“A bitter diversion”: Afro-Cuban immigrants, race, and everyday-life resistance

Abstract

This article offers insight into how race intervenes into the everyday lives of post-1980 Afro-Cuban immigrants living in Miami, Florida, and Los Angeles, California. Drawing from in-depth interviews, it explores their responses to being constantly questioned about their racial and ethnic identities by people of various backgrounds, including “white” Cubans and people of Mexican origin. While they perceive some inquiries to be simply the result of curiosity, they believe other questions denote a rejection of their multiplicity and their blackness. They counteract such “micro-level rejections” through the use of affective strategies, including humor and “negative” emotion. By focusing on such resistance strategies, the study highlights Afro-Cuban agency and affirms the emotional work they put forth as they confront the daily annoyances that come from being deemed an “other.” Furthermore, the article captures how Afro-Cubans challenge normative definitions of Cuban American identity and complicate questions about racial/ethnic identity and blackness.