Empire's Guestworkers: Haitian Migrants in Cuba during the Age of US Occupation

Description

Haitian seasonal migration to Cuba is central to narratives about race, national development, and US imperialism in the early twentieth-century Caribbean. Filling a major gap in the literature, this innovative study reconstructs Haitian guestworkers' lived experiences as they moved among the rural and urban areas of Haiti, and the sugar plantations, coffee farms, and cities of eastern Cuba. It offers an unprecedented glimpse into the daily workings of empire, labor, and political economy in Haiti and Cuba. Migrants' efforts to improve their living and working conditions and practice their religions shaped migration policies, economic realities, ideas of race, and Caribbean spirituality in Haiti and Cuba as each experienced US imperialism.

Matthew Casey is Nina Bell Suggs Professor of History at the University of Southern Mississippi.

'This exhaustively researched and incisively analyzed study spotlights the Haitians who migrated to Cuba during the first decades of the twentieth century. Revising received assumptions with each chapter, Matthew Casey reveals the heterogeneous identities and experiences of Haitians in Cuba, the extent to which they forged connections with local people and migrants from other parts of the Caribbean, and the role they played in shaping larger social, cultural, economic, and political processes. Empire's Guestworkers is a model of transnational historical scholarship from below.' Kate Ramsey, University of Miami, Coral Gables 'This book is a deeply-researched and lucidly-reasoned study of migration, race, nation, and empire in what may be the first instance of the guestworker programs and massive deportations that would come to characterize contemporary global migrations. Casey explores the process from above - the triangular power relations between states and elites - and below - the migrant's transnational strategies of resistance and adaptation - in a manner that is creative, dialectical, and eye-opening.' Jose C. Moya, Columbia University, New York 'A major achievement, Matthew Casey's extraordinary study peels away the obfuscating layers of conventional history to present in glimmering details the daily trials and rewards of early twentieth century Haitian migrants in Cuba. The book is more than a migration narrative: it is a profound reminder that the intricate evolution of Caribbean nations in a world of empire cannot be fully understood without close study of their past connections.' Matthew J. Smith, University of the West Indies, Mona 'Empire's Guestworkers is an exceptionally rigorous, engaging, and thoughtful book that makes an invaluable contribution to existing scholarship. In illuminating the complexities that characterized these migrants and this migration, Casey calls into question constructions of migrants, nations, and empires across time and place.' Andrea Queeley, H-LatAm '... an original and engaging work for scholars, teachers, policymakers and members of a more general audience concerned about how and why our societies become diverse in population, generate local and transnational networks, establish and enforce particular laws, and continue to be burdened by particular prejudices and persistent debates.' Chantalle F Verna, Journal of Social History 'Empire's Guestworkers is an impressive piece of scholarship, both analytically and methodologically.' Matthew Davidson, SX Salon (smallaxe.net)