Black British Migrants in Cuba Race, Labor, and Empire in the Twentieth-Century Caribbean, 1898–1948 Cambridge Studies on the African Diaspora Series

Black British Migrants in Cuba offers a comprehensive study of migration from the British Caribbean to Cuba in the pre-World War II era, spotlighting an important chapter of the larger trajectory of the Afro-Atlantic diaspora. Grounded in extensive and rigorous multi-sited research, this book examines the different migration experiences of Jamaican, Leeward, and Windward Islanders, along with the transnational processes of labor recruitment and the local control of workers in the plantation. The book also explains the history of racial fear and political and economic forces behind the marking of black migrants as the 'Other' and the resulting discrimination, racism, and violence against them. Through analysis of the oppositional and resistance strategies employed by British Antilleans, the author conveys migrants' determination to work, live, and survive in the Caribbean.

List of figures; Acknowledgments; Introduction; 1. Historical groundings: unsettled times, unsettled people; 2. Black British Caribbean migration to Cuba, 1898–1948; 3. Migration, racial fears, and violence, 1898–1917; 4. The limits of British imperial support: diplomacy after Jobabo and Cuban national interests; 5. 'Cuba got mash up': British Antilleans between Cuba and the Empire, 1921–1925; 6. The racial politics of migrant labor: company town control, and repatriations, 1925–1931; 7. Transactions in Colonial Caribbean governments and consular policy, 1925–1933; 8. The nationalization of labor and Caribbean workers, 1933–1938; 9. 'The best and most permanent solution?' Repatriation or Assimilation, 1938–1948; 10. Race, nation, and empire; Epilogue; Bibliography; Index.

Jorge L. Giovannetti-Torres is Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras.