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13 Sanfancón Orientalism, Self-Orientalization, and “Chinese Religion” in Cuba FRANK F. SCHERER Ellos dicen, a segun yo tengo entendido, que cuando ellos mueren, van directamente a China. (They say, as far as I have understood, that when they die, they go directly to China.) —Comment made in 1995 by a gravedigger of La Habana’s Chinese cemetery CHINESE DREAMS Chinese dreams are being dreamt in the island of Cuba. There are, on the one hand, those dreams indulged in by a Cuban political elite that is willing to introduce economic change without allowing for social and political change. These efforts in trying to keep a traditional power base intact are reminiscent of Deng Xiaoping’s precedent1 and should be understood, additionally, in the context of the particular significance that the People’s Republic of China holds—after the demise of the Soviet-Cuban alliance in 1991—for the only socialist state in the Western hemisphere. On the other hand, and intimately linked to the above, there is the announced “revitalization” of Cuba’s Chinese community (Grupo Promotor 1995; Strubbe 1995), a project that includes not only the restoration of La Habana’s Chinatown for tourist consumption, but, simultaneously, a not so subtle and rather unexpected return to notions of difference conceived in ethnic and cultural terms. It is my contention that the recent revival of “Chinese” ethnicity in Cuba is based both on a number of Euro-American Orientalist assumptions of a distinctive and essential Chineseness, and on the “Oriental” use of Orientalist discourse , which perfectly illustrates the “indigenous” employment of what I call strategic Orientalism. While the former is being promoted, somewhat ambiguously , by the Cuban state and its intelligentsia, the latter is articulated by firstand second-generation Chinese Cubans. In this way, the very process of reintegrating , re-creating, and re-ethnicizing the Chinese Cuban “community” is marked by the peculiar practice of self-Orientalization (Ong 1993; 1997; Dirlik 1996). This complex discursive practice, complete with Confucian ideas and certain capitalist aspirations, facilitates the articulation of difference conceived 154 Frank F. Scherer in ethnic and cultural terms by first- and second-generation Chinese Cubans and allows—at least in Cuba—for the opening of alternative spaces, where the construction of identities other than those prescribed by the Cuban state can take place. Furthermore, the phenomenon of self-Orientalization feeds, apparently, not only into familiar Euro-American Orientalist discursive formations, but also on the revival of “Chinese religion” in Cuba, and with it, on the recent remobilization of the Chinese-Cuban “saint” Sanfancón. In all, the overt reappearance of Orientalism, self-Orientalization, and “Chinese religion” in Cuba remain inextricably linked to the profound ideological, political, economic, social, and cultural transformations that the island is currently undergoing. I shall begin with some reflections on a body of critical literature concerned with Edward Said’s Orientalism, an influential study, which, though pointing to essentializations based on a fundamental distinction between “East” and “West,” has itself largely ignored the responses and challenges of the peoples involved. The sharp criticism brought forth by Marxist scholars (for example, Aijaz Ahmad ) will be interrogated and juxtaposed to those criticisms of Said’s Orientalism that themselves come from “de-centered” and postcolonial perspectives, such as that of James Clifford. But, more importantly, I want to show how Sadik Jallal El-Azm, Aihwa Ong, and Xiaomei Chen were able to reach beyond Said’s paradigmatic contribution, trying to expand the concept of Orientalism into a dialectical one so as to incorporate the part that “Orientals” may actually have in its making. Thereafter, I want to discuss forms of modern Orientalism as expressed by the Cuban intelligentsia as well as by members of the Chinese Cuban community. I shall approach these discursive practices from three different angles: firstly, by exploring the history of Cuban Orientalism as well as the concurrent impact of Euro-American Orientalist discourse as promoted by Cuban officials, journalists , writers, and others; secondly, by examining the peculiar practice of selfOrientalization , and in the Cuban context, the links, imagined or real, that exist with the icon Confucius; and thirdly, by analyzing the contemporary presence and significance of “Chinese religion” in Cuba, and in particular the recent resuscitation of the Chinese Cuban “saint” Sanfancón. HYBRID STRATEGIES Edward Said’s Orientalism (1979) stands out as a seminal work that, though confronted with harsh criticism, has nonetheless managed to maintain much of its paradigmatic stance. While we can recognize the...

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