A Return to Roots: CuBajans" in Barbados - Softcover

Sharon Milagro Marshall (author)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 9766408815 ISBN 13: 9789766408817

Publisher: The University of the West Indies Press, 2021

Synopsis

When thousands of working-class Barbadians left for Cuba in search of better economic opportunities during the early twentieth century, most of them did so with the expectation that they would eventually return to their home. They maintained many of the cultural traditions of their homeland, and they immersed their Cuba-born children in Barbadian culture by exposing them to the type of education which they themselves had received in Barbados and teaching them English to prepare them for life “back home”.

Although many of the migrants were not able to achieve this dream of returning home, some of their children and grandchildren have managed to retrace their ancestors’ journey and find their roots in Barbados. This “reverse migration” is driven as much by economics as by sentiment for the ancestral homeland. The basis of that sentiment has sometimes been called into question, since these “CuBajans” have not always been regarded as true Barbadians by some among the local population.

The CuBajans themselves have a sense of pride in what they have been able to achieve in Cuba, and they count themselves fortunate in having two homelands. With relatives still in Cuba, they maintain links through frequent communication, remittances and travel back to the island. In A Return to Roots: “CuBajans” in Barbados, these migrants tell their own stories through oral testimonies, which Sharon Milagro Marshall frames within the context of Barbadian and Cuban history.

About this title

About the Author

Sharon Milagro Marshall is an award-winning broadcast journalist, public relations executive and author from Barbados. She is the author of Tell My Mother I Gone to Cuba: Stories of Early Twentieth-Century Migration from Barbados.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

PREFACE

 

 MY BOOK TELL MY MOTHER I GONE TO CUBA: Stories of Early Twentieth-Century Migration from Barbados (2016) chronicles the movement of Barbadians – and other British West Indians – to Cuba in an era when the expansion of sugar cane cultivation there created work opportunities for the migrants.

At the official launch of Tell My Mother I Gone to Cuba, Francisco Fernández Peña, then Cuban ambassador to Barbados, said to me that I needed to write a second book about the Cuban-Barbadians¹ in Barbados. Since I was dealing with the stress of launching and marketing that first book, I did not pay too much attention to that proposal at the time. But little did I know       that the seed had been planted then. It has since grown and evolved, seemingly of its own volition.

 

This book – A Return to Roots: “CuBajans” in Barbados – captures the narratives of descendants of some of those Barbadian migrants to Cuba – the sons and daughters, grandchildren and great grandchildren – who have settled in Barbados, closing the circle of migration. As the interviewer, I  began this publication project with the idea of maintaining a professional distance from my subjects.

Edition details

• Publisher: The University of the West Indies Press
• Publication date: 2021
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 9766408815
• ISBN 13: 9789766408817
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 244