Soraya M. Castro Marino and John S. Reitan (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780813040233
- eISBN:
- 9780813043852
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813040233.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Latin American Studies
In the years since the Cuban Revolution, eleven men have served as president of the United States, arguably the most powerful nation on earth. Yet none of them has been able to effect any significant ...
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In the years since the Cuban Revolution, eleven men have served as president of the United States, arguably the most powerful nation on earth. Yet none of them has been able to effect any significant change in the stalemate between the United States and Cuba, its closest neighbor not to share a land border. Fifty Years of Revolution features contributions from an international group of leading scholars. This unique volume adopts a nonpartisan attitude, a departure from this topic's generally divisive nature. Emerging from a series of meetings, conference panels, and lectures, this book coheres more strongly than the typical essay collection. Organized to analyze—not describe—Cuba's foreign relations, the work examines sanctions, the embargo, regime change, Guantánamo, the exile community, and more. Drawing from personal experiences as well as recently declassified documents, the authors of these essays update, summarize, and explain one of the prickliest ongoing political issues in the Western Hemisphere today.Less
In the years since the Cuban Revolution, eleven men have served as president of the United States, arguably the most powerful nation on earth. Yet none of them has been able to effect any significant change in the stalemate between the United States and Cuba, its closest neighbor not to share a land border. Fifty Years of Revolution features contributions from an international group of leading scholars. This unique volume adopts a nonpartisan attitude, a departure from this topic's generally divisive nature. Emerging from a series of meetings, conference panels, and lectures, this book coheres more strongly than the typical essay collection. Organized to analyze—not describe—Cuba's foreign relations, the work examines sanctions, the embargo, regime change, Guantánamo, the exile community, and more. Drawing from personal experiences as well as recently declassified documents, the authors of these essays update, summarize, and explain one of the prickliest ongoing political issues in the Western Hemisphere today.
Emily A. Maguire
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780813037479
- eISBN:
- 9780813042329
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813037479.003.0006
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Latin American Studies
The overthrow of Cuban president and dictator Fulgencio Batista in January of 1959, and the triumph of the 26 of July Movement and its charismatic leader Fidel Castro initiated a radical ...
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The overthrow of Cuban president and dictator Fulgencio Batista in January of 1959, and the triumph of the 26 of July Movement and its charismatic leader Fidel Castro initiated a radical restructuring of many aspects of Cuban society. In the space of two years, both the makeup of the Cuban body politic and the idea of what Cuba underwent when it went through an abrupt, dramatic transformation. Even as the possibility of a single coherent national project became all the more vexed, ethnographic literature was a part of this dramatic transformation of the Cuban imaginary. With the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959, the island—and its writers—entered a new moment of national re-definition. This epilogue traces the shifts in the relationship between the ethnographic and the literary and the discourse surrounding blackness in Cuba in the wake of the Revolution. The leaders of the Revolution declared that it had eradicated racism; to talk about racial difference was to focus unnecessarily on divisions of the past. As this revolutionary rhetoric closed the space for discussing race, the space for discursive encounter also changed. Among writers on the island, encounters between ethnography and literature, while still innovative, moved in ways that bolstered the larger narrative of the Cuban Revolution. In an effort to contest the Revolutionary cooptation of earlier texts, Cabrera, in exile in Miami, returned to a more conservative—and more nostalgic—form of ethnographic narration.Less
The overthrow of Cuban president and dictator Fulgencio Batista in January of 1959, and the triumph of the 26 of July Movement and its charismatic leader Fidel Castro initiated a radical restructuring of many aspects of Cuban society. In the space of two years, both the makeup of the Cuban body politic and the idea of what Cuba underwent when it went through an abrupt, dramatic transformation. Even as the possibility of a single coherent national project became all the more vexed, ethnographic literature was a part of this dramatic transformation of the Cuban imaginary. With the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959, the island—and its writers—entered a new moment of national re-definition. This epilogue traces the shifts in the relationship between the ethnographic and the literary and the discourse surrounding blackness in Cuba in the wake of the Revolution. The leaders of the Revolution declared that it had eradicated racism; to talk about racial difference was to focus unnecessarily on divisions of the past. As this revolutionary rhetoric closed the space for discussing race, the space for discursive encounter also changed. Among writers on the island, encounters between ethnography and literature, while still innovative, moved in ways that bolstered the larger narrative of the Cuban Revolution. In an effort to contest the Revolutionary cooptation of earlier texts, Cabrera, in exile in Miami, returned to a more conservative—and more nostalgic—form of ethnographic narration.
Andrea J. Queeley
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780813061092
- eISBN:
- 9780813051376
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813061092.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Latin American Studies
During Cuba’s Special Period, the children and grandchildren of early twentieth-century British West Indian immigrants spearheaded the revitalization of Anglo-Caribbean Cuban institutions and ...
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During Cuba’s Special Period, the children and grandchildren of early twentieth-century British West Indian immigrants spearheaded the revitalization of Anglo-Caribbean Cuban institutions and community. By turning an ethnographic lens on those black Cubans in Santiago and Guantánamo who were moved to “rescue their roots” nearly seventy years after the bulk of immigrants arrived in Cuba, this book provides insight into racial politics in revolutionary Cuba and, more importantly, into local and regional identity formations that can emerge from intra-Caribbean migration. Andrea Queeley argues that, in addition to seeking out transnational connections in the hope of getting material support through difficult times, Anglo-Caribbean Cubans drew upon a narrative of respectable Blackness in order to challenge the associations of Blackness, inferiority, and immorality that were compounded by racialized inequality resulting from economic reform. Engaging scholarship on diaspora and subject formation, Queeley’s examination of a diaspora within a diaspora provides a window onto strategies and modes of Black belonging that shift across time, space, and place.Less
During Cuba’s Special Period, the children and grandchildren of early twentieth-century British West Indian immigrants spearheaded the revitalization of Anglo-Caribbean Cuban institutions and community. By turning an ethnographic lens on those black Cubans in Santiago and Guantánamo who were moved to “rescue their roots” nearly seventy years after the bulk of immigrants arrived in Cuba, this book provides insight into racial politics in revolutionary Cuba and, more importantly, into local and regional identity formations that can emerge from intra-Caribbean migration. Andrea Queeley argues that, in addition to seeking out transnational connections in the hope of getting material support through difficult times, Anglo-Caribbean Cubans drew upon a narrative of respectable Blackness in order to challenge the associations of Blackness, inferiority, and immorality that were compounded by racialized inequality resulting from economic reform. Engaging scholarship on diaspora and subject formation, Queeley’s examination of a diaspora within a diaspora provides a window onto strategies and modes of Black belonging that shift across time, space, and place.
William M. LeoGrande and Peter Kornbluh
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781469626604
- eISBN:
- 9781469626628
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469626604.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, Latin American History
This chapter charts the state of U.S.-Cuban relations during the Reagan and Bush administrations. Ronald Reagan entered the Oval Office in 1981 considering whether to invade Cuba, but by the time he ...
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This chapter charts the state of U.S.-Cuban relations during the Reagan and Bush administrations. Ronald Reagan entered the Oval Office in 1981 considering whether to invade Cuba, but by the time he left eight years later, his administration had negotiated major agreements on migration and southern Africa. The strange odyssey of Reagan’s Cuba policy resulted not from a change of heart but from the recognition that the United States and Cuba had mutual interests that could only be advanced by cooperation—even in the midst of ongoing hostility. By the time Reagan’s successor, George H. W. Bush took office, however, the crisis of European communism had changed the international landscape dramatically. The collapse of the Soviet Union left Cuba vulnerable, reviving dreams in Washington that had lain dormant since the 1960s—dreams of rolling back the Cuban revolution.Less
This chapter charts the state of U.S.-Cuban relations during the Reagan and Bush administrations. Ronald Reagan entered the Oval Office in 1981 considering whether to invade Cuba, but by the time he left eight years later, his administration had negotiated major agreements on migration and southern Africa. The strange odyssey of Reagan’s Cuba policy resulted not from a change of heart but from the recognition that the United States and Cuba had mutual interests that could only be advanced by cooperation—even in the midst of ongoing hostility. By the time Reagan’s successor, George H. W. Bush took office, however, the crisis of European communism had changed the international landscape dramatically. The collapse of the Soviet Union left Cuba vulnerable, reviving dreams in Washington that had lain dormant since the 1960s—dreams of rolling back the Cuban revolution.
Michelle Chase
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781469625003
- eISBN:
- 9781469625027
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469625003.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, Latin American History
The book begins by challenging the “official” history of women within the revolution, which casts women as passive beneficiaries of a top-down liberation led by an enlightened leadership. The book ...
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The book begins by challenging the “official” history of women within the revolution, which casts women as passive beneficiaries of a top-down liberation led by an enlightened leadership. The book argues instead that women themselves—especially women on the political left—first raised the “woman question” in 1959. Using oral histories, clandestine periodicals, and U.S. State Department documents, the book recovers forgotten episodes of women’s activism in the insurrection against Fulgencio Batista and in the tumultuous first few years of the revolution in power. It uses women’s participation to rethink standard assumptions about the Cuban Revolution, shedding new light on the urban anti-Batista resistance movement, popular participation in the revolutionary moment, and the gendered effects of revolutionary transformations.Less
The book begins by challenging the “official” history of women within the revolution, which casts women as passive beneficiaries of a top-down liberation led by an enlightened leadership. The book argues instead that women themselves—especially women on the political left—first raised the “woman question” in 1959. Using oral histories, clandestine periodicals, and U.S. State Department documents, the book recovers forgotten episodes of women’s activism in the insurrection against Fulgencio Batista and in the tumultuous first few years of the revolution in power. It uses women’s participation to rethink standard assumptions about the Cuban Revolution, shedding new light on the urban anti-Batista resistance movement, popular participation in the revolutionary moment, and the gendered effects of revolutionary transformations.
Robin Moore
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520247109
- eISBN:
- 9780520939462
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520247109.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Ethnomusicology, World Music
This book provides an introduction to the most prominent artists and musical styles that have emerged in Cuba since 1959 and to the policies that have shaped artistic life. The author gives readers a ...
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This book provides an introduction to the most prominent artists and musical styles that have emerged in Cuba since 1959 and to the policies that have shaped artistic life. The author gives readers a chronological overview of the first decades after the Cuban Revolution, documenting the many ways performance has changed and emphasizing the close links between political and cultural activity. Offering a wealth of details about music and the milieu that engendered it, he traces the development of dance styles, nueva trova, folkloric drumming, religious traditions, and other forms. The author describes how the fall of the Soviet Union has affected Cuba in material, ideological, and musical terms, and considers the effect of tense international relations on culture. Most importantly, the book chronicles how the arts have become a point of negotiation between individuals, with their unique backgrounds and interests, and official organizations. It uses music to explore how Cubans have responded to the priorities of the revolution and have created spaces for their individual concerns.Less
This book provides an introduction to the most prominent artists and musical styles that have emerged in Cuba since 1959 and to the policies that have shaped artistic life. The author gives readers a chronological overview of the first decades after the Cuban Revolution, documenting the many ways performance has changed and emphasizing the close links between political and cultural activity. Offering a wealth of details about music and the milieu that engendered it, he traces the development of dance styles, nueva trova, folkloric drumming, religious traditions, and other forms. The author describes how the fall of the Soviet Union has affected Cuba in material, ideological, and musical terms, and considers the effect of tense international relations on culture. Most importantly, the book chronicles how the arts have become a point of negotiation between individuals, with their unique backgrounds and interests, and official organizations. It uses music to explore how Cubans have responded to the priorities of the revolution and have created spaces for their individual concerns.
Lillian Guerra
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- July 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780807835630
- eISBN:
- 9781469601519
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/9780807837368_guerra.5
- Subject:
- History, Latin American History
This book examines the Cuban Revolution, excavating the grand narrative of the Revolution in displays of unprecedented support for Fidel Castro and the vision of power he represented. It also ...
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This book examines the Cuban Revolution, excavating the grand narrative of the Revolution in displays of unprecedented support for Fidel Castro and the vision of power he represented. It also describes decades of unchanging U.S. policies of isolation and economic subversion, as well as a general U.S. amnesia regarding Cuba's pre-1959 past.Less
This book examines the Cuban Revolution, excavating the grand narrative of the Revolution in displays of unprecedented support for Fidel Castro and the vision of power he represented. It also describes decades of unchanging U.S. policies of isolation and economic subversion, as well as a general U.S. amnesia regarding Cuba's pre-1959 past.
Christina D. Abreu
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781469620848
- eISBN:
- 9781469620862
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469620848.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, Latin American History
This chapter turns to Miami and discusses the role of Cubans and Cuban popular culture in the city. It examines the social clubs Círculo Cubano and Juventud Cubana, and the nightclubs Tropicana and ...
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This chapter turns to Miami and discusses the role of Cubans and Cuban popular culture in the city. It examines the social clubs Círculo Cubano and Juventud Cubana, and the nightclubs Tropicana and Barra Guys and Dolls, whose events and activities illustrate the early emergence of “Cuban Miami” in the context of the ideology and racialized practices of Pan-Americanism, and against the backdrop of the Cuban Revolution. Through the Spanish-language press, the Cuban groups in the city also demonstrated an early instance of pan-Lantino/a unity in the struggle for social justice. During their stay in Miami, many black Cuban artists found themselves in a Jim Crow city that was protective of its black-white model of racial classification but inconsistent in its treatment and categorization of Cubans and Latino/as of color.Less
This chapter turns to Miami and discusses the role of Cubans and Cuban popular culture in the city. It examines the social clubs Círculo Cubano and Juventud Cubana, and the nightclubs Tropicana and Barra Guys and Dolls, whose events and activities illustrate the early emergence of “Cuban Miami” in the context of the ideology and racialized practices of Pan-Americanism, and against the backdrop of the Cuban Revolution. Through the Spanish-language press, the Cuban groups in the city also demonstrated an early instance of pan-Lantino/a unity in the struggle for social justice. During their stay in Miami, many black Cuban artists found themselves in a Jim Crow city that was protective of its black-white model of racial classification but inconsistent in its treatment and categorization of Cubans and Latino/as of color.
Cindy Hahamovitch
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691102689
- eISBN:
- 9781400840021
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691102689.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This chapter explores the reasons for the mass strikes among the guestworkers laboring in Florida's cane fields during the 1960s. It argues that these strikes were caused by a confluence of two ...
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This chapter explores the reasons for the mass strikes among the guestworkers laboring in Florida's cane fields during the 1960s. It argues that these strikes were caused by a confluence of two seemingly unrelated events: the Cuban Revolution and Lyndon B. Johnson's War on Poverty. Like the collision of two weather systems, these transformations—a revolution and a reform program—brought unintended but devastating changes to working conditions in Florida's fields. What had been a hard but coveted opportunity for poor black men from the Caribbean became, as Johnson's Secretary of Labor Willard Wirtz put it only somewhat hyperbolically, “the worst job in the world.”Less
This chapter explores the reasons for the mass strikes among the guestworkers laboring in Florida's cane fields during the 1960s. It argues that these strikes were caused by a confluence of two seemingly unrelated events: the Cuban Revolution and Lyndon B. Johnson's War on Poverty. Like the collision of two weather systems, these transformations—a revolution and a reform program—brought unintended but devastating changes to working conditions in Florida's fields. What had been a hard but coveted opportunity for poor black men from the Caribbean became, as Johnson's Secretary of Labor Willard Wirtz put it only somewhat hyperbolically, “the worst job in the world.”
Teishan A. Latner
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781469635460
- eISBN:
- 9781469635484
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469635460.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
Beginning with Stokely Carmichael’s appearance at the Organization of Latin American Solidarity conference in Havana in 1967, the Introduction traces the relationship between the Cuban Revolution and ...
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Beginning with Stokely Carmichael’s appearance at the Organization of Latin American Solidarity conference in Havana in 1967, the Introduction traces the relationship between the Cuban Revolution and the multi-ethnic American Left, and the impact of this engagement upon U.S.-Cuba relations within the context of the Cold War, decolonization, and Third World nationalism. Focusing on the 1960s era, when America was engulfed in the social upheaval of Civil Rights and the Vietnam War, and concluding in the early 1990s, the Introduction argues that Cuba became the primary Third World influence on the U.S. Left for more than three decades. The Introduction briefly presents the book’s primary case studies, which include the formation of the Venceremos Brigade, the FBI’s surveillance of pro-Cuba activists, the airplane hijacking surge of 1968-1973, Cuban American leftwing activism, and Cuba’s provision of political asylum to U.S. activists.Less
Beginning with Stokely Carmichael’s appearance at the Organization of Latin American Solidarity conference in Havana in 1967, the Introduction traces the relationship between the Cuban Revolution and the multi-ethnic American Left, and the impact of this engagement upon U.S.-Cuba relations within the context of the Cold War, decolonization, and Third World nationalism. Focusing on the 1960s era, when America was engulfed in the social upheaval of Civil Rights and the Vietnam War, and concluding in the early 1990s, the Introduction argues that Cuba became the primary Third World influence on the U.S. Left for more than three decades. The Introduction briefly presents the book’s primary case studies, which include the formation of the Venceremos Brigade, the FBI’s surveillance of pro-Cuba activists, the airplane hijacking surge of 1968-1973, Cuban American leftwing activism, and Cuba’s provision of political asylum to U.S. activists.
Jana Lipman
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520255395
- eISBN:
- 9780520942370
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520255395.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
Guantánamo has become a symbol of what has gone wrong in the War on Terror. Yet Guantánamo is more than a U.S. naval base and prison in Cuba, it is a town, and our military occupation there has ...
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Guantánamo has become a symbol of what has gone wrong in the War on Terror. Yet Guantánamo is more than a U.S. naval base and prison in Cuba, it is a town, and our military occupation there has required more than soldiers and sailors—it has required workers. This revealing history of the women and men who worked on the U.S. naval base in Guantánamo Bay tells the story of U.S.-Cuban relations from a new perspective, and at the same time, shows how neocolonialism, empire, and revolution transformed the lives of everyday people. Drawing from rich oral histories and little-explored Cuban archives, the author analyzes how the Cold War and the Cuban revolution made the naval base a place devoid of law and accountability. The result is a narrative filled with danger, intrigue, and exploitation throughout the twentieth century. Opening a new window onto the history of U.S. imperialism in the Caribbean and labor history in the region, the book tells how events in Guantánamo and the base created an ominous precedent likely to inform the functioning of U.S. military bases around the world.Less
Guantánamo has become a symbol of what has gone wrong in the War on Terror. Yet Guantánamo is more than a U.S. naval base and prison in Cuba, it is a town, and our military occupation there has required more than soldiers and sailors—it has required workers. This revealing history of the women and men who worked on the U.S. naval base in Guantánamo Bay tells the story of U.S.-Cuban relations from a new perspective, and at the same time, shows how neocolonialism, empire, and revolution transformed the lives of everyday people. Drawing from rich oral histories and little-explored Cuban archives, the author analyzes how the Cold War and the Cuban revolution made the naval base a place devoid of law and accountability. The result is a narrative filled with danger, intrigue, and exploitation throughout the twentieth century. Opening a new window onto the history of U.S. imperialism in the Caribbean and labor history in the region, the book tells how events in Guantánamo and the base created an ominous precedent likely to inform the functioning of U.S. military bases around the world.
William M. LeoGrande and Peter Kornbluh
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- January 2015
- ISBN:
- 9781469617633
- eISBN:
- 9781469617657
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469617633.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Latin American History
In a challenge to visions of perpetual hostility—beyond plots involving overt invasion, covert destabilization, psychological operations, trade embargos, poison cigars, exploding seashells, and a ...
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In a challenge to visions of perpetual hostility—beyond plots involving overt invasion, covert destabilization, psychological operations, trade embargos, poison cigars, exploding seashells, and a grinding economic embargo—this book chronicles a new way to view the real history of US-Cuban relations through the nations' continuing bilateral efforts at dialogue, rapprochement, and reconciliation. Since 1959, Washington's approach to Havana has been characterized by US efforts to roll back the Cuban revolution, and the story of US-Cuban relations has focused on the obvious conflict and confrontation. This book, however, presents a far less known, but increasingly more relevant, side to the story. From John F. Kennedy's offering of an olive branch to Fidel Castro after the Bay of Pigs invasion to Barack Obama's promise of a “new approach” to US-Cuban relations, the book uncovers a fifty-year record of negotiations, both secret and open. This book shows how, given the political radioactivity surrounding any hint of better relations with Havana, negotiations have typically been conducted through secret, back-channel diplomacy. Concluding with ten lessons for U.S. negotiators today, the book argues that this new story is especially important now, when both Barack Obama and Raúl Castro have publicly declared their desire to move beyond the legacy of hostility.Less
In a challenge to visions of perpetual hostility—beyond plots involving overt invasion, covert destabilization, psychological operations, trade embargos, poison cigars, exploding seashells, and a grinding economic embargo—this book chronicles a new way to view the real history of US-Cuban relations through the nations' continuing bilateral efforts at dialogue, rapprochement, and reconciliation. Since 1959, Washington's approach to Havana has been characterized by US efforts to roll back the Cuban revolution, and the story of US-Cuban relations has focused on the obvious conflict and confrontation. This book, however, presents a far less known, but increasingly more relevant, side to the story. From John F. Kennedy's offering of an olive branch to Fidel Castro after the Bay of Pigs invasion to Barack Obama's promise of a “new approach” to US-Cuban relations, the book uncovers a fifty-year record of negotiations, both secret and open. This book shows how, given the political radioactivity surrounding any hint of better relations with Havana, negotiations have typically been conducted through secret, back-channel diplomacy. Concluding with ten lessons for U.S. negotiators today, the book argues that this new story is especially important now, when both Barack Obama and Raúl Castro have publicly declared their desire to move beyond the legacy of hostility.
Anita Casavantes Bradford
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781469611525
- eISBN:
- 9781469611532
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469611525.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, Latin American History
This chapter discusses how childhood became of one of the primary sites of the struggle between the forces of Revolution and an emerging Counterrevolution in Cuba between 1960 and 1961. During these ...
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This chapter discusses how childhood became of one of the primary sites of the struggle between the forces of Revolution and an emerging Counterrevolution in Cuba between 1960 and 1961. During these two tumultuous and increasingly violent years, the island's children were drawn into “adult” political struggles, directly impacting the dialectical relationship between radicalization and Counterrevolution even as their daily reality was transformed by their new salience in public life.Less
This chapter discusses how childhood became of one of the primary sites of the struggle between the forces of Revolution and an emerging Counterrevolution in Cuba between 1960 and 1961. During these two tumultuous and increasingly violent years, the island's children were drawn into “adult” political struggles, directly impacting the dialectical relationship between radicalization and Counterrevolution even as their daily reality was transformed by their new salience in public life.
María A. Cabrera Arús
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781683400905
- eISBN:
- 9781683401193
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9781683400905.003.0011
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Latin American Studies
Sociologist María A. Cabrera Arús dissects the militaristic iconography of the Cuban Revolution and its ironic appropriation by contemporary Cuban artists. Cabrera Arús demonstrates that the ...
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Sociologist María A. Cabrera Arús dissects the militaristic iconography of the Cuban Revolution and its ironic appropriation by contemporary Cuban artists. Cabrera Arús demonstrates that the celebration of the sartorial guerrilla identity of the 1960s has largely given way to a critical perspective on the epic narrative in the post-Soviet era, which is exemplified by painters like Carlos Rodríguez Cárdenas and photographers like José Ángel Toirac. In recent artworks produced in Cuba, the olive-green uniform of the revolutionary army appears more often as a symbol of oppression than as a metaphor for a utopian vision.Less
Sociologist María A. Cabrera Arús dissects the militaristic iconography of the Cuban Revolution and its ironic appropriation by contemporary Cuban artists. Cabrera Arús demonstrates that the celebration of the sartorial guerrilla identity of the 1960s has largely given way to a critical perspective on the epic narrative in the post-Soviet era, which is exemplified by painters like Carlos Rodríguez Cárdenas and photographers like José Ángel Toirac. In recent artworks produced in Cuba, the olive-green uniform of the revolutionary army appears more often as a symbol of oppression than as a metaphor for a utopian vision.
Todd F. Tietchen
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780813035208
- eISBN:
- 9780813039633
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813035208.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
This chapter focuses on Allen Ginsberg's “Prose Contribution to Cuban Revolution,” which attributes the revolution's blind spot in regards to sexuality to Castro's continued adherence to puritanical ...
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This chapter focuses on Allen Ginsberg's “Prose Contribution to Cuban Revolution,” which attributes the revolution's blind spot in regards to sexuality to Castro's continued adherence to puritanical outlooks—outlooks which Ginsberg, sounding much like Duncan at the end of World War II, ascribed to patriarchal and homophobic forms of nationalism, which replicated the repressive socio-political structures that U.S. artists and intellectuals hoped the revolution would ultimately shun. While Ginsberg was openly impressed with economic reform and the island's literacy programs, he ultimately dismissed the promises of the revolution on what he identified as “humanist grounds.”Less
This chapter focuses on Allen Ginsberg's “Prose Contribution to Cuban Revolution,” which attributes the revolution's blind spot in regards to sexuality to Castro's continued adherence to puritanical outlooks—outlooks which Ginsberg, sounding much like Duncan at the end of World War II, ascribed to patriarchal and homophobic forms of nationalism, which replicated the repressive socio-political structures that U.S. artists and intellectuals hoped the revolution would ultimately shun. While Ginsberg was openly impressed with economic reform and the island's literacy programs, he ultimately dismissed the promises of the revolution on what he identified as “humanist grounds.”
Devyn Spence Benson
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781469626727
- eISBN:
- 9781469626741
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469626727.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Latin American History
Analyzing the ideology and rhetoric around race on the island and in south Florida during the early years of the Cuban revolution, Devyn Spence Benson argues that ideas, stereotypes, and ...
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Analyzing the ideology and rhetoric around race on the island and in south Florida during the early years of the Cuban revolution, Devyn Spence Benson argues that ideas, stereotypes, and discriminatory practices relating to racial difference persisted despite major state efforts to generate social equality. Drawing on Cuban and U.S. archival materials and face-to-face interviews, Benson examines 1960s government programs and campaigns against discrimination, showing how such programs frequently negated their efforts by reproducing racist images and idioms in revolutionary propaganda, cartoons, and school materials. Building on nineteenth-century discourses that imagined Cuba as a raceless space--“not blacks, not whites, only Cubans”--revolutionary leaders embraced a narrow definition of blackness, often seeming to suggest that Afro-Cubans had to discard their blackness to join the revolution. This was and remains a false dichotomy for many Cubans of color, Benson demonstrates. While some Afro-Cubans agreed with the revolution’s raceless sentiments, others found ways to use state rhetoric to demand additional reforms. Still others, finding a revolution that disavowed blackness unsettling and paternalistic, fought to insert black history and African culture into revolutionary nationalisms. Despite such efforts by Afro-Cubans and radical government-sponsored integration programs, racism has persisted throughout the revolution in subtle but lasting ways.Less
Analyzing the ideology and rhetoric around race on the island and in south Florida during the early years of the Cuban revolution, Devyn Spence Benson argues that ideas, stereotypes, and discriminatory practices relating to racial difference persisted despite major state efforts to generate social equality. Drawing on Cuban and U.S. archival materials and face-to-face interviews, Benson examines 1960s government programs and campaigns against discrimination, showing how such programs frequently negated their efforts by reproducing racist images and idioms in revolutionary propaganda, cartoons, and school materials. Building on nineteenth-century discourses that imagined Cuba as a raceless space--“not blacks, not whites, only Cubans”--revolutionary leaders embraced a narrow definition of blackness, often seeming to suggest that Afro-Cubans had to discard their blackness to join the revolution. This was and remains a false dichotomy for many Cubans of color, Benson demonstrates. While some Afro-Cubans agreed with the revolution’s raceless sentiments, others found ways to use state rhetoric to demand additional reforms. Still others, finding a revolution that disavowed blackness unsettling and paternalistic, fought to insert black history and African culture into revolutionary nationalisms. Despite such efforts by Afro-Cubans and radical government-sponsored integration programs, racism has persisted throughout the revolution in subtle but lasting ways.
Frank Andre Guridy
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780807833612
- eISBN:
- 9781469604060
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/9780807895979_guridy.8
- Subject:
- History, Latin American History
This chapter underscores the importance of black tourism in the process of diasporization from the early 1930s until the dawn of the Cuban Revolution and the civil rights movement in the 1950s. It ...
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This chapter underscores the importance of black tourism in the process of diasporization from the early 1930s until the dawn of the Cuban Revolution and the civil rights movement in the 1950s. It observes that black travellers with some means began to view themselves as “tourists” eager to visit other parts of the world where people of African descent lived. The chapter further observes that Cuba's pleasant climate, geographic proximity, and large population of African descent made it a particularly attractive place to visit for African American travellers, especially since a passport was not needed for entry to the country. It shows how instances of racial discrimination against black travellers helped propel activism in both countries and also documents the strategies black entrepreneurs and organizations used to assemble a tourist network that relied upon segregated African American and Afro-Cuban institutions and businesses.Less
This chapter underscores the importance of black tourism in the process of diasporization from the early 1930s until the dawn of the Cuban Revolution and the civil rights movement in the 1950s. It observes that black travellers with some means began to view themselves as “tourists” eager to visit other parts of the world where people of African descent lived. The chapter further observes that Cuba's pleasant climate, geographic proximity, and large population of African descent made it a particularly attractive place to visit for African American travellers, especially since a passport was not needed for entry to the country. It shows how instances of racial discrimination against black travellers helped propel activism in both countries and also documents the strategies black entrepreneurs and organizations used to assemble a tourist network that relied upon segregated African American and Afro-Cuban institutions and businesses.
Lillian Guerra
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- July 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780807835630
- eISBN:
- 9781469601519
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/9780807837368_guerra.6
- Subject:
- History, Latin American History
Highlighting the mass rally called La Gran Concentración Campesina, the chapter examines the impact of rallies during the first months of the Cuban Revolution. It explores the huge mobilization of ...
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Highlighting the mass rally called La Gran Concentración Campesina, the chapter examines the impact of rallies during the first months of the Cuban Revolution. It explores the huge mobilization of cross-class support for Fidel Castro's call for the execution of Fulgencio Batista's war criminals, as well as the Agrarian Reform in 1959 by analyzing the role of the media and the increasing centrality of mass rallies as instruments for asserting national sovereignty.Less
Highlighting the mass rally called La Gran Concentración Campesina, the chapter examines the impact of rallies during the first months of the Cuban Revolution. It explores the huge mobilization of cross-class support for Fidel Castro's call for the execution of Fulgencio Batista's war criminals, as well as the Agrarian Reform in 1959 by analyzing the role of the media and the increasing centrality of mass rallies as instruments for asserting national sovereignty.
Anita Casavantes Bradford
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781469611525
- eISBN:
- 9781469611532
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469611525.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, Latin American History
This chapter discusses how children and discursive representations of childhood became central to the revolutionary government's efforts to both manage a changing relationship with the United States ...
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This chapter discusses how children and discursive representations of childhood became central to the revolutionary government's efforts to both manage a changing relationship with the United States and mobilize a broader pool of citizens in support of its initiatives. The authoritarian refashioning of Martí's democratically inspired politics of childhood facilitated Castro's evolution into an autocratic and paternalistic leader who exercised an unprecedented emotional hold over the masses.Less
This chapter discusses how children and discursive representations of childhood became central to the revolutionary government's efforts to both manage a changing relationship with the United States and mobilize a broader pool of citizens in support of its initiatives. The authoritarian refashioning of Martí's democratically inspired politics of childhood facilitated Castro's evolution into an autocratic and paternalistic leader who exercised an unprecedented emotional hold over the masses.
Charles D. Ameringer
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780813033099
- eISBN:
- 9780813038124
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813033099.003.0017
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Latin American Studies
This chapter discusses the Cuban Revolution. Initially, the revolution was noted to lack a clear ideology and was essentially a response to the socialist impulse. However, it was also noted that it ...
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This chapter discusses the Cuban Revolution. Initially, the revolution was noted to lack a clear ideology and was essentially a response to the socialist impulse. However, it was also noted that it was not the lack of an ideology that was the problem, but rather the fact that there was too many. It looks at Fidel Castro's role in the revolution, and it is noted that the success of the Cuban Revolution was due to a number of factors that reached a climax with the taking of Santa Clara at the beginning of 1959. As expected, Castro was the dominant heroic figure of this battle, which was the only real battle of the conflict.Less
This chapter discusses the Cuban Revolution. Initially, the revolution was noted to lack a clear ideology and was essentially a response to the socialist impulse. However, it was also noted that it was not the lack of an ideology that was the problem, but rather the fact that there was too many. It looks at Fidel Castro's role in the revolution, and it is noted that the success of the Cuban Revolution was due to a number of factors that reached a climax with the taking of Santa Clara at the beginning of 1959. As expected, Castro was the dominant heroic figure of this battle, which was the only real battle of the conflict.
