Cuban Identity

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During the twentieth Century, Cuba faced a whirlwind of political change and unprecedented social mobilization, particularly during revolutionary periods between 1895 and 1959. Two revolutions, the 1895 Cuban War of Independence and the Communist Cuban Revolution, shifted the political landscape of the island and seemingly diminished racial boundaries. In Ada Ferrer’s Insurgent Cuba (1999) and Alejandro de la Fuente’s A Nation for All (2011), Cuban racial politics were exposed with indications of continued racial divides. Therefore, the question became, “To what extent, if any, did awareness of a multi-colored Cuba emerge, and did the national identity of each period include Cubans of color?” In each period, revolutionary leaders portrayed …show more content…
Murmurings of revolution began on the eastern portion of the island when a slaveholder emancipated his slaves and invited them to become revolutionaries. Soon, a varied liberation army, composed of planters, current and former slaves, and other Cubans, emerged to combat a looming Spanish Empire. The insurrection seemingly unified all classes and races of Cubans with the goal of creating a “raceless” nation. Ferrer explored the contributions of black Cubans to the advancement of revolutionary philosophy, even as defeat prompted demotion among them. As the revolution progressed, US imperialism spread to the island; in turn, American forces intervened in the struggles for independence. US interference prompted racist actions within the liberation army, but Ferrer proposed that Cuban racism remained concealed throughout the revolution. In the epilogue, she wrote, “Over the course of the thirty years that constituted the revolutionary movement, there were enough instances of racism, division, and reactions to show that any subsequent reneging on the promise of antiracism was more than the result of American intervention” (Ferrer 198). Therefore, the struggle for independence did not unite the races but rather exposed the underlying racism in Cuban …show more content…
After overthrowing the Batista regime, the revolutionaries installed a Communist government, spearheaded by Fidel Castro. Castro echoed cries of the former republic, calling for a nation, built in equality. “Race and racism did not become issues only when Castro spoke about them. Rather, these issues were brought to public attention by various social and political actors who perceived the revolution as an unprecedented opportunity to redress previous inequalities” (de la Fuente 261). Although this revolution provided a new lens to tackle racial issues in Cuba, the people’s version of cubanidad remained equivocally consistent. For example, Afro-Cubans were barred from entering certain country clubs and beaches (De la Fuente 268). Therefore, the artificial language of the second revolution, the most impactful, masked racial tensions in a similar fashion to former
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