Skip to Main Content

Forging Diaspora: Afro-Cubans and African Americans in a World of Empire and Jim Crow

Online ISBN:
9781469604060
Print ISBN:
9780807833612
Publisher:
University of North Carolina Press
Book

Forging Diaspora: Afro-Cubans and African Americans in a World of Empire and Jim Crow

Published online:
18 September 2014
Published in print:
15 May 2010
Online ISBN:
9781469604060
Print ISBN:
9780807833612
Publisher:
University of North Carolina Press

Abstract

Cuba's geographic proximity to the United States and its centrality to U.S. imperial designs following the War of 1898 led to the creation of a unique relationship between Afro-descended populations in the two countries. This book shows that the cross-national relationships nurtured by Afro-Cubans and black Americans helped to shape the political strategies of both groups as they attempted to overcome a shared history of oppression and enslavement. Drawing on archival sources in both countries, it traces four encounters between Afro-Cubans and African Americans. These hidden histories of cultural interaction—of Cuban students attending Booker T. Washington's Tuskegee Institute, the rise of Garveyism, the Havana–Harlem cultural connection during the Harlem Renaissance and Afro-Cubanism movement, and the creation of black travel networks during the Good Neighbor and early Cold War eras—illustrate the significance of cross-national linkages to the ways both Afro-descended populations negotiated the entangled processes of U.S. imperialism and racial discrimination. The book argues that as a result of these relationships, Afro-descended peoples in Cuba and the United States came to identify themselves as part of a transcultural African diaspora.

Contents
Close
This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only

Sign In or Create an Account

Close

This PDF is available to Subscribers Only

View Article Abstract & Purchase Options

For full access to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or purchase an annual subscription.

Close