Vol. 72/No. 17      April 28, 2008

“Well, the answer is those of you here tonight,” he said, reading off the names of the 12 organizations and departments sponsoring an April 8 event at the Asian American Cultural Center at Rutgers University in New Brunswick to discuss the book. More than 85 people attended, two-thirds of them students at the college.

Published by Pathfinder Press, Our History Is Still Being Written: The Story of Three Chinese-Cuban Generals in the Cuban Revolution is based on interviews with Armando Choy, Gustavo Chui, and Moisés Sío Wong. They joined the revolutionary struggle in Cuba as teenagers in the 1950s, were part of the 1958-59 revolution, and are active leaders of the Cuban Revolution today.

Among those sponsoring the program were the Asian Studies Program, the Center for Latino Arts and Culture, and the Department of Latino and Hispanic Caribbean Studies, in addition to seven student groups including the Chinese Student Organization; Lambda Theta Alpha, Epsilon Chapter; and the Rutgers Union of Cuban American Students.

The panel featured Matsuda; Leo Ng, vice president of the Chinese Student Organization; Aldo Lauria Santiago, chair of the department of Latino and Hispanic Caribbean Studies, who spoke as well as moderated the event; and Mary-Alice Waters, editor of the book and president of Pathfinder Press. Monique Hernandez, of the Rutgers Union of Cuban American Students, welcomed people to the program.

“This is a book about ordinary people,” Matsuda said, “and why and how they became part of a revolution and change.” Matsuda said his favorite part of the book was when Choy described how his father, a merchant, made him work in the family store during the day and study accounting at night, while what he really wanted to study was history. “What Choy showed is that while you may not get to study history, you can be part of making it,” said Matsuda.

Ng said that one of the things that impressed him most about the book was learning how the Cuban Revolution “cut across and overcame animosities between people of different cultures.” Ng said Our History Is Still Being Written helped him to see that “if a country as small as Cuba can make a revolution, against what seem to be impossible odds,” then change is possible in the United States and the rest of the world.

“This is a work of recovery,” said Lauria. “This book discovers voices that would otherwise be missing.” Lauria noted that he knew very little about the subject of the Chinese in Cuba.

Our History Is Still Being Written is a book that “highlights the question of leadership; focusing on leaders that came from within the working class and different racial groups, names we may not know, and who are still active today,” said Lauria. He encouraged those present to read this book and others put out by Pathfinder.

Waters said the book tells the story of the Cuban Revolution in the words of those who lived and made it.

“The Cuban Revolution was not an isolated event,” she said, “It was part of a great wave of national liberation struggles that swept the globe during and after World War II.”

“This book is one of the best introductions to the Cuban Revolution,” she explained. “But it is not just about Cuba. It’s about us here in the United States today. It helps us recover our history of struggle, too.”

“There is a long history of revolutionary struggle in this country, from fighting against Jim Crow to the struggles to overturn the exclusion laws against the Chinese and other immigrants,” Waters said. “Through these struggles you understand more richly why the questions of immigration and the need to fight for a world without borders can bring millions of workers into the streets today.”

“This is why this book has touched a chord,” she said. “The breadth of interest in the story told by this book has been unprecedented for Pathfinder and it has a lot to do with what is happening in the United States.”

A lively discussion followed the presentations. One student asked if it was really possible to make a revolution in the United States when there is so much interest in material things.

“Revolutionary struggle doesn’t start with ideas; it comes about because you reach a point where there is no recourse and you have to do something to change the conditions you face,” said Waters. She pointed to the deepening economic crisis and the beginnings of resistance among workers in this country as signs of the struggles to come.

A student of Cuban descent said his parents had told him that most Chinese Cubans had left Cuba after the revolution.

Waters said that many Chinese Cubans who were wealthy property owners did leave the island after the revolution. “There was a class divide among Chinese Cubans as in other sections of Cuban society,” she noted. She also said that part of the reason for the decline of Barrio Chino in Havana was that “after the revolution the Chinese were integrated into all sectors, all levels of society and not isolated in a barrio.”

Our History Is Still Being Written offers an example for workers and youth who want to fight to change things in the United States, said Waters. “As Choy says, ‘A better world is possible, but only with a socialist revolution.’”  
 
 
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