Picturing Solidarity: Photography and Cuban Internationalism during the Vietnam War

Abstract

This article studies the use of photography in the construction of solidarity between Cuba and Vietnam during the war years. It shows the way photography helped illustrate and articulate Cuba's evolving understanding of the Vietnam War as a conflict that was analogous to, and in some ways the culmination of, Cuba's own revolution. While Cuba enthusiastically embraced and disseminated photographs from Vietnam, the meanings attached to these photos were also modified to speak to domestic concerns. By focusing on the images used in two specific solidarity campaigns devoted to imprisoned activist Võ Thị Thắng and “martyr” Nguyễn Văn Trỗi, the article explores the way Cuban understandings of acceptable forms of revolutionary violence and its gendered expressions shaped the meanings attributed to these two figures.