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SANFANCÓN: ORIENTALISM, CONFUCIANISM AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF CHINESENESS IN CUBA, 1847 - 1997

Frank F. Scherer Department of Anthropology York University

Prepared for publication in Patrick Taylor (ed.), Nation Dance: Religion, Identity and Cultural Difference in the Caribbean.

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July, 1998

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SANFANCÓN: ORIENTALISM, CONFUCIANISM AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF CHINESENESS IN CUBA, 1847 - 1997

Frank F. Scherer Department of Anthropology, York University Toronto, Ontario, M3J 1P3 Tel: (416) 516-6299 Fax: (416) 530-4459 E-mail: [email protected]

Prepared for publication in Patrick Taylor (ed.), Nation Dance: Religion, Identity and Cultural Difference in the Caribbean.

Abstract:

The recent revival of "Chinese" ethnicity in Cuba is based both on a number of classic, Euro-American Orientalist assumptions of a distinctive and essential Chineseness, and on the "Oriental" use of Orientalist discourse which perfectly illustrates the "indigenous" employment of what I call strategic Orientalism. While the former is being promoted, somewhat ambiguously, by the Cuban state and its intelligentsia, the latter is articulated by first- and second-generation Chinese Cubans. In this way, the very process of reintegrating, re-creating, and re-ethnicizing the Chinese Cuban "community" is marked by the peculiar practice of self-Orientalization. Furthermore, the phenomenon of self-Orientalization feeds, apparently, not only into familiar Euro-American Orientalist discursive formations, but also on the revival of "Chinese religion" in Cuba, and with it, on the recent remobilization of the Chinese Cuban "saint" Sanfancón. In all, the overt reappearance of Orientalism, self-Orientalization and "Chinese religion" in Cuba remain inextricably linked to the profound ideological, political, economic, social and cultural transformations that the island is currently undergoing.

Ellos dicen, segun yo tengo entendido, que Furthermore, the phenomenon of self- cuando ellos mueren, van directamente a Orientalization feeds, apparently, not only into China familiar Euro-American Orientalist discursive formations, but also on the revival of “Chinese Chinese dreams are being dreamt in the religion” in Cuba, and with it, on the recent island of Cuba. There are, on the one hand, remobilization of the Chinese Cuban “saint” those dreams indulged in by a Cuban political Sanfancón. In all, the overt reappearance of elite which is willing to introduce economic Orientalism, self-Orientalization and “Chinese change without allowing for social and political religion” in Cuba remain inextricably linked to change. These efforts in trying to keep a the profound ideological, political, economic, traditional power base intact are reminiscent of social and cultural transformations that the Deng Xiaoping’s precedent1 and should be island is currently undergoing. understood, additionally, in the context of the I shall begin with some reflections on a particular significance that the People’s body of critical literature concerned with Republic of China holds – after the demise of Edward Said’s Orientalism (1979), an influential the Soviet-Cuban alliance in 1991 – for the only study, which, though pointing to socialist state in the western hemisphere. On the essentializations based on a fundamental other hand, and intimately linked to the above, distinction between “East” and “West,” has itself there is the announced “revitalization” of Cuba’s largely ignored the responses and challenges of Chinese community (Grupo Promotor 1995; the peoples involved. The sharp criticism Strubbe 1995), a project that includes not only brought forth by Marxist scholars, for example, the restoration of La Habana’s Chinatown for Aijaz Ahmad, will be interrogated and tourist consumption, but, simultaneously, a not juxtaposed to those criticisms of Said’s so subtle and rather unexpected return to notions Orientalism that themselves come from “de- of difference conceived in ethnic and cultural centered” and postcolonial perspectives, such as terms. that of James Clifford. But, more importantly, I It is my contention that the recent want to show how Sadik Jallal El-Azm, Aihwa revival of “Chinese” ethnicity in Cuba is based Ong and Xiaomei Chen were able to reach both on a number of classic, Euro-American beyond Said’s paradigmatic contribution, trying Orientalist assumptions of a distinctive and to expand the concept of Orientalism into a essential Chineseness, and on the “Oriental” use dialectical one so as to incorporate the part that of Orientalist discourse which perfectly “Orientals” may actually have in its making. illustrates the “indigenous” employment of what Thereafter, I want to discuss forms of I call strategic Orientalism. While the former is modern Orientalism as expressed by the Cuban being promoted, somewhat ambiguously, by the government as well as by members of the Cuban state and its intelligentsia, the latter is Chinese Cuban community. I shall approach articulated by first- and second-generation these discursive practices from three different Chinese Cubans. In this way, the very process angles: firstly, by exploring the history of Cuban of reintegrating, re-creating, and re-ethnicizing Orientalism as well as the concurrent impact of the Chinese Cuban “community” is marked by Euro-American Orientalist discourse as the peculiar practice of self-Orientalization (Ong promoted by Cuban officials, journalists, writers 1993; 1997; Dirlik 1996). This complex and others; secondly, by examining the peculiar discursive practice, complete with Confucian practice of self-Orientalization, and in the Cuban ideas and certain capitalist aspirations, facilitates context, the links, imagined or real, that exist the articulation of difference conceived in ethnic with the icon Confucius; and thirdly, by and cultural terms by first- and second- analyzing the contemporary presence and generation Chinese Cubans and allows – at least significance of “Chinese religion” in Cuba and, in Cuba – for the opening of alternative spaces, in particular, the recent resuscitation of the where the construction of identities other than Chinese Cuban “saint” Sanfancón. those prescribed by the Cuban state can take place.

1 Hybrid Strategies civilizations and languages, its cultural contestant, and one of its deepest and Edward Said’s Orientalism (1979) most recurring images of the Other... stands out as a seminal work that, though being The Orient is an integral part of confronted with harsh criticism, has nonetheless European material civilization and managed to maintain much of its paradigmatic culture. Orientalism expresses and stance. While we can recognize the significance represents that part culturally and even of its political and academic positioning, it has ideologically as a mode of discourse not succeeded in dispelling an array of logical, with supporting institutions, vocabulary, ontological, epistemological and methodological imagery, doctrines, even colonial shortcomings. Yet, Orientalism is forbidding bureaucracies and colonial style... and enabling at the same time: forbidding for the [2.] Orientalism is a style of thought monolithic “Occidentalism” that emerges in its based upon an ontological and pages, and enabling for the critical potential that epistemological distinction made this text has unearthed. This enablement is one between “the Orient” and (most of the of the reasons why it was, and still is, so time) “the Occident”... enthusiastically received by many scholars in the [3.] Taking the late eighteenth century social sciences and humanities. as a very roughly defined starting point At the same time, the popular and Orientalism can be discussed and academic usage that is sometimes made in the analyzed as the corporate institution for name of Said’s Orientalism appears to be dealing with the Orient – dealing with it uncritical and little aware of a number of by making statements about it, contradictions that undermine the force of this authorizing views of it, describing it, by founding contribution to the development of teaching it, by settling it, ruling over it: postcolonial theory. While Said’s rather flexible in short, Orientalism as a Western style theoretical positionings may be confounding to for dominating, restructuring, and some, to others, it is precisely this double- having authority over the Orient. (1978: sidedness that constitutes the strength of Said’s 1-3) rethinking the concept and practice of As indicated by Ahmad, we are facing here not Orientalism. However, it is not Said’s just pressing ontological and epistemological unfortunate failure to do away with problems, but an important issue of essentialisms of the Occidental/Oriental kinds, periodization. If there is an uninterrupted but it is his reinforcement of those categories by discursive history – as Said, notwithstanding his entrenching them further into his own text and, own arguments, claims on the same pages – that most significantly, his complete oblivion and can be traced from Aeschylus to Dante to Marx unreflexive erasure of those concerned, the to Lewis, then the post-Enlightenment “Orientals,” that is at issue here. eighteenth century can hardly figure as that A closer look at Orientalism, and “roughly defined starting point” of Orientalist particularly at Said’s definitions thereof, will discourse (see Ahmad 1994: 179-81). Another help to explain why the contradictions, the crucial issue is the relationship that exists double-sidedness of this work are of so much between Orientalism and colonialism. importance. Hence, it is within the very first Prioritizing textuality, Said argues that pages that Said offers no less than three Orientalism “produced” (1978: 3) the Orient, definitions of Orientalism: which is to say that colonialism is a product of [1.] Orientalism is a way of coming to Orientalism itself. Ahmad opposes such views terms with the Orient that is based on by pointing to the fact that this “narrative of the Orient’s special place in European convergence between colonial knowledges and Western experience. The Orient is not colonial powers simply cannot be assembled only adjacent to Europe; it is also the within cultural studies itself, because histories of place of Europe’s greatest and richest economic exploitation, political coercion, and oldest colonies, the source of its military conquest play the far more constitutive

2 part; those other histories are the ones which ambiguous lacunae, attempting to save what can provide the enabling conditions for the so-called be saved. He points out that “Said’s humanist ‘Orientalist Discourse’ as such” (1994: 164). In perspectives do not harmonize with his use of addition, there is Said’s complete neglect, and methods derived from Foucault, who is of thus the erasure, of the subaltern voice. As course a radical critic of humanism. But Ahmad states: however wary and inconsistent its appeals, A notable feature of Orientalism is that Orientalism is a pioneering attempt to use it examines the history of Western Foucault systematically in an extended cultural textualities about the non-West quite in analysis” (1988: 264). It is of no help to Said’s isolation from how these textualities disorientations when, shortly after corroborating might have been received, accepted, his indebtedness to Foucauldian discourse modified, challenged, overthrown, or theory, he introduces Gramscian notions of reproduced by the intelligentsias of the hegemony, which are subsequently woven into colonized countries; not as an his text. Said’s text is hybrid. He depends for undifferentiated mass but as situated his strategy on a flexible positionality, social agents impelled by our own continuously vacillating between humanist and conflicts, contradictions, distinct social anti-humanist paradigms. and political locations, of class, gender, region, religious affiliation, and so on – hence a peculiar disjuncture in the Orientalism and Beyond architecture of the book. (1994: 172) We have, then, not only theoretical and The major theoretical as well as methodological contradictions accompanied by methodological influences apparent in Said’s hybrid strategies, but also an incisive work are twofold, with the result that a typical obliteration, that is, the silence around those quality of Orientalism is its “hybrid strategy.” involved – “the Orientals” – which has On the one hand there are Said’s “humanist” confronted Said’s Orientalism with the claims, while on the other there is his devastating charge of “Occidentalism.” Said introduction and use of Foucauldian discourse essentializes Europe and the West, the analysis, later taken up by cultural studies, “Occident,” as a self-identical, fixed being postcolonial theory and anthropology. which has always had an essence and a project, Emerging from a formational background in an imagination and a will, and the “Orient” as no comparative European literatures, Said seems to more than its silenced object. Accordingly, be inspired especially by German comparativists “Said’s discourse analysis does not itself escape such as Auerbach, Curtius and Spitzer who had the all-inclusive ‘Occidentalism’ he specifically been busy in creating an aura of “High rejects as an alternative to Orientalism” (Clifford Humanism” around their academic endeavors 1988: 271). (Ahmad 1994: 162). This humanist stance It is, in my view, this reversed charge of reemerges in Said’s Orientalism in the form of a “Occidentalism” which has motivated other totalized European history which traces its writers to look for ways to go beyond beginnings, and its “Orientalisms,” all the way Orientalism and to find alternatives that may back to Greek classics. An idea has been help to conceptualize, in the place of silence and countered in sharply critical ways by many neglect, a dialectic which would include those contemporary postcolonial theorists, including involved. Even Said himself, after revisiting Bhabha (1994) and members of the Subaltern Orientalism, felt prompted to think about Studies Group (Prakash 1990; Spivak 1996). “Resistance Culture” (1994: 209-220). But how How can Said reconcile conceptualizations of is one to think of Orientalism as an expandable “High Humanism” with ideas of “anti- concept, one that takes into account the ways in humanism,” so rigorously observed in which Orientalism is received, accepted, Foucault’s work? Underlying this problem, modified, rejected, or otherwise challenged by Clifford makes an effort to reach beyond Said’s the subaltern? Moreover, how does one

3 conceptualize a critique of Orientalism that structures, styles and ontological biases of includes the subaltern voice, and that can thus Orientalism upon others or upon oneself. conceive of Orientalism in terms of difference Ong (1993) differentiates between and differentiation? To reach beyond grand and petty Orientalist discourses, where the Orientalism means, then, to employ this critical former stands for “those which reached supreme tool in strategic ways while tapping its enabling authority under the British Empire,” and which potential, that is, the acknowledgment of a remain “dialectically linked” to the latter, plurality of Orientalisms as well as the described in terms of an alternative terrain that is examination of Orientalist dialectics. In fact, a “generated in the transnational context of number of authors have made efforts towards a corporate and media circulation and that rework differentiation of Orientalism(s), not just in the Anglo-European academic concepts into sense of its “national” histories and conditions, confident pronouncements about Oriental labor, but rather in terms of moving away from a skills, deference, and mystery” (746). The petty monological, one-sided discourse to one of type is then quite identical with her notion of a multiplicity and multivocality. This is of “self-Orientalizing discourse” (Ong 1997: 181), summary significance as such a move makes underlining two neglected elements of space for the subaltern voice by opening new Orientalism. On the one hand we have a terrains of struggle and contestation. “dialectic” between grand and petty The pertinent literature reveals an Orientalism(s), and on the other there is the impressive variety of refinements of Said’s “Oriental” self. This exemplifies an instance monolithic creation. Yet, once again, Said where differentiation acknowledges those who himself set the precedent by introducing us to are involved, namely “the Orientals.” But the notions of ontological/ epistemological and main point is that the authoritarian Orientalist manifest/latent Orientalism(s): the former pair discourse that emanates from Western voices, be indicates what is distinguished and how, that is, they institutional, intellectual or popular, is the “Orient” from the “Occident” by way of always-already adopted, modified, challenged or essentializing; the latter pair points our attention rejected. to the recognizable and hidden elements of Another important differentiation is Orientalist discourse. However, the possibilities offered by Chen (1995) who explores different are far from exhausted. El-Azm (1981), for and divergent discursive levels, not of example, reiterates Said’s Orientalism but of its opposite, by using labels ontological/epistemological types and adds two of official/anti-official Chinese more sets, the institutional/cultural academic “Occidentalism[s].” The official discourse is and the proper/in-reverse. The first of these is articulated by the Chinese government, “not for employed as in Said. The second indicates “a the purpose of dominating the West, but in order whole set of progressively expanding to discipline, and ultimately to dominate, the institutions, a created and cumulative body of Chinese self at home” (5). In contrast and in theory and practice, a suitable ideological response to the former, there is its counterpart superstructure with an apparatus of complicated “which can be understood as a powerful anti- assumptions, beliefs, images, literary official discourse using the Western Other as a productions, and rationalizations” and, in a more metaphor for a political liberation against restricted sense, “a developing tradition of ideological oppression within a totalitarian state” disciplined learning whose main function is to (8). But where the official Occidentalist ‘scientifically research’ the Orient” (5). The discourse must still rely for its existence on third, finally, opposes “Orientalism proper” to Orientalist discursive formations, the anti- what El-Azm coins “Orientalism-in-Reverse.” official Occidentalist does not necessarily. This last concept is used in the context of the Most interestingly, here, Chen goes a essentialization of the Orient by secular Arab step further when she rejects mere binaries by nationalists as well as by the movement of highlighting their overlaps. In this way, she Islamic revival, reminding us of Said’s early points to a third kind of discourse in which “the warning not to apply the readily available anti-official Occidentalism overlapped with the

4 official Occidentalism of the early post-Mao (Communist) party lines; one could even add the regime” (25). Clearly, Chen’s emphasis rests contemporaries Baldomero Álvarez Ríos (1995), with “the failure to recognize the indigenous use Jesús Guanche Perez (1996) and José Baltar of Western discourse and the great variety of Rodriguez (1997), all of whose sinological conditions that might provide the focus for its intimations about “Chinese” tradition, folklore utterance” (15). This last point cannot be and ritual remain crucial to any serious historical overemphasized and remains of essential reconstruction of the development of importance to this essay. The insights gained Orientalism in Cuba.2 from the works of El-Azm, Ong and Chen are Considering this incisive historical crucial for an evaluation of Cuban Orientalism, pattern, contemporary expressions of Cuban self-Orientalizing discourse and “Chinese Orientalism often present themselves in disguise religion” in Cuba to which we will now turn. and may reach us from the most unexpected corners. To give but one striking and typical example, a newspaper article, published in the Cuban Orientalism international edition of Cuba’s party organ Granma, commented on the renowned Chinese To Cuba’s colonial inheritance of Cuban paintress Flora Fong on the occasion of slavery and racism, one could add the historical her second trip to China. While the article Spanish obsession with the “Orient,” an begins and ends with citations from Miguel Orientalism that originated with “centuries of Barnet, celebrated author of Biography of a domination by the Moors from Northern Africa” Slave, the signing journalist must have been (Kushigian 1991: 2) and that continued, after the aware of the awkward contradiction that reconquista, through sustained encounters with characterizes them. I shall offer both here, so as the Arabic Other. In stark contrast to these to illustrate how official Cuban pronouncements medieval adventures, modern Orientalism in regarding “transculturation” and hybridity are Cuba finds its beginnings in the nineteenth lined up, and possibly even confused, with the century transition from slave-labour to wage- racist essentialism inherent in Euro-American labour and represents, indeed, a dark chapter that Orientalist discourse. The opening paragraph was opened just previous to the arrival of the runs like this: first ship filled with contract workers, or It is impossible to separate in her art “coolies,” from southern China in 1847. what is oriental from what is occidental. The century and a half of Cuban One is the result of the other and both Orientalist discursive production that followed come together in a legitimate process of was shaped in particular by authors such as transculturation. That is what fascinates Ramón de la Sagra (1861), the utilitarian, who me in Flora Fong’s painting. (Barnet saw in Chinese “coolies” little more than a qtd. in Granma 13 January 1991: 11, my docile labour force for the insatiable needs of translation) Cuban sugarmills; Gonzalo de Quesada (1896), once Cuba’s ambassador in Berlin, and This is, no doubt, a clear reminder of the recognizably influenced by German Orientalists, fact that the Cuban nation, as well as the state it who compiled the first scholastic and engendered, was constructed on the basis of a sympathetic study of “Los Chinos,” thus hybrid process of “transculturation,” a notion marking an important discursive variation on the originally formulated by Fernando Ortiz (1995: same theme; the renowned Cuban historian and 97-103).3 Thus, be one of Caribbean, European, anthropologist Fernando Ortiz (1947), whose African or Asian descent, transculturation, or, as blatantly racist views of “yellow Mongoloids” Fernández Retamar (1971: 4) would prefer, perfectly reflected the “scientific” discrimination mestizaje, is what constitutes and supposedly against Chinese immigrants that was instilled unites all Cubans in a classless, raceless society. during the period of U.S. domination; Juan And yet, after dwelling for the most part on Jiménez Pastrana (1963), whose “revolutionary” Flora Fong’s felicitous encounter with members task it was to rewrite their history along of her “extended” family in Canton, the article

5 concludes, to no little surprise, with this oppressed? Or, instead, is it by locating points paragraph: of contact, encounter, even dialogue, that we The blood that runs in Flora’s veins might find some answers? In this sense, we will marked her painting well before she now discuss the topic of self-Orientalization and made the voyage that would bring her to the complex dialectics that are at work in the soil of her ancestors, Taoist China, Chinese Cuban Orientalist pronouncements. [the land of] the Roots of the Lotus, and The term “self-Orientalization” is here the Imperial Jade. (Barnet qtd. in understood in as an emic category, rather than as Granma 13 January 1991: 11, my a label of purely western fabrication. translation)

This sudden and unexpected turn from “Self-Orientalization” and the Icon Confucius Caribbean hybridity to Orientalist essentialism reveals the extent to which even “revolutionary” After considering the history of Cuban authors may in fact slip back into antiquated Orientalism, and after pointing to its present Eurocentric discourses. Here, I chose the term expressions, often hidden or in disguise, by “antiquated” so as to point to discursive using Miguel Barnet’s ideas about Flora Fong’s formations that find their origins with nineteenth paintings, it might be worthwhile to consider century power relations where the “East” is Flora Fong’s own ideas in this respect (for my represented as the inferior Other, and where the representational concerns rest not so much with “West” takes the place of the dominant Self. China-born immigrants as with their offspring, Although this may have been the case in the that is, first- and second-generation Chinese past, it is no longer applicable to the present. As Cubans – like Flora Fong). In regards to her a result, the ambiguity and double-sidedness of artwork, she explains in her most recent catalog Barnet’s comments stand out as particularly and artbook, Nube de otoño: characteristic of contemporary Cuban In very ancient times, the Han Orientalism, betraying not just the pitfalls of its nationality of China created revolutionary (un)consciousness, but indicating, pictographic characters inspired by the rather, the persistence and longevity of its tracks left by birds and animals, which colonial burden. evolved in several aspects. In regard to Obviously, Orientalism is not a thing of style and form, brushstrokes slowly the past, but alive and well in many places. Arif replaced drawings, symbols replaced Dirlik, in this context, and to mimic E.P. pictographs, and simple forms replaced Thompson, reverses the Eurocentric, and later complex ones... I consider this Euro-American, perspective and poses the explanation necessary, in that Chinese valuable question: “Is orientalism a thing or a characters were an essential part of my relationship?” (1996: 99). An essential art since the early 1980s. (1997: 6) argument of this paper consists precisely in the rejection of clear-cut distinctions between Euro- Thus, the task of representing American and “Oriental” representations of Chineseness begins in her first line, where she Chineseness in Cuba, but, instead, to view them opts to evoke a timeless Chinese antiquity, the in terms of dialectics (Ong 1993; 1997). Thus, cultural inheritance of the Han period in sharp contrast to Said’s Orientalism and the (surprisingly, without ever mentioning her own unfortunate failure to erase ontological Cantonese origins), as well as the exoticism and distinctions between “Orient” and “Occident,” mystique that Chinese “brushstroked” characters Orientalism is here treated as a relationship and continue to hold for western audiences. Not not as a monolithic construction that solely only does Flora Fong emphasize the notion of belongs to the “West.” timelessness, but also the observation of nature But how is this relationship to be (a known Confucian principle), as well as the conceptualized? Simply by repeating binaries “essential” importance of Chinese characters in such as colonizer / colonized, oppressor / her painting, all of which points to an

6 understanding of Chineseness as essence. Is independent of age, gender, professional this, then, simply the reflection of Flora Fong’s background or location, the vast majority of artistic sentiment and her striving for a personal interviewees emphasized the significance that style, or are we facing a vivid example of what certain “Chinese” values, such as honesty, Dirlik (1996) recognizes as the Orientalism of courage, fidelity, perseverance, austerity, hard “Orientals”? work, respect for the ancestors, filial piety, The use of self-Orientalizing discourses, mutual aid and beneficence, hold for them. that is, Chinese Cuban articulations of an These references to Confucian values are all the essential and distinctive Chineseness which more remarkable when we consider that: allow for conceiving of “difference” in ethnic Today, the Chinese Cuban community, and cultural terms, has (re)appeared in Cuba integrated by Chinese immigrants (now only very recently. Together with the need to only a few hundred), but also by improve official relations with the People’s thousands of first- and second- Republic of China (after the end of the Soviet- generation Cubans, who were formed in Cuban alliance in 1991) came also certain the Revolution, and who are thus economic interests in the touristic culturally and professionally capable, redevelopment of La Habana’s Chinatown. work to recuperate and to enrich the Thus, an officially promoted campaign of re- contributions made by the Chinese over essentializing people (“the Chinese”) and places a century and a half to Cuban patrimony (“Chinatown”) is now in progress. This and nationality. (Grupo Promotor 1993: initiative is evidently based on Orientalist 7, my translation) notions of a distinct “Chineseness,” which have, as we noted above, a long history on the island. What is the particular interest that Although undertaken by the Cuban government “culturally and professionally capable” Chinese within a larger, national framework of Cubans, who are, in addition, “formed in the “touristifications,” its modernizing policies are Revolution,” find with Confucian values and being implemented through the Grupo Promotor with representations of themselves that are del Barrio Chino, a governmental agency that is formulated in terms of an essential run by first- and second-generation Chinese “Chineseness”? How does this new, Cuban professionals (see Grupo Promotor 1998; decontextualized “Confucianism” inform the 1995). practice of self-Orientalization in Cuba? In a transnational but mainly U.S.- Clearly, the concept of “self- informed context, Ong clearly rejects “Asian Orientalization” is a complex one that remains modernist imaginations that insist upon their inextricably linked to Orientalism itself. That is, cultural and spiritual distinctiveness,” as she if we conceptualize Orientalism as an entirely detects in them little more than “contradictory, western construct, without accounting for the self-Orientalizing moves” (1997: 194). Dirlik, dialectics involved in a process that was shaped in stark contrast, and in the attempt to further all along by both westerners and “Orientals,” develop Said’s Orientalism, suggests instead then, in fact, we may conclude, erroneously, that that contemporary tendencies of self- Asians had simply no say in the making of orientalization among Asian intellectuals are “a Orientalism. However, it is by investigating the manifestation not of powerlessness but of notion of “Confucian values” that we are newly-acquired power” (1996 : 97). This last enabled to reconceptualize our ideas of what point remains central to the developments in constitutes a self-Orientalizing discourse. Cuba’s Chinese Cuban community.4 In this Such a reconceptualization is offered by context, it is interesting to observe how a series Jensen, who develops the idea that “East and of interviews, conducted with Chinese Cubans West have become bound by commerce and (in La Habana, Villa Clara, Camagüey and communication and joined, more importantly, in Santiago de Cuba from 1995 to 1998), indicates imagination” (1997: 3). In his recent work, some of the assumptions that are at the basis of Manufacturing Confucianism (1997), he self-Orientalizing discourses. Surprisingly, explains how the arrival of a detachment of

7 Jesuits in Guangzhou (Canton) in 1579 resulted economic success of East Asian in the fact that “Confucianism is largely a societies who now reassert themselves Western invention, supposedly representing against an earlier Euro-American what is registered by the complex of terms rujia domination. In this sense, the [ru family], rujiao [ru teaching], ruxue [ru Confucian revival (and other cultural learning] and ruzhe [the ru]. Presuming that the nationalisms) may be viewed as an ancient Chinese philosopher Confucius (known articulation of native culture (and an to the Chinese as Kongzi) is the source of this indigenous subjectivity) against Euro- complex, it takes his figure as its focus” (5). American cultural hegemony. (Dirlik Jensen points out “that Confucius assumed his 1996: 113) present familiar features as the result of a At the same time, Dirlik does not ignore the self- prolonged, deliberate process of manufacture in defeating aspects of employing self- which European intellectuals took a leading role. Orientalizing strategies: Our Confucius is a product fashioned over The part that self-orientalization may several centuries by many hands, ecclesiastical play in the struggle against internal and and lay, Western and Chinese” (5). external hegemony, and its claims to Thus, both in the “West” and the “East,” alternative modernities, however, must and owing to the untiring efforts of Jesuits, not be exaggerated. In the long run, sinologists, Chinese nationalists and, not to be self-orientalization serves to perpetuate, forgotten, the Overseas-Chinese community, the and even to consolidate, existing forms icon Confucius soon became equated with of power... Self-essentialization may “Chinese Culture” in general, and with “Chinese serve the cause of mobilization against Religion” in particular. After the demise of the “Western” domination; but in the very Ch’ing dynasty in 1911, it offered itself as an process it also consolidates “Western” ideal image of essential “Chineseness” to ideological hegemony by internalizing Chinese nationalists who did not hesitate to the historical assumptions of appropriate this icon in their struggle to define orientalism. At the same time, it culture, history and identity, providing in this contributes to internal hegemony by way “a conceptual vernacular that would unite surpressing differences within the the diverse cultural constituencies of a new nation. (1996: 114) nation” (Jensen 1997: 4). Obviously, there is a But where he affirms that the use of link between Chinese nationalism and the self-Orientalizing discourse “contributes to cultural nationalism of Overseas-Chinese. internal hegemony by surpressing differences In the meantime, Confucius’ within the nation,” he must have been thinking significance has not lessened, but, on the of the People’s Republic of China, and not of the contrary, Confucianism has been promoted little known situation of a “minority” in the throughout the last two decades by Southeast Caribbean. The case of the Chinese Cuban Asian nations, and in particular by Singapore’s community in Cuba has produced a unique Lee Kwan Yew, as the ethico-spiritual situation in which a classic Orientalist discourse “foundation” of their socio-economic success. of basically Eurocentric orientation cooperates This latest Confucian revival translates, and, at the same time, competes with a strategic therefore, not only into the complete reversal of “Oriental,” or self-centered, one. Thus, the post- Weber’s Eurocentric pronouncements on 1991 battle for political and economic survival Confucianism (1968: 142-170), but also into the in Cuba appears to have opened up new articulation of an indigenous subjectivity which discursive terrain (and there was very little lends itself to be used as a counter-discourse to during almost forty years of de-ethnicization) in Euro-American Orientalist positionings. In fact: which claims for ethnic and cultural difference The Confucian revival of the past can be articulated. These new discursive spaces decade, I suggest, is an expression not of are increasingly taken up by first- and second- powerlessness, but of a newfound sense generation Chinese Cubans who show, of power that has accompanied the simultaneously, great interest in resuscitating

8 “Chinese values,” or a “new” Confucianism in to bringing “Chinese religion” into an orderly Cuban attire. To explore these ethico-spiritual Hispanic pantheon, or at least into a mentality, discourses a little further, we will now turn to occupied by “Christian” gods so as to become “Chinese religion,” the figure of the Chinese intelligible even to the non-Chinese mind. Cuban “saint” Sanfancón, and the “Chineseness” Eventually, Sanfancón entered a symbiosis with of Confucianism in Cuba. other saints and deities of Euro-African extraction. Thus, even followers of Santería continue to pay respects to Sanfancón in some of “Chinese Religion” in Cuba the remaining Chinese societies, and popular culture has it that Santa Barbara (Spanish) is The question of religion in Cuba has Changó (African) is Sanfancón (Chinese). been discussed mainly in terms of Spanish According to Orientalist knowledge, the Christianity, African religions, and their name Sanfancón, also San Fancon,6 San-Fan- syncretic expressions (see Ortiz 1975; Peréz Con or San Fang Kong, represents a western Sarduy and Stubbs 1993). Contemporary ideas corruption of Cuan Yu, who, after his death, surrounding the concept of Cubania, or became the “Venerated Ancestor Kuan Kong” Cubanity, rest on similar assumptions of, and and eventually the “patron” of all Chinese even a certain fixation with, a Euro-African immigrants to Cuba. This mythical figure is version of hybridity5 in which “the Chinese” traced to the Han period (ca. 220-280 A.D.) hardly ever appear. Even though the Cuban when a brotherhood was formed between three Revolution has insisted not just since 1959 on its legendary ancestors/warriors/philosophers mestizo character, which is supposedly based on named Lau Pei, Cuan Yu and Chiong Fei (here four main groups such as “Indio,” Spanish, given in hierarchical order by age). These were African and Chinese, the disproportionate later joined by a forth member, Chiu Chi Long. obsession with Afro-Cuban “cults,” shown by But it is the second of these, Cuan Yu/Kuan historians, sociologists and anthropologists Kong, who became crucial to the Cuban alike, has left little space for the exploration of invention of Sanfancón. Interestingly, the “Chinese religion” in Cuba. appearance of Sanfancón coincides with the One of the earliest commentators, establishment, in the year 1900, of the first Ramón de la Sagra, a Spaniard, Christian and clanic society on the island, the Lung Con Cun staunch defender of Cuba’s “scientific Sol. This society brought together members revolution,” noted how “[t]hese Chinese show with the last names Lao, Chiong, Chiú and Kuan no religious disposition whatsoever, but they (Baltar Rodriguez 1997: 180). But what kind of like to go out on Sundays” (1861: 150, my values does Sanfancón represent? translation). The white supremacist José The type of “Chinese values” that are Antonio Saco insisted that “the Chinese race conveyed by Sanfancón have become accessible [remains] different in its language and color, in through Antonio Chuffat Latour’s remarkable its ideas and feelings, in its uses and customs, work Apunte histórico de los chinos en Cuba and in its religious opinions” (1881: 186, my (1927). Chuffat Latour had been working translation). These descriptions of essential between 1885 and 1892 for several Chinese incomprehension and radical Otherness coincide consulates on the island, when, at the turn of the with the Eurocentricity of many nineteenth- century, he became the secretary of the Chinese century Spanish and Cuban writers. The reason, Nationalist Party, the Kuo Min Tang, in then, why these descriptions are so biased Cienfuegos. His study of “the Chinese in Cuba” resides in the Eurocentric and “Christian” represents a unique compilation and an perspectives of observers who had obviously outstanding testimony of the Chinese presence great difficulty in conceiving of religion in non- in Cuba. The author collected his data from the Christian terms. numberless conversations held with Chinese In this sense, it is particularly revealing immigrants to Cuba, be they workers, how the making of a syncretic Chinese Cuban shopkeepers or entrepreneurs. Recorded in “saint,” Sanfancón, remains inextricably linked Matanzas province, his rendering of “the legend

9 of Kuan Kong in Cimarrones” (85-9), in which sage, saint or god, reflects the need to satisfy one Chung Si was sitting in his house when a typically “Christian” preoccupations with powerful spirit entered his body and began monotheism. Thus, it is this “Western” reading speaking “Chinese” to him, contains a number (and writing) of Sanfancón that may explain of Confucian-style prescriptions: Chuffat Latour’s “Ten Commandment” version 1) God in Heaven will reward those of Confucian values. who are virtuous, honest, hard working We may ask, finally, of what quality is and just with your brothers. the “Chineseness” of Confucius in Cuban garb, 2) Happiness and good fortune will and how essentially and distinctively “Chinese” accompany you if you do acts of charity. can Sanfancón possibly be? Apparently, as the Share your rice with those in need. Cuban historian and ethnographer Baltar 3) Do not be violent in your acts and be Rodriguez found out – after consulting the very prudent so as to have no regrets. available sources and after conducting a number 4) If you appreciate friends, do not of interviews with non-Cubans – the figure speak of their acts in ways that could Sanfancón is not known in China or among offend them. members of its Overseas community elsewhere 5) Do not believe in slander nor in lies. (1997: 182). Clearly, Sanfancón is as Cuban as If you want to be happy, keep away can be. from all bad [influence]. His being used in the name of an 6) The Chinese have their God, the essential and distinctive Chineseness as well as White, the Black, Indian, Malay, each being pressed into service by first- and second- has their God. generation Chinese Cubans (who were “formed 7) The true God is not White, Chinese, in the Revolution”) for the promotion of a “new” Black, Indian, nor Malay, it is God Confucianism reveals the strategic quality of his Almighty. reappearance in Chinese societies and on the 8) Do not despair [in this world]. streets of La Habana’s Chinatown. “Chinese Remember that your are in transit, you religion” in Cuba today has less to do with long- brought nothing and nothing you shall standing “Chinese” traditions, or even a return to take. “religion” per se,8 but everything to do with the 9) You have no property, the only one, subaltern employment of strategies that allow the real, is the one of your fall. Think for the opening of alternative spaces in which well, and you are going to be convinced. the construction of identities other than those 10) God Almighty asks us nothing, he prescribed by the state takes place. It is, then, wants no gold, no payments. It is God Cuba’s “transition to somewhere” which Almighty, great, just, good; he has no explains the recent rearrangements of its hate and no defect. If you believe in ideological, political, economical, social and God, he is going to be with you; if you cultural spheres. have faith, he is going to save you from all bad. (Chuffat Latour 1927: 87, my translation) In Lieu of Conclusion

These Confucian7 values show, indeed, Since 1994, the anniversary of the a great concern with “God Almighty.” Although Chinese presence in Cuba is celebrated again “Chinese religion” consists not only of around June 3, the day of the arrival of the first Confucianism but also of Taoism and ship to bring Chinese workers to the island in Buddhism, forming what is known as the “Three 1847. But the months of May and June do not Ways,” it is difficult to find in any of these fit in well with the tourist season, which is doctrines the monotheistic prevalence so mainly from November to April, and so it was characteristic for Christianity. Yet the Chinese decided by a governmental agency, the Grupo Cuban invention of Sanfancón, and especially Promotor del Barrio Chino, that from 1999 the built-in flexibility of his triple function as onwards, it will be held in the first week of

10 November, now coinciding with the anniversary socialist state, are indeed surprising, especially of the People’s Republic of China. Although after almost forty years of revolutionary de- this choice may not conform to the history of ethnicization in which Orientalist erasure Chinese immigration to Cuba, its deliberate dominated the picture. Contemporary decontextualization perfectly illustrates the Orientalist discourse in Cuba should, therefore, priorities, as well as the “Chinese Dreams,” of be grasped in the context of rearrangements of a the Cuban government and of first- and second- Cuban society in “transition to somewhere.” generation Chinese Cubans. Perhaps only a minor occurrence, but, in my view, this example makes quite clear how meanings, metaphors and Works Cited discursive formations are shifted, and even pushed, around so as to channel them into more Ahmad, Aijaz. 1994. In Theory: Classes, or less convenient directions. Nations, Literatures. New York: Verso. In our discussion of Orientalism, we Baltar Rodriguez, José. 1997. Los chinos de have seen how the employment of “hybrid Cuba. Apuntes etnograficos. Coleccion strategies” makes it possible to offer enabling La Fuente Viva. La Habana: Fundación perspectives, even though Said’s Orientalism Fernando Ortiz. completely neglects the people involved, that is, Bastos Da Silva, Beatriz. 1994. Emigração de the “Orientals.” This opens space for a further culés: Dossier Macau, 1851-1894. exploration that leads us “Beyond Orientalism” Macau: Fundação Oriente. and towards more sophisticated developments of Bhabha, Homi K. 1994. The Location of Said’s precedent, in which we find an opening Culture. New York: Routledge. for the “indigenous” use of, and its complicity Castro Ruz, Fidel. 1997. Informe central. in, Orientalist discourse. In this way, we can Discurso de clausura. V congreso del identify both Euro-American and “Oriental” Partido Comunista de Cuba. La Orientalist discourses. Habana: Ediciones Politicas. Cuban Orientalism not only consists of Chen, Xiaomei. 1995. Occidentalism: A Theory historical manifestations but, moreover, is also of Counter-Discourse in Post-Mao found in contemporary discourse in Cuba. The China. New York: Oxford University apparent ambiguity and double-sidednes of these Press. discourses reveals how even “revolutionary” Chuffat Latour, Antonio. 1927. Apunte writers succumb to their (un)conscious colonial histórico de los chinos en Cuba. La burden of racism and Orientalism. By contrast, Habana: Molina y Cia. the Orientalism of “Orientals,” particularly when Clifford, James. 1988. The Predicament of seen in the context of Confucian thought, Culture: Twentieth-Century addresses precisely what Said’s Orientalism Ethnography, Literature, and Art. leaves out: that Orientalism is not simply a Cambridge: Harvard University Press. monolithic construction of the “West” but, Cuba. 1992. Constitución de la República de rather, is a dialectical relationship that includes Cuba. (Esta Constitución contiene las the “East.” reformas aprobadas por la Asamblea Our incursion into the intricacies of Nacional del Poder Popular en el XI “Chinese Religion in Cuba” and, with it, into the Período Ordinario de Sesiones de la III figure of the Chinese Cuban “saint” Sanfancón Legislatura celebrada los días 10, 11 y not only points to the contemporary uses of a 12 de julio de 1992). La Habana: decontextualized Confucianism, but also shows Editora Politica. the extent to which first- and second-generation -----. 1993 [1876]. The Cuba Commission Chinese Cubans are willing to activate an Report. A Hidden History of The essential and distinctive “Chineseness” in the Chinese in Cuba. Baltimore: The Johns service of a return to notions of difference in Hopkins University Press. ethnic and cultural terms. These unexpected -----. 1954. Republica de Cuba. Informe articulations, made within the confines of a

11 general del censo de 1953. La Habana: Struggle for Cuban Independence. P. Fernandez y Cia. Trans. Elinor Randall. New York: De la Sagra, Ramón. 1861. Historia física, Monthly Review económico-política, intelectual y moral Ong, Aihwa. 1997. “Chinese Modernities: de la isla de Cuba. Paris: L. Hachette y Narratives of Nation and of Capitalism.” Cia. Ungrounded Empires. Eds. D. Nonini Dirlik, Arif. 1996. “Chinese History and the and A. Ong. New York: Routledge. Question of Orientalism.” History and 171-202. Theory: Studies in the Philosophy of -----. 1993. “On the Edge of Empires: Flexible History 35.4: 96-118. Citizenship among Chinese in Dominguez, Jorge I. 1998. Democratic Politics Diaspora.” Positions 1.3: 744-78. in Latin America and the Caribbean. Ortiz, Fernando. 1995. Cuban Counterpoint: Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Tobacco and Sugar. 1947. Durham: University Press. Duke University Press. El-Azm, Sadik Jallal. 1981. “Orientalism and -----. 1975. Historia de una pelea cubana Orientalism in Reverse.” Khamsin 8: 5- contra los demonios. La Habana: 26. Editorial De Ciencias Sociales. Fernández Retamar, Roberto. 1989. Caliban Peréz Sarduy, Pedro and Stubbs, Jean, eds. and Other Essays. Minneapolis: 1993. AfroCuba: An Anthology of University of Minnesota Press. Cuban Writing on Race, Politics and Fong, Flora. 1997. Nube de otoño. La Habana: Culture. Melbourne: Ocean Press. Alexis Malaguer, MA & G/Grafispaço. Prakash, Gyan. 1990. “Writing Post-Orientalist Garcia, Maria Cristina. 1996. Havana U.S.A.: Histories of the Third World: Cuban Exiles and Cuban Americans in Perspectives from Indian South Florida, 1959-1994. Berkeley: Historiography.” Comparative Studies University of California Press. in Society and History 32.2: 383-408. Guanche Perez, Jesús. 1996. Componentes Quesada, Gonzalo de. 1896. Los chinos y la étnicos de la nacion cubana. Coleccion independencia de Cuba. Trans. A. La Fuente Viva. Ciudad de La Habana: Castellanos. Ciudad de La Habana: Ediciones Union. Heraldo Cristiano. Grupo Promotor. 1995. El Barrio Chino de La Saco, José Antonio. 1881. Coleccion posthuma Habana. Proyecto integral. La Habana: de papeles cientificos, historicos, Grupo Promotor del Barrio Chino. politicos y de otros ramos sobre la isla -----. 1998. Posibilidades inversionistas en el de Cuba. La Habana: Editorial Miguel Barrio Chino de La Habana. La De Villa. Habana: Grupo Promotor del Barrio Said, Edward W. 1994. Culture and Chino. Imperialism. New York: Vintage Jensen, Lionel M. 1997. Manufacturing Books. Confucianism: Chinese Traditions and -----. 1979. Orientalism. New York: Vintage Universal Civilization. Durham: Duke Books. University Press. Spivak, Gayatri C. 1996. “Subaltern Studies: Jiménez Pastrana, Juan. 1983. Los chinos en la Deconstructing Historiography.” The historia de Cuba 1847-1930. La Spivak Reader. Eds. D. Landry and G. Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales. Maclean. New York: Routledge. Kushigian, Julia A. 1991. Orientalism in the Strubbe, Bill. 1995. “Start with a Dream: Hispanic Literary Tradition: In Rebuilding Havana’s Chinese Dialogue with Borges, Paz, and Sarduy. Community.” World and I 10. Albuquerque: University of New Washington Times September: 188-97. Mexico Press. Weber, Max. 1968. The Religion of China: Marti, José. 1977 [1898]. Our America: Confucianism and Taoism. Trans. H.H. Writings on Latin America and the Gerth. New York: Free Press. 142-70.

12 End Notes eighteenth century, as Europe acquired an 1 Jorge I. Dominguez’ interesting but largely ‘Enlightened’ cultural self-consciousness, Confucius conservative comments in his chapter, “Cuba in the was firmly entrenched in contemporary Western 1990s: The Transition to Somewhere” (1998: 173- culture as a sage, and his followers were called 202), speculate about possible scenarios that could be ‘Confucians’, a term that evoked a panoply of envisaged for Cuba’s mid and long-term future. See associations: deference, urbanity, wisdom, moral also Informe central. Discurso de clausura. V probity, reasoned and not slavish classicism, and a congreso del Partido Comunista de Cuba (Castro learned, paternal authoritarianism. These qualities, Ruz 1997: 149-51). like the figure who embodied them, were the 2 These works could be juxtaposed, for desiderata of Europeans doubtful of the institution of example, to a number of “Chinese” voices such as monarchy and despairing of religious war” (1997: 8). 8 can be found in The Cuba Commission Report (Cuba I should mention that discussions of 1993 [1876]), an oral history that comprises over a religious practices in the Chinese Cuban community thousand interviews and individual petitions recorded in Cuba often develop along lines of B.C./A.C., that from Chinese contract labourers near the end of is, Before Castro and After Castro, in as far as the Cuba’s first national struggle, the Ten Years’ War. Cuban Revolution marked a major change by Another significant emic view is reflected in Antonio building an atheistic state that was antithetical to Chuffat Latour’s Apunte histórico de los chinos en religion. Its Marxist-Leninist conception of religion Cuba (1927), a unique compilation that is based on as “mystification” allowed for little religious the author’s conversations with Chinese (that is, tolerance until the Cuban Constitution was rewritten mainly Cantonese) workers and entrepreneurs in 1992. Cuba is now a “secular” state, government resident in Cuba. and church are separated, religious freedom is 3 Curiously, the inventor of the concept of constitutionally guaranteed, and even Pope John Paul “transculturation,” Fernando Ortiz, referred himself II came to visit the island in January 1998 (see also to Chinese immigrants in overtly racist terms: “And Constitución de la República de Cuba [Cuba 1992: still other immigrant cultures of the most varying 5]). origins arrived, either in sporadic waves or a continuous flow, always exerting an influence and being influenced in turn: Indians from the mainland, Jews, Portuguese, Anglo-Saxons, French, North Americans, even yellow Mongoloids from Macao, Canton, and other regions of the sometimes Celestial Kingdom” (1947: 113). 4 There are other such communities in South Florida, New York and New Jersey (Garcia 1996: 43), but also in Mexico, Panama, Venezuela, Peru, Macao and Hong Kong (Bastos da Silva 1994: 157- 79). 5 Although both José Marti’s Our America (1977 [1898]) and Fernández Retamar’s Caliban (1971) make place for the vanished American “Indian” (that is, Taino or Carib) in their arguments concerned with mestizaje, they consistently ignore, and thus continue to erase in proper Orientalist fashion, the presence of Chinese immigrants on the island. 6 Curiously, the linguistic Christianization of “Chinese religion” is already recognizable in the first three letters of the name San Fancon, that is, in the title San, which means three or three people in Mandarin, while also being used as an abbreviation for the Castillian term Santo, or saint. 7 In regards to the complicity of western intellectuals in manufacturing Chineseness and Confucian values, Jensen suggests that “[b]y the late

13