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Kathleen López, Chinese Cubans: A Transnational History (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 2013) pb 339pp. ISBN: 9781469607139
Reviewed by Alexandra Gelbard
Chinese Cubans is an eight-chapter volume addressing the Chinese presence in Cuba, diasporic ties to the homeland, the US and Caribbean, and multi-layered identity concepts such as Chinese and Cuban. This work covers an extensive time frame stemming from the initial 'coolie trade' dispersion (1847-74) of Chinese labourers through the mid-twentieth century. In extending chrono- logically beyond most existing work, López illuminates their presence within the formation of the Cuban nation, various dispersion and inter-diaspora movements within the Americas, the socio-structural impact, constructs of nationhood and identity, and the effects of the post-Chinese (1949) and Cuban (1959) revolutions.
López presents the introduction much like the rest of the volume: integrating microhistorical, diasporic and hemispheric approaches that connect individual experiences and concentrated localities to the larger collective process of community formation, structural social forces, empirical and structural overlaps with the African Diaspora, transnational economic and social flows. She also includes an epilogue contemporarily situating the Chinese presence and socio- political relationship with Cuba.
To discuss how the Chinese presence in Cuba challenged the legal, political and popular formulations of Cuban and Chinese identities, López includes a discussion of identity formation and citizenship, which engages the integrated social forces of racial...