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Introducing radical counter-visions of race and slavery, and probing the legal and philosophical questions raised by indenture,The Coolie Speaksoffers the first critical reading of a massive testimony case from Cuba in 1874. From this case, Yun traces the emergence of a \"coolie narrative\" that forms a counterpart to the \"slave narrative.\" The written and oral testimonies of nearly 3,000 Chinese laborers in Cuba, who toiled alongside African slaves, offer a rare glimpse into the nature of bondage and the tortuous transition to freedom. Trapped in one of the last standing systems of slavery in the Americas, the Chinese described their hopes and struggles, and their unrelenting quest for freedom. Yun argues that the testimonies from this case suggest radical critiques of the \"contract\" institution, the basis for free modern society. The example of Cuba, she suggests, constitutes the early experiment and forerunner of new contract slavery, in which the contract itself, taken to its extreme, was wielded as a most potent form of enslavement and complicity. Yun further considers the communal biography of a next-generation Afro-Chinese Cuban author and raises timely theoretical questions regarding race, diaspora, transnationalism, and globalization.

The 1980 Mariel Boatlift was a profound episode in twentieth-century American history, impacting not just Florida, but the entire country. During the first twenty days of the boatlift, with little support from the federal government, the state of Florida coordinated and responded to the sudden arrival in Key West of more than thirty thousand Cuban refugees, the first wave of immigrants who became known as “ Marielitos.”   Kathleen Dupes Hawk, Ron Villella, Adolfo Leyva de Varona, and Kristen Cifers combine the insights of expert observers with the experiences of actual participants. The authors organize and present a wealth of primary sources, first-hand accounts, archival research, government records, and interviews with policy-makers, volunteers, and refugees that bring into focus the many far-reaching human, political, and cultural outcomes of the Mariel Boatlift that continue to influence Florida, the United States, and Cuba today.   Emerging from these key records and accounts is a grand narrative of high human drama. Castro’ s haphazard and temporary opening of Cuba spurred many thousands of Cubans to depart in calamitously rushed, unprepared, and dangerous conditions. The book tells the stories of these Cuban citizens, most legitimately seeking political asylum but also including subversive agents, convicted criminals, and the mentally ill, who began arriving in the US beginning in April 1980. It also recounts how local and state agencies and private volunteers with few directives or resources were left to improvise ways to provide the Marielitos food, shelter, and security as well as transportation away from Key West.   The book provides a definitive account of the political, legal, and administrative twists on the local, state, and federal levels in response to the crisis as well as of the often-dysfunctional attempts at collaboration between governmental and private institutions. Vivid and readable, Florida and the Mariel Boatlift of 1980 presents the significant details that illuminate and humanize this complex humanitarian, political, and logistical crisis. 

\"Writing for Inclusion examines four nineteenth-century Afro-Cuban and African American writers--Juan Francisco Manzano, Frederick Douglass, Martâin Morâua Delgado, and Charles W. Chesnutt--whose works provide examples of self-emancipation, interrogate the terms of exclusion from the nation, and argue for inclusive visions of national identity\" -- Provided by publisher.

Are all immigrants from the same home country best understood as a homogeneous group of foreign-born? Or do they differ in their adaptation and transnational ties depending on when they emigrated and with what lived experiences? Between Castro’s rise to power in 1959 and the early twenty-first century more than a million Cubans immigrated to the United States. While it is widely known that Cuban émigrés have exerted a strong hold on Washington policy toward their homeland, Eckstein uncovers a fascinating paradox: the recent arrivals, although poor and politically weak, have done more to transform their homeland than the influential and prosperous early exiles who have tried for half a century to bring the Castro regime to heel. The impact of the so-called New Cubans is an unintended consequence of the personal ties they maintain with family in Cuba, ties the first arrivals oppose. This historically-grounded, nuanced book offers a rare in-depth analysis of Cuban immigrants’ social, cultural, economic, and political adaptation, their transformation of Miami into the \"northern most Latin American city,\" and their cross-border engagement and homeland impact. Eckstein accordingly provides new insight into the lives of Cuban immigrants, into Cuba in the post Soviet era, and into how Washington’s failed Cuba policy might be improved. She also posits a new theory to deepen the understanding not merely of Cuban but of other immigrant group adaptation. Introduction 1. Immigrants and the Weight of Their Past 2. Immigrant Imprint in America 3. Politics for Whom and for What? 4. The Personal is Political: Bonding across Borders 5. Cuba Through the Looking Glass 6. Transforming Transnational Ties into Economic Worth 7. Dollarization and Its Discontents: Homeland Impact of Diaspora Generosity 8. Reenvisioning Immigration Appendix I: Field Research \"Based on extensive fieldwork in Cuba and the U.S., Eckstein shows that immigrant incorporation and enduring homeland involvements are cohort specific—how Cubans feel about their homeland and what they want to do about it depends upon when they leave and what they leave with. Her research also shows how the same group settles differently in different contexts of reception. A must-read for migration scholars, Latin Americanists, and policymakers alike.\" - Peggy Levitt, Wellesley College, author of God Needs No Passport: Immigrants and the Changing American Religious Landscape \"Eckstein, one of the leading scholars of contemporary Cuba, sheds light on the most recent and fascinating change in relations between Cuba and its diaspora: Officially, the government of Cuba and the leadership of the Miami diaspora may still hate each other but Cubans on both sides of the Straits of Florida have developed a flourishing relationship of remittances, migration, and transnational societies. This book is a terrific guide to relationships that are bound to develop even more in the years to come.\" - Jorge I. Domínguez, Harvard University, USA \"The immigrant’s journey is a story that has been told often, but never like this. With a sympathetic ear for the poetry of pathos and a critical eye for the data that give her insights depth, Eckstein has written a remarkable chronicle of two Cuban migrations to the United States. The ‘Exiles,’ who left soon after Castro arrived, and the ‘New Cubans,’ who came a generation later, were both changed by the journey, but what makes this book special is that she shows how they also changed both countries.\" - Robert Pastor, American University; National Security Advisor for Latin America, 1977–81 \"Eckstein takes on the timely question of change in the Cuban Diaspora. She looks beyond the initial wave of émigrés to analyze the experiences of the other waves that followed. By tapping this natural case study of immigrant resources and different patterns of incorporation and influence, Eckstein builds a comprehensive theory of immigrant incorporation that accounts for sending and receiving country influences and the role of co-ethnic political organization in the country of migration.\" - Louis DeSipio, University of California, Irvine, USA \"Few social scientists know Cuba as deeply or as subtly as Susan Eckstein. She has written the best sociological analysis of the political evolution of the island during the revolutionary period, Back from the Future . Now, she turns her attention to the Cuban diaspora and, with the same dispassionate eye, tells us of its behavior and its consequences both for their native and their adopted countries. A must-read for anyone interested in Cuba or immigrant politics.\" - Alejandro Portes \"Eckstein’s skillful parsing of secondary data—be they from the U.S. Census or the FIU Cuba Poll, which is used liberally to establish an empirical differentiation between “waves” of migrants—unravels the threads of the Cuban experience.\" - Guillermo J Grenier, Florida International University, Vol. 116, No. 2, American Journal of Sociology. \"Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries.\" - M. Vickerman, CHOICE (May 2010) Susan Eva Eckstein is Professor of Sociology and International Relations at Boston University. Author of Back from the Future: Cuba under Castro , as well as numerous other books on Latin America, she is also former president of the Latin American Studies Association and the New England Council on Latin America.

The intertwined stories of two archipelagos and their diasporas This volume is the first systematic comparative study of Cuba and Puerto Rico from both a historical and contemporary perspective. In these essays, contributors highlight the interconnectedness of the two archipelagos in social categories such as nation, race, class, and gender to encourage a more nuanced and multifaceted study of the relationships between the islands and their diasporas. Topics range from historical and anthropological perspectives on Cuba and Puerto Rico before and during the Cold War to cultural and sociological studies of diasporic communities in the United States. The volume features analyses of political coalitions, the formation of interisland sororities, and environmental issues. Along with sharing a similar early history, Cuba and Puerto Rico have closely intertwined cultures, including their linguistic, literary, food, musical, and religious practices. Contributors also discuss literature by Cuban and Puerto Rican authors by examining the aesthetics of literary techniques and discourses, the representation of psychological space on the stage, and the impacts of migration. Showing how the trajectories of both archipelagos have been linked together for centuries and how they have diverged recently, Cuba and Puerto Rico offers a transdisciplinary approach to the study of this intricate relationship and the formation of diasporic communities and continuities. Publication of this work made possible by a Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

\"Photographic Ekphrasis in Cuban-American Fiction offers new readings of Cuban-American novels and autobiographies, demonstrating that a focus on photographs (alluded to, analyzed, and/or obsessively recurrent in the narrative discourse) provides fresh insights into these texts. The study introduces the concept of photographic ekphrasis as a reading tool for diasporic literature and argues that visual images are important components of narratives about dislocation, nostalgia, and transcultural experience. Authors treated in depth include Carlos Eire, Cristina García, Oscar Hijuelos, Roberto G. Fernández, Ana Menéndez, Achy Obejas, and Gustavo Pérez Firmat. Photographic Ekphrasis in Cuban-American Fiction offers an original perspective on Cuban-American literature and contributes to the scholarship on ekphrasis and on the interactions between photography and narrative\"-- Provided by publisher.

How contemporary Cuban writers build transnational communities In Writing Islands , Elena Lahr-Vivaz employs methods from archipelagic studies to analyze works of contemporary Cuban writers on the island alongside those in exile. Offering a new lens to explore the multiplicity of Cuban space and identity, she argues that these writers approach their nation as part of a larger, transnational network of islands. Introducing the term \"arcubiélago\" to describe the spaces created by Cuban writers, both on the ground and in print, Lahr-Vivaz illuminates how transnational communities are forged and how they function across space and time. Lahr-Vivaz considers how poets, novelists, and essayists of the 1990s and 2000s built interconnected communities of readers through blogs, state-sponsored book fairs, informal methods of book circulation, and intertextual dialogues. Book chapters offer in-depth analyses of the works of writers as different as Reina María Rodríguez, known for lyrical poetry, and Zoé Valdés, known for strident critiques of Fidel Castro. Incorporating insights from on-site interviews in Cuba, Spain, and the United States, Lahr-Vivaz analyzes how writers maintained connections materially, through the distribution of works, and metaphorically, as their texts bridge spaces separated by geopolitics. Through a decolonizing methodology that resists limiting Cuba to a distinct geographic space, Writing Islands investigates the nuances of Cuban identity, the creation of alternate spaces of identity, the potential of the Internet for artistic expression, and the transnational bonds that join far-flung communities. Publication of this work made possible by a Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.