Afro-Cubans

Afro-Cubans or Black Cubans are Cubans of sub-Saharan African ancestry. The term Afro-Cuban can also refer to historical or cultural elements in Cuba thought to emanate from this community and the combining of native African and other cultural elements found in Cuban society such as race, religion, music, language, the arts and class culture.[2]

Black Cubans
Total population
1,034,044
(9.3% of the Cuban Population)[1] (2012)
Regions with significant populations
Eastern Cuba
Languages
Spanish, Lucumí, Habla Congo, English, Portuguese, Cuban Sign Language
Religion
Afro-Cuban religions
Abakuá, Arará religion, Cuban Vodú, Palo, Santería
Popular religions
Predominantly Roman Catholic, minorities of Protestant
Related ethnic groups
Yoruba people, Arará, Cape Verdean Cuban, Ganga-Longoba, Haitian Cuban

Demographics

According to a 2012 national census which surveyed 11.2 million Cubans, 1 million Cubans described themselves as Afro-Cuban or Black, while 3 million considered themselves to be "mulatto" or "mestizo".[3] Thus a significant proportion of those living on the island affirm some African ancestry. Although, there has been much discussion over the actual demographic composition of the island. While the 2012 national census showed that only 11% of Cubans reported themselves to be Afro-Cuban or Black, most international sources and independent studies have shown that the proportion of Cubans who are black or who have significant African genetic heritage is higher. A study by the University of Miami estimated that number to be 62%, noting that complex attitudes towards racial identification, and the de facto racial hierarchy that has existed on the island, have influenced lower figures.[4] However, this figure of 62% was reached by using the one drop rule, which assumes any person with sub-Saharan African ancestry, regardless of the amount, is to be considered black. The one drop rule is not an accurate means of assessing a persons racial identity. [5]

A study from 2014 estimated the genetic admixture of the population of Cuba to be 72% European, 20% African and 8% Native American.[6]

Although Afro-Cubans can be found throughout Cuba, Eastern Cuba has a higher concentration of Afro-Cubans than other parts of the island and Havana has the largest population of Afro-Cubans of any city in Cuba.[7] Recently, many native African immigrants have been coming to Cuba, especially from Angola.[8] Also, immigrants from Jamaica and Haiti have been settling in Cuba, most of whom settle in the eastern part of the island, due to its proximity to their home countries, further contributing to the already high percentage of blacks on that side of the island.[7]

The percentage of Afro-Cubans on the island increased after the 1959 Cuban revolution led by Fidel Castro due to mass migration from the island of the largely white Cuban professional class.[9] A small percentage of Afro-Cubans left Cuba, mostly for the United States (particularly Florida), where they and their U.S.-born children are known as Afro-Cuban Americans,[10] Cuban Americans, Hispanic Americans and African Americans. Only a few of them resided in nearby Spanish-speaking country of Dominican Republic and the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico.

The Minority Rights Group International says that "An objective assessment of the situation of Afro-Cubans remains problematic due to scant records and a paucity of systematic studies both pre- and post-revolution".[11]

Afro-Cuban descendants in Africa

African countries such as Nigeria, the home of the Yoruba cultures and Spanish Guinea experienced an influx of ex-slaves from Cuba brought there as indentured servants during the 17th century and again during the 19th century. In Spanish Guinea, they became part of the Emancipados; in Nigeria, they were called Amaros. Despite being free to return to Cuba when their tenure was over, they remained in these countries marrying into the local indigenous population. The former slaves were brought to Africa by the Royal Orders of September 13, 1845 (by way of voluntary arrangement) and a June 20, 1861, deportation from Cuba, due to the lack of volunteers. Similar circumstances previously occurred during the 17th century where ex-slaves from both Cuba and Brazil were offered the same opportunity.

Angola also has communities of Afro-Cubans, Amparos. They are descendants of Afro-Cuban soldiers brought to the country in 1975 as a result of the Cuban involvement in the Cold War. Fidel Castro deployed thousands of troops to the country during the Angolan Civil War. As a result of this era, there exists a small Spanish-speaking community in Angola of Afro-Cubans numbering about 100,000.

Haitian-Cubans

Haitian Creole language and culture first entered Cuba with the arrival of Haitian immigrants at the start of the 19th century. Haiti was then the French colony of Saint-Domingue and the final years of the 1791–1804 Haitian Revolution brought a wave of French settlers fleeing with their Haitian slaves to Cuba. They came mainly to the east, and especially Guantánamo, where the French later introduced sugar cultivation, constructed sugar refineries and developed coffee plantations. By 1804, some 30,000 Frenchmen were living in Baracoa and Maisí, the furthest eastern municipalities of the province. Later, Haitians continued to come to Cuba to work as braceros (Spanish for "manual laborers") in the fields cutting cane. Their living and working conditions were not much better than slavery. Although they planned to return to Haiti, most stayed on in Cuba. For years, many Haitians and their descendants in Cuba did not identify themselves as such or speak Creole. In the eastern part of the island, many Haitians suffered discrimination. Classes in Creole are offered in Guantanamo, Matanzas and the City of Havana. There is a Creole-language radio program.

Religion

Santería icons at an open place of worship in Havana. Santería is a syncretism practiced by many Afro-Cubans

Afro-Cubans are predominantly Roman Catholic, with minorities of Protestant. Afro-Cuban religion can be broken down into three main currents: Santería, Palo Monte and include individuals of all origins. Santería is syncretized with Roman Catholicism.

Music

Since the mid-19th century, innovations within Cuban music have been attributed to the Afro-Cuban community. Genres such as son, conga, mambo and chachachá combined European influences with sub-Saharan African elements. Cuban music evolved markedly away from the traditional European model towards improvisational African traditions.[12] Afro-Cuban musicians have taken pre-existing genres such as trova, country and rap and added their own realities of life in a socialist country and as black persons. Genres like Nueva Trova are seen as live representations of the revolution and have been affected by Afro-Cuban musicians like Pablo Milanes who included African spirituals in his early repertory.[13] Music in Cuba is encouraged both as a scholarly exercise and a popular enjoyment. To Cubans, music and study of it are integral parts of the revolution.[14] Audiences are proud of mixed ethnicity that makes up the music from the Afro-Cuban community, despite there being a boundary of distrust and uncertainty between Cubans and Afro-Cuban culture.[14]

Afro-Cuban music can be divided into religious and profane. Religious music includes the chants, rhythms and instruments used in rituals of the religious currents mentioned above. Profane music includes rumba, guaguancó, comparsa (carnival music) and lesser styles such as the tumba francesa. Virtually all Cuban music is influenced by African rhythms. Cuban popular music, and much of the art music, combines influences from Spain and Africa in ways unique to Cuba. For example son combines African instruments and playing styles with the meter and rhythm of Spanish poetic forms.[15] While much of the music is performed in cut-time, artists typically use an array of time signatures like 6/8 for drumming beats. On the other hand, clave uses a polymetric 7/8 + 5/8 time signature.[16]

Afro-Cuban arts emerged in the early 1960s with musicians spearheading an amateur movement bringing African-influenced drumming to the forefront of Cuban music. For example, Enrique Bonne's drumming ensembles took inspiration from Cuban folklore, traditional trova, dance music, and American Jazz. Pello de Afrokan created a new dance rhythm called Mozambique that increased in popularity after his predominantly afro-Cuban folklore troupe performed in 1964.

Before the revolution, authorities considered Afro-Cuban religious music a lesser culture; religious drummers were persecuted and instruments were confiscated.[17] After the revolution, Afro-Cuban music could be practiced more openly, but authorities were suspicious due to its relation to Afro-Cuban religions. The first revolutionary institution created for the performing "national folklore" (Afro-Cuban artistic traditions) was Conjunto Folklórico Nacional.[12] Despite official institutional support from the Castro's regime, Afro-Cuban music was treated mostly with ambivalence throughout the second half of the 20th century. Audiences looked down on traditional and religious Afro-Cuban music as primitive and anti-revolutionary,[12] music educators continued pre-revolutionary indifference toward afro-Cuban folklore, and the religious nature of Afro-Cuban music led to criticisms of the government's whitening and de-Africanization of the music. Religious concerts declined, musical instruments related to Santería were confiscated and destroyed, afro-Cuban celebrations were banned outright, and strict limits were placed on the quantity of religious music heard on the radio and television.[17] These attitudes softened in the 1970s and 1980s as the afro-Cuban community began to fuse religious elements into their music. In the 1990s, Afro-Cuban music became a mainstay of Cuba's tourism economy. Members of religious groups earned their living by performing and teaching ritual drumming, song, and dance, to tourists visiting the country.

Rap was adopted in 1999 and solidified with the rise of hip-hop group Orishas. Cuban hip-hop focused on criticism of the Cuban state and the global economic order, including racism, colonialism, imperialism, and global capitalism.[18]

Language

Other cultural elements considered to be Afro-Cuban can be found in language (including syntax, vocabulary, and style of speech).

The Afro-Cuban religions all maintain some degree of use of African languages. Santería and Abakuá both have large parts of their liturgy in African languages (Lucumí and Ñañigo, respectively) while Palo uses a mixture of Spanish and Kikongo, known as Habla Congo.

Racial consciousness

According to anthropologists dispatched by the European Union, racism is entrenched in Cuba.[19] Afro-Cubans are systematically excluded from positions in tourism-related jobs, where they could earn tips in hard currencies.[19] According to the EU study, Afro-Cubans are relegated to poor housing, and African Cubans are excluded from managerial positions.[19]

Enrique Patterson, an afro-Cuban journalist and former University of Havana professor of marxist philosophy, describes race as a "social bomb" and says that "If the Cuban government were to permit Afro-Cubans to organize and raise their problems before [authorities] ... totalitarianism would fall".[20] Esteban Morales Domínguez, a professor at the University of Havana, says that "The absence of the debate on the racial problem already threatens ... the revolution's social project".[20] Carlos Moore, who has written extensively on the issue, says that "There is an unstated threat, Afro-cubans in Cuba know that whenever you raise race in Cuba, you go to jail. Therefore the struggle in Cuba is different. There cannot be a civil rights movement. You will have instantly 10,000 black people dead. [...] The government is frightened to the extent to which it does not understand African Cubans today. You have a new generation of Afro-Cubans who are looking at politics in another way."[20] Barack Obama's victory has raised disturbing questions about the institutional racism in Cuba.[19] The Economist noted "The danger starts with his example: after all, a young, Afro-cuban, progressive politician has no chance of reaching the highest office in Cuba, although a majority of the island's people are of mostly African descent"[21]

In the years between the triumph of the revolution and the victory at Playa Girón the Cuban government was one of the world's most proactive regimes in the fight against discrimination. It achieved significant gains in racial equality through a series of egalitarian reforms early in the 1960s. Fidel Castro's first public address on racism after his rise to power was on March 23, 1959, at a labor rally in Havana, less than three months after he defeated Fulgencio Batista. He is quoted as saying: "One of the most just battles that must be fought, a battle that must be emphasized more and more, which I might call the fourth battle--the battle to end racial discrimination at work centers. I repeat: the battle to end racial discrimination at work centers. Of all the forms of racial discrimination the worst is the one that limits the colored Cuban's access to jobs. "[22] Castro pointed to the distinction between social segregation and employment, while placing great emphasis on correcting the latter. In response to the large amount of racism that existed in the job market, Castro issued anti-discrimination laws. In addition, he attempted to close the class gap between wealthy white Cubans and Afro-Cubans with a massive literacy campaign among other egalitarian reforms in the early and mid-1960s.[23] Two years after his 1959 speech at the Havana Labor Rally, Castro declared that the age of racism and discrimination was over. In a speech given at the Confederation of Cuban Workers in observance of May Day, Castro declared that the "just laws of the revolution ended unemployment, put an end to villages without hospitals and schools, enacted laws which ended discrimination, control by monopolies, humiliation, and the suffering of the people."[24] Although inspiring, many would consider the claim to be premature."[25]

Research conducted by Yesilernis Peña, Jim Sidanius and Mark Sawyer in 2003, suggests that social discrimination is still prevalent, despite the low levels of economic discrimination.[26] After considering the issue solved, the Cuban government moved beyond the issue of racism. His message marked a shift in Cuban society's perception of racism that was triggered by the change in government focus."[25] The government's announcement easily allowed the Cuban public to deny discrimination without first correcting the stereotypes that remained in the minds of those who grew up in a Cuba that was racially and economically divided. Many who argue that racism does not exist in Cuba base their claims on the idea of Latin American Exceptionalism. According to the argument of Latin American Exceptionality, a social history of intermarriage and mixing of the races is unique to Latina America. The large mestizo populations that result from high levels of interracial union common to Latin America are often linked to racial democracy. For many Cubans this translates into an argument of "racial harmony", often referred to as racial democracy. In the case of Cuba, ideas of Latin American Exceptionalism have delayed the progress of true racial harmony.[27]

In spite of all the promises and speeches by government leaders, racial discrimination against Afro-Cubans[28][29] continues to be a major Human Rights issue for the Cuban government,[30][31][32] even resulting in riots in Central Havana, a mostly black neighborhood in the capital.[33]

Most of the Latin population of Tampa in the 1950s was working class and lived in restricted areas, ethnic enclaves in the vicinity of Tampa's hundreds of cigar factories. African Cubans were tolerated to an extent in the Latin quarter (where most neighborhoods and cigar factories were integrated). Ybor City and its counterpart, West Tampa, were areas that bordered on other restricted sections-areas for U.S. blacks or whites only. In this Latin quarter, there existed racial discrimination despite its subtleness.[34]

Afrocubanismo

During the 1920s and 1930s Cuba experienced a movement geared towards Afro-Cuban culture called Afrocubanismo.[35] The movement had a large impact on Cuban literature, poetry, painting, music, and sculpture. It was the first artistic campaign in Cuba that focused on one particular theme: African culture. Specifically it highlighted the struggle for independence from Spain, African slavery, and building a purely Cuban national identity. Its goal was to incorporate African folklore and rhythm into traditional modes of art.

History of the movement

The movement evolved from an interest in the rediscovery of African heritage. It developed in two very different and parallel stages. One stage stemmed from European artists and intellectuals who were interested in African art and musical folk forms.[36] This stage paralleled the Harlem Renaissance in New York, Négritude in the French Caribbean, and coincided with stylistic European Vanguard (like Cubism and its representation of African masks). It was characterized by the participation of white intellectuals such as Cubans Alejo Carpentier, Rómulo Lachatañeré, Fortunato Vizcarrondo, Fernando Ortiz and Lydia Cabrera, Puerto Rican Luis Palés Matos and Spaniards Pablo Picasso and Roger de Lauria. The African-inspired art tended to represent Afro-Cubans with cliché images such as a black man sitting beneath a palm tree with a cigar.

Poems and essays by Afro-Cuban writers began to be published in the 1930s in newspapers, magazines and books, where they discussed their own personal heritage. Afro-Cuban and Afro-Cuban heritage artists such as Nicolás Guillén, Alberto Arredondo and Emilio Ballagas brought light to the once-marginalized African race and culture. It became a symbol of empowerment and individuality for Afro-Cubans within the established Western culture of the Americas.[37]

This empowerment became a catalyst for the second stage to be characterized by Afro-Cuban artists making art that truly reflected what it meant to be Afro-Cuban. Beginning in the 1930s this stage depicted a more serious view of black culture like African religions and the struggles associated with slavery. The main protagonist during this stage of the movement was Nicolás Guillén.[38]

Results of the movement

The lasting reputation of the Afrocubanismo movement was the establishment of a New World art form that used aesthetics from both European and African culture.[39] Although the actual movement of Afrocubanismo faded by the early 1940s, Afro-Cuban culture continues to play a vital role in the identity of Cuba. It has been the Cuban Revolution that opened up a space for extended research of African ethnic roots in Cuba.[40] The rhetoric of the Revolution incorporates black history and its contribution as an important stratum of Cuban identity. The Revolution has funded many projects that restore the work of Afro-Cubans in an effort to accommodate an African-driven identity within the new anti-racist Cuban society.[41]

Notable Afro-Cubans

Arts and entertainment

Music

Politics

Science

Sports

See also

Footnotes

  1. "Archived copy" (PDF). www.one.cu. Archived from the original (PDF) on 3 June 2014. Retrieved 11 January 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  2. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company. Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Random House, Inc. 2006.
  3. "Archived copy" (PDF). www.one.cu. Archived from the original (PDF) on 3 June 2014. Retrieved 11 January 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  4. "Archived copy". www.miamiherald.com. Archived from the original on 21 August 2013. Retrieved 1 September 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  5. Writer, Steve Bradt Harvard Staff (9 December 2010). "'One-drop rule' persists". Harvard Gazette. Retrieved 2 September 2023.
  6. Beatriz Marcheco-Teruel, Esteban J. Parra, Evelyn Fuentes-Smith, Antonio Salas, Henriette N. Buttenschøn, Ditte Demontis, María Torres-Español, Lilia C. Marín-Padrón, Enrique J. Gómez-Cabezas, Vanesa Álvarez-Iglesias, Ana Mosquera-Miguel, Antonio Martínez-Fuentes, Ángel Carracedo, Anders D. Børglum, Ole Mors, "Cuba: Exploring the History of Admixture and the Genetic Basis of Pigmentation Using Autosomal and Uniparental Markers", July 24, 2014. PLOS Genetics.
  7. OECD Data Sheet
  8. Kevin Edmonds (27 September 2013). "Cuba's Other Internationalism: Angola 25 Years Later".
  9. "Race & Identity in Cuba". afrocubaweb.com.
  10. Lopez, Antonio (2012). Unbecoming Blackness: The Diaspora Cultures of Afro-Cuban America. NYU Press. p. 4. ISBN 978-0-8147-6547-0.
  11. "Cuba – Afro-Cubans". World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples. Minority Rights Group International. 2008. Retrieved 29 December 2013.
  12. Moore, Robin (2006). "Black Music in a Raceless Society: Afrocuban Folklore and Socialism". Cuban Studies. 37: 1–32. doi:10.1353/cub.2007.0009 via WorldCat Discovery Service.
  13. Benmayor, Rina (1981). "La "Nueva Trova": New Cuban Song". Latin American Music Review. 2 (1): 11–44. doi:10.2307/780148. JSTOR 780148 via WorldCat Discovery Service.
  14. Garland, Phyl (1977). "Cuban Music: An Instrument of the Revolution". The Black Scholar. 8 (8–10): 16–24. doi:10.1080/00064246.1977.11413920 via WorldCat Discovery Service.
  15. Guevara, Gema R. (2005). "Narratives of Racial Authority in Cuban Popular Music". Journal of Popular Music Studies. 17 (3): 255–274. doi:10.1111/j.1524-2226.2005.00045.x via WorldCat Discovery Service.
  16. King, Anthony (1961:14). Yoruba Sacred Music from Ekiti. Ibadan University Press.
  17. Moore, Robin (2006). Music and Revolution: Cultural Change in Socialist Cuba. Berkeley: University of California Press. p. 199. ISBN 9781423789666.
  18. Saunders, Tanya (2012). "Black Thoughts, Black Activism: Cuban Underground Hip-Hop and Afro-Latino Countercultures of Modernity". Latin American Perspectives. 39: 42–60. doi:10.1177/0094582X11428062. S2CID 146195152 via WorldCat Discovery Service.
  19. "'Obama Effect' Highlights Racism in Cuba". New America Media. 15 December 2008.
  20. "A barrier for Cuba's black people – New attitudes on once-taboo race questions emerge with a fledgling black movement". Miami Herald. Archived from the original on 1 July 2009.
  21. "Fifty years of the Castro regime – Time for a (long overdue) change". The Economist. 30 December 2008.
  22. Speech at Havana Labor Rally . Transcript available on The University of Texas at Austin - Web Central
  23. Perez, Louis A. Cuba: Between Reform and Revolution, New York. 2006, p. 326.
  24. Speech given by Fidel Castro on April 8, 1961. Text provided by Havana FIEL Network.
  25. Moore, C. 1995. Afro-Cubans and the Communist Revolution. Trenton, New Jersey: Africa World Press. Evidence collected in 2003 over proved.
  26. Pena, Y., Jim Sidanis and Mark Sawyer. 2003. Racial Democracy in the Americas: A Latin and US Comparison. University of California, Los Angeles.
  27. Mark Sawyer. Racial Politics in Post- Revolutionary Cuba.
  28. Mirabal, Nancy (10 November 2017). "The Cuban Revolution and the Myth of Racial Inclusivity". AAIHS. Retrieved 20 October 2020.
  29. Starr, Terrell Jermaine. "Opinion | Fidel Castro and communism's flawed record with black people". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 20 October 2020.
  30. Fernandes, Sujatha (24 May 2016). "Afro-Cuban Activists Fight Racism Between Two Fires". The Nation. ISSN 0027-8378. Retrieved 20 October 2020.
  31. "CUBA – Race and Equality". Retrieved 20 October 2020.
  32. "African-Americans: Blacks in Cuba 'treated with callous disregard' - CNN.com". www.cnn.com. Retrieved 20 October 2020.
  33. Robinson, Eugene (12 November 2000). "Cuba Begins to Answer Its Race Question". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 20 October 2020.
  34. Black Cuban, Black American. Houston, Texas: Arte Publico Press, 130. Print.
  35. Arnedo-Gómez, M. "Introduction." Writing Rumba. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2006: 1.
  36. "Afrocubanismo", Encyclopedia of World Literature in the 20th Century. Ed. Lenard S Klein. Continuum: Continuum Publishing Company, 2008: 20.
  37. Moore, R. "The Minorista Vanguard: Modernism and Afrocubanismo." Nationalizing Blackness: Afrocubanismo and artistic Revolution in Havana, 1920-1940. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1997:200.
  38. Henken, T. "Cuban Literature-The Avant-Garde vs the Vanguard: Colonial Literature", in Cuba: A Global Studies Handbook. Santa Barbara: ABC_CLIO, 2008: 363.
  39. "Literature of the Revolutionary Era", Encyclopedia of Cuba: People, history, culture. Ed. Luis Martinez Ternandez. Wesport: Greenwood Press, 2003: 345.
  40. Rodríguez-Mangual, E. "Introduction", Lydia Cabrera and the Construction of an Afro-Cuban Cultural Identity. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2004: 17.
  41. Rodríguez-Mangual, E. "Introduction", 18.

Further reading

  • Arnedo-Gómez, Miguel. "Introduction", Writing Rumba: The Afrocubanista Movement in Poetry. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press. 2006: 1-170.
  • Duno-Gottberg, Luis, Solventando las diferencias: la ideología del mestizaje en Cuba. Madrid, Iberoamericana – Frankfurt am Main, Vervuert, 2003.
  • Finch, Aisha and Fannie Rushing (eds.), Breaing the Chains Forging the Nation: The Afro-Cuban Fight for Freedom and Equality. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 2019.
  • García, Cristina. "Introduction", Cubanismo! New York: Vintage Books, 2002: 1-364.
  • "Literature of the Recolutionary Era", Encyclopedia of Cuba: People, history, culture. Ed. Luis Martinez Ternandez 1st Vol. Wesport: Greenwood Press, 2003: 345-346.
  • Henken, Ted. "Cuban Literature-The Avant-Garde vs the Vanguard: Colonial Literature," Cuba: A Global Studies Handbook Global Studies :Latin America & The Caribbean. Santa Barbara: ABC_CLIO, 2008: 363-385.
  • Moore, Robin D. "The Minorista vanguard: Moderism and Afrocubanismo" Nationalizing Blackness: Afrocubansimo and artistic Revolution in Havana, 1920-1940.Pittsburg: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1997: 195-200.
  • Ródriguez-Mangual, Edna M. "Introduction" Lydia Cabrera and the Construction of an Afro Cuban Cultural Identity. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2004: 1-167.
  • "Afrocubanismo", Encyclopedia of World Literature in the 20th Century. Ed. Lenard S. Klein. 2nd ed. 4thvol. Continuum: Continuum Publishing Company, 1989: 20-21.
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