Freedom Fighters or Yellow Peril?: Contending Narratives of Chinese in the Cuban Nation

A mural in Havana’s recently “revitalized” Chinatown presents an unbroken, natural progression of the Chinese migrant in Cuban history: from “coolie” or indentured laborer, to mambí or freedom fighter in the wars for independence from Spain (1868-1898), to entrepreneur and Cuban citizen. This official image of the Chinese as integral to Cuba’s history and identity belies the contentious role they played in debates on race, immigration, and citizenship during Cuba’s transition from colony to republic. Some writers extolled Chinese contributions to the independence cause, portraying them as heroic, selfless, and—to a certain extent—raceless. While these narratives convey moments of ferocity on the front lines of battle, they also emphasize Chinese in noncombat auxiliary activities, often feminized. Furthermore, a discourse of Chinese “freedom fighters” returning peacefully to work after the 1895 war promotes an ideal type of Cuban citizen, contributing to the rebuilding process through manual labor (as opposed to joining Cubans of color in protesting the unequal distribution of power after independence).

This paper analyzes Cuban nationalist discourse on the Chinese, arguing that qualified portrayals indicate a deeper ambivalence regarding the role of the Chinese in the new republic. Some elites drew on colonial and hemispheric discourses of whitening to portray the Chinese as undesirable immigrants. U.S. imperial interventions reinforced these anti-Chinese attitudes by demanding Cuban acceptance of Chinese exclusion laws in order to quell U.S. fears of the “yellow peril” approaching its own shores. Two seemingly opposite discourses developed in the first half of the twentieth century: one imagining the Chinese as an essential part of the fabric of the Cuban nation, the other portraying the Chinese as exotic and alien, and in its more aggressive form, as dangerous to the Cuban nation.