TOWARD A SUSTAINABLE CUBAN DIASPORA

TOWARD A SUSTAINABLE CUBAN DIASPORA
written for Dr. Menno Velinga

In this paper I propose a diasporic perspective for understanding Cuban ethnicity and population. The political possibility is put forth that future developments in a (post-revolutionary) Cuba need not take form as either communist or capitalist. Instead a third-option may be possible in which some form of social-democracy is substituted for authoritarian communism. In this way, the social and political benefits achieved under communism need not be lost in transitioning to a more democratic and inclusive social matrix.


INTRODUCTION
Since the Castro revolution but also before, Cuba has existed as a node within various migrations; from Spain, Africa, and locally in colonial times, and around the caribbean, the Americas, and elsewhere since. This paper explores the potential future of Cuba as an institutionalized diaspora. I take the perspective that international conflicts, and nationalist perspectives that obscure transnationalism, have created a schism between the people living on the island and others who continue to identify with Cubanness elsewhere. As such the diaspora has rarely been conceptualized in its fullness as a divers(ified) group of mutlicultural, multilingual, multinational, and multieconomic Cubans. Political rhetoric has focussed on struggles over the island as physical property, its economic system, and openness to various forms of capital investment. Little or no effort has been made to construct a multiplicity of democratic alternatives which would include diverse strategies of democratization with various levels and forms of inclusion/exclusion of Cubans on and off the island. Mainly Cuba has been conceived as a struggle of an inflexible totalitarian island government against any form of support that does not involve unconditional submission to the autocratically defined prerogatives of the revolution. As a result, or nevertheless, the U.S. perspective has been equally unyielding with its narrow-focus while other nations have responded with unprincipled ambivalence toward all but humanitarian aid and investment opportunities. This paper will examine various aspects of discourses surrounding Cuba and its diaspora adding critical insights regarding the possibilities of democratization that does not require total economic liberalization or subordination to the U.S. or other organized governmental or non-governmental powers. This paper will rely on personal narratives, policy and academic papers, and other written texts as data, most in English and from a U.S.-Cuban emigrant perspective.

I introduction
II emigration and diaspora/state relations
a. emigration and intent: maintaining a Cuba-orientation abroad
b. political narration and disillusionment
c. three waves, racism, and assimilation: Cuban-American ethnocentrism
III international relations and (non)-interventions in island affairs
a. economic relations: trade, investment, and embargo
b. political approaches to the Cuban situation
IV the future of the diaspora
a. persistent emigration or sustainable (e/im)migrations?
b. conitinued isolation or institutionally supported transnationalism?
c. liberalization or mediated (multi)culture and materialism?
d. can Cuban revolutionary economics be translated into participatory
democracy?
V conclusion: progress beyond critique
VI bibliography