Analysis Of A Nation For All By Alejandro De La Fuente

Race relations within the revolutionary Caribbean complicated the Twentieth Century, leaving questions of freedom and nationalism open to interpretation. In A Nation for All, Alejandro De La Fuente examines various meanings of race within post-Spanish Cuba, Batista’s Cuba, and socialist Cuba, and how racial tensions aligned with revolutionary ideas. Rather than simply adopting a chronological organization of events, Alejandro De La Fuente gains the reader’s attention by utilizing a thematic scheme. The idea of an inequality, masked by revolutionary, egalitarian rhetoric, remains central to each thematic division. De La Fuente’s work serves to undermine the elitist pretense of equality in Twentieth Century Cuba and expose the long-term effects

Although broken up thematically, each portion contributes to the central narrative of prevalent racism against Afro-Cubans. In part two, De La Fuente examines the labor market as well as the social mobility of Cubans. Speaking to labor concerns, De La Fuente relates equality of opportunity to economic success, therefore placing Afro-Cubans on a lower level of social mobility. His emphasis on European and white immigration as being praised does well to support his claim of inherent racism. The exclusion of Afro-Cubans in the labor force fixes itself to the idea of a certain Cuban identity, the central theme of the work. In this part in particular, De La Fuente utilizes figures and solid facts to prove his claims, especially with his effective use of census records to show black flight from Cuba due to lack of opportunity (pg. 104). Speaking to social mobility and education, De La Fuente identifies the mediocrity of Cuban and American efforts to create a literate population. Although the government made significant strides to educate the populations, imperialist motivations fueled the system, which lacked secondary systems of support and training for Afro-Cubans. It is essential that De La Fuente identifies lack of labor opportunities and education in Cuba because both Afro-Cubans and white Cubans could eventually find solidarity in combatting these issues. Upon reading this chapter, De La Fuente’s revelation of a cyclical nature in Cuba with revolution and racism is uncovered. Therein lies the irony of solidarity mixed with ideas of superiority, a principle that De La Fuente should have emphasized rather than glazing over as it is crucial to examining revolutionary Cuba. In the other portion of the chapter, De La Fuente continues with Batista’s Cuba, but in a different light.