Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 September 2012
The Cuban Revolution was a watershed moment in Cuban racial history. Despite the huge changes it made to the racial landscape, however, many critical aspects of racial ideology remained the same after the revolution. The regime of Fidel Castro forged a racial ideology that was based upon pre-existing Cuban attitudes toward race, the practical circumstances of the moment, and a new vision for Cuba, combining old attitudes with a new state ideology: Marxism. But unequal pre-revolutionary access to education and economic resources, pre-existing racial ideology, inequality in housing and labor markets, and, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, unequal access to dollars all established the conditions for ongoing racial inequality. The war in Angola, which was caused by the geopolitical position of Cuba and the symbolic importance of military involvement in Africa, represented an opening of opportunities for blacks, and the subsequent Cuban economic collapse represented a significant retreat that will be explored in the latter chapters of the book in greater depth. Since the revolution, then, there has been a series of openings and consolidations that follow the race cycles theory, and alterations in race relations have reinforced a situation of inclusionary discrimination on the island.
This chapter examines the Cuban Revolution and its transformation of Cuban racial politics. It argues that the consolidation of the revolution, while institutionalizing important racial reforms, attempted to make racial problems invisible.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.