Inter-subjective and Transnational Racial Effects: The Role of the United States in the Formation and Evolution of the Collective Perception and Racial Relations in Cuba, 1898-1902
OF THE DISSERTATION INTER-SUBJECTIVE AND TRANSNATIONAL RACIAL EFFECTS: THE ROLE OF THE UNITED STATES IN THE FORMATION AND EVOLUTION OF THE COLLECTIVE PERCEPTION AND RACIAL RELATIONS IN CUBA, 1898-1902 by Tiffany Yolanda Jimmece Bryant Florida International University, 2010 Miami, Florida Professor Felix E. Martin, Major Professor Since the arrival of the first African slaves to Cuba in 1524, the issue of race has had a long-lived presence in the Cuban national discourse. However, despite Cuba’s colonial history, it has often been maintained by some historians that race relations in Cuba were congenial with racism and racial discrimination never existing as deep or widespread in Cuba as in the United States (Cannon, 1983, p. 113). In fact, it has been argued that institutionalized racism was introduced into Cuban society with the first U.S. occupation, during 1898–1902 (Cannon, 1983, p. 113). This study of Cuba investigates the influence of the United States on the development of race relations and racial perceptions in post-independent Cuba, specifically from 1898-1902. These years comprise the time period immediately following the final fight for Cuban Independence, culminating with the Cuban-SpanishAmerican War and the first U.S. occupation of Cuba. By this time, the Cuban population comprised Africans as well as descendants of Africans, White Spanish people,
Race, Ideology, and Culture in Cuba: Recent Scholarship
BETWEEN RACE AND EMPIRE: AFRICAN-AMERICANS AND CUBANS BEFORE THE CUBAN REVOLUTION. Edited by Lisa Brock and Digna Castaneda. (Philadelphia, Pa.: Temple University Press, 1998. Pp. 298. $59.95 cloth, $22.95 paper.) EL FANTASMA DE LA ESCLAVITUD: PRE/UICIOS RACIALES EN CUBA Y AMERICA LATINA. By Rafael Duharte and Elsa Santos. (Bonn, Germany: Pahl-Rugenstein, 1997. Pp. 159.) EL DIRECTORIO CENTRAL DE LAS SOCIEDADES NEGRAS DE CUBA, 1886-1894. By Gilda Hevia Lanier. (Havana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 1996. Pp. 67.) SOCIEDADES DE INSTRUCCION Y RECREO DE PARDOS Y MORENOS QUE EXISTIERON EN CUBA COLONIAL. By Carmen V. Montejo Arrechea. (Veracruz, Mex.: Instituto Veracruzano de Cultura, 1993. Pp. 138.) NATIONALIZING BLACKNESS: AFROCUBANISMO AND ARTISTIC REVOLUTION IN HAVANA, 1920-1940. By Robin Moore. (Pittsburgh, Pa.: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1997. Pp. 320. $45.00 cloth, $19.95 paper.) MEDICINA Y RACISMO EN CUBA: LA CIENCIA ANTE LA INMIGRACION CANARIA EN EL SIGLO XX. By Consuelo Naranjo Orovio and Armando Garcia Gonzalez. (La Laguna, W. Canary Is.: Taller de Historia, 1996. Pp.205.) RACISMO E INMIGRACION EN CUBA EN ELSIGLO XIX. By Consuelo Naranjo Orovio and Armando Garcia Gonzalez. (Aranjuez, Spain: Doce Calles, 1996. Pp. 236.)
Sugar's Secrets: Race and the Erotics of Cuban Nationalism
How and why has Cuba's national identity been cast in terms of a cross-cultural synthesis called "mestizaje", and what roles have race, gender, sexuality and class played in the construction of that synthesis? What specific cultural, political and economic interests does "mestizaje" represent? Exploring these and other questions, the author focuses on images of the "mulata" in 19th- and 20th-century Cuban poetry, fiction and visual arts. These images, she argues, are at the heart of Cuba's peculiar form of multiculturalism. "Mestizaje" and related cross-cultural paradigms that have developed in other parts of the Caribbean, in Hispanic America and Brazil, are controversially tied to nationalist interests and ideologies. But do they really mark the promise of a diverse cross-culture? Or do they constitute a form of ethnic "lynching"? According to Kutzinski, "mestizaje" in Cuba and elsewhere celebrates racial diversity, while at the same time refusing to acknowledge a historical reality of racial conflict. In "Sugar's Secrets", she examines traces of this fundamental paradox in Cuban literature and popular culture. The foundation of the author's argument is that Cuban "mestizaje" is a distinctly masculine concept. It articulates itself through the female racial stereotype of the "mulata", which becomes a symbol for the reconciliation of Spanish and African elements in Cuban culture. Women, especially non-white women, are excluded from this inter-racial vision of cultural and political bonding. Though "mestizaje" assumes heterosexual disguises, the unifying fiction it projects is often the product of male homoerotic desire, across racial lines. Kutzinski is interested in how the "mulata" has been used by Cuban cultural institutions, as well as by writers of various racial affiliations, either to maintain or expose that fiction. This study focuses on constructions of inter-racial masculinity hidden behind racially mixed femininity; constructions that have had the effect of legitimising male social, economic and political power.