Chinese Cubans

In the mid-nineteenth century Cuba’s infamous “coolie” trade brought well over 100000 Chinese indentured laborers to its shores. Though subjected to abominable conditions they were followed during subsequent decades by smaller numbers of merchants craftsmen and free migrants searching for better lives far from home. In a comprehensive vibrant history that draws deeply on Chinese- and Spanish-language sources in both China and Cuba Kathleen López explores the transition of the Chinese from indentured to free migrants the formation of transnational communities and the eventual incorporation of the Chinese into the Cuban citizenry during the first half of the twentieth century.<br/><i>Chinese Cubans</i> shows how Chinese migration intermarriage and assimilation are central to Cuban history and national identity during a key period of transition from slave to wage labor and from colony to nation. On a broader level López draws out implications for issues of race national identity and transnational migration especially along the Pacific rim.