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In the North American popular imaginary, Cuba is usually either black or white, both figuratively and literally. Beyond the political question of where one falls on either side of the Cuban Revolution, the discourse on race on the island, and off, has very frequently been limited to include only European and African influences. One can get a sense of this if one were to take a quick glance at the index of the Cuba Handbook, a travel guide written by Christopher Baker (1997). In its index, there is no mention of the word China or Chinese. Indeed, in the section on the ethnic mix on the island, there is only a brief mention that the "Chinese constitute about 0.1%" of the population. (90)
One might expect this paucity of information in a tourist guide. However, the book written by Richard Gott, titled Cuba: A New History (2004), has only five items related to the Chinese in Cuba listed in its index. Of these, the longest is only three paragraphs long. This in a book that goes on for nearly 360 pages.
Some may be surprised, therefore, at the appearance of three novels, within a relatively short period of time, that deal with ChineseCuban families. One can point to the novel by Zoé Valdés La eternidad del instante,1 which was published in 2004, Cristina García's Monkey Hunting, which was published in 2003, or Daina Chaviano's La isla de los amores infinitos^ which appeared in 2006. I will return to the question of why these novels may have appeared at this time, but before addressing that issue, I would like to address the similarities and differences in the portrayal of Chinese-Cubans in García's and Chaviano's novels.
In this paper, I will argue that while both Chaviano and Garcia portray the Chinese element as an integral part of a broader Cuban identity, they do so in distinctive ways. I will analyze these differences later in the essay. Still their respective representations do share important similarities. One of these is that they both have the effect of problematizing prior depictions of Cuban identity that have emphasized the harmonious negotiation between two elements: namely, the African and European. The transculturation that can be seen at work in these novels goes...