Looking Black at Revolutionary Cuba

Abstract

What does the promise of 1959—¡Venceremos! (We Will Win!)—mean to blacks in the United States, and what are the possible futures for the continuation and expansion of revolution? As commentary by black individuals who visited or took refuge in Revolutionary Cuba and my own ethnographic work on the island, roughly from 1998 to 2003, show, the vision of Cuba has become more salient and more complex as the position of blacks in the United States becomes more fraught with contradictions. As must any contemporary 50-year-old, the Cuban Revolution must now reconcile intention and effect and chart its future course in a world very different from the one it was born into.

T/Racing Belonging Through Cuban Tourism

“…Therefore, I construe my ethnographic practice … as a performance” (Johnson :10). My many observers (mostly Cuban, but occasionally tourist) interpreted and measured my success or failure at performing the multiple identities I was perceived to embody by categorizing me as a Cuban, a tourist, or as a student from a developing country benefitting from Cuba's policy of socialist outreach (see also Allen ). Until I introduced myself, no one ever imagined I was an anthropologist.…”

“…As a left‐leaning African American, I entered the Cuban research site with an expectation that the socialist revolution had leveled class differences and made the multiplicity of skin color variations featured in Cuba nearly insignificant (see Allen ). Cuba's socialist ideology has certainly impacted the complexion of Cuba's class structure: if prior to the revolution's triumph in 1959, U.S. political and business interests were paramount and catered to by Cuba's white(r) elite classes, then revolutionary Cuba has eliminated those two sources of severely imbalanced political, social, and economic power.…”

“…However, for the half century since that time, power has been concentrated exclusively in the hands of the Communist Party, whose members are largely men of European descent. To be sure, their class‐leveling policies have significantly improved the life chances of Cubans of color in comparison to the prerevolutionary period, but they have not been able to legislate old racial prejudices away completely (Allen , ; Fernández ; de la Fuente ). Despite the systemic restructuring of education, hiring, and (to a lesser degree) housing policies early in the revolution, a t/race of emancipation era beliefs about the meanings of skin color and belonging remain.…”

“…When the Soviet Union fell in 1989, the Cuban economy was devastated and would likely have collapsed entirely had state officials not opted to revive the tourism industry; it quickly overtook sugar as the primary engine of Cuba's economy. Because the state insisted on maintaining a socialist economy for the general populace, even as it encouraged the growth of a restricted capitalist sector, one result of the proximity of the new global economy is the increasing inequality fostered between those who have access to foreign currency (CUC, or the Cuban Convertible peso) and those who do not (Allen , ; Roland 2006). For example, a family that is able to make their home amenable to foreign tourists has the capacity to rent out rooms in their casa particular as a bed and breakfast residence for CUC$15–30/night, in contrast to the average (converted) worker salary of CUC$20/month.…”

Black/Queer/Diaspora at the Current Conjuncture

“…38 My own research in Cuba, Trinidad and Tobago, and Brazil and experiences at home in the United States impel taking seriously distinctions between socialist and liberal states, (post)colonial and imperial nations, North and South. 39 Certainly, "diaspora" does constitute a way out of the nation-state. Still, failing inclusion as a properly hygienic citizen or subject, where is the place for the black queer?…”