AfroCubans: Race & Identity in Cuba

There is an increasing focus on race & identity in Cuba, from both within and outside the island.  Here we present some resources and references on identity issues relating to AfroCubans as these are complex and often poorly understood.

Some observers estimate that over 70% of the Cubans inside Cuba are of African descent.  Some of the elements in the Cuban government and analysts at the US State Department and the CIA used to agree on a number around 63%. In any official census, the proportions are reversed, which any one walking down the streets of Cuba will find absurd. The official census relies on ethnic self identification and across Latin America everyone wants to be white. Yet these numbers are used to justify racial mixes in many settings, such as professional schools or in the tourism business, where light skinned Cubans hold the preponderance of jobs that pay in hard currency.

A much smaller percentage of Cubans abroad are of African descent.  In Miami, some estimate that over 97% of Cubans are of Spanish descent.  At the very least, 85% of them describe themselves as being white in a recent survey. In New Jersey and Tennessee, there are more AfroCubans among Cuban exiles there.

The very term Spanish Cuban tends to hide the fact that Spaniards themselves have a strong African heritage, the result of being next to North Africa and receiving African culture over the millenia, including the 8 centuries the Moors and the Almoravids occupied southern Spain, from 710 AD to 1492 AD. This gives rise to a famous quote from Simon Bolivar, himself of mixed race and who was often held in contempt by "pure blooded" Spaniards: "We are no longer European just as Spain is no longer European, because of its African blood, character and institutions."

Cuba inherited its ideas about the Republic from 1789 France. This includes the notion that ethnic identity is not of interest, only citizenship. As in France, in practice this means that the dominant white identity is assumed and the rest are deprecated. As in France, the ultimate solution, presaged in the "dos puntos de vista" quote below, is race mixing to whiten the Africans and subsume their identity into a "Cuban" identity which is largely Spanish in character.

AfroCubans have become increasingly vocal about racial issues. Some suggest this goes against the Revolution. However, it would be more accurate to see this trend in the context of how AfroLatins across South and Central America are becoming more vocal and getting better at defending their rights.

Cuba has a Chinese community, centered around Havana's "Barrio Chino."   Many Chinese were brought into Cuba towards the end of the last century as it became more difficult and less profitable to kidnap and import Africans. Historically, they sided with the Africans in their struggles against the Spanish Cubans.

There is a very small, but still surviving Indigenous community, mostly in Oriente and consisting of Taino people, related to the Taino of Puerto Rico. According to Cuban researchers working over the past 20 years, Native Cubans survived in far greater numbers to a much later date than was commonly accepted: part of the continent wide myth of the "vanishing red man".  See Native Cuba.

There is a Jewish community which has been reconnecting with Jews outside the island.

Dos puntos de vista:

"La médico y genetista Beatriz Matcheco ha realizado recientemente un estudio en cubanos de todos los colores de piel y absolutamente todos llevan en su sangre, genes europeros y africanos." -- citado por Guillermo Rodríguez Rivera en el Blog de Silvio Rodriguez, nota #5.  "The doctor and geneticist Beatriz Matcheco recently conducted a study among cubans of all colors and absolutely all of them had both european and african genes." cited by Guillermo Rodríguez Rivera in the Blog de Silvio Rodriguez, note #5. A view founded in republicanismo.

Según destacó el antropólogo Antonio Martínez Fuentes, los estudios arrojan que 45 por ciento del ADN mitocondrial de la población cubana tiene origen africano y 23 de origen nativo americano, mientras que solo 22 por ciento procede de Europa, lo que habla de la contribución africana e indígena. Largo trecho pendiente por igualdad racial  6/1/2014 IPS

Resources on AfroCubaWeb

El Blanco y el Negro

Osvaldo Cárdenas

Afrocubans in exile who accepted the handouts of the Miami elite and thus compromised their ability to speak for the rest of the Afrocubans have become an antithesis to the movement they should have been leading. Unable to bite the hand that feeds them and fully dependent on the benevolence of their patrons, they have once again colluded with the people who have no good design or plans for their future, postergating the redemption of the Afrocuban people."

Conferences

Afro-Cubans in Cuban Society, December 1999

See especially the link to the conference summary at the CIP site: www.ciponline.org/afrocuba.htm

The Discourse on Racism in Anti-Castro Publications, 9/07

The Discourse on Racism in Anti-Castro Publications, 2008-2009

Citizens Committee for Racial Integration (CIR)
Havana, Cuba

Raza y desigualdad en la Cuba actual, 1/06, PDF, 280kb, Rodrigo Espina Prieto y Pablo Rodríguez Ruiz, Investigadores, Centro de Antropología.