A Nation for All: Race, Inequality, and Politics in Twentieth-Century Cuba (Envisioning Cuba) - Softcover

De La Fuente, Alejandro

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0807849227 ISBN 13: 9780807849224

Publisher: University North Carolina Pr, 2001

Synopsis

After thirty years of anticolonial struggle against Spain and four years of military occupation by the United States, Cuba formally became an independent republic in 1902. The nationalist coalition that fought for Cuba's freedom, a movement in which blacks and mulattoes were well represented, had envisioned an egalitarian and inclusive country-a nation for all, as Josace Martei described it. But did the Cuban republic, and later the Cuban revolution, live up to these expectations? Tracing the formation and reformulation of nationalist ideologies, government policies, and different forms of social and political mobilization in republican and postrevolutionary Cuba, Alejandro de la Fuente explores the opportunities and limitations that Afro-Cubans experienced in such areas as job access, education, and political representation. Challenging assumptions of both underlying racism and racial democracy, he contends that racism and antiracism coexisted within Cuban nationalism and, in turn, Cuban society. This coexistence has persisted to this day, despite significant efforts by the revolutionary government to improve the lot of the poor and build a nation that was truly for all.

About this title

About the Author

lejandro de la Fuente is associate professor of Latin American history at the University of Pittsburgh.

Edition details

• Publisher: University North Carolina Pr
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0807849227
• ISBN 13: 9780807849224
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 466