Una Raza de Color, Una Raza Obscura: An Exploration of Afrocubanidad (2015)
The broad understanding of race-ethnicity in Latin America is often centred on the interplay and conflicts between and amongst Indigenous, Mestizaje, and white identities and community interests. However, Afrolatin@s, Latin@s of African descent get lost in the ambiguity of mestizaje. Most Latin American states have historically ignored Afrolatin@s in their census data, with Cuba and Brazil being the few exceptions (Telles et al., 2015).
In terms of ethnic demographics in Latin America, and even Brazil, Cuba differs significantly because of its lack of indigenous population. Instead, it has what Helg (1997) refers to as a two-tier racial system between its white and Black populations. According to 2002 census data reported in the 2013 CIA Factbook Cuba’s demographics are around 65% white, 24.8% mulatto and mestizo, and 10.1% Black. While the demographics may be different, the human rights struggles in Cuba mirror those seen elsewhere in Latin America. The struggles for human rights, namely civil-political and cultural rights (Messer, 2002), manifest in Afrocubans’ centuries-long political and economic disenfranchisement, and appropriation of Afrocuban cultural practices in various ways.
The CIA Factbook data separates mulatto from Black, but in truth, all non-white individuals are classified as una raza de color, or a race of colour. Helg (1997) posits that this binary system came in response to La Conspiracíon de la Escalera of 1844. The conspiracy involved a network of free people of colour and enslaved Afrocubans and the accusation that they were hatching an abolitionist plot. As a result, a number of privileges the free people of colour were allowed were lost, thus increasing solidarity between the free people of colour and the enslaved Afrocubans. According to Roberto Nodal (1986), antiblack racism was prolific even prior to the 1844 conspiracy. As the influx of enslaved Afrocubans into Cuba increased at the end of the 18th century, policies were made to block Afrocubans from receiving education, as educated Afrocubans were seen as more likely to revolt (Nodal, 251).
As a counter to the increased social disenfranchisement of 1844, many Afrocubans found upward mobility in the army during the Ten Years War, a nationalist war primarily for independence from Spain. Enslaved Afrocubans who joined the war were granted emancipation, as well as equal opportunity to rise through the ranks (Nodal, 253). Abolition followed the Ten Years War in 1886 for a number of reasons– including the increased social privileges granted to Afrocubans who participated in the war, as well as the continued unrest in Oriente known as the Guerra Chiquita (Helg, 52)– and independence followed in 1902.
After gaining independence from Spain in 1902, Afrocubans continued to struggle to find a place for themselves in Cuban culture and politics. Though there was universal male suffrage, the dominant culture had no respect for Black and African influenced cultural practices and artefacts. As a result, many were banned, confiscated, and destroyed; In particular, religious symbols were attacked, and rituals and ceremonies were stormed and drums burnt. (Nodal, 255). Afrocubans–particularly the politically involved war veterans– eventually formed an independent political party in 1908, even going so far in embracing the embraced the raza de color moniker, and called it the Partido de Color. Afrocubans flocked to the party in order to achieve “real equality for Afro-Cubans, proportional representation for them in public service, and social reform to improve the conditions of all lower-class Cubans” (Helg, 60). Because of the institutional violence that had been enacted on this population since the 1700s, there was a sense of solidarity across this “race of color” that allowed for what Helg refers to as a “politicoracial consciousness” (Helg, 60) to emerge.
Like many of the previous attempts of Afrocubans to gain political enfranchisement, this “politicoracial consciousness” was not readily accepted by the dominant class. While Afrocubans established a political party in 1908, Partido Independiente de Color, in 1910 “political parties based on race or class” (Nodal, 265), were banned, essentially blocking Afrocubans from participating in the political sphere. In 1912 the party leader was arrested, and the party and its supporters– both real and imagined– were violently suppressed in the 1912 genocide, with between 3000 and 6000 Afrocubans killed (Helg, 63).
Cuba’s climate in the 1930s reflected the centuries-long violence and erasure that Afrocubans endured with the cubanidad and subsequent afrocubanismo movements. In the period of the early 20th century, a new nationalist movement arose: Cubanidad–or Cubanness. This time around, Afrocuban culture was adopted as the national Cuban culture. Afrocubans still had no political enfranchisement, and despite the name, white Cubans still dominated (through appropriation) much of the space in the afrocubanismo cultural movement.
Much of this afrocubanismo comprised of afrocuban cultural elements, practices, and forms that had been recreated by white Cuban artists. This appropriation was made worse by the erasure of Afrocubans that came with it. Arnedo-Gómez (2012) says that even as these white artists took over the also erased much of the art’s legacy. The image of afrocubanista poetry, for example, “as […] the culmination of Afro-Cuban literature glossed over other Afro-Cuban literary forms that co-existed with Afrocubanista ones and had been produced by blacks[sic] who followed Afro-Cuban cultural traditions” (35).
As with other Latin American states, Cuba’s nationalism manifested in the glorified mestizaje identity–known in this context as cubanidad– at the expense of actual minority groups in that nation. Arnedo-Gómez quotes Alberto Arredondo, a Black Cuban intellectual who was active in the 1930s, saying that Arredondo “expressed the view that the process of mestizaje was gradually achieving the cultural homogeneity of blacks and whites” (45) and “that through a process of national evolution, Cuban identity had become so perfectly integrated that it was no longer possible to unearth specific components from either origin” (45). In the same way that white Cuban narratives and understanding of afrocubanismo overshadowed the Black Cuban experience, the cubanidad agenda erased centuries of violence and oppression that Afrocubans had faced.
Most Cubans suffered from the pre-revolution wealth disparities, but Afrocubans struggled with these economic disparities while still being unable to mobilise politically. The 1940 constitution stated that “illegal and punishable to practice any kind of discrimination owing to sex, race, color or class or other” (Nodal, 260), and also banned any political groupings based on race or class. These laws, however, did not change the economic and political landscape that Afrocubans –particularly dark Afrocubans– faced. The leaders of the Communist Revolution tried to speak to the antiblack racism that fed much of the classism and wealth inequalities but with limited success, and interacted with antiblackness in both new and familiar ways.
While the economic reforms that came with the Revolution were incredibly important to improving quality of life, Afrocubans were never completely free from the trappings of race and institutionalised and structural racism. Fidel Castro and the Revolution used racial equality as one of the primary platforms (Blue, 39), but this rhetoric was soon replaced with one that asserted that the race problem had been solved. Because racism was seen as a result of class oppression, for the decades that immediately followed the Revolution to talk about race and racism as something that was still present in Cuba was to question the Revolution itself. Nodal (1986) links this colour-blind rhetoric to what he refers to as the “mulattoization” (262) of Cuba, that is, the mixing of white and Afrocubans, and points to the 1970 census that lacked any racial categorisation. Yet in this supposed colour-blind climate, Afrocubans lacked any real, consistent, political presence, an issue that has followed the Afrocuban condition throughout the decades of the Revolution.
Afrocubans faced similar marginalisation in the cultural practices. Like much of the nationalist rhetoric that came before it, the Revolution insisted on privileging cubanidad over all else and celebrating Afrocuban cultural practices without necessarily recognizing the unique history that produced it. Kronenberg (2008) points out that while the Cuban Marxists celebrated elements of the afrocuban syncretic religions, they also regarded the practices as primitive, and believed “that their eventual disappearance from Cuba would be inevitable, given the progress made in education, health, and other areas” (57). While the revolutionary rhetoric celebrated diversity, it also “[collapsed] it into one singular national identity, discouraging racial affirmation” (Clealand, 1621). According to Schmidt (2008), “young Afro-Cubans who were grassroots Black activists and who sported large Afros were viewed as ‘‘diversionist’’ in their ideological orientation [and] seen to be privileging claims for Black racial and ethnic identity over and above their membership in a nationalist […] revolutionary ‘‘vanguard’’” (161).
Afrocubans benefited the most from the “egalitarian and redistributive measures implemented from 1959 to 1962 [which] assured equal access to jobs, education, and social facilities” (Blue, 39). The post-revolution cultural climate reflected the recognition and adoption of Afrocuban cultural elements as Cuban culture, and the redistribution of wealth benefited Afrocubans, but this did not mean that Cuba had solved its race problem. Racism in Cuba was declared to be eradicated in February of 1962 with “the Second Declaration of Havana [which] asserted that, among other successes, the revolution had “eradicated discrimination because of race or sex”” (Blue, 40). Additionally, Kronenberg (2008) points out that while the Cuban Marxists celebrated elements of the Afrocuban syncretic religions, they also regarded the practices as primitive, and believed “that their eventual disappearance from Cuba would be inevitable, given the progress made in education, health, and other areas” (57). The tensions caused by the silence around race and lack of political representation resurfaced during The Special Period in a Time of Peace, namely in the form of exclusion from the emerging tourism industry, and the perpetual criminalisation of black bodies.
Prior to The Special Period, the majority of Cubans were employed by the government and earning a standard wage, which prevented income disparity. Holmes (2013) define’s Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic violence as the “naturalisation, including internalisation, of social asymmetries” (156). While it can be argued that Afrocubans have been pushing back against these social asymmetries, Blue (2007) gives a number of these that resurfaced during The Special Period, ranging from individual, institutional, and structural oppression.
With the collapse of the Soviet Bloc and the United States embargo, Cuba lost one of its few trade partners and was forced to participate (at least partially) in the global economy. However, Cuba opening its doors to foreign investment also meant opening windows to capitalist practices. Within the system of joint-venture, foreign-invested, state employment, this came in the form of US dollar or convertible currency incentives to increase productivity. The Special Period also saw the legalisation of self-employment, usually in the form of entrepreneurship. Lastly there is what Blue refers to as the informal economy– any illegal or non-government-regulated income– which can range from unlicensed self-employment to the selling of stolen goods on the black market (Blue, Schmidt, Garcia).The most desirable jobs are the ones that pay in hard (foreign) currency instead of the Cuban peso or the convertible currency (CUC), but race plays a crucial role in who has access to those positions.
According to Blue’s qualitative and quantitative data from 2000 on earnings, there are small but statistically significant differences between white and Afrocuban earnings, with Afrocubans earning less. Not only were Afrocubans least represented in the highest-earning brackets of state employment, they were also less likely to receive the US dollar or convertible currency bonuses that make a palpable difference in income. Blue suggests that these disparities created a glass ceiling for Afrocuban professionals that was because of “lower educational attainment” (48) as well as cronyism and nepotism. Schmidt carries the point further by acknowledging that only white Cubans were “deemed to have the ‘‘good presentation’’ necessary to secure employment” in the tourism industry, further discriminating against Afrocubans (161).
Income disparities become starker as we move away from government influence. In the self-employment sectors, pre-Revolution capital plays a role in who has the resources for entrepreneurship. Of Blue’s 2000 sample, 77% of the self-employed individuals were white, with the rest being Black or mulatto (49). Being self-employed suggests that one has the resources to do so, with this resources being startup capital, and especially in relation to the tourism industry, an appropriate home to host tourists in. In both areas, white Cubans have the unfair advantage. Whites were more likely to receive remittances from family members abroad (De La Fuente, 2011), mainly because the majority of Cubans who fled after the Revolution were white and middle to upper middle class. Additionally, whites are also more likely to live in the residential areas of Havana, Santiago, and Santa Clara (De La Fuente, 2011).
While most Cubans participate in informal employment in some way for supplemental income, inequalities in legitimate sectors make informal employment the most profitable for Afrocubans (Blue, 2007). Informal employment is further racialised, as Afrocubans are more likely to participate in “riskier illegal activities” (Blue, 51), or as it is more commonly known, jineterismo. Garcia (2010) defines jineterismo as the act of “plundering money and/or resources from a foreigner” (173). Jineterismo is further gendered and racialised and is used to refer to sex work and hustling.
All of these economic disparities come to a head in the tourism industry. The images of Cuba that tourists receive– from rumba to the smoking habaneras (a figure of an Afrocuban woman smoking a cigar)– are coded as Afrocuban (Lane, 2010), but Afrocubans have the least access and benefit the least. Most obviously, Afrocubans face discrimination in state employment through employers’ racist biases; Afrocubans are often turned away from service positions in the tourism industry because of the belief that tourists prefer to see white faces (Clealand, 2013). As for self-employment, Afrocubans fare little better there as they lack many of the privileges white Cubans have. The homes that are best-suited to being converted to bed-and-breakfasts– larger, nicer, homes in tourist-friendly areas– are owned by white Cubans, and are the same homes their families have owned since before the Revolution. Similarly, the majority of cars and vehicles that can be used for taxi services are owned by white Cubans.
Once again, Afrocubans must turn to illegitimate means to source their income. While sex work and hustling are not the only options for informal employment, they are the most visible. This has created and is in turn fed by an idea of Black criminality, and the visibility and the persistence of racism make Afrocubans targets for racial profiling by the police, where their presence in tourist spaces is regarded with extreme suspicion (Clealand, Roland). The irony lies in the fact that the image of Cuban tourism and nostalgia cannot exist without Afrocubans, and their presence, whether real or imagined, often authenticate the experience for tourists.
Despite the wide-reaching oppression, Afrocubans are not silent about their condition, and there is a legacy of using the arts to voice their concerns. Since the beginning of The Special Period, there has been a burgeoning hip hop scene that is used as a tool to engage with racism and antiblackness, often utilising the thoughts and even words of Afrocubans who came before (De La Fuente, 2008).
One of the hip hop groups that tackled race in the 1990s was Hermanos de Causa. In their song “Tengo”(I Want), Hermanos revisit the work of Nicolás Guillén, a Cuban poet and activist, who had been active since the 1930s. De La Fuente (2008) explains:
“ Guillen’s Tengo celebrated the elimination of racial segregation in the early years of the Cuban Revolution and the achievements of the revolutionary government in the area of racial equality. The poem listed all that blacks [sic] had obtained under the Revolution, from unrestricted access to previously out-of-reach beaches and hotels, to job opportunities and education. Thanks to the Cuban Revolution, blacks finally had what they should have always had (699).”
Conversely, Hermanos’ “Tengo” responds by saying:
“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’” (De La Fuente, 2008).
After decades of forced silence, Cuban Hip Hop discusses not just modern circumstances, but also strives to reconnect with the cultural and historical legacies of Afrocubans. The movement has gained legitimacy in the past decade, and there is even an official agency, the Agencia Cubana de Rap (De La Fuente, 2008). However, it is arguable that this legitimising is an opportunity to control and appropriate, as has been seen in previous Afrocuban cultural movements, namely the Afrocubanismo movement of the 1930s (Fernandes, 2003).
Fernandes (2003) may have been concerned with the appropriation of Cuban hip hop, but it is unlikely that she could have anticipated USaid’s attempts to “infiltrate Cuba’s underground hip-hop movement” (Weaver, 2014). In late 2014, it was revealed that since at least 2009, USaid had been funding Cuban hip hop acts with the intention of using Cuban rappers ““to break the information blockade” and build a network of young people seeking “social change” to spark a youth movement against the government of President Raul Castro” (Weaver, 2014).
The allegations have elicited responses from stalwarts of Cuban hip hop, including Yrak Saenz Orta,–member of the veteran rap group, Doble Filo– and Roberto Zurbano– the founder of Cuba’s only hip hop magazine, Movimiento, now defunct. These interviews offer perspectives into Afrocuban efforts to bring attention to their marginalisation and how they view their own subalternity.
Saenz, who describes himself as a hip hop dinosaur (Saenz, 2014), details his experiences in hip hop, including his encounter with Fidel Castro during the establishment of the Agencia Cubana de Rap. He recalls Castro telling him, “Commander, I think the man also needs words to transform the world” (par. 3). While he took that statement as a sign of Castro’s blessing, he asserts that he is “a rapper, with our without the agency” (par. 3). Saenz refers to the new generation of Cuban rappers as poets, with “very critical, very serious political and social thought … [and] lyricism so strong is the result of a revolution where you go to school and you have read Nicolas Guillen or José Martí read to you. It must be acknowledged, with the flaws and virtues that there is this revolutionary process” (par. 4). For Saenz, the Revolution provided Afrocubans with the tools to articulate their position using music, and the knowledge to contextualise their oppression as a response to Cuba’s history.
For Zurbano, Cuban hip hop is “critical, radical language [that] becomes an anti-systemic language” (par. 7, Torres Gamez). These young Afrocubans who birthed movement in the 1990s were chroniclers of lived experiences in the Cuban barrios (par. 11). From his position of activist and supporter of Cuban hip hop, Zurbano defends the movement despite the USaid schemes. He asserts that Cuban rappers are not “victims but … active participants” (par. 17), involved in critical discourse with race and oppression in their country and communities.
The twenty years since the economic restructuring have been a time of extreme change. The Special Period may have exacerbated racial inequalities, but the undeniable shifts in the visibility of racism offer a glimmer of hope. Schmidt (2008) recalls that during her time in Cuba, there were Afrocubans sporting more afro-centric hairstyles, but that those who did so were considered unsavory in some way (162). She also was sure to distinguish between common acceptance of Afrocuban culture, and the political empowerment and enfranchisement of Afrocubans (163). In 2000, Raúl Fidel acknowledged the lack of proper and consistent political representation for Afrocubans, and marked the end of state silence on racism (Adams, 2004). The young people that started the Cuban Hip Hop movement in the 1990s are now in their 40s and 50s, but conversations on race through the arts continue. As the 21st century marches on, it remains to see if Cuba can truly engage in a racial democracy as it has claimed in the past, or if the disparities highlighted by The Special Period in the Time of Peace will continue to widen.
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