Vol. 73/No. 46      November 30, 2009

The book tells the stories of Armando Choy, Gustavo Chui, and Moisés Sío Wong, who joined in the Cuban revolutionary struggle as teenagers in the 1950s and carry central leadership responsibilities to this day.

On the panel initiating the discussion were Stephen Fay, a graduate student in Latin American studies at the University of Nottingham, and Jonathan Silberman, director of Pathfinder Books in London.

“From the beginning Cuba’s island character was of second order,” Fay said. “It was never insular in that sense. There was a constant in- and outflow of migrants.” He pointed out that Native Americans from Florida, the Orinoco Delta, and other Caribbean islands originally settled Cuba.

After 1492, European settlers came mostly from a Spain that was “still in formation” and included many nationalities. Slaves were brought from different parts of Africa. “Each group made a contribution to Cuban identity, without giving up their own particular heritage,” he said.

Following Fay’s presentation a clip was shown from the award-winning documentary Ancestors in the Americas: Coolies, Sailors and Settlers, by Loni Ding. The film portrays the inhuman conditions faced by Chinese indentured laborers, also called "coolies," who were taken from China to the Americas, as well as their resistance and unblemished record in the Cuban wars of independence against Spain in the 19th century.

Silberman explained that hundreds of thousands of Cubans identify with the story told in Our History Is Still Being Written. As teenagers, the three generals “were members of that generation of Cubans who stood up to the tyranny and oppression of the imperialist-backed dictatorship led by Gen. Fulgencio Batista.

“Working people in Cuba didn’t start out to organize a revolution," he said, "but with each new challenge they kept driving ahead. In doing so, they opened the socialist revolution in the western hemisphere.”

Silberman pointed to how today's economic crisis and spreading wars are affecting the living standards, rights, and health and safety of working people the world over. “The clearer it becomes that this global crisis has barely begun, that this is the world that we’re going to be confronting for decades, the more working people and youth become interested in Cuba’s revolutionary alternative,” he said.

A lively discussion period followed the presentations. Questions included whether there had been immigration of Chinese to Cuba in recent decades, what challenges were involved in producing an “oral history” book such as Our History, and how it’s distributed in Cuba.

In response to a question on whether there was a Chinatown in Havana, Fay said that in recent years there has been a rejuvenation of Havana’s Chinatown, partly in relation to tourism. He noted that a layer of Chinese had left Cuba following the 1959 revolution. Silberman pointed out that the response to the revolution had been class-divided. As part of the revolutionary struggle Chinese-Cuban workers had organized the José Wong brigade, which helped to bring an end to gambling and prostitution in Chinatown.

“Do the generals describe themselves as Chinese-Cubans, Cuban-Chinese, or just Cubans ?” Silberman was asked.

For many years, Silberman said, especially in the 1970s, there was little discussion on the heritage of Chinese or Blacks in Cuba. As an example he mentioned the Independent Party of Color, formed in 1908 by Afro-Cubans who had fought in the independence wars. The party was wiped out in a massacre of 3,000 of its members in 1912. Until recently, this history was virtually unknown in Cuba, but in 2007 the Communist Party set up a commission charged with reviving it.

“As Sío Wong says in the book, the revolution transformed the lives of Blacks and Chinese-Cubans, but many challenges remain. The revolution is the most powerful instrument working people have to confront these challenges," Silberman said.

"Today people are encouraged to be proud of their Chinese ancestry," said Silberman. "For example, Sío Wong says he’s a Matancero [a Cuban from Matanzas] made from Chinese raw materials.”  
 
 
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