The Erosion of Racial Equality in the Context of Cuba's Dual Economy

Abstract

Scholars of Cuba have long linked Afro-Cubans' fate to the revolutionary government. As the government's influence on people's daily lives has declined over the past decade, the question arises of whether Afro-Cubans have sustained the gains they achieved in the revolution's first 30 years. This article uses survey data, collected in December 2000 from 334 Cuban families in Havana, to assess the impact of the post-1993 economic reforms on rising racial inequality in Cuba. It asks whether racial inequities occur in accessing dollars through state employment, self-employment, or remittances, and whether educational gains are tied to higher income. Results indicate that the structural means through which racial discrimination was once virtually eliminated through equal access to education and employment, and through which income levels became equalized according to educational level regardless of racial group, has lost its equalizing force in contemporary Cuba. uba's 1993-95 economic restructuring formalized a dual economy C and created a restricted market opening. In its wake, social differen- 35

Post-Racialism in the Classroom as Anti-Racist Praxis in Cuba?

“…Lola's comments represent a distilled version of the official color-blind post-racialism which I repeatedly heard. A gap emerges here where the reality of racial discrimination in Cuba as documented by de la Fuente (2001ade la Fuente ( , 2001bde la Fuente ( , 2008, Blue (2007), and others runs counter to a denial of racism on the island.…”

“…2001b, 2008), Blue (2007), Sawyer (2006), and Pérez Sarduy and Stubbs (2000) comprising the vast majority of the work on race in Cuba treating the post-1959 period. Although limited by its focus on the Havana area, this study adds to scarce research into race and racism on the island.…”

“…Nurtured by the silence described above, racial discrimination persists at the individual, institutional, and systemic levels. Sawyer (2006) and Blue (2007) document the enduring anti-black racism privately held by many Cubans, which informs everything from opposition to mixed marriage to raced perceptions of criminality, ambition, and morality. Between 1993 and 1996, the number of Cubans employed in the private sector increased 1300%, from 15,000 to almost 210,000 (Henken 2002, 6).…”

“…As the Special Period has given way to a new chapter in Cuban economic history, the limited but significant liberalization of the market has allowed for a systemic re-entrenchment of racial power and punishment. This is further intensified by remittances sent from the US-Cuban community, which is overwhelmingly white and Mestizo (Blue 2007;Sawyer 2006;Greenbaum 2002). According to estimates by Mesa-Lago (2002, 8), white Cubans receive an annual average of $81 while the corresponding amount for Afro-Cubans is $31.…”

“…Although the revolution has had tremendous success with institutional reform as far as formal racial equality, Blue (2007), de la Fuente (2008), and others have demonstrated that racial inequality in the form of prejudice and discrimination has increased since the early 1990s, in the wake of economic liberalization which has continued for the past 20 years.…”