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A remarkable examination of bondage in Cuba that probes questions of slavery, freedom, and race
The Coolie Speaks
Chinese Indentured Laborers and African Slaves in Cuba
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Lisa Yun
Outstanding Academic Title, Choice, 2008
"Beautifully written, The Coolie Speaks offers a moving testament to the responsibility of scholars in the recovery of lives. The book makes significant interventions in the literatures of African slavery and Asian indentured labor, and it stakes and charts new territory across the disciplines of history and literary criticism."
—Gary Y. Okihiro, Professor of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University
Introducing radical counter-visions of race and slavery, and probing the legal and philosophical questions raised by indenture, The Coolie Speaks offers the first critical reading of a massive testimony case from Cuba in 1874. From this case, Yun traces the emergence of a "coolie narrative" that forms a counterpart to the "slave narrative." The written and oral testimonies of nearly 3,000 Chinese laborers in Cuba, who toiled alongside African slaves, offer a rare glimpse into the nature of bondage and the tortuous transition to freedom. Trapped in one of the last standing systems of slavery in the Americas, the Chinese described their hopes and struggles, and their unrelenting quest for freedom.
Yun argues that the testimonies from this case suggest radical critiques of the "contract" institution, the basis for free modern society. The example of Cuba, she suggests, constitutes the early experiment and forerunner of new contract slavery, in which the contract itself, taken to its extreme, was wielded as a most potent form of enslavement and complicity. Yun further considers the communal biography of a next-generation Afro-Chinese Cuban author and raises timely theoretical questions regarding race, diaspora, transnationalism, and globalization.
Excerpt
Reviews
“The individual testimonies…are stunning in their particularity and personality. Some use Chinese historic and poetic allusions in sophisticated ways, some are quite simple, and all are anguishing….[T]he author is to be commended.”
—Library Journal
“[L]ittle critical attention has been paid to one of the most important testimonials in Latin American history: The Cuba Commission Report. Lisa Yun’s timely and well-written book is undoubtedly the most complete study to date on this jewel for the study of race relations, labor migration, and the international division of labor. Her outstanding analysis of the testimonial is complemented with other testimonies related to the so-called coolie trade in Cuba. In this sense, the book rescues from oblivion the abuses committed against southern Chinese indentured laborers… The Coolie Speaks is of interest not only for Chinese diaspora studies but also for Latin American, Caribbean, and Pan-African studies and literary criticism. This book is bound to become a seminal work for the study of the Chinese presence in the Americas.”
—The Colonial Latin American Historical Review
“In this exceptional study, Yun uniquely compares the original depositions in Chinese with the translated versions and meticulously explores the fascinating, complex world views of this element of the population. She superbly contextualizes the heterogeneous world of contract labor involving Africans, Indians, and Chinese around the world. This examination...represents an enormously significant contribution to the field. Summing Up: Highly recommended.”
—Choice
“[The Coolie Speaks] offers a thorough interpretation of the intersection of Asian, African, Latin American, Caribbean, and North American racial and economic philosophies within the context of slavery in nineteenth-century Cuba. Its extraordinary examination of bondage in Cuba also probes questions of slavery, freedom, and race by focusing on an often-neglected dimension of Latin American historiography.... [It] provides a thorough and innovative interpretation of an important element within Latin American society.”
—HISTORY: Review of New Books
“[The Coolie Speaks] is a fascinating and thought provoking interdisciplinary work, which relates several areas of Asian, African, Caribbean, Latin American, and American Studies.”
—The Afro-Hispanic Review
"Yun has made an important contribution to the history of the Coolies in Cuba and by looking at their relationship with the African slaves, she has provided us with a fresh approach to the history of repression, resistance and solidarity of nineteenth-century Cuba."
—E-misferica
"The Coolie Speaks is a remarkable interdisciplinary text that explores the historical, literary, and philosophical implications of Chinese indentured labor in nineteenth-century Cuba."
—The Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History
Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Challenges of a Transitional History
1. Historical Context of Coolie Traffic to the Americas
2. The Coolie Testimonies
3. The Petitions
4.The Despositions
5.An Afro-Chinese Author and the Next Generation
Conclusion: Old and New Maps of Coolies
Sources
Notes
About the Author(s)
Lisa Yun is Associate Professor of English and Asian/Asian American Studies at Binghamton University.
Subject Categories
Asian American Studies
Latin American/Caribbean Studies
Literature and Drama
In the series
Asian American History and Culture, edited by Sucheng Chan, David Palumbo-Liu, Michael Omi, K. Scott Wong, and Linda Trinh Võ.
The "standard" written histories of Asian immigrants to the United States have been imbued with Western cultural biases. As a critique and corrective to earlier work, Asian American History and Culture, edited by Sucheng Chan, David Palumbo-Liu, Michael Omi, K. Scott Wong, and Linda Trinh Võ, aims to develop a history of Asian Americans that is compatible with their own experience, that treats Asian Americans as agents of historical change and as creators of a new culture. In addition, this series intends to focus on the groups that are flourishing in the contemporary U.S.—Filipinos, Koreans, Vietnamese—about whom little has been written as well as to add to the substantial work done on the Chinese and Japanese in this country.