Unsettling

Abstract

This article elaborates a Chinese/Cuban cultural critique that operates through the notion of unsettling in light of recent work in Asian American studies and Chinese diaspora studies. Examining three case studies—Carlos Felipe’s play The Chinaman ( El Chino), Rigoberto López’s documentary The Longest Journey ( El Viaje Más Largo), and Michael Mann’s feature film Miami Vice—the author suggests that these examples of expressive culture function as memory projects, which construct Chinese/Cuban figures and reconfigure attachments to place through often immaterial, but not insignificant, investments. Chinese/ Cuban cultural critique finally provokes a series of productive questions for the study of human migration.