“Cuban-Chinese” Is Not an Oxymoron
Shedding Light on a Little-Known Era of Cuban History
The term Cuban-Chinese is by no means an oxymoron, but my friend Antonio Wong (pictured above) certainly is. Born in Havana’s Barrio Chino in 1951, he has been working at La Caridad Restaurant in Manhattan’s Upper West Side since 1986. A living, breathing paradox, Antonio may look Chinese; but he speaks Spanish exactly like my abuelo — in addition to English and Cantonese. But how did Antonio and the Cuban-Chinese people come to be?
It is estimated that from the period of 1847–1874, nearly 150,000 Chinese contract laborers were brought to Cuba in an effort to supplement the dwindling institution of slavery. Essentially working as indentured servants, they were spread across Cuba to work on the numerous sugar plantations throughout the island.
Then, in the 1920's another approximately 30,000 Chinese immigrants made their way to the island. Just as Cuba’s neighbor to the north was experiencing the “Roaring Twenties,” the Pear of the Antilles was itself enjoying a very prosperous decade. The Chinese who immigrated to Cuba during this period did so under their own accord, and they settled mainly in Havana.
Consequently, Cuba’s capital developed the largest Chinatown in all of Latin America, and two very different cultures…
