Decline and Revival of an Ethnic Space: Havana’s Chinatown since the 1959 Cuban Revolution

This paper reconstructs an important history in global migration unwritten for political reasons by bringing to light extremely valuable data on the Chinese-Cuban experience since 1959, based on the author’s field research facilitated by Havana’s Chinese community.  Called “the little Paris in the Caribbean” and once the largest Chinese community in Latin America, Havana’s Chinatown drastically declined after the 1959 Cuban Revolution but has undergone a limited revival since the 1990s. The paper examines the dramatic transformation of the ethnic space in the context of socialist revolution, the Cold War and post-Cold War, and changing Sino-Cuban relations.  It addresses a number of concerns, which are essential for our discussions on the history of Chinese migration and its interactions with local and global politics. How did Castro’s Revolution affect the Chinatown in Havana? How did the Chinese Cubans struggle to preserve some institutional structures and hold on to the seeds for the community’s revival when the whole community lost its economic foothold? Under what circumstance has the Chinatown undergone a limited revival and the Chinese Cubans pioneered Cuba’s economic reforms? How did the decline and revival of the Chinatown show politics of inclusion and exclusion of an ethnic minority serves a nation-state’s agenda in changing circumstances? The paper provides a unique perspective for our understanding of connections between Asia and Latin America determined by global trends.