Black British Migrants in Cuba: Race, Labor, and Empire in the Twentieth-Century Caribbean, 1898–1948

Book reviewers should be reticent about using the terms “definitive” or “comprehensive” to describe a work of scholarship. After all, no matter the topic, there will always be something new to say, more sources will come to light, and new research methodologies will make us reevaluate past interpretations. But, in very rare cases, a book is published that sets such a high standard of scholarship that not only does it surpass all previous work on a topic, but nothing new can be said without reading it. Jorge Giovannetti-Torres's book Black British Migrants in Cuba is such a work. Earlier studies discuss particular aspects of black British Caribbean migration to, and life in, Cuba. But Giovannetti-Torres's book is the definitive and most comprehensive work on black British migration to Cuba because no other work provides a comprehensive and nuanced analysis of why black British subjects went to Cuba, where they settled and worked, how they interacted with Cuban society at local and regional levels, the racialized politics surrounding intra-Caribbean migration, and how black British migrants interacted with British imperial authorities. Grounded in extensive and rigorous research in Cuba, the British Caribbean, England, and the United States, this book examines the multifaceted migration experiences of Jamaicans, Leeward Islanders, and Windward Islanders as well as the transnational processes of labor recruitment. Equally important, Black British Migrants in Cuba provides a brilliant analysis of the oppositional and resistance strategies employed by British Antilleans, showing how migrants were determined to work, live, and survive in Cuba with dignity. This book is therefore much more than Cuban history. It is equally a history of Cuba's deep and complex connections with the wider Caribbean. Black British Migrants in Cuba is essential reading for anyone interested in Cuban and Caribbean history, diaspora studies, labor migration, modern plantation life, and British and US imperial history in the Caribbean.Black British Migrants in Cuba has ten well-written and well-organized chapters. After providing excellent historical context in chapters 1 and 2, Giovannetti-Torres discusses in other chapters the political and economic situation in Cuba between 1898 and 1917, the limits of British imperial support for migrants, Cuban racial politics surrounding migrant labor, and the Cuban government's forced repatriations of black British subjects after 1937 (discussed in two chapters). The book ends with a thoughtful reflection about race, nation, and empire.Space does not permit a thorough treatment of this book's many contributions. For this reviewer, there are two main ones worth highlighting that link the entire narrative. First, Black British Migrants in Cuba is an exemplary study of what Giovannetti-Torres calls “unbound history,” by which he means that the people at the center of the narrative were constantly traveling through and negotiating the multiple spaces and boundaries of company plantations, islands, nation-states, and imperial states (p. 15). To be sure, to what degree this migration was voluntary or coerced very much depended on particular circumstances and historical contingencies. But as much as people's lives were shaped by the oppressive realities of poverty, under- or unemployment, and national and imperial policies that restricted their freedom, black British migrants found countless ways to assert their own agency in the face of circumstances largely out of their control. Other works on intra-Caribbean migration have certainly made some important observations about this unbound history, but none have come close to Giovannetti-Torres's sophisticated analysis and wide-ranging research that details precisely how, when, and why particular groups of migrants went to Cuba and how, when, and why they lived and worked in particular places.This emphasis on the unbound history of black British migrants leads to the second main contribution of this work. Previous studies have noted that the experiences of Jamaicans, Leeward Islanders, Windward Islanders, and British colonial subjects who went to Cuba from Central America were different. But Black British Migrants in Cuba stands out because readers will obtain clear and empirically grounded explanations as to why and how the experiences of black British migrants varied according to place of origin. Economic and political circumstances varied considerably throughout the Caribbean, and much of the existing scholarship makes too many broad—and frequently false—generalizations about the diaspora experience in Cuba. Not only does Giovannetti-Torres's analysis and impressive work in archives throughout the Caribbean inform readers about the complexities of the migration experience in Cuba and the Caribbean, but his research methodology will certainly inspire scholars who work on other diaspora networks beyond the Caribbean.It is worth noting that Black British Migrants in Cuba joins another recent definitive and comprehensive work, on Haitian migration to Cuba, by Matthew Casey, Empire's Guestworkers: Haitian Migrants in Cuba during the Age of US Occupation. These books should be read together. By doing so, readers will get a glimpse of the very best scholarship on Cuba and the Caribbean.

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