, whilst
in psychoanalysis a great deal of attention is paid to the individual, the
self and the body. These traditions might intersect; however, it is often
the case that the psyche and discursive aspects of identity (Hall 1996)—
and we may also add the institutional dimensions of identity—do not
meet. Thus, the call to rethink identity in terms of a meeting point is not
about rejecting the concept altogether, but rather revisiting it with a clear
understanding of what identity is. After all, this seems to have been the
problem, the concept of identity is often taken for granted and reduced
to a label that is illustrated with regard to places, people or practices. We

argue that it is precisely this lack of knowledge about identity per se that
has produced a body of research that reduces identity to its representation
or to the institutional dimension of society (or to how the institutional
dimensions of society contribute to identity formation).
It seems to us that in order to move forward, recognition of the merits
of each approach and an attempt to merge the best of them to form a valid
working concept of identity is required. The most notable attempt made
to do this has been by Stuart Hall. However, the difficulty is that whilst
appreciated on a theoretical level, when utilised, much of the richness of
this argument is lost, most frequently to its representative dimension.
Identity, according to Stuart Hall refers:
… to the meeting point, the point of suture, between on the one hand
the discourses and practices which attempt to ‘interpellate’, speak to us or
hail us into place as the social subjects of particular discourses, and on the
other hand, the processes which produce subjectivities, which construct us
as subjects which can be ‘spoken’. Identities are thus points of temporary
attachment to the subject positions which discursive practices construct for
us … Identities are, as it were, the positions which the subject is obliged
to keep up while always ‘knowing’ (the language of consciousness here
betrays us) that they are representations … (1996, pp. 5–6)
There are three main points to Stuart Hall’s understanding of identities.

First, identities are constituted within discourse in as much as discourse
produces what it names and regulates; second, identities are constituted
through difference in the way in which it is dependent upon that which
it negates; and finally, identities are enacted through the subject positions
made available through language and cultural codes (Du gay et al. 2000).
Identities are understood as the positions we take up and identify with as
subjects of discourse (Woodward 1997).
This is an approach to establish a bridge between the discursive
and psychoanalytical versions of identity: particularly those exploring the
relationship between subject and language. It draws from the struc-
turalist and post-structuralist approaches to languages in that identities are
enacted through the subject positions made available through language
and cultural codes, and that identities are constituted through differ-
ence (Redman 2000). The main difference here is that it places identity
production outside of ideology and amongst the discursive. Placing iden-

tity within the discursive field rather than the ideological is indicative
of the way in which the relationship between the subject and language
has been theorised. We need to only consider Louis Althuser’s (2014)
approach to ideology to find some resonance of his argument on Hall’s
version of identity.
Althusser’s main argument is that we recognise ourselves as subjects
in so far as we are conscious of the practices of ideological recogni-
tion. Recognising ourselves as subjects entails the process through which
ideology interpellates individuals as subjects. In this respect, ideology
transforms the individual into subjects by the process of interpellation.
This necessarily involves a consideration of how individuals are recruited
to the subject positions made available in ideology and of the subject as
constituted from outside. Thus, Hall’s idea that identity does not exist
within the subject but is constituted through the subject positions made
available through language and cultural codes (Redman 2000), owes a
lot to Althusser’s theorisation on the subject and ideology. For Althusser,
ideology interpellates individuals as subjects and produces subject posi-
tions which we get to know through language and cultural codes. That
is, we get to know about the subject positions through systems of
representation. This part of the argument also draws on structural and
post-structural linguistics, in so far as language is a system of representa-
tion, for which the idea of difference and cultural specificity is crucial
to how we understand the production of meaning. So, in this sense
then, ‘discourses and systems of representation construct places from
which individuals can position themselves and from which they can speak’
(Woodward 1997, p. 14).
Stuart Hall does not fully locate identity production amongst the
sphere of the discursive, but also acknowledges the possibilities brought
about by psychoanalysis. The psychoanalysis approach takes on board
the idea of the subject positions by considering the types of investments
that people might take when assuming an identity (Woodward 1997).
In Stuart Hall’s terms, these subject positions are made available to us
through language by a process of representation. This perspective differs
from the psychoanalytical version of identity in that it does not refer
to that type of ‘human material that is always already present’ (Redman
2000, p. 10), that is pre-social, true or essential to the human body, but to
the way in which identities are enacted through subject positions, which
again, we can only get to know through language and cultural codes.
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castle
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and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
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you are located before using this eBook.
Title: Shuddering castle
Author: Wilbur Finley Fauley
Release date: October 4, 2023 [eBook #71806]

Most recently updated: October 18, 2023
Language: English
Original publication: New York, NY: Green Circle Books, 1936
Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed

Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK

SHUDDERING CASTLE ***
SHUDDERING CASTLE
By Wilbur Fawley
GREEN CIRCLE BOOKS

NEW YORK
COPYRIGHT, 1936
by LEE FURMAN, INC.
[Transcriber's Note: Extensive research did not uncover any

evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was
renewed.]
Printed in the United States of America

SHUDDERING CASTLE
Shuddering Castle is not a mystery novel in the generally
accepted sense. It is a novel with a mystery; a highly imaginative
story, with revelations in the field of radio and short-wave
broadcasting. None of the strange events recorded oversteps the
boundaries of accepted natural laws.
In this novel of exciting action, radio communication is established
between Earth and Mars, with a world-girdling hook-up from Radio
Center, in New York City, and the reader will be amazed to find that
the Martians are human beings like ourselves, subject to the same
laws, the same temptations and passions which affect humanity. Into
this pulsating picture of tensed American life of the near future,
comes another revelation from the sky. This brings the reader to the
drama of a frightening but plausible visitor from the jungles of Mars
to this world, whose presence in the old spooky castle of an
eccentric millionaire-scientist on Long Island causes great fear to its
inmates when night falls.
But there is thrilling romance to warm your hearts, the infatuation of
a young newspaperman for the alluring debutante niece of the old
scientist; a humanly drawn boy and girl who are caught in the violent
web of mystery and sudden death. Shuddering Castle is a unique
study in the mysterious recesses of the universe.
SHUDDERING CASTLE
I
As a staid and wealthy New York family, of distinguished but remote
English ancestry, we moved formally and rather arrogantly within our
small, exclusive circle, holding on grimly to the traditions and
elegancies of the past. During the winter season, we viewed the
outside world placidly, and with the respectful composure of middle-
age, from the dignified privacy of our red brick mansion in
Washington Square.
On May first, as regular as clockwork, year in and year out, and with
all the solemnity of a ritual, we put our elaborate upholstered
furniture in linen shrouds, veiled the somber, scowling family portraits
in their dull gold frames with fly-netting, boarded up the windows and
doors, and went to the country. Our summer home is called The
Castle, and it is situated at Sands Cliff, Long Island. As a family we
resembled nothing so much as this embattled stone fortress, of old-
world design, in which we spent more than half the year.
As long back as I can remember, we had successfully preserved the
family's seclusion from the living world. Wherever we happened to
be, in town or country, we had protected our privacy with shuttered
windows, and massive iron gates that were secured both day and
night with heavy chains. Numerous signs of "Private" and "No
Trespassing Allowed" dotted our grounds like grave markers.
And then, quite suddenly, our lives became incredibly transformed. A
series of weird events brought us out of our privacy and seclusion—
brought us plenty of excitement and trouble and even horror.
But that was not to be wondered at, with Henry, my elder brother,
suddenly developing a mania for research in scientific matters,
especially the science of heavenly bodies and the phenomena of
radio. He did not pretend to be a scholar, although he had cultivated
scholarly habits most of his life. Inexplicably, this mania had seized
him late in life; a sort of bursting out of the abnormal repression
which held us all in thrall, no doubt as the result of our long seclusion
from the outside world and following the drab and barren routine of
our lives with such punctilious rigidity.
Ample means had enabled him to completely outfit an observatory,
with a powerful telescope, at our summer residence. Here he would
spend hours gazing into the abyss of space. He saw things up there
the trained, professional astronomer never saw, or ever hoped to see
—colliding suns, formation of temporary stars, the rejuvenescence of
dying worlds, and gaseous explosions in the Milky Way.
One of his pet theories was that the planet Mars was inhabited by a
race of people like ourselves, and that their men of science had long
been trying to establish radio communication with the earth. The
static on our radio set which annoyed me intensely, would galvanize
Henry with delight and hope, and his eyes would glisten almost
frenziedly behind their horn-rimmed spectacles.
"Those are distinctly electro-magnetic waves," he would say, "that
come from some point far off in space, and they are not due to any
terrestrial disturbance like thunderstorms, local or distant."
There was no opening, no escape, from Henry once he got started
on the galactic radio waves as differing from the cosmic rays and
from the phenomenon of cosmic radiation.
"I'm telling you, Livingston," he once declared in an excited, high-
pitched voice, "that man has only begun his conquest of time and
space. There are no limitations to human achievement. The world is
on the threshold of things unheard of, undreamed of. I have no doubt
that we will soon be able to establish radio communication with
Mars, and with my leisure, money and the required taste for science,
I feel that I am admirably fitted to make it come true."
And from that day he was changed, secretive. He refused to tell me
what he had discovered. Again and again I begged him to explain
and always it was the same vague answer, the same shake of the
head, and tightened lips.
It all seemed fantastic and visionary then, Henry's theories about
Mars and interstellar communication, but when unusual things began
to happen and our peaceful and ordered living was suddenly and
violently disturbed, I realized, as never before, that visions often
come to reality in an unbelievable way.
At the time we were thrown into such turmoil, and the dread spotlight
of publicity centered upon us, our family consisted of Henry and
myself, both bachelors; Jane, our spinster sister, and Patricia Royce
Preston—Pat for short—a very fascinating young person, who had
come to live with us at the tender age of fourteen, after the shocking
death of her parents, our youngish sister, Virginia Royce Preston,
and her husband, Allston, who were killed in an air-liner crash near
Paris.
There is something strangely lovable about a young girl in the
process of growing up. The advent of Pat meant, of course, less
privacy and the trampling down of staid personal habits and family
customs which we held virtually sacred. The fact that we were old
and queer and our household drab and rather grotesque, in
comparison to the modernistic and rather barbaric splendor of our
more fashionable friends, scarcely troubled her. Nothing seemed to
matter but that this bright-eyed, brown-haired girl should concentrate
all her love and devotion on a trio of old fossils. A warm affection
grew between us and our pretty niece. As she blossomed into young
womanhood our lives became centered in her. She was now
eighteen.
Although we were born rich, and received a huge income from the
heritage of vast and various real estate holdings on Manhattan
Island, both Henry and myself, strangely enough, had never
splurged, and never married. I am sure the thought of matrimony
never entered Jane's mind. Our natural emotions seemed to be
stirred and exalted only by the importance of our family name and
our wealth. Romantically, we were strangely neutral, as though, in
the pursuit of riches, the family stock had been sort of washed out.
After our college days, Henry and I grew into old-fashioned, mellow
bachelorhood, aloof from the world and very self-sufficient, and glad
to have it so. Henry had just observed his sixty-fifth birthday when
our lives became so tempestuous and convulsed. I was two years
his junior. Jane had just turned sixty. As progeny, we seemed to have
come into this world in swift successiveness, as though the marriage
of our revered parents had fulfilled its promise in a bunch.
For an entire summer Henry lived virtually in seclusion in his
observatory without any tangible result. Sweeping the sky with his
telescope for anything that might happen. But nothing transpired. Yet
he persisted. Finally, he detected a tiny comet, apparently on its way
to the earth. At first it appeared no larger than a pin-prick of light,
with a small, meteoric tail.
The night he made the discovery, he got me out of bed to see it, but I
was in no mood or condition for sky gazing. In addition, looking into
the eye-piece of the telescope made me a little sick and dizzy. I
couldn't see a thing. Deciding that he was suffering from a delusion, I
went back to bed.
The odd thing was that Henry was right. He had actually witnessed
the phenomenon of impact of two small planets which produced the
comet. As he explained it afterwards to a group of eminent scientists,
this collision of two celestial bodies had produced a distinct flash of
light, out of which had grown a spiral swarm of very brilliant particles,
and he had watched them as they took on orbital motion.
The comet soon became the most impressive and magnificent sight I
have ever seen, stretching its scimitar-like form half across the
heavens. Its wonder and beauty dragged New Yorkers up in the
small hours, to gaze at it with fascinating awe. Many regarded it with
terror, others with superstitious dread. In churches throughout the
land, the people prayed: "Lord save us from the devil, and Royce's
comet!"
The comet was not only named after Henry but his discovery was
acclaimed by scientists the world over, and he was chosen a fellow
of the two leading scientific bodies of America and England. While
still rated as an amateur in science, nevertheless, many learned men
began to look upon him as the depository of authority and
authenticity in matters relating to the mysteries of the solar system.
Having disclosed something to the world in the order of creation,
Henry became imbued with an overpowering sense of his own
importance as a man of science; his ambitions soared to
unsurmountable heights. The discovery of the comet having been far
easier than he had dared dream, he now turned with profound
intentness to establish radio communication with Mars. He began
talking in a familiar and chatty way about the people on Mars, and to
hear him talk one would think that he was going there for a week-end
of golf.
In this project, he had enlisted the able assistance of Serge Olinski,
assistant research engineer of the National Radio Corporation,
whose unexceptional qualifications included an honor degree in
cosmic ray research, with distinction in astronomy. Their
experimental activities, in trying to pick up and decode the galactic
radio waves, which both believed constituted some kind of
interstellar signaling, were carried on behind locked doors, either at
Henry's observatory in the country, or in Olinski's laboratory in the
NRC Building, in the new Radio Center Annex.
Olinski was a queer shrinking soul, and any sort of publicity to Henry
was equally distasteful. They were two of a kind, in this respect.
Notwithstanding all the praise and attention given to Henry by the
press during the comet furore, he treated reporters with the utmost
contempt, and accused them of being dishonest rogues. One
reporter in particular he hated and feared. Just mention to him the
name of Robert McGinity of the New York Daily Recorder, and his
correctly chiselled and aristocratic features would crinkle up in rage
and horrible chuckles would issue from his thin lips like unnamable
profanities.
He had never forgotten his first encounter with McGinity on the
telephone, nor had he ever forgiven the reporter for what he called
an utterly disreputable transaction in news. But the business of
reporting is at least an honorable one, and reporters have to get their
stories, somehow.
This fellow, McGinity, published the first report of Henry's discovery
of the comet, and scored a beat by calling him up and giving the
impression that he was one of the assistant astronomers at Harvard
University. I had no suspicions then how the information had trickled
into the office of the Daily Recorder, but I believe now that our
solemn-visaged butler, Orkins, who afterwards turned out to be so
mercenary and treacherous, tipped off this morning paper, which
paid liberally for exclusive stories.
It was the night following Henry's detection of the comet when he
was aroused out of a sound sleep to answer an important telephone
call. If I hadn't been up and overheard the conversation, I wouldn't
have believed it possible for any man to be so easily deceived. But
gullibility is one of Henry's weaknesses. I switched into the
conversation from an extension on the second floor.
Henry seemed to have some recollection of the name of the Harvard
professor, as it came over the telephone, and at first was a little
taken aback and curious that the news of his discovery should have
become known. Despite this, he told all about his detection of the
new comet, and proudly, omitting no detail. It would have been
ungrateful on his part to have distrusted the man at the other end of
the wire, after he had gone to the trouble and expense of calling up,
obviously from Boston, and it seemed so unlikely that any one
outside astronomical circles would be interested in the discovery. Up
to that time, Henry had had no dealings with reporters. By exercising
extraordinary discretion, he had managed all his life to keep out of
the news, except for occasional real estate transactions, and had
always avoided any encounter with the press.
After he had answered heaps and heaps of questions, the voice at
the other end said: "Thanks, Mr. Royce. Thanks a lot. Darned good
of you to tell me all this."
An oppressive silence descended. By that time, Henry must have
guessed that he had been gulled. I got his voice but I missed the
play of expression on his face.
"Who is this speaking?" he asked again. "Who the devil are you?"
"Bob McGinity of the Daily Recorder," came the prompt reply.
Henry gave a nervous jump. "What?" he gasped angrily. It was
evident that he was utterly taken by surprise. "I—I find your action in
calling me up quite incomprehensible, Mr. McGinity. I imagined that
—that—"
"Pardon me," the reporter retorted with some dignity. "I never said I
was an assistant professor of astronomy at Harvard. I simply asked if
you knew of such a person, and you said you did, and then you
proceeded to tell me exactly what I wanted to know."
"But surely you're not going to publish this," Henry fumed. "It's too
immature. You must keep it out of the newspaper."
"I'm sorry but I have no power to do so, Mr. Royce," the reporter
replied. "And no inclination, Mr. Royce."
Henry clawed at the telephone instrument with trembling fingers. "If I
had you here, young man," he shouted, "I'd break your damned
neck."
He hung up with a bang, and I don't think he slept a wink the rest of
the night. And it was entirely due to this experience that he and
Olinski took every precaution that nothing should leak out concerning
their research in interstellar signaling, which, as far as I could learn,
at the time, had entered on the final and exciting stage of their
experimental work.
Henry's actions indicated that his mind was still working feverishly on
this subject; he even raved about it in his sleep, according to his
Filipino valet, Niki. But about his and Olinski's doings, not a word to
me. When I would ask him if they had found anything worth finding,
he would reply: "Just you wait, and see;" a vague term which he
refused to make more definite.
In the silent watches of the night, he would sit at his telescope, his
eyes trained on that beautiful, reddish planet, Mars. One morning, at
four o'clock, I found him there, clad only in his pajamas, and he
strongly resented my intrusion. But I had a task to perform, and that
was to see that he got his proper rest. I had no wish that any
member of our family should become psychopathic.
"Henry!" I exclaimed, rather harshly; "you've only a few hours before
breakfast-time. Go to bed and get a bit of sleep."
I think he realized, instinctively, that I was not in sympathy with this
business of trying to pick up radio signals from Mars. It all seemed
so useless and incredible. His secret experiments had been in
progress now for about a year. The tumult aroused by the discovery
of the comet seemed a thing long past and forgotten. The memory of
the public is short. Newer sensations had taken its place.
In this latest mad, scientific quest, Henry reminded me of one of
Jane's goldfish, which swims in its bowl, and swims and swims,
thousands of miles, perhaps, and then finds itself a few inches from
its starting point. So one day I resolved to bring the matter to an
issue. I slipped into his room just after he had disrobed and donned
a dressing-gown, preparatory to taking a bath and dressing for
dinner.
"Henry," I began, rather abruptly, "study and action are worth while,
only when they lead you some place." But I was not destined to
finish what was in my mind to say.
"I beg pardon, Livingston, if I disturb you," he interrupted in his
meekest accents, and then went into his bathroom, and closed the
door.
Determined to have my say, I followed him to the door, and knocked.
The door opened, and his face, meek and anxious, looked out at me
through a narrow crack.
"Henry!" I implored. "If I could only see you for a few minutes—"
"No!" he said, and shut the door. A second later, I heard the bar
shoved into its slot.
There was nothing unusual in Henry locking himself in his bathroom,
for he had the distressful habit of sitting in his bath-tub, by the hour,
smoking and thinking. His bathroom seemed to be the only quiet
retreat in the castle which afforded the complete solitude and privacy
necessary for the employment of his brain cells. He felt that here he
could relax, just as Napoleon did, after undue fatigue, dictating
letters and giving important military orders from his steaming bath-
tub.
I have often wondered where Sir Isaac Newton was sitting, at his
home in Woolsthorpe, England, when the fall of an apple, so legend
tells us, suggested the most magnificent of his discoveries, the law
of universal gravitation. There is no evidence to refute that he was
sitting in one of those queer, early English bath-tubs, looking out of
the bathroom window, at his apple orchard.
I never see Rodin's famous sculpture, "The Thinker," but I am
reminded of Henry, sitting in his bath-tub, thinking and thinking,
especially during the early part of the eventful summer of which I
write.
Evidently some fresh idea had come to him while in his bath on the
evening I persisted in assailing his peace of mind. With startling
suddenness he donned his bath-robe, rushed to the telephone, and
communicated with Olinski. As quickly as possible, the next day,
they got to work on Henry's idea. Then problems began to straighten
themselves out. As to what they had discovered, they said nothing at
the moment.
Soon after, however, an avalanche of adventure, mystery and
excitement came thunderously down upon us, throwing our lives into
chaos.
II
As I begin my narrative, my mind travels back for a moment to the
days of my youth, and I am made more vividly aware of the changes
that have taken place in the world. We are living in a new era now—
a period marked by a series of strange occurrences, manifestations
of the weird powers that lurk in outer space. The New Deal has
passed into history. A strangely remote time ago, that was....
The laboratory has supplied us with the basic means of lifting the
curtain of space from scenes and activities at a distance. A system
of sight transmission and reception, comparable in coverage and
service to the world-wide hook-up of sound broadcasting, has
brought all nations closer together. In the friendly exchange of ideas
and feelings through the medium of television and the radio, the
whole civilized world enjoys common participation.
Nationalism no longer endangers the peace of the world. All war
debts between nations have been settled, and tariff barriers laid low.
Internationalism reigns supreme, to the spirit and benefits of which
Henry contributed his share by engaging servants representing
seven nationalities. Thus we harbored at the castle of Sands Cliff
about every conceivable question of society, politics and religion.
Our summer castle is such a place as you read of, in romances of
the Middle Ages. It was built more than half a century ago by a
wealthy New York society woman who must have had a strain of
poetic romanticism in her veins. When Henry purchased the place, it
was almost in ruins.
It is perched on the summit of a precipitous sand cliff, commanding
an excellent view of Long Island Sound. From its windows, on a
bright day, the majestic towers of New York appear dimly etched
against a mauve horizon like the spires of a magical city. There it
stands, dark and foreboding, and ivy-clad, in its own grounds,
surrounded by a high brick wall. The main entrance gate is
approached by a dark avenue which winds through a heavily
wooded park. There is no other dwelling within a mile.
There are many mullioned windows in its slim, peaked towers.
Inside, a clutter of rooms—endless rooms—some of them in the
upper floors unused and smelling dusty and dank. The front door
opens on a brick terrace, which has a stone balustrade as a
protective measure against a sheer drop of two hundred feet to the
rocky base of the cliff. From the east end of the terrace, stone steps
wind down to a private yacht landing and a long stretch of beach,
fenced in with barbed wire.
An outstanding feature of the castle is its galleried entrance hall, with
its darkly gleaming oak panelling and great, stone staircase; a hall so
large that when one speaks, the sound is echoed like the whispering
of ghosts from the high, oak-timbered ceiling.
There is a queer element of solitude and uncanniness that always
cloaks the castle at the twilight hour, before Orkins, in his routine of
duty, switches on the lights. I noticed it particularly, one summer
evening, about the middle of August, as I walked up and down the
terrace, dinner-jacketed and smoking, awaiting the arrival of our two
dinner guests, Serge Olinski and His Highness Prince Dmitri Matani.
The sun had gone down in a cloudless, violet sky, and purplish
twilight had settled on the Sound and the marshland, stretching
westward to a cove, where the lights of the village of Sands Cliff
were beginning to twinkle. The silence was more oppressive than the
heat. Now and then it was broken by a distant tugboat whistle, like
the hoarse croak of a frog, and the faint calling of a thrush for its
mate in the thick shrubberies that fringed Jane's flower garden, on
the north side of the castle.
Far out in the Sound, two sail-boats were drifting along like tired
ghosts. Presently the fringe of the opposite shore became magically
outlined by tiny strands of lights. As the gloom of night slowly
enveloped the scene, an island lighthouse, a mile away, began to
flash its beacon over the dark, graying water with clock-like
regularity.
Against this flashing light, the ruins of our own lighthouse showed
dark and jagged, on a small, rocky island, rising out of the Sound
about a quarter of a mile off our shore, and within easy rowing
distance from the yacht landing. Henry had recently purchased the
island from the Government, and it was now a part of our Sands Cliff
estate. The old beacon tower of stone was built in 1800. In oil-
burning days, its light had counted for something, but now it was
nothing but a picturesque ruin, and largely populated during the
summer by bats.
I had no sooner turned my gaze on the ruined lighthouse when a big
bat swooped down at me out of the darkness. Only the night before,
one of them had got into my bedroom. I've never been able to
overcome my early fear of these nocturnal flying mammals. To my
childish imagination, they were the very spirits of evil. I was in no
mood this night to be pestered by them. A vague uneasiness
possessed me, an uneasiness caused on one hand by Henry's
strained and haggard look, and on the other, by his encouraging
Prince Matani's attentions to Pat.
Perhaps at the moment, his crazy quest in interstellar
communication annoyed me most. I had already suggested to Jane
that we send him to a psychoanalyst to be overhauled. This delving
into the unknown was too ponderable a matter for a man of his
years. It had become fixed on his mind with all the power of an
obsession. All that day he had not stirred from his observatory, and
now Olinski was coming from town to give a verbal report of his own
findings. Much cogitation, much secrecy was, in effect, nothing at all.
Unless they now had found the key. Was it possible that Olinski
might be bringing a transcribed cipher of a radio message from
Mars? His eager acceptance of the invitation to dinner seemed to
hold an important significance for Henry.
Desperately bothered by both problems which confronted me, the
bats made things more annoying still. Then, sudden-like, in the
haunting stillness, I saw something moving towards me from the
blackish void of trees and shrubbery bordering the west end of the
terrace. At first, I was conscious only of an oncoming shadow,
advancing with a rapid, noiseless movement.
I could feel my pulse jumping. Whoever or whatever it was, there
was a risk. Rather than face the risk, I moved quietly but swiftly
across the terrace towards the front door. But that did not stop the
oncoming something; it had suddenly changed its direction and was
coming right at me.
Luckily at that moment, the lights were turned on in the lower part of
the castle. Then Orkins opened the front door, and gave voice to a
surprised exclamation as he saw me making hurriedly for the
doorway.
Suddenly I stopped, and turned. The glow of a floor lamp in the
entrance hall had spread fanwise across the terrace, and into this
arc of light strode—Serge Olinski.
"Oh, hello, Olinski!" I exclaimed, with respectful familiarity, and very
cordially, stretching out my hand, and smiling to myself at the start
he had given me, coming like an abortive something out of the
shadows of the terrace. "That you?"
"Yes; it is I," Olinski replied, shaking my proferred hand, and
breathing rather heavily.
I faced a short, dumpy, middle-aged man, with a paunch, and a
Russian cast of countenance. Small, intelligent black eyes gleamed
through shell-rimmed glasses, from a round face fringed with a short,
black beard. He carried his hat, and I observed that his primly
sleeked hair was as black as his beard. I had a suspicion that he
dyed them.
"I caught an early train from the city, in order to enjoy the benefit of a
walk from the village to your beautiful castle," he explained, half
breathlessly, "after a most exacting but successful day in the
laboratory. A million apologies if I have delayed your dinner."
"Time is infinite in the country, especially on a fine night like this," I
remarked lightly, as we entered the hall, and Orkins relieved him of
his black top-coat and hat. His dinner jacket, I noticed, was much too
small for him, and his waistcoat so short that it came perilously near
revealing a section of his middle-age bulge. There were soup stains
on his shirt-front, which indicated that his shirt had been out to dinner
before.
As I waved him to a chair, I said: "You're really very punctual, even if
you avoided our car which was sent to the station to meet you, and
walked here. You can depend upon it, Prince Matani will not miss the
chance to drive to the castle in state when he steps off the train."
Unconsciously my lips sneered as I spoke the young princeling's
name. Olinski nodded and smiled understandingly. "Ah!" he said. "I
take it that you do not look with favor on the match your scholarly
brother is about to arrange between your charming niece and my
noble countryman?"
"To be frank, no," I replied.
"So I gathered. And why?"
"I have very strong reasons for opposing their marriage," I said; "and
my sister, Jane, is just as dead set against it as I am. Every one
knows that the Prince came to America to make a rich and
advantageous marriage. Pat will soon come into a large inheritance

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Narratives of Migration, Relocation and

Belonging: Latin Americans in London

Biota Grow 2C gather 2C cook Loucas

The Migration and Politics of Monsters in Latin

Intersectionality, Class and Migration: Narratives of

How to Marry Your Frenemy How To Rom Com 1 1st Edition

Making early medieval societies conflict and belonging

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More information about this series at

Studies of the Americas

1 Introduction: Narratives of Migration, Relocation

2 Migration, Transnationalism and Diasporic Identities 7

3 Latin American Immigration to Europe: The Case

3.7 Narratives of Migration, Self-Representation

4 Narratives of Migration and Relocation 63

5 Narratives of Migration Around Work 83

6 Latino Media Spaces in London: The Interstices

Appendix 3: British Latinx Cultural Projects

7 Latin Urbanisms: Resisting Gentrification, Reclaiming

8 British Latinidad as Social and Spatial Justice 193

Map 7.1 Migrant, ethnic and independent business directory

Table 3.1 European LAC diasporas by nationality and countries

Introduction: Narratives of Migration,

‘I am Senorita Rita’, so hailed a vibrant self-defined drag queen at the

© The Author(s) 2021 1

the cultural magazine Ventana Latina by Latin American House; and

of workers in the cleaning sector, through trade union memberships.

1 https://www.uvwunion.org.uk/news/2018/9/top-shop-2-victory. Accessed 24 June

At times when large sections of the population face uncertainty and

term Latinx was adopted as a gender neutral and alternative to Latino

Transnational practices capture the diverse geographical, cultural and

© The Author(s) 2021 7

on the implications of these discussions for our understanding of digital

considers transactions across borders as much as practices linking migrants

2.2 Super-Diversity and Transnational Networks

of immigration since the early 1990s’ (Vertovec 2007, p. 1049). These

If individuals engage in social relations and practices that cross borders as

Thus, a transnational way of belonging is about how activities are

Migrants’ transnational engagement has significant influence and trans-

The degree to which migrant entrepreneurs can have an impact upon

2.3 Place and Identity

to a label that is illustrated with regard to places, people or practices. We

There are three main points to Stuart Hall’s understanding of identities.

production outside of ideology and amongst the discursive. Placing iden-

Title: Shuddering castle

Author: Wilbur Finley Fauley

Release date: October 4, 2023 [eBook #71806]

Original publication: New York, NY: Green Circle Books, 1936

Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK

GREEN CIRCLE BOOKS

[Transcriber's Note: Extensive research did not uncover any

Printed in the United States of America

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