Twentieth Century Spanish Expatriates in Cuba: A Sub-Culture?

Abstract

There have been very few modern anthropological studies made in Cuba; none, to my knowledge, on urban class structure or movements. Perhaps the comparative absence of Indians there has caused research workers to bypass it. Other studies have mainly concerned themselves with analyzing historical data or with plotting africanisms in Cuba. Now that a new revolution has disturbed the social structure on that island the Spanish expatriate is taking a new look, perhaps an apprehensive look, at his place in that structure. This paper is an attempt, preliminary and descriptive, to assess the role he has played in the twentieth century. Ever since the sixteenth century rule of the Catholic Kings the Spanish system has at least required previous authorization for emigration from the Iberian peninsula when it did not prohibit it. Many of these restrictions were lifted in 1853; thereafter, during the nineteenth century, a great wave of emigration began to the Spanish colonies of Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines as well as to other Ibero-American countries such as the Argentine-still the point of highest preference today. The reasons for coming to Cuba in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were simple. The Spaniard may have been sent by his government in an official position or as a member of the military occupying forces (at least until 1898) and later resigned or defected from his post to settle there in a civilian capacity: this was certainly true of many Spanish soldiers after the Cuban War of Independence. Many have told me that one of the most potent reasons for emigration from Spain was to avoid military service especially during the unpopular African wars in Morocco in 1859, 1893, 1909, 1911 and 1920. Moreover, exile from the homeland can be either voluntary or imposed but the line is hard to draw in some cases. One of the direct effects of the Spanish Civil War was the move from Spain of many thousands