Imaging the Chinese in Cuban Literature and Culture (review)

What does it mean to be Cuban? What role have different ethnic groups played in creating Cuban national identity? How do members of one ethnic group represent themselves to the rest of society and how, in turn, does the rest of society imagine members of that ethnic group? These are some of the main questions that Ignacio López-Calvo explores in his illuminating book Imaging the Chinese in Cuban Literature and Culture. By focusing specifically on the Chinese diaspora in Cuba and the various cultural representations of this group in Cuban society, López-Calvo sheds light on this group's collective experience and the important role the Chinese have played in Cuban history, culture, and society. Moreover, López-Calvo's work suggests that Cuba deserves a place at the center of Chinese diasporic studies.

López-Calvo analyzes Cuban, Cuban American, and Sino-Cuban depictions of Sino-Cubans and "Chineseness" in Cuban literature (fiction, poetry, and testimonials) and art and makes it clear that scholars need to go beyond the traditional African-European binary vision of Cuban history and national identity and recognize the contributions of the Chinese. Although not really a part of official discourse, the island's cultural productions have long considered and recognized the importance of the Chinese presence in Cuban history and society. López-Calvo argues that Cubans have had a contradictory relationship with the Chinese based on affinity and mistrust since the very first boatload of Chinese coolies arrived in 1847 (approximately 125,000 entered the island between 1847 and 1874). Beginning with coolies and lasting into the Cuban Revolution, López-Calvo demonstrates how Cubans became fascinated with the Chinese and imagined China and the Chinese as a source of hope and a danger at the same time. Over time, representations of the Chinese have progressed from demonization, to Orientalist depictions, and finally to more realistic portrayals of the Chinese and their experiences.

López-Calvo turns to the concept of Orientalism to make sense of the ambiguous reactions towards the Chinese in Cuba. Many cultural productions depict mainland and Cuban Chinese in Western stereotypical fashion: Chinese rulers live lavishly while the masses starve in virtual slavery, the Chinese are cruel and masters of torture, the Chinese are passive and their culture static, the Chinese are secretive and unable to assimilate, the Chinese are refined, China is exotic, and Chinese women and china mulatas are fetishized. Some of these characteristics obviously contradict each other, but this makes sense when one considers the simultaneous Western captivation with and aversion to the East. López-Calvo notes that some more recent works, such as Zoé Valdés' La eternidad del instante, are much kinder in their portrayal of the Chinese but still suffer from what he terms "benevolent Orientalism," particularly due to their focus on Chinese exoticism. He also suggests that many of these portrayals of China and the Chinese, typically within an Orientalist framework, are more a reflection on Cuban realities than musings on China and the Chinese diaspora.

In Imaging the Chinese, López-Calvo contends that despite the continuous ambivalence toward the Chinese, the Chinese community in Cuba has resisted marginalization, has evolved over time, and has increasingly gained acceptance. Some important nineteenth and twentieth-century Cuban intellectuals, including José Martí, have all but ignored the Chinese presence and contribution to the Cuban nation, while others have acknowledged the Chinese presence but have misrepresented Sino-Cubans as silent separatists who created their own secret societies and isolated themselves from the rest of Cuban society. Both the lack of acknowledgement and misrepresentation imply that Sino-Cubans are not really Cuban. However, a competing discourse, which began to emerge in the late nineteenth century and has continued to develop to this day, has sought to correct these responses to the Chinese. Based largely on their participation in the wars of independence as Chinese mambises, the Chinese in...