Toward a more inclusive history of the Cuban revolution of 1959

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.13169/intejcubastud.12.2.0300
• Published date: 01 December 2020
• Date: 01 December 2020
• Pages: 300-328
• Author: Eloise Linger
• Subject Matter: revolutions,historiography,revolutionary directorate,Afro-Cuban,women,Cuban oral histories.

InternatIonal Journal of Cuban StudIeS 12.2 WInter 2020

ACADEMIC ARTICLE

TOWARD A MORE INCLUSIVE HISTORY OF

THE CUBAN REVOLUTION OF 1959

Eloise Linger

State University of New York

Eloise Linger is Associate Professor Emerita, State University of New York (Old Westbury).

Her research focuses on both the Cuban Revolution of 1959, and social and economic

changes since the early 1990s. She has taught Latin American Studies, international studies,

including Women from Global Perspectives and Women (and Gender) in Latin America and

the Caribbean. She is working on a long-term project of interviews with 40-plus participants

in Cuba’s 1959 revolution, to present a more inclusive view of the revolutionary process.

Abstract

The article claims that most historiography of the Cuban revolution of 1959 has

omitted women, people of colour, and to some extent student youth and labourers.

The shorter first part of the paper presents reasons of historical context and dominant

Euro-male mindset that help explain why histories of Cuba’s and other revolutions

omitted women and people of colour until recent scholarship. Then, excerpts from

oral testimonials of three activists in revolutionary movements of the 1950s give

a livelier picture of how Afro-Cubans, women and youth provided the backbone

and vast networks that kept alive and pushed forward the more highly celebrated

guerrilla forces that came to power, led by Fidel Castro. Twentieth-century Cuban

revolutionary context and continuity is evident in the quotes from Aida Pelayo, a

leader of the civic coalition Mujeres Martianas in the 1950s, about her student days

in the 1930s.

Keywords: revolutions, historiography, revolutionary directorate, Afro-Cuban,

women, Cuban oral histories.

TOWARD A MORE INCLUSIVE HISTORY OF THE CUBAN REVOLUTION OF 1959 301

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INTRODUCTION

“Distinctions between the past and present were drawn without difficulty, with

almost celebratory unanimity” (Pérez 1988: 315), when six million Cubans ush-

ered in a victorious revolution in January 1959. The what, when and where have

been well established by several historical accounts.1 WHY people were involved

in bringing down the Batista regime is also established, although the reasons are

not unanimous. But WHO were the most involved and HOW they carried out a

massive revolution are far from settled questions in Cuban historical studies.

Scholarship on race and gender offers hopeful shifts toward a more inclusive

history of the 1959 revolution, as well as for other periods of Cuban history,

other regions of Latin America, even the rest of the world. This article offers,

first, some historical background that helps explain why the histories of Cuba’s

and other revolutions have omitted women and people of colour until more

recent scholarship. Second, it presents excerpts from oral histories (testimonies)

of three activists in revolutionary movements of the 1950s to give us a livelier

picture of how Afro-Cubans, women and youth provided the backbone that

kept alive and pushed forward the more highly celebrated guerrilla forces led by

Fidel Castro.

Historical Change – Some Background Notes

We remind ourselves of the evolving nature of historiography, which changes

more quickly in times of social radicalisation. There are many reasons why ear-

lier versions of history of the 1959 revolution were so exclusionary. The expla-

nation goes back to the eighteenth-century Enlightenment thinkers in Europe

and the beginnings of Cuban nationalism. The very first European considera-

tions of women as part of the body politic, and of slaves and their descendants

as human beings with rights, began in the eighteenth century. Nevertheless,

women and African-descended peoples would be seen throughout most of the

Western hemisphere for another two centuries as appendages or property of

primarily white European-descended men.

The very concepts of the “Rights of Man and Citizen” were written with a

vision of two spheres – the public and the private household, with men in the

former and women in the latter. Among Rousseau, Montesquieu, Condorcet and

others, many asked, “Was it even possible for women to be enlightened?” They

asked that question, while making the intellectual arguments for education,

1 Pérez-Stable (2012), as well as sweeping narratives by Pérez (1988), Thomas (1971),

Domínguez (1978), and more recent accounts.