Book Review: Chinese Cubans: A Transnational History by Kathleen Lopez

      If you’ve studied the history of Cuba, you might have noticed that almost every book written on the subject mentions the Chinese population of that Latin American island. You might have also noticed that these books rarely contain more than a paragraph or two on the subject of Chinese immigration. Now that Cuba has opened up to the world after the late 20^th century fall of communism and the fading influence of Fidel and Raul Castro, a little more interest has been shown in this matter. It is about time that the story of this under-represented ethnic group gets told especially since they have done more than most people realize in building the Cuban nation. The social historian Kathleen Lopez tells this story in Chinese Cubans: A Transnational History.

The story of the ethnic Chinese population in Cuba begins in the mid-19^th century. Cuba was a colonial holding of the Spanish crown that depended heavily on African slave labor to maintain their agricultural industry, primarily centered around sugarcane and secondarily on tobacco and citrus fruit. But slavery was coming to an end as support for abolitionism grew. The European nations banned it outright, followed by the end of the slave trade in the United States, and later in Brazil. Although Cuba did not ban slavery until close to the end of the 19^th century, the availability of slave labor dwindled. The landowning colonialists needed a source of manual laborers to do the most back breaking work they were too weak and lazy to do for themselves. Therefore they looked to China.

Chinese migrant workers were never brought to the Caribbean as slaves. Rather they got hired as coolies, another word for indentured servants. This meant they worked on contracts, got paid for labor, and were not released from those contracts until they paid off their debts or the contracts expired. Many of them were coerced into signing multiple contracts making it impossible for them to leave Cuba. Indentured servitude may sound better than slavery in theory, but practically speaking, living conditions were no different. When word got back to China about how cruelly the migrants were being treated, the government opened an embassy in Havana to to handle labor and immigration disputes.

During Cuba’s Wars of Independence, Chinese migrant workers fought alongside Creole Spanish, Afro-Cuban, and mulatto populations in hopes of a better future. When Cuba was liberated from Spain in the 1890s by the United States, Cuba nominally became an independent nation and the Chinese soldiers were initially recognized as war heroes. But old habits die hard and the dominant white population, with support from the United States, relegated the Chinese Cubans to second class status, or maybe even third class, status. Many Chinese people had difficulty obtaining citizenship.

But the end of indentured servitude did bring some good results. Some of them thrived as businessmen, even becoming rich in some cases. Living conditions for manual laborers was still tough, but more fair since a lot of migrant workers were then managed by Chinese bosses who spoke their language and understood their culture. Just like in the North American continent, small business owners thrived in running laundries, stores, and restaurants. Many of these were located in Havana’s Chinatown, El Barrio Chino which became a popular destination for tourists and strolling Cubans on their evening corsos.

Although Chinese Cubans lived in the margins of society, they did sometimes mix with different classes and races, more with the mulatto and Afro-Cubans than the white people. Sexually, their population was heavily skewed towards men because indentured servants were almost entirely male. Therefore, Chinese men were more prone to marriage with mulattas and Black women, but marriages with white women were not unheard of. Many Chinese men paid for sex with prostitutes and homosexuality was rampant in their community. After Independence, Chinese women migrated more freely to Cuba. Mutual aid societies and social clubs played a large role in stabilizing the Chinese Cuban community too.

At that point in time, the Chinese community was emerging on its own, forging its own identity as a distinct ethnicity within a larger host society. With national independence and opportunities for upward class mobility, communal self-perception changed too. Monetary remissions were sent back to China, immigration standards were loosened, and travel back and forth between Asia and the West Indies resulted in a transnational identity in which Chinese Cubans felt as though they occupied a place bridging two different cultures without fully belonging to either one.

This transnational identity became strained with the rise of communism. The community in Cuba was divided as the Communist Party under Mao Tsetung took over China. The Cuban government, with backing from the United States, cracked down on communism on the island. Chinese Cubans were forced to take sides when the Cuban Revolution happened in 1959. Many of them chose to support the revolution, yet after Fidel Castro took over, a political wrecking ball swept through Chinatown in the name of equality and some businessmen lost everything they had worked for. Some Chinese Cubans fled to Miami or New York as refugees while others stayed behind as the Caribbean nation sunk deeper into poverty and totalitarianism. Actually though, Lopez does not go deeply into the subject of the Castro years and how it affected the nation’s Chinese population.

Now that Cuba has opened up, some Chinese Cubans have sought out contact with ancestors back in Asia. Some have even returned there to build Cuban Chinese communities in villages where their forefathers originated. On a larger scale, China has grown to be one of the biggest economies in the world and they have opened up political ties with Cuba. The two countries are now trading partners and Chinese-manufactured electric vehicles are gradually replacing the antique cars on the roads of Cuba that once made the country so fascinating to outsiders.

Lopez’s account of Cuban Chinese history is thorough and presented with a lot of fine details. Her social analysis of that group is also precise and minutely described. And the book certainly ends on a positive note regarding the benefits of migration and multiculturalism. It is, however, written in a dry, academic style that may be off-putting to some readers. The subject matter is interesting enough to override any objections you might have to its lack of literary style. But still, it isn’t always the most accessible book to read.

The only really bothersome part of the book is the over-emphasis on the idea of Chinese Cubans expressing their ethnic identity. Expressing ethnic identity has become an overrated and over-stated part of sociological studies in recent years as if an ethnic groups’ sole purpose for existence is to announce to the world that they have an identity that separates them from everybody else. That doesn’t mean ethnic identities don’t exist or aren’t important; it just means that most people within those groups aren’t overly preoccupied with announcing it to the world. The Asian people I know are more concerned with video games and football than they are with their identities. They eat Asian food because it’s what they like, not because they want to show everybody in America how Asian they are. I sometimes find the sociologists’ obsession with identities to be a little bit harmful, sometimes even racist, towards the people they claim to speak for. They condemn othering, but overlook the fact that parading people’s ethnic identities around can result in the kind of othering they claim to be against.In-groups function in opposition to out-groups so by creating more in-groups with more exclusive identities, a greater number of out-groups will inevitably be the result. This exacerbates the problem they are trying to solve by constantly drawing people’s attention to it. Kathleen Lopez isn’t that bad though, or that amateurish, and this book is written in good faith with nothing but respect for the population she is writing about. She doesn’t exaggerate the issue to any extreme. But the handful of times she brings up the subject of Chinese Cuban expressions of identity it feels like I’m walking around with a pebble in my shoe.

Chinese Cubans is a great examination of the historical forces that a transnational identity is rooted in and also an exploration of what it means to be transnational. The author shows us what struggles this migrant community had and what they did to survive, and in many cases, thrive because of the adversity. It makes you appreciate the lives of immigrants and the will they have to contribute something of value to their chosen country. It also shows how they can give back so much to their place of origin after migration. It’s not about exoticizing them or othering them by treating them as a curiosity. It’s about bringing them closer so we can see what they have in common with the rest of humanity.