In The Power of Race in Cuba, Danielle Pilar Clealand analyzes racial ideologies that negate the existence of racism and their effect on racial progress and activism through the lens of Cuba. Since 1959, Fidel Castro and the Cuban government have married socialism and the ideal of racial harmony to create a formidable ideology that is an integral part of Cubans' sense of identity and their perceptions of race and racism in their country. While the combination of socialism and a colorblind racial ideology is particular to Cuba, strategies that paint a picture of equality of opportunity and deflect the importance of race are not particular to the island's ideology and can be found throughout the world, and in the Americas, in particular. By promoting an anti-discrimination ethos, diminishing class differences at the onset of the revolution, and declaring the end of racism, Castro was able to unite belief in the revolution to belief in the erasure of racism. The ideology is bolstered by rhetoric that discourages racial affirmation. The second part of the book examines public opinion on race in Cuba, particularly among black Cubans. It examines how black Cubans have indeed embraced the dominant nationalist ideology that eschews racial affirmation, but also continue to create spaces for black consciousness that challenge this ideology. The Power of Race in Cuba gives a nuanced portrait of black identity in Cuba and through survey data, interviews with formal organizers, hip hop artists, draws from the many black spaces, both formal and informal to highlight what black consciousness looks like in Cuba.

As a young militant in the 26th of July Movement, Esteban Morales Domínguez participated in the overthrow of the Batista regime and the triumph of the Cuban Revolution. The revolutionaries, he understood, sought to establish a more just and egalitarian society. But Morales Dominguez, an Afro-Cuban, knew that the complicated question of race could not be ignored, or simply willed away in a post-revolutionary context. Today, he is one of Cuba’s most prominent Afro-Cuban intellectuals and its leading authority on the race question. Available for the first time in English, the essays collected here describe the problem of racial inequality in Cuba, provide evidence of its existence, constructively criticize efforts by the Cuban political leadership to end discrimination, and point to a possible way forward. Morales Dominguez surveys the major advancements in race relations that occurred as a result of the revolution, but does not ignore continuing signs of inequality and discrimination. Instead, he argues that the revolution must be an ongoing process and that to truly transform society it must continue to confront the question of race in Cuba.

Entangled Terrains: Empire, Identity, and Memories of Guantánamo explores the challenges and conflicts of life in the transnational spaces between Cuba and the United States by examining the lived experiences of Alberto Jones, a first-generation black Cuban who worked at the U.S. naval base at Guantánamo Bay. Asa McKercher and Catherine Krull take readers on a journey through Jones’s life as he crossed the entangled political, racial, cultural, and economic boundaries, both in Cuba and living as a black Cuban in central Florida. McKercher and Krull argue that Jones’s story encapsulates the reality of recent Caribbean and Cuban experiences as they deconstruct the events of his life to reveal the broader cultural and social implications of identity, boundaries, and belonging throughout Caribbean and Cuban history.

This book analyzes the triumphs and failures of the Castro regime in the area of race relations. It places the Cuban revolution in a comparative and international framework and challenges arguments that the regime eliminated racial inequality or that it was profoundly racist. Through interviews, historical materials, and survey research, it provides a balanced view. The book maintains that Cuba has not been a racial democracy as some have argued. However, it also argues that Cuba has done more than any other society to eliminate racial inequality. The contemporary outlook of the book demonstrates how much of Cuban racial ideology was unchanged by the revolution. Thus, the current implementation of market reforms and in particular tourism has exacerbated racial inequalities. Finally, it holds that despite these shortcomings, the regime remains popular among blacks because they perceive their alternatives of the US and the Miami Exile community to be far worse.

This prize-winning study examines the historical interplay of racial identity, nationality, and family formation in Cuba from the 18th century to today. Since the 19th century, there have been two opposing perspectives on Cuban racial identity: one that frames Cubans as white, and one that sees them as racially mixed based on acceptance of African descent. For the past two centuries, these competing views of have remained in continuous tension, while Cuban women and men make their own racially oriented decisions about choosing partners and family formation. Cuba’s Racial Crucible explores the historical dynamics of Cuban race relations by highlighting the role race has played in reproductive practices and genealogical memories associated with family formation. Karen Y. Morrison reads archival, oral-history, and literary sources to demonstrate the ideological centrality and inseparability of "race," "nation," and "family," in definitions of Cuban identity. Morrison also analyzes the conditions that supported the social advance and decline of notions of white racial superiority, nationalist projections of racial hybridity, and pride in African descent. Winner, NECLAS Marissa Navarro Best Book Prize

Latin America has a rich and complex social history marked by slavery, colonialism, dictatorships, rebellions, social movements and revolutions. Comparative Racial Politics in Latin America explores the dynamic interplay between racial politics and hegemonic power in the region. It investigates the fluid intersection of social power and racial politics and their impact on the region’s histories, politics, identities and cultures. Organized thematically with in-depth country case studies and a historical overview of Afro-Latin politics, the volume provides a range of perspectives on Black politics and cutting-edge analyses of Afro-descendant peoples in the region. Regional coverage includes Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Haiti and more. Topics discussed include Afro-Civil Society; antidiscrimination criminal law; legal sanctions; racial identity; racial inequality and labor markets; recent Black electoral participation; Black feminism thought and praxis; comparative Afro-women social movements; the intersection of gender, race and class, immigration and migration; and citizenship and the struggle for human rights. Recognized experts in different disciplinary fields address the depth and complexity of these issues. Comparative Racial Politics in Latin America contributes to and builds on the study of Black politics in Latin America.

DIVEthnographic study of life and ritual in an African American Yorùbá revivalist community in South Carolina and its complex relation to Nigerian Yorùbá identity./div

"On July 4th, 1876, during the centennial celebration of U.S. independence, the city of Key West held a different type of celebration. In some areas in post-Civil War Florida, Black residents were hindered from 4th of July festivities, which would lead to reflecting on the events of the Civil War. However, Key West's celebration, led by a Cuban revolutionary mayor working in concert with a city council composed of Afro-Bahamians, Cubans, African Americans, and Anglos, marked the centennial in the halls of an institution that boasted an interracial school and proudly hung a Cuban flag outside its building. Deep into the Radical Reconstruction era, this represented one of the most profound exercises in interracial democracy. Gomez explores how race shaped the first Cuban-American communities in South Florida, specifically in Key West and Tampa, which were the locations of the first groups of Cuban Americans, with race being a central factor of unity and division during Radical Reconstruction, the Cuban independence movement, Jim Crow, and Cuba's 1912 Race War. While looking at factors such as ethnicity, gender, labor and foreign policy, Gomez makes the argument that Cuban-American interracial unity in the nineteenth century disintegrated due to the racism held by white Cuban-Americans, which then led Black Cubans to organize with Florida's multiethnic Black communities"--

What does the Cuban Revolution look like “from within?" This volume proposes that scholars and observers of Cuba have too long looked elsewhere—from the United States to the Soviet Union—to write the island's post-1959 history. Drawing on previously unexamined archives, the contributors explore the dynamics of sociopolitical inclusion and exclusion during the Revolution's first two decades. They foreground the experiences of Cubans of all walks of life, from ordinary citizens and bureaucrats to artists and political leaders, in their interactions with and contributions to the emerging revolutionary state. In essays on agrarian reform, the environment, dance, fashion, and more, contributors enrich our understanding of the period beginning with the utopic mobilizations of the early 1960s and ending with the 1980 Mariel boatlift. In so doing, they offer new perspectives on the Revolution that are fundamentally driven by developments on the island. Bringing together new historical research with comparative and methodological reflections on the challenges of writing about the Revolution, The Revolution from Within highlights the political stakes attached to Cuban history after 1959. Contributors. Michael J. Bustamante, María A. Cabrera Arús, María del Pilar Díaz Castañón, Ada Ferrer, Alejandro de la Fuente, Reinaldo Funes Monzote, Lillian Guerra, Jennifer L. Lambe, Jorge Macle Cruz, Christabelle Peters, Rafael Rojas, Elizabeth Schwall, Abel Sierra Madero

In Cuba, internationally renowned artists, philosophers, and writers reflect on the idea of a nation displaced. Featuring contributions from Isabel Alvarez Borland, Antonio Benítez-Rojo, María Cristina García, William Navarrete, Eliana Rivero, Rafael Rojas, and Carlos Victoria, as well as many others, Cuba is a rich collection of essays, testimonials, and interviews that reveal the complex, often antagonistic cultural and political debates coexisting within the Cuban exile population. As a multivoiced text, Cuba formulates a deeper understanding of diasporic identity, and broadens the discussion of the manner in which Cuban cultural identity and nationhood have been constructed, negotiated, and transformed by physical and cultural displacement.