Vol. 71/No. 42      November 12, 2007

Some 50 people attended the meeting, sponsored by several University of Houston organizations. Most in the audience were students and faculty members.

Robert Buzzanco, chair of the history department, served as moderator. He opened the meeting by thanking Pathfinder Press, which published the book, for providing an “important resource on revolutions and progressive ideas.”

Philip Howard, a professor of Latin American history, explained that “between 1847 and 1874 about 125,000 Chinese laborers came to work on sugar plantations in Cuba. Plantation owners relied increasingly on Chinese labor as the African slavery abolitionist movement gained ground, a shift that resulted in the Chinese living less like workers and more like slaves. For all intents and purposes, Chinese indentured servants belonged to the holders of their contracts.” He noted that these conditions led the Chinese to join in Cuba’s independence revolt against Spain.

Cong spoke about the conditions in China that fueled the emigration from that country in the second half of the 19th century. “The European colonizers came to China looking for cheap labor. Our History Is Still Being Written shows us that this transfer of population was only for economic exploitation,” she said. “This book gave me a picture not just of how the Chinese lived in Cuba, but of all Cuban society.”

Zadia Murphy, a senior and past president of the campus NAACP chapter, reported that she had participated in a September 20 demonstration by tens of thousands in Jena, Louisiana, against the unjust treatment of six Black high school students there. She noted that the three generals had started as teenager rebels. “They stepped outside of themselves to fight against injustice, not just in Cuba, but wherever they found it. If we learn to do that, we can rewrite history.”

“The Cuban Revolution was not an isolated event. It was part of the wave of struggles for national liberation throughout Africa, Asia, and Latin America,” said Mary-Alice Waters, president of Pathfinder and editor of Our History Is Still Being Written.

“It did not start out as a socialist revolution either. When the masses of Cubans overthrew the Batista dictatorship, they weren’t thinking they were making a socialist revolution,” she said. “They simply wanted to create a society with greater social equality and justice.”

After the January 1959 revolutionary victory, she said, “They began by eliminating racial discrimination in its legal forms. They opened the door to the employment of women; they carried out a massive literacy campaign and a land reform.” In this way, “they came into direct conflict with the economic interests of U.S. imperialism, which owned the vast majority of the productive property in Cuba.

“The Cubans simply refused to back down, and to this day this remains the sole source of U.S. hostility toward the Cuban Revolution.”

Waters noted that “today there are five Cuban revolutionaries serving life sentences for the work they did in the United States trying to find out what U.S.-based Cuban counterrevolutionary groups were doing to attack their country.” Despite the jailers’ efforts to isolate them, the Cuban Five remain politically active from behind prison walls.  
 
What a revolution makes possible
During the discussion period, Cong recounted, “I learned about the generals and read comments from Moisés Sío Wong in Chinese articles on the Internet.” She said she was skeptical that the reports could be true—until she was introduced to the book, read it, and then understood Sío Wong’s explanation of what Cuba’s socialist revolution made possible.

In response to the news that a translation has been completed for a Chinese-language edition to be published in China in 2008, Cong said, “I believe this book will be warmly received when it appears in Chinese.”

Two students asked about race relations and the position of Chinese in Cuba today. Waters replied that Cuba has eliminated the legal structures of racism. While this does not end the legacy of racism, she said, the revolution creates the conditions where this is possible. She added that “real integration of Chinese in Cuban society has taken place at all levels. It is an example of the strength of the revolution.”

Tiffany Spurlock of the students’ Council of Ethnic Organizations asked, “Will the United States ever wake up and lift the embargo against Cuba in my lifetime?”

“The economic and diplomatic war on Cuba is based on the refusal of the Cuban people to back down,” Waters stated. “If Cuba allowed U.S. companies to come in and directly exploit Cuban workers, things would change. But as long as they refuse, the embargo will remain.”

Commenting on the same question, Buzzanco expressed a different view. “The problem is not Cuba. When the older Cuban exiles in Miami die off, then this policy will change,” he said.

Speaking from the audience, Nine-Min Cheng, outreach director of the Chinese Community Center, said, “I appreciate being invited to this event and have learned much from this meeting and from reading this important book. Our History Is Still Being Written will now be added to our library and will be used in our Chinese school for 750 students.”

An article on the book presentation appeared in the campus newspaper, the Daily Cougar.

The event was sponsored by the University of Houston history department, Asian American Studies Center, and Council of Ethnic Organizations, as well as Lorenzo Cano, associate director of the Center for Mexican American Studies.

Amanda Ulman contributed to this article.
 
 
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