Soy Cuba is a film that depicts Cuba during a time of revolution and discovery of a national identity. There was a large national discourse reconciling race and nation, one that the colonial authorities viewed as an impossible feat to reconcile. In other words, leaders hoped to define Cuba as a single race under the title “Cuban”; increasing their compatibility with the rest of the world in foreign trade.
The expression Afro-Cubans was a defined national identity that needed to be specified. Soy Cuba introduces the multitude of races that were prevalent in the prerevolutionary Cuba. However, it must be stressed that blacks were able to accumulate jobs, status, and even political power allowing them to have a strong influence on the economy. Also, blacks were a factor in Cuba’s independence as much as the white population was. Afro-Cubans were given a choice to be categorized as black which served the colonialist purpose of portraying a nation as racially irreconcilable or to become members of an allegedly race-less nationalist force. There was to be no “Afro” or “Cuban” at the same time.
White leaders hoped to increase the number of white immigrants to boost their population proportion while decreasing the proportion of blacks. According to Alejandro de la Fuente in his article; Race, National Discourse, and Politics in Cuba, he explains the hopes of white leaders for the future of Cuba:
“There was optimism of certain whites who speculated that blacks' lower natural increase, combined with immigration, would guarantee their virtual extinction. They were all wrong. By the 1920s, whitening had failed, and it was increasingly evident that Cuba would never fulfill the elite's vision of a Caucasian paradise in the tropics.”
In Cuba’s constitution, all Cubans (no matter race), were equal under law. This equality allowed blacks to continue their place in society, adding creativity and value to society. Cuba’s economy during the beginning years of Castro regime was primarily based on foreign trade. Castro made it a priority that economic external relations were regulated while domestic economic development was heavily promoted. When defining a single Cuban race, historians begin to with the relationship between white and blacks during slavery in Cuba. Fuente concludes that the relationship between white owners and black slaves was relatively “soft” compared to other slavery relations in the world. As Cuba continues to grow in the worldly economics spectrum, their political representation from blacks and women should continue to grow, giving them a more balanced and compatible economy to have relations with.
I believe you may have overcompensated this week by focusing on one of the readings and only made passing references to the film. Try to integrate the two. What things did you see in the film that connected to the reading? You also need to engage at least two of the readings to have a chance at full credit. (Tony the TA)
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the detail you provided on Cuba's race issues. In my Blog, I mainly focused on the symbolism between Soy Cuba's portrayal of Americans in the film and how they could be interpreted as Cuban/Soviet dislike of the United States. Although your Blog was extremely informative, I wish you could have went related the topic to the movie a little bit more. Also, I wonder how Cuban's race relations are compared to the United States. Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, some countries in Europe such as Germany and France often critiqued the United States' race relations; I wonder if Cuba often did the same.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the detail you had in the race. I thought it was interesting how both in Cuba and the United States used black persons boost white support but did not give them the right to vote. Cuba did this by limited the black population allowing for the majority to be white while the United States did this by 2/3 clause in the constitution and allowing plantation owners to count their slaves at 2/3 of a person for more representation. It is a strange concept to think that the whole world, during this time, was very prejudice towards one race and to think where it originated or how it started.
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