Nineteenth century Chinese immigrants in Cuba endured conditions of inequality similar to African slavery causing a revolt that would become the Cuban Revolution, Philip Howard, associate professor of Latin American studies said Monday at a seminar.
Howard, along with a panel of professors and students, discussed the plight of Chinese immigrants in Cuba and their struggle against racial discrimination – the subject of Pathfinder Press’s latest title, Our History is Still Being Written: The Story of Three Chinese Cuban Generals in the Cuban Revolution.
Between 1847 and 1874, approximately 125,000 Chinese laborers were contracted to work in Cuba on sugar plantations, Howard said. Plantation owners relied increasingly on Chinese immigrant labor as the African slavery abolitionist movement gained ground – a shift that resulted in the Chinese living less like workers and more like slaves themselves.
The book tells the story of the Cuban Revolution from the perspectives of Armando Choy, Gustavo Chui and Moises Sio Wong, three Chinese Cuban generals who participated in the 1959 movement to oust the U.S.-sponsored dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista.
"In addition to receiving one peso per week, (the Chinese) were paid in food, clothing and housing. The terms of the contract favored the slave-owning planter class," Howard said. "After their contract expired, they were forced to either re-contract with another master or leave Cuba. For all intents and purposes, Chinese indentured servants belonged to the holders of their contracts."
The terms of such contracts often reflected the enduring legacy of African slavery, he said. Like African slaves, Chinese indentures required approval of their contractors before marrying, having children or owning property.
"The reason why Chinese indentures were treated as slaves by the Cuban plutocracy was because the latter could not think outside of the slave system they created with Africans," he said. "They sought to extend absolute control over the Chinese as well."
Chinese Cubans performed this role of indentured servitude until the prices of sugar plummeted in 1920, when many moved into the commercial class. Although many Chinese were able to gain some form of success, they still faced social and economic prejudice under the Batista regime and would later participate in the 1959 revolution.
Xiaoping Cong, UH associate professor of Chinese studies, said Our History does an excellent job of chronicling the development of attitudes toward Chinese Cubans from economic assets to social inferiors.
"From this book we see that – against all odds – Chinese people were working hard to integrate with the Cuban society, yet retain the culture of their homeland," Cong said. "It also shows us how Chinese Cubans were better able to achieve social and economic equality after the revolution."
Mary-Alice Waters, president of Pathfinder Press and editor of Our History, said that the goal of the three generals was not socialism, but equality and better opportunities for all Cubans.
"When they succeeded in overthrowing the Batista dictatorship, they weren’t thinking they were making a socialist revolution. Most of them didn’t even know what socialism was," she said. "They simply wanted to create a society with a greater degree of social equality and justice."
After the revolution, Chinese Cubans worked to initiate land reforms and literacy campaigns. They also ended legal discrimination and sought to integrate women into the workplace, Waters said.
However, such actions conflicted with the economic interests of the U.S., which has resulted in much of the tension with Cuba today, she said.
"As they carried out these most minimal measures, they came into direct conflict with the U.S. government, which owned the vast majority of the productive property in Cuba," she said. "The Cubans simply refused to back down, and to this day it remains the sole source of U.S. hostility toward the Cuban revolution. Even today, Cuban revolutionaries are serving life sentences for the work they did in the United States trying to find out what Cuban counter-revolutionaries were doing to stop the movement."
Kinesiology senior and human rights activist Zadia Murphy said the book could be an inspiration for anyone looking to speak out against social inequality today.
"These Chinese Cuban generals felt that what was going on around them wasn’t right, and they took it upon themselves to do something about it," she said. "That really empowered and inspired me to want to step outside myself even more. If everyone did this, we could rewrite history."
