A Nation for All

Race, Inequality, and Politics in Twentieth-Century Cuba

Alejandro de la Fuente

• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9780807898765
• Topic: Storia
• Subtopic: Storia dell'America Latina e dei Caraibi

After thirty years of anticolonial struggle against Spain and four years of military occupation by the United States, Cuba formally became an independent republic in 1902. The nationalist coalition that fought for Cuba's freedom, a movement in which blacks and mulattoes were well represented, had envisioned an egalitarian and inclusive country--a nation for all, as Jos e Mart i described it. But did the Cuban republic, and later the Cuban revolution, live up to these expectations? Tracing the formation and reformulation of nationalist ideologies, government policies, and different forms of social and political mobilization in republican and postrevolutionary Cuba, Alejandro de la Fuente explores the opportunities and limitations that Afro-Cubans experienced in such areas as job access, education, and political representation. Challenging assumptions of both underlying racism and racial democracy, he contends that racism and antiracism coexisted within Cuban nationalism and, in turn, Cuban society. This coexistence has persisted to this day, despite significant efforts by the revolutionary government to improve the lot of the poor and build a nation that was truly for all.

PART I
THE FIRST REPUBLIC 1902-1933

1 RACIAL ORDER OR RACIAL DEMOCRACY?

Race and the Contending Notions of Cubanidad

The term “Cuban” refers to the Cuban people (not Negroes).

—U.S. Senate, Reports of the Immigration Commission, Dictionary of Races or Peoples (1911)

Cubans are known to be . . . whites born in Cuba, descendants mainly of Spaniards.

—Rafael Montalvo, “Discurso” (1884)

A Cuban is more than mulatto, black, or white.

—José Martí, “My Race” (1893)

Cuba and Cubanness were represented in vastly different ways in 1899, when the defeated Spain had to relinquish sovereignty over its Caribbean colony. Despite their differences, all these definitions had a common element: the shared belief that “race” was at the very core of the nation. Race was, and remained, central to the process of national construction. The competing visions that by the end of the nineteenth century clashed over the creation of the republic and of the new Cuba disagreed not only on questions of property relations or institutional arrangements but also—indeed, primarily—on how racially inclusive and egalitarian postcolonial Cuba should be.

Each of these visions was supported and linked to different social and political actors whose place in the new order was yet undefined in 1898. On the one hand, there was the Liberation Army, nominally victorious and with an enormous prestige among the populace. In a long process involving three separate wars and thirty years of struggle, Cubans of all colors and social origins had created a formidable cross-racial coalition and forged a nationalist revolutionary ideology that claimed all Cubans were equal members of the nation, regardless of race or social status. This coalition had gone to war in 1895 to bring about social change and political independence. They envisioned a new Cuba that would be independent, socially egalitarian, and racially inclusive—a republic “with all and for all,” as Martí had called it. Although social and racial tensions plagued the Liberation Army and the nationalist discourse was open to contending and even contradictory interpretations, racial inclusion remained the main thrust of Cuba Libre (Free Cuba): the existence of “blacks” and “whites” was recognized, but they would equally participate in the nation under construction.¹

On the other hand, the Liberation Army was not in power. Some functions of government, such as tax collection, policing, and justice administration, were performed initially by units of the army, but all these functions came gradually under the control of the U.S. invading forces when the government of military occupation was organized. By 1899 it was the U.S. Army who ruled the island. And although they had entered the war with the avowed purpose of encouraging Cuba’s independence, American authorities entertained serious doubts about Cubans’ capacity for self-rule and proper government, particularly due to the racial composition of Cuba’s population. General Leonard Wood and other American officers did not hide their disdain for dark, lower-class Cubans, and they openly supported what they referred to as “the better class.”² Wood’s own vision of Cubanness was unequivocally explicit in a 1901 letter to Senator Orville H. Platt, after whom the famous amendment limiting Cuban independence was named: “[W]e do not want to get the real Cuban people, I mean the producers and merchants, against us.”³

Planters, merchants, and other members of the former elite had suffered during the war, but they had not been annihilated. American officials did not want a confrontation with them, as Wood stated in his letter to Platt, but more important, under the occupation government the properties and privileges of the former elite were fully respected. U.S. authorities hoped that these “real” Cubans would play a prominent, even leading, role in the creation of the republic, and they gave them support and favor in the appointments to public office. A group that might have been displaced by the victory of the revolutionary coalition was, as a result of intervention, guaranteed continued access to power. Independence had not been achieved. Social change under these circumstances seemed highly unlikely. Supported by American authorities, some members of the “better classes” even questioned whether Cubans of African descent were real and full members of the nation. During the revolution they had sided with Spain precisely because of the racial composition of the Liberation Army and the fear that Afro-Cubans might create a black republic in the island. Some of the members of this traditional elite had staunchly defended the Spanish character of Cuban civilization and could easily connect and sympathize with North American racial ideologies.

Clashing for primacy, these competing ideologies and interests envisioned radically different ways to constitute the nation. Each had its own claims to legitimacy and sources of support. The nationalist paradigm of a racially inclusive nation appealed to large sectors of the population and rested solidly on the prestige and patriotic merits of Cuba’s dearest heroes—particularly Martí and the mulatto general Antonio Maceo—and of the Liberation Army. Racially exclusionary notions of nationhood did not have the same popular appeal, but they took their legitimacy from the superiority of North Atlantic science and found political support in the occupation government and the propertied classes.

To complicate things further, some sectors within the white leadership of the Liberation Army were also interested in minimizing blacks’ participation in the new Cuba, especially during a period of scarce economic resources and opportunities for employment. Members of the civil and military branches of the Liberation Army formed a powerful political class, led the dominant Liberal and Conservative Parties, and competed ferociously for public office. Despite differences in political denominations, the leadership of these parties shared views of race and nation that were virtually identical. They did not dispute the legitimacy of the nationalist principle of racial democracy, but they treated racial equality as an achievement of the war for independence, not as a goal requiring further social and political action—a conquest rather than a program. The result was an interpretation of Cuban nationalism that denied or minimized the existence of a “race problem,” avoided or condemned its public discussion as an affront to the nation, and contributed to maintaining the status quo. This conservative interpretation of the nationalist ideology, linked to the dominant political parties and elite political actors, lingered on through the republic. Despite their formal commitment to a racially fraternal Cubanness, the proponents of this view fully endorsed the notion that whiteness was a precondition for stability and progress and lent support to racially defined immigration programs. In this aspect, the new political elite coincided with, and shared the fears of, the traditional elite and the American occupation forces.

That it was possible to support whitening while pledging allegiance to the ideology of racial fraternity exemplifies the complexities and contradictions of this ideology. Beyond its apparent coherence, the mambí revolutionary ideology was in fact open to contending interpretations. Different social groups could refer to the same foundational discourse to explain the relationship between race and nation in radically different ways. Rather than a finished product, the nationalist ideology itself was permanently contested and redefined. In contrast to the elite, conservative version of Cuban racial democracy, a popular interpretation of the same ideology referred to Martí’s egalitarian republic as a goal in the unfinished process of nation-building, opposed any attempts to silence the issue, and called for different forms of social action. This radical interpretation was defended initially by only a handful of Afro-Cuban voices. After the 1920s, it was endorsed also by the radical labor movement and the Communist Party.

Thus, clashes occurred not only between Cuban racial democracy, on the one hand, and the racially exclusionary ideologies of the U.S. occupation forces and the traditional white elite, on the other. Clashes also took place within the nationalist ideology. This chapter discusses these formulations of race and nation, their differences and similarities. In order to facilitate the analysis, the first section traces the formation of the nationalist ideology of racial democracy and discusses its ambiguities and contradictions, which enabled various social groups to advance vastly different interpretations of the same ideology. I have grouped these interpretations into two main categories: a conservative, elite version of race and Cubanness and a radical, popular view. A second section discusses the availability of ideas that, in opposition to the ideal of racial fraternity, legitimized Afro-Cubans’ exclusion from the nation and the creation of a legally defined racial order. A final section explores the discourse of whitening, in which elite interpretations of racial democracy and the scientific racism manufactured in the North Atlantic countries most visibly coincided.

RACIAL DEMOCRACY

The formation of a nationalist ideology advocating racial inclusiveness was a long and contested process that developed in Cuba from concrete political needs. While the white elites were troubled by the visible racial diversity of the island’s population, it was clear that they could not achieve political independence from Spain without the formation of a multiracial alliance, with all its unforeseeable consequences. Cautiously, the white leadership of the first war for independence—the 1868–78 Ten Years War—moved from an opportunistic defense of slavery to the advocacy of abolition. The first constitution of Cuba Libre (1869) had stipulated that all the inhabitants of the republic were free and equal, but it was not until 1871, when the last ordinance approved by the revolutionary authorities concerning freedmen was annulled, that abolition and equality became dominant themes in the nationalist rhetoric. Moreover, the experience of war and the presence and leadership of blacks within the army reinforced the image that independent Cuba would have to be egalitarian and inclusive.⁴

It was to attract blacks to the pro-independence camp that an ideology advocating racial fraternity was further elaborated and systematized. Leading these efforts was nationalist intellectual and activist José Martí, whose militant campaign for a “cordial” republic “with all and for all” became gospel in Cuban nationalist ideology. Martí and other nationalist leaders understood well that unity was a precondition to launch a successful new war for independence. Unity, however, would not be achieved if race continued to separate Cubans. Spanish authorities had effectively used the fear of race war to discourage white Cubans from joining armed attempts against the colonial order, emphasizing in the process that racial diversity and nation were two incompatible entities.⁵

The challenge, then, was to create a new notion of Cubanness that conciliated racial diversity with white fears. This Martí achieved by claiming that Cuban racial fraternity had been forged during the Ten Years War, a revolution that had given freedom and honor to the slaves and in which blacks and whites had fought and died together to form a new Cuba. “Dying for Cuba on the battlefield, the souls of both Negroes and white men have risen together. In the daily life of defense, loyalty, brotherhood, and shrewdness, there has always been a Negro standing beside every white man.”⁶

Unity and brotherhood were emphasized because they were politically crucial, but Martí himself recognized that racial unity was more a goal than an accomplished reality. Indeed, such emphasis would have been unnecessary in an environment of true racial fraternity. “Always to dwell on the divisions or differences between the races, in people who are sufficiently divided already, is to raise barriers to the attainment of both national and individual well-being, for these two goals are reached by bringing together as closely as possible the various components that form the nation. . . . A man is more than white, black, or mulatto. A Cuban is more than mulatto, black, or white.” Consequently, Martí condemned any attempt to classify or separate people according to “races” as a “sin against humanity” and a violence against “Nature.”⁷ In “Our America” (1891), he even challenged the legitimacy of the concept itself: “There can be no racial animosity, because there are no races. The theorists and feeble thinkers string together and warm over the bookshelf races which the well-disposed observer and the fair-minded traveler vainly seek in the justice of Nature where man’s universal identity springs forth.”⁸

To counter Spanish propaganda, this discourse stressed that race and nation were compatible also because blacks would never attempt to gain control of the republic. Blacks would not rise against their white brothers who had fought to end slavery in the island. “Made by slaveowners, the revolution declared slaves free,” Martí asserted. Thanks to the revolution, “the Negro race” had “returned to humanity” and had been “rescued” from the ignominy of its previous existence. Martí suggested that rather than being seen as a racial threat, blacks should be seen as grateful recipients of white generosity—constructing in the process what Ferrer has termed the image of the “subservient insurgent.” Afro-Cuban heroism and contributions to independence were not ignored, but emphasis was placed on blacks’ “virtues,” “generosity,” “prudence,” and love for “sensible” freedom. Afro-Cubans aspired to freedom, work, and justice, but they did so as Cubans, not as members of a racial group, insisted Martí.⁹

This foundational discourse recognized the existence of different races but included them within an encompassing notion of Cubanness that was supposed to supersede racial identities. If to be Cuban was “more than” being white, black, or mulatto, then there was no need even to refer to these particular grou...