AFTER THE REVOLUTION

After the revolution, many groceries and supplier stores that belonged to the Chinese, were expropriated by the government. The opium sale, prostitution and gambling were banned and strictly controlled. The illegitimate entrance of the Chinese was avoided. The gang warfare came to an end, as the associations were closed. Between 1900 and 1929 there were 35 Chinese associations, registered by the state. All these associations, linked with the black market, gang warfare, gambling, opium sale and prostitution, were closed nationwide around 1967. All these measures led the Chinese that understood that they could no longer continue their profitable business, to leave the island. The prominent Chinese businessmen in Havana that went personally to the Presidential Palace to express their relief to bloody Fulgencio Batista that had just survived an assassination attempt in 1957, were the first to flee from the country. Most of the fled Chinese settled in the US, particularly in nearby Florida, while a smaller group fled to the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico that was also the US territory, and other Latin American countries. Consequently, the number of the Chinese dropped sharply in Chinatown of Havana.

Even so, some Chinese stayed in Cuba despite the black propaganda against the new rule, originating from outside of the island. The younger generations succeeded in adding new business lines to the occupations, regarded as typically Chinese, like laundries, but the Barrio Chino de la Habana couldn’t stay as the largest Chinatown in Latin America. It is also a fact that most of the Chinese live outside of the Chinatown now because there is no longer pressure for Chinese Cubans to live crowded into a restricted district and there is no need to protect themselves from the repeated acts of violence and discrimination.

After 1960, Cuba broke diplomatic relations with Taiwan and tried to increase its relations with the People's Republic of China. However, Cuba's close relations with the Soviet Union and the invasion of Vietnam by Chinese troops in 1979, distanced Cuba from the People's Republic of China. Towards the mid-1980s, hot relations with the People's Republic of China began to be re-established, and in the 1990s, the People's Republic of China became the second largest trade country in Cuba. Consequently, many mutual diplomatic visits followed, and large Chinese tourist groups visited the island, but Cuba was not an attractive country to settle for a mean Chinese anymore. It is estimated that the number of the Chinese Cubans is around 400 today. According the CIA World Facebook, among the 115.000 Chinese, visited the island, only 300 stayed as pure Chinese until 2008.

The social stratification during the colonial period led the Chinese coolies to join the ranks of the native Cubans. There were no women among the Chinese population that entered Cuba under the contract for 8 years. It is estimated that the women did not exceed 1% of these coolies. Most of these men did not marry, but there are records about the frequent sexual activity between the Chinese and the black women. A lot of free Chinese bought slave women and then freed them to marry. Many of these laborers intermarried with the local population, composed of Cubans, Africans, and mixed-race, but the miscegenation laws were forbidding them to marry Spaniards. From such relations many children were born. The atmosphere of the independence war on the island was an important factor in the integration of the Chinese population with the Cuban nation.

With the entrance of the Chinese, the island was confronted with a new formation, Buddhism, but it stayed restricted to the Asian immigrants. There is not any Buddhist temple in Havana, but a Chinese cemetery, located on the 26th street, facing the the southwest corner of the Colón Cemetery in Nuevo Vedado district. In 1883 the Chinese, on the initiative of Lin Yangyao, suggested to the Spanish government to establish a burial ground for the Chinese, but their request was rejected. Instead, the south side of the Colón Cemetery was dedicated to the burials of non-Catholics. It was 1892, when the Spanish authorities approved the building of a Chinese cemetery, but it could not be completed until 1933.  Even so, it was not inaugurated officially until 1947. In 1967 the Chinese Cemetery was nationalized.

Several community groups, particularly the Grupo Promotor del Barrio Chino (Chinatown Promotional Group), are currently working to revitalize Havana’s Chinatown into a tourist destination. In 1993 the Escuela de la Lengua y Artes China (Chinese Language and Arts School) was inaugurated to help the Chinese Cubans not to forget their language, although most of the Cuban Chinese prefer to talk in Spanish, even between each other. Kwong Wah Po is a tabloid, published monthly by the Casino Chung Wah since 1928. It addresses the Chinese community. The first three pages are in Chinese and the fourth in Spanish. Other Chinese newspapers in Cuba that circulated until the 1970s, are the nationalist Man Seng Yat Po, the democrat Hung Men Kon Po and the commercial Wah Mat Sen Po.

Even today traditions are preserved in the Chinatown like the celebration of the Lunar New Year and the anniversaries of the first presence of Chinese on the island. After their closure in 1967, for 25 years, the Chinese associations went underground. They have since re-emerged as government-licensed organizations with stated goals of public assistance and education. Today there are 13 associations operating in Havana’s Chinatown, with some of these organizations having regional branches in provinces throughout the island. There are also schools where young people practice martial arts, a pharmacy that sells homeopathic medicines, imported from the Asian countries, and a Chinese cinema, showing movies in original versions.