Chinese Cubans: A Transnational History

8. Revolution and Remigration

221 Anyone who had ever heard the words of Mao Tse-­ tung would recognize Castro for what he was. We knew he was a communist from his student days. —“The Wing Dynasty of Miami,” Tropic, 10 December 1967 What’s the difference in the experience of Chinese in Cuba and other countries of the diaspora? The difference is that here a socialist revolution took place. The revolution eliminated discrimination based on the color of a person’s skin. Above all, it eliminated the property relations that create not only economic but also social inequality between rich and poor. —Moisés Sío Wong, Our History Is Still Being Written (2005) C h a p t e r E i g h t Revolution and Remigration Politics, warfare, and revolutions disrupt migration flows, dislocate people, and sever homeland ties, sometimes forever. Revolutions in China, 1949, and Cuba, 1959, transformed both societies and altered the fabric of transnational Chinese merchant communities. Ironically, exiles fleeing Communism in China were confronted with a similar political upheaval in Cuba just ten years later. Both longtime residents and newer Chinese migrants joined the Cuban exodus in the wake of the revolution. The Chinese Communist Revolution of 1949 and the Chinese Diaspora The Guomindang unified China from its seat in Nanjing in 1927, but it failed adequately to incorporate the leftist elements of its membership. In 1945, with the defeat of Japan at the end of World War II and the end of its occupation of the country, a civil war ensued between the Guomindang and the Communists, from which Mao Zedong’s Red Army emerged victorious. On 1 October 1949, Mao established the People’s Republic of China (PRC) on the mainland, while Chiang Kai-­ shek relocated the Guomindang government to Taipei. Chinese refugees fled to Taiwan, Hong Kong, and other places around the world, including Cuba. An estimated three thousand Chinese 222 Transnational and National Belonging entered Cuba from 1950 to 1959, among them Catholic priests and Guomindang officials.1 The establishment of the People’s Republic of China on the mainland in 1949 politically polarized diasporic Chinese communities. Despite the influence of the Guomindang overseas, Chinese in Cuba (and elsewhere) did not unanimously support Chiang Kai-­shek. In general, he had the backing of the wealthier merchant classes. In Cuba, although the Guomindang remained influential throughout the 1950s, it lost its monopoly on the political life of the Chinese community.2 The Chinese leftist political organization founded decades earlier emerged as the main body of support in Cuba for the Chinese Communist Revolution . During the civil war, it supported the Communists and changed its name to Alianza Nacional de Apoyo a la Democracía China (National Alliance to Protect Chinese Democracy). In 1946, it officially registered with the Cuban government as a cultural and mutual aid association with the mission of “promoting the widest support among the Chinese community of Cuba and the Cuban people to the democratic movement of China, to progress, and to the complete liberation of that country.”3 Mao Zedong’s victory in China infused new energy into the leftist tradition within Cuba’s Guomindang and the individuals and organizations that had been forced underground. After the establishment of the PRC, the Alianza demonstrated support for the new government at a public event attended by Chinese and Cuban Communists.4 Its president, Enrique León, declared support for the PRC and advocated Cuba’s recognition of the new government. But Cuba was under the political and economic influence of its North American neighbor, and a directive from Washington to support the new Chinese government never came. Nevertheless, on the tenth of October, the anniversary of the Chinese Revolution of 1911, members of the Alianza hung flags and placards on the balconies of the Guomindang building to celebrate Mao Zedong’s victory.This date coincided with Cuba’s commemoration of the beginning of the armed uprising against Spanish colonial rule in 1868, symbolically reinforcing the view of Alianza members that Chinese Communists and Cubans were allied in a fight against tyranny and corruption . On this occasion, confrontations erupted between Mao’s supporters and the much more numerous Guomindang followers in Cuba.5 The Chinese Communist Revolution contributed to the Cuban government ’s increasingly hardline stance toward its political opponents. In 1950, the government shut down the Communist newspaper Hoy. When a group Revolution and Remigration 223 of Chinese protested...