Empire's Guestworkers: Haitian Migrants in Cuba during the Age of US Occupation

by Matthew Casey

Overview

Haitian seasonal migration to Cuba is central to narratives about race, national development, and US imperialism in the early twentieth-century Caribbean. Filling a major gap in the literature, this innovative study reconstructs Haitian guestworkers' lived experiences as they moved among the rural and urban areas of Haiti, and the sugar plantations, coffee farms, and cities of eastern Cuba. It offers an unprecedented glimpse into the daily workings of empire, labor, and political economy in Haiti and Cuba. Migrants' efforts to improve their living and working conditions and practice their religions shaped migration policies, economic realities, ideas of race, and Caribbean spirituality in Haiti and Cuba as each experienced US imperialism.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781107127692
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	05/09/2017
Series:	Afro-Latin America
Pages:	326
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.91(d)

About the Author

Matthew Casey is Nina Bell Suggs Professor of History at the University of Southern Mississippi.

Table of Contents

1. Making the Haitian-Cuban border and creating temporary migrants; 2. Leaving US occupied Haiti; 3. Living and working in Cuban sugar plantations; 4. Picking coffee and building families in Eastern Cuba; 5. Creating religious communities, serving spirits and decrying sorcery; 6. Mobilizing politically and debating race and empire in Cuban cities; 7. Returning to Haiti and the aftermath of US occupation.

Editorial Reviews

Advance praise: 'This exhaustively researched and incisively analyzed study spotlights the Haitians who migrated to Cuba during the first decades of the twentieth century. Revising received assumptions with each chapter, Matthew Casey reveals the heterogeneous identities and experiences of Haitians in Cuba, the extent to which they forged connections with local people and migrants from other parts of the Caribbean, and the role they played in shaping larger social, cultural, economic, and political processes. Empire's Guest Workers is a model of transnational historical scholarship from below.' Kate Ramsey, University of Miami, Coral Gables

Advance praise: 'This book is a deeply-researched and lucidly-reasoned study of migration, race, nation, and empire in what may be the first instance of the guest worker programs and massive deportations that would come to characterize contemporary global migrations. Casey explores the process from above - the triangular power relations between states and elites - and below - the migrant's transnational strategies of resistance and adaptation - in a manner that is creative, dialectical, and eye-opening.' José C. Moya, Columbia University

Advance praise: 'A major achievement, Matthew Casey's extraordinary study peels away the obfuscating layers of conventional history to present in glimmering details the daily trials and rewards of early twentieth century Haitian migrants in Cuba. The book is more than a migration narrative: it is a profound reminder that the intricate evolution of Caribbean nations in a world of empire cannot be fully understood without close study of their past connections.' Matthew J. Smith, University of the West Indies, Mona

From the Publisher