Imaging the Chinese in Cuban Literature and Culture (review)

This timely investigation into the portrayal of the Chinese in Cuban cultural production is part of a recent academic movement in the United States to expand the study of the Chinese diaspora in Cuba. The history of the Chinese in Cuba has been overshadowed by studies of Afrocubanism and Cuban exile in the USA, but is uncovered here via an impressive array of cultural products spanning the last 125 years.

López-Calvo demonstrates the evolution and resistance of the Chinese community in Cuba, revealing not only the process of hybridization but also its misrepresentation in Cuban and Cuban-American cultural production, as well as cases of deliberate and possibly unintentional self-orientalization by some writers and artists.

The Introduction provides a general history of the Chinese in Cuba, while the Epilogue contains biographies of Chinese individuals in Cuba and the USA. Chapters are arranged conceptually, using cultural products as case studies. Chapter 2 focuses on Chinese slavery as represented in documentary film, referring to works by Almendros and Ulla, testimonials in the work of Barnet, and oral history documents such as the Cuba Commission Report of 1877 – clearly a hidden gem of a document – exposing the appalling treatment of Chinese immigrants as replacement slaves long after abolition. Chapter 3 examines representations of Sinophobia found in Cuban popular jokes, short stories and the detective genre, as represented in the works of Feijóo, Mañach, Valdés, Catá and Padura Fuentes. Chapter 4 studies the notion of Orientalism as applied to the Chinese in Cuba in the work of Lezama Lima and Sarduy, while Chapter 5 analyses the portrayal of Chinese women as exotic, referring to García and Montero.

The topic of self-exoticization, detectable particularly in art, is examined in Chapter 6, using examples from Pedroso, Fong, Eng Herrera and Lau. Religious syncretism and witchcraft are considered in Chapter 7 with reference to Montero, Correa and Cabrera. In Chapter 8 the perspectives of transculturation and assimilation are analysed, while Chapter 9 highlights the exclusion and misrepresentation of the Chinese subject in texts about the participation of Chinese Cubans in the Revolution, citing works by Choy, Chui and Sío Wong, Chuffat Latour and Méndez Capote. Chapter 10 examines the Cuban perception of the Chinese, focusing largely on the works of Martí.

In his conclusion, López-Calvo comments on the condition of the Chinese in Cuba today, and efforts being made to maintain elements of Chinese culture for the future, following years of assimilation into Cuban revolutionary society.

This is a wide-ranging study spanning many decades, containing a plethora of examples, perhaps too many for some readers. However, with one-fifth of the book devoted to notes, it can be read by those wanting an overview without the distraction of detail concerning specific texts, as well as those who also want to investigate the topic further. Readers would ideally be familiar with terms and concepts from cultural theory, in order to fully appreciate the arguments put forward by the author when examining each writer's or artist's treatment of the Chinese. A highly informative, satisfying read, this book will help to earn the Chinese in Cuba the recognition they have clearly long deserved.