{"id":1699,"date":"2020-03-02T14:24:05","date_gmt":"2020-03-02T14:24:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/?p=1699"},"modified":"2020-03-02T14:24:10","modified_gmt":"2020-03-02T14:24:10","slug":"chinese-cubans-chineseness-and-cubanidad-during-the-chinese-civil-war-1945-49-and-cuban-communist-revolution-1953-58","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/2020\/03\/02\/chinese-cubans-chineseness-and-cubanidad-during-the-chinese-civil-war-1945-49-and-cuban-communist-revolution-1953-58\/","title":{"rendered":"Chinese-Cubans: ‘Chineseness’ and ‘Cubanidad’ during the Chinese Civil War (1945-49) and Cuban Communist Revolution (1953-58)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u2018Migration\u2019<\/strong>, the movement of people across borders, is\nnot alien to historical research. Recently, historians have examined the way\nmigration has influenced identity<\/strong> in \u2018diasporas\u2019<\/strong>: migrants from\nthe same origin that have settled in a new place. This research has opened up inquiries\ninto the complex identifications that diasporic communities have with \u2018citizenship\u2019\nand \u2018belonging\u2019.[1]<\/a>\nThey are people with \u2018feet in two societies\u2019: simultaneously attached to their\nnew nation and birthplace.[2]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am particularly interested in this\nidentity question vis-\u00e0-vis <\/em>Chinese-Cuban diasporas<\/strong>. Coinciding\nwith the rise of Subaltern Studies, the histories of previously neglected\nspaces and groups of people, previous work on the Chinese-Cubans has focused on\nthem in the nineteenth century, especially during the Cuban Wars for\nIndependence (1894-98).[3]<\/a> Few\nof these works have focused on Chinese-Cubans in the twentieth century \u2013 or if\nthey have, the twentieth century is written alongside the nineteenth century as\npart of a broad overview of how Chinese-Cubans have never conformed to\npolitical and legal definitions of national identity and citizenship.[4]<\/a> Moreover,\nthese works are written about using traditional historical methodologies. Only\na few authors, like Kathleen L\u00f3pez, are incorporating new methodologies, like\ntransnational history, into their research. There is, therefore, a need to\nwrite a twentieth century history<\/strong> of the Chinese-Cubans through the use\nof new methodologies, like transnational history<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To fill in this gap, I will use global microhistory<\/strong> to conduct a survey of the Chinese-Cubans during two periods of upheaval: the Chinese Civil War (1945-49) and the Cuban Communist Revolution (1953-58).[5]<\/a> During these periods, I will examine how \u2018Chineseness\u2019 and \u2018Cubanness\u2019\/’cubanidad<\/em>‘ manifested in the writings of three notable Chinese-Cubans: Antonio Chuffat-Latour, and Pedro Eng Herrera and Mauro Garc\u00eda Triana<\/strong>. Chuffat-Latour was a supporter of Sun Yat-Sen\u2019s Kuomintang Party.[6]<\/a> Eng Herrera and Garc\u00eda Triana played a large role usurping Fulgencio Batista and bringing Fidel Castro into power.[7]<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tentatively, I argue that our current understanding of identity-formation is too simplistic. In comparing<\/strong> identity in these two periods of upheaval, it seems that in both, the shared experiences of colonialism<\/strong> and revolution <\/strong>in both China and Cuba were what allowed Chinese-Cubans to feel like \u2013 and become regarded as \u2013 members of the Cuban nation and nation-building project. To show this, I utilise Chinese and Cuban epistemologies<\/strong> in my analysis, examining how bodies<\/strong> are imagined and used in both. From this, I hope to show that claiming Chineseness allowed Chinese-Cubans to access experiences and understandings of colonialism and revolution. This access gave them power to speak about these topics as they manifested within Cuba. In turn, this power is what allowed the three men to acquire cubanidad<\/em> and become key members of the Cuban nation-building projects in their respective contexts. Overall, this reveals a paradox \u2013 people can be acknowledged as outsiders and yet still be considered integral to their new home\u2019s nation-building project.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

[1]<\/a>\nWendy Kozol, \u2018AHR Conversation: On Transnational History\u2019 in American\nHistorical Review, Vol. 111, No. 5 <\/em>(December 2006), p. 1445<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[2]<\/a>\nElsa Chaney, \u2018The World Economy and Contemporary Migration\u2019 in International\nMigration Review, Vol. 13, No. 2<\/em> (1979), p. 209 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

[3]<\/a>\nSee Robert Evan Ellis, China in Latin America: the Whats and Wherefores<\/em>;\nAndrea O\u2019Reilly Herrera, Cuba: Idea of a Nation Displaced<\/em>; Lisa Yun, The\nCoolie Speaks: Chinese Indentured Laborers and African Slaves in Cuba<\/em>; L.\nEve Armentrout Ma, Revolutionaries, Monarchists, and Chinatowns: Chinese\npolitics in the Americas and the 1911 Revolution<\/em>; Lok Siu, \u2018Chino Latino\nRestaurants: Converging Communities, Identities, and Cultures\u2019 in Afro-Hispanic\nReview 27:1<\/em>; Mauro Garc\u00eda Triana, Pedro Eng Herrera, Gregor Benton (tr.), The\nChinese in Cuba, 1847-Now<\/em>; Kathleen L\u00f3pez, Chinese Cubans: A\nTransnational History<\/em>; Gregor Benton, Chinese Migrants and\nInternationalism: Forgotten Histories, 1917-1945<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

[4]<\/a>\nL\u00f3pez, Chinese Cubans<\/em>, p. 5<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[5]<\/a>\nSee Tonio Andrade, \u2018A Chinese Farmer, Two African Boys, and a Warlord: Toward a\nGlobal Microhistory\u2019 in Journal of World History<\/em>; Martha Hodes, \u2018A Story\nwith an Argument: Writing the Transnational Life of a Sea Captain\u2019s Wife\u2019 in Transnational\nLives: Biographies of Global Modernity, 1700-Present 21:4<\/em>, Bernhard Struck,\nKate Ferris, Jacques Revel, \u2018Introduction: Space and Scale in Transnational\nHistory\u2019 in The International History Review 33:4<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

[6]<\/a> Antonio Chuffat-Latour, Apunte\nHist\u00f3rico de los Chinos en Cuba<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

[7]<\/a>\nMauro Garc\u00eda Triana, Pedro Eng Herrera, Gregor Benton (tr.), The Chinese in\nCuba: 1847-now<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018Migration\u2019, the movement of people across borders, is not alien to historical research. Recently, historians have examined the way migration has influenced identity in \u2018diasporas\u2019: migrants from the same origin that have settled in a new place. This research has<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5wNtZ-rp","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1699"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1699\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1704,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1699\/revisions\/1704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}