The new Afro-Cuban cultural movement and the debate on race in contemporary Cuba

Journal of Latin American Studies

Volumn 40, Issue 4, 2008, Pages 697-720

  de la Fuente, Alejandro ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH   (United States)

Author keywords

Art; Cubanidad; Partido Independiente de Color; Race relations; Racial inequality; Racism

Indexed keywords

ART; CULTURAL RELATIONS; RACIAL DISPARITY; RACIAL IDENTITY; RACISM; SOCIAL MOVEMENT;

ATLANTIC ISLANDS; ATLANTIC OCEAN; CARIBBEAN ISLANDS; CUBA; GREATER ANTILLES;

EID: 57649136475     PISSN: 0022216X     EISSN: 1469767X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0022216X08004720     Document Type: Article

References (153)

1. Hermanos de Causa, Lágrimas negras, in their CD La causa nostra vol. 1 (2003), which I obtained from Soandry del Rio, one of the two members of the group, in 2006. The author thanks Reid Andrews for helping with the translation of these lyrics.
2. Cuban Hip Hop has been the subject of several studies, such as Sujatha Fernandes, Cuba Represent! Cuban Arts, State Power, and the Making of New Revolutionary Cultures, (Durham, 2006)
3. Alan West-Durán, 'Rap's Diasporic Dialogues: Cuba's Redefinition of Blackness', Journal of Popular Music Studies, vol. 16, no. 1 (2004), pp. 4-39
4. Alan West-Durán, 'Lo Afro unido jamás será vencido: Ocha y Palo en el rap cubano', Gaceta de Cuba (July-August, 2007), pp. 11-4
5. Margot Olavarria, 'Rap and Revolution: Hip-Hop comes to Cuba', NACLA Report on the Americas, vol. 35, no. 6 (2002), pp. 28-30.
6. Fernandes, Cuba Represent!, p. 90
7. Marc D. Perry, 'Rap cubano', La Jiribilla, no. 67 (August 2002).
8. 'I have a race that is dark and discriminated against. I have a workday that's exhausting and pays nothing. I have so many things that I can't even touch. I have so many places where I can't even go. I have what I have without getting what I've had'. Hermanos de Causa, 'Tengo' is included in their La causa nostra and also in the compilation Cuban Hip Hop All Stars (2001).
9. The song is discussed by Fernandes, Cuba Represent!, pp. 98-9
10. and by West-Durán, 'Rap's Diasporic Dialogues', pp. 20-4.
11. 'Policeman, policeman, you're not my friend, for young people in Cuba you're the worst nightmare'.
12. 'My color brings you every day, always the same harassment'.
13. 'The black criminal, a familiar sight, always the enemy, day or night ... The policeman, with a whistle or without it, always pressuring, dark people are his favorite target, the others here are saints ... it is easier to blame somebody of color ... I am tired of seeing you hold on to your purse when I walk by you ...'
14. The lyrics of Papá Humbertico and Alto Voltaje in Myles Kantor, 'Rapping Cuba', National Review Online (September 5, 2002)
15. and 'Desafían a son de rap al régimen de Fidel Castro', El Nuevo Herald (August 17, 2002)
16. Hermanos de Causa, 'Lágrimas negras';
17. Molano MC, 'Quién tiró la tiza?' can be heard at http://youtube.com/watch?v=24UocHM9O1U.
18. The song is discussed by West-Durán, 'Rap's Diasporic Dialogues', pp. 25-6.
19. The lyrics of Obsesión's 'La llaman puta' are reproduced in Movimiento 1 (2003), p. 30. A term coined in the 1990s, jineteros or jineteras refers to hustlers who provide goods and services to foreign visitors, frequently illegally.
20. See Hannah Elison, 'Cuba's "Jineteros": Youth Culture and Revolutionary Ideology', Cuba Briefing Paper Series, no. 20 (1999).
21. The group Orishas do this in the introduction to their best-selling CD 'A lo cubano' (2000). On the intersections between Afro-Cuban religions and rap see West-Durán, 'Lo Afro unido', pp. 11-4,
22. and Perry, 'Rap cubano'.
23. 'They changed my customs, they squashed my dialects, I forgot my language'. Las Krudas, 'A Mike Minongo', in their self-produced CD Cubensi (2003).
24. 'Where do I come from?' Anónimo Consejo, 'Loma y machete', quoted by West-Durán, 'Lo Afro unido', p. 13. A similar concern is evident in their song 'Aché', included in the compilation Hip Hop Cubano: The Inventos Mixtape (2005).
25. Anónimo Consejo, 'Aché'. Papá Humbertico mentions the PIC in 'Por los que no están', in his CD Rap-Activismo (2006).
26. On the centrality of history to Cuban rap, see also María del Puerto, 'Altas expectativas', La Jiribilla 67 (August 2002), an interview with rap promoter Rodolfo Rensoli.
27. Anónimo Consejo, 'Guapo como Mandela', in Cuban Hip Hop All Stars (2001)
28. Primera Base, 'Igual que tú', in Igual que tú (1996)
29. Las Krudas, 'Cubensi Hip Hop', in Cubensi (2003)
30. Hermanos de Causa, 'Lágrimas negras'. On these diasporic conversations see West-Durán, 'Rap's Diasporic Dialogues';
31. Sujatha Fernandes, 'Fear of a Black Nation: Local Rappers, Transnational Crossings, and State Power in Contemporary Cuba', Anthropological Quarterly, vol. 76, no. 4 (2003), pp. 575-608
32. Olavarria, 'Rap and Revolution', pp. 28-30.
33. David Mateo, 'No todos los negros tomamos café: Conversación con Roberto Diago', La Gaceta de Cuba (May-June 2003), p. 25.
34. A white medical doctor mentions keloids to underline the existence of 'natural' differences between blacks and whites. In his view, black 'skin is different in its composition, to the point that scars adopt the form of keloids'. See Rafael Duharte and Elsa Santos, El fantasma de la esclavitud: Prejuicios raciales en Cuba y América Latina (Bonn, 1997), p. 119.
35. Alexis Esquivel, 'Queloide, la cicatriz dormida (Keloid, the Dormant Scar)', in Judith Bettleheim (ed.), Afrocuba Works on Paper 1968-2003 (San Francisco 2005), p. 17.
36. See also Fernandes, Cuba Represent!, 160-7. I am grateful to Alexis Esquivel for clarifying numerous questions about these exhibits.
37. This belief is reproduced in one of the testimonies compiled by Duharte and Santos, El fantasma de la esclavitud, where a 25-years-old white actor claims that blacks 'opt for music and dance' and that they 'are the best in sports'.
38. Ariel Ribeaux Diago, 'Ni músicos ni deportistas', Arte Cubano, vol. 3 (2000), pp. 52-9
39. Esquivel, 'Queloide', 19.
40. I will call this exhibit Queloides II to differentiate it from the first. Much of my discussion relies on the 'Expediente de la Exposición Queloides', Archivo del Centro de Desarrollo de las Artes Visuales. I am deeply grateful to art critic Caridad Blanco de la Cruz for facilitating my access to these materials.
41. See also Esquivel, 'Queloide', pp. 19-21.
42. On the mulatto woman as a national symbol, see Vera M. Kutzinski, Sugar's Secrets: Race and the Erotics of Cuban Nationalism (Charlottesville, 1993)
43. Madeline Cámara, 'Between Myth and Stereotype: The Image of the Mulatta in Cuban Culture in the Nineteenth Century, a Truncated Symbol of Nationality', in Madeline Cámara and Damián Fernández (eds.), Cuba: The Elusive Island (Gainesville, 2000), pp. 100-15.
44. On Elio Rodríguez's work, see Ariel Ribeaux, 'El Macho está ... cocinando', La Gaceta de Cuba ( January-February 2005), p. 69
45. Suset Sánchez, 'Nación e identidad como souvenir', Cuba Encuentro (1 December 2005)
46. Fernandes, Cuba Represent!, pp. 163-4.
47. On Peña's work, see Abelardo Mena Chicuri, Cuba Avant-Garde: Contemporary Cuban Art from the Farber Collection (Gainesville, 2007), pp. 144-7
48. Ribeaux, 'Ni músicos', p. 57
49. Juan Antonio Molina, 'Aquella sensación de comenzar la historia', Arte Cubano, no. 1 (1996), pp. 21-7.
50. See a discussion of Arenas's work in Fernandes, Cuba Represent!, p. 161. I thank Arenas for discussing his work with me.
51. I discuss the discourse of white generosity in A Nation for All : Race, Inequality, and Politics in Twentieth-Century Cuba (Chapel Hill, 2001), pp. 29-30.
52. On this discourse, see also Ada Ferrer, Insurgent Cuba: Race, Nation, and Revolution, 1868-1898 (Chapel Hill, 1999).
53. On Esquivel's work see Ribeaux, 'Ni músicos', p. 57
54. Eugene Robinson, 'Cuba Begins to Answer its Race Question', Washington Post (12 November 2000).
55. Esquivel's discussion of racial fears is also evident in his 'Autopsia', which recalls the racist massacre of 1912 and links it with current racist practices. For a discussion of this well-known piece, see Mena Chicuri, Cuba Avant-Garde, pp. 94-6.
56. On Esqiuvel's and other artists' interest on 1912, see also Ribeaux, 'Ni músicos', p. 53
57. Esquivel, 'Queloide', p. 19.
58. This work was part of the 2002 exhibit Comiendo Cuchillo at Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes.
59. See the exhibit's catalogue, Comiendo cuchillo: Exposición de Juan Roberto Diago (Havana, 2002)
60. see also Rafael Acosta de Arriba, 'Diago o el valor de las pequeñas historias', La Gaceta de Cuba (May-June 2003), pp. 26-7.
61. See for instance the works of Enrique Patterson, 'Cuba: Discursos sobre la identidad', Encuentro de la Cultura Cubana, no. 2 (Autumn 1996), pp. 49-67
62. and 'Racismo, totalitarismo y democracia', CubaEncuentro (9 November 2007), where he critiques Esteban Morales's 'El tema racial y la subversión anticubana', La Jiribilla, no. 331 (7-14 September 2007).
63. Pedro Pérez Sarduy, 'Y¿ qué tienen los negros en Cuba?', Encuentro de la Cultura Cubana, no. 2 (1996), pp. 39-48.
64. Pérez Sarduy has also edited two important compilations in collaboration with Jean Stubbs, Afrocuba: An Anthology (Melbourne, 1993) and Afro-Cuban Voices: On Race and Identity in Contemporary Cuba (Gainesville, 2000).
65. Quotes from the interview of Enrique Pérez Díaz, 'Teresa de Cárdenas: Escribo sobre los que no aparecen en los libros', La Gaceta de Cuba (July-August 2005), pp. 24-7.
66. The subjects mentioned here are evident in Cárdenas, Cartas al Cielo (Havana, 1998)
67. and in Tatanene Cimarrón (Havana, 2006).
68. Nancy Morejón, Poética de los altares (Havana, 2004).
69. Examples of this are his Diván: Poetas de lenguas africanas, 2 vols. (Havana, 1996)
70. and Diwán africano : Poetas de expresión portuguesa, 2 vols. (Havana, 2000).
71. Among these compilations it is interesting to highlight Odalys Bacallao López, ed. Cuentos y leyendas populares africanos (Havana, 2006), which targets young readers.
72. The production on Afro-Cuban religions is vast, and of uneven quality. Important works include Natalia Bolívar Aróstegui, Los orishas en Cuba (Havana, 1990)
73. Tomás Fernández Robaina, Hablen paleros y santeros (Havana, 1994)
74. Lázara Menéndez Vázquez, 'U¿n cake para Obatalá?', Temas, no. 4 (October-December 1995), pp. 38-51. Several classic works by Rómulo Lachatañeré and Lydia Cabrera have also been reissued.
75. Christine Ayorinde, Afro-Cuban Religiosity, Revolution, and National Identity (Gainesville, 2004), p. 191.
76. This is the case among Cuban-Americans as well, as documented by Michelle A. Gonzalez, Afro-Cuban Theology: Religion, Race, Culture, and Identity (Gainesville, 2006).
77. A study that uses 1912 as a platform to raise questions about contemporary race relations is Rafael Hernández, '1912. Notas sobre raza y desigualdad', Catauro: Revista cubana de antropología, vol. 4, no. 6 (2002), pp. 94-106.
78. Concerning historical studies, see Tomás Fernández Robaina, El negro en Cuba 1902-1958. Apuntes para la historia de la lucha contra la discriminación racial (La Habana, 1990)
79. Silvio Castro Fernández, La masacre de los Independientes de Color en 1912 (Havana, 2002).
80. The classic book of Serafín Portuondo Linares, Los Independientes de Color was republished in 2002 and a Spanish translation of Aline Helg's important study on the PIC was also published as Lo que nos corresponde: La lucha de los negros y mulatos por la igualdad en Cuba 1886-1912 (Havana, 2000).
81. Rolando's documentary is titled Raíces de mi corazón (Imágenes del Caribe 2001) and she is now working on a new documentary on the subject.
82. In June 2002, the Color Cubano project (see below) sponsored a colloquium on 1912 as well, titled 'La guerrita de 1912 y la conspiración del silencio'.
83. Some of the results produced by the Centro de Antropología include: Juan A. Alvarado Ramos, 'Estereotipos y prejuicios raciales: tres barrios habaneros' and Lourdes Serrano Peralta, 'Mujer, ocupación y color de la piel: Estructura y relaciones raciales en un barrio popular de la Haban', both in América Negra, no. 15 (December 1998), pp. 89-118, pp. 119-36
84. María M. Pérez Alvarez, 'Los prejuicios raciales: Sus mecanismos de reproducción', Temas, no. 7 (1996), pp. 44-50
85. Rodrigo Espina Prieto and Pablo Rodríguez Ruiz, 'Raza y desigualdad en la Cuba actual', Temas, no. 45 (January-March 2006), pp. 44-54.
86. On Color Cubano see Gisela Arandia, 'Somos o no somos', La Gaceta de Cuba (January-February 2005), p. 59
87. 'Cultura es, para nosotros, el rostro coherente, unitario de una sociedad', Granma (7 November 1998).
88. Among these are the Cofradía de la Negritud, described below, and the Movimiento de Integración Racial (MIR) 'Juan Gualberto Gómez'. On MIR, see Dimas Castellanos, 'La sociedad civil y el problema negro', CubaEncuentro (8 June 2001)
89. Balbina Almeida, 'Aniversario del Movimiento de Integración Racial', Cubanet (23 August 2007).
90. Cofradía de la Negritud, 'Propuesta de tareas y acciones dirigidas a obtener resultados progresivos y efectivos en la eliminación de las manifestaciones de discriminación racial existentes en la sociedad cubana, así como en la reducción de la desigualdad racial fortalecida en los últimos años', November 2007. Courtesy of Engineer Norberto Mesa Carbonell. I discuss the purposes of this organisation in A Nation for All, pp. 332-3.
91. Cofradía de la Negritud to Luis Barredo, 15 January 2007. Courtesy of Mesa Carbonell. The Cofradía is also trying to create a library named after PIC leader Evaristo Estenoz.
92. Roberto Zurbano, 'Vengo del mercado, del silencio', La Gaceta de Cuba (January-February 2005), p. 80.
93. Edward E. Telles, Race in Another America: The Significance of Skin Color in Brazil (Princeton, 2004), pp. 220-3.
94. This is one of the main and certainly the most disheartening conclusion of my A Nation for All, pp. 336-9.
95. On the Revolution's impact on race, see also Lourdes Casal, Revolution and Race: Blacks in Contemporary Cuba (Washington, DC, 1979)
96. Carlos Moore, Castro, the Blacks, and Africa (Los Angeles, 1988)
97. Mark Sawyer, Racial Politics in Post-Revolutionary Cuba (New York, 2006)
98. and Pedro Serviat, El problema negro en Cuba y su solución definitiva (Havana, 1986).
99. This section summarizes findings of my A Nation for All, pp. 259-85.
100. Silvia Pedraza, 'Cuba's Refugees: Manifold Migrations', in Silvia Pedraza and Rubén G. Rumbaut (eds.), Origins and Destinies: Immigration, Race, and Ethnicity in America (Belmont 1996), pp. 263-79
101. Benigno Aguirre, 'Differential Migration of Cuban Social Races: A Review and Interpretation of the Problem', Latin American Research Review vol. 11, no. 1, (1976), pp. 103-24.
102. Numerous testimonies refer to the process of growing up in families where racist jokes or racially-charged statements were part of daily life and where inter-marriage was condemned. For examples, see Duharte and Santos, El fantasma de la esclavitud, p. 95, pp. 97-103, p. 107, p. 109, p. 115.
103. On the conflicts surrounding inter-racial couples, see Nadine Fernandez, 'The Color of Love: Young Interracial Couples in Cuba', Latin American Perspectives, vol. 23, no. 1 (1996), pp. 99-117.
104. This rhetoric is superbly illustrated in the works of Serviat, El problema negro, and José Felipe Carneado, 'La discriminación racial en Cuba no volverá jamás', Cuba Socialista, vol. 2. no. 5 (1962), pp. 54-67.
105. I study the evolution of this discourse in 'La "raza" y los silencios de la cubanidad', Encuentro de la Cultura Cubana, no. 20 (Spring 2001), pp. 107-18.
106. A survey conducted in the island among 334 households in 2000 found that only 31.5 per cent of the highest income earners were university graduates. Not surprisingly, 85 per cent of respondents characterised as 'false' the proposition that 'it is possible to have a good standard of living working as a professional'. See Sarah A. Blue, 'The Erosion of Racial Equality in Post-Soviet Cuba', Latin American Politics and Society, vol. 49, no. 3. (2007), p. 55.
107. See Leonardo Calvo Cárdenas, 'La Habana: Tener FE', CubaEncuentro (17 February 2004).
108. Blue, 'The Erosion', p. 58
109. Espina and Rodríguez, 'Raza y desigualdad', pp. 47-8.
110. Andrea Rodríguez, 'En Cuba, la población negra es la menos favorecida', El Nuevo Herald (3 December 2002)
111. Espina and Rodríguez, 'Raza y desigualdad', pp. 47-9
112. Blue, 'The Erosion', pp. 46-9.
113. Sawyer, Racial Politics, p. 109.
114. Similar testimonies can be found in Duharte and Santos, El fantasma de la esclavitud, p. 124, p. 127
115. de la Fuente and Glasco, 'Are Blacks Getting out of Control?', p. 65.
116. Duharte and Santos, El fantasma de la esclavitud, p. 126.
117. Alvarado Ramos, 'Estereotipos y prejuicios raciales', 100-1.
118. Another study conducted between 1996 and 2002 also found that blacks are usually described with pejorative comments; Espina and Rodríguez, 'Raza y desigualdad', p. 51.
119. Duharte and Santos, El fantasma de la esclavitud, p. 127, p. 129
120. 'Denuncia una mujer que la echaron de su empleo por ser negra', Cubanet (1 December 2000).
121. de la Fuente and Glasco, 'Are Blacks Getting out of Control?', pp. 62-5.
122. There is also overwhelming anecdotal evidence that there is public awareness about this problem, particularly among blacks. For examples, see Pérez Sarduy, 'Y¿ qué tienen los negros en Cuba?', p. 43
123. Adolfo Fernández Saínz, 'Han progresado los negros de Cuba?', Encuentro en la Red (10 May 2002)
124. Luis Cino, 'D¿ónde están los negros?', Cubanet (23 November 2005)
125. Serrano Peralta, 'Mujer', p. 130.
126. For examples see Duharte and Santos, El fantasma de la esclavitud, p. 99, pp. 118-9.
127. Police targeting of black youths is reported by numerous witnesses and observers. See Robinson, 'Cuba Begins to Answer its Race Question'; Cino, 'D¿ónde están los negros?'; Manuel Vázquez Portal, 'In Cuba: It's a Crime to be Black', Miami Herald (1 December 1998)
128. Dakarai Aarrons, 'Writer Saw Racial Profiling - Firsthand', Miami Herald (21 September 2003)
129. Fernández Saínz, 'Han progresado?'; Sawyer, Racial Politics, pp. 118-20
130. Espina and Rodríguez, 'Raza y desigualdad', p. 50.
131. 'Discurso pronunciado por Fidel Castro Ruiz en la clausura del Congreso Pedagogía 97', 7 February 1997, available at http://www.cuba.cu/ gobierno/discursos/1997/esp/f070297e.htm.
132. Criterios devoted the entire issue no. 34 (2003) to translations of theoretical articles dealing with race and racism (I am grateful to Desiderio Navarro for bringing this to my attention). Caminos: Revista Cubana de Pensamiento Socioteológico also devoted an entire issue to 'race and racism', but all the articles deal with historical problems. El Caimán Barbudo included several articles on race topics in its issue 288 (September-October 1998).
133. See also Esteban Morales Domínguez, 'Un modelo para el análisis de la problemática racial cubana contemporánea', Catauro: Revista cubana de antropología, vol. 4. no. 6. (2002), pp. 52-93
134. Pedro Juan Gutiérrez, 'Razas diferentes pero iguales', Bohemia, vol. 89. no. 2. ( January 17, 1997), pp. 4-9
135. Deisy Francis Mexidor, 'Blanco y negro, sí', Juventud Rebelde (April 30, 1999).
136. It should be noted that some of the artists mentioned above were following these publications closely. See Esquivel, 'Queloide', p. 21
137. Ribeaux, 'Ni músicos', p. 59.
138. Silvio Castro Fernández, 'La masacre de los Independientes de Color', Granma (May 20, 2007),
139. which was followed by Pedro Antonio García, 'Cuba 1912: La masacre racista Bohemia (July 2, 2007).
140. On the commission see Aida Calviac Mora, 'Hacia el centenario de los Independientes de Color', Granma (December 28, 2007).
141. Several surveys suggest that most Cubans now acknowledge that there is racism in the island. See Espina and Rodríguez, 'Raza y desigualdad', pp. 49-50
142. Sawyer, Racial Politics, p. 144; de la Fuente and Glasco, 'Ar Blacks Getting out of Control?'.
143. Fidel Castro made reference to lingering racial differences in a meeting with a delegation of the US-based organization Trans-Africa Forum in January 1999 and in several speeches afterwards. See TransAfrica Forum, 'Forty Years of Hostility: Consequences of the United States Economic Embargo on Cuba', available at www.transafricaforum.org/reports/ afrocuba∥int.pdf. He made additional references to this problem in speeches at the Pedagogy Congresses of 1999 and 2003, as well as in the speech at the Riverside Church on 8 September 2000.
144. The quote is from Ignacio Ramonet, Cien horas con Fidel (Havana, 2006), p. 261.
145. On issues of representation, see 'El primer requisito de un cuadro es su firmeza revolucionaria', Granma (April 23, 1999) and Ramonet, Cien horas, pp. 264-5.
146. On the 2008 elections, see Maria Julia Mayoral, 'Nuestro pueblo jamás entregará la Revolución y el Socialismo', Granma (26 January 2008) and 'Los negros y mestizos conforman el 35 por ciento del Parlamento', El Nuevo Herald (January 27, 2008).
147. Las Krudas, 'A Mike Minongo'; Pérez Díaz, 'Teresa de Cárdenas', p. 27
148. Elvira Cervera, 'Todo en Sepia: An All Black Theater Project', in Pedro Pérez Sarduy and Jean Stubbs (eds.), Afro-Cuban Voices, pp. 97-107
149. Esquivel, 'Queloide', pp. 19-21.
150. In the Queloides dossier there is only one small press note, 'Diez y palante', Juventud Rebelde (11 September 1999), acknowledging the exhibit. I am thankful to art critic and curator Caridad Blanco for calling my attention to the lack of press coverage concerning Queloides II.
151. Interview with Elio Rodríguez Valdés, Pittsburgh, 29 September 2007.
152. For examples, see Carmen González Chacón, 'II simposio por dentro', Movimiento 5 (2007), p. 29.
153. For examples of this interpretation see Howard Winant, Racial Conditions: Politics, Theory, Comparisons (Minneapolis, 1994). For Cuba, see Kutzinski, Sugar's Secrets.