La Lenin is my Passport: Schooling, Mobility and Belonging in Socialist Cuba and its Diaspora

• In Event: Cuban Diasporas Across Time: Dialogue and Divergence

Abstract

This paper explores the nexus between schooling, mobility, and belonging in the context of socialist Cuba and its diaspora. In tracing transnational school-based networks of alumni of the VI Lenin School in Havana, I propose that such school associations, common across many diasporas, can helpfully be seen as forming part of a diasporic public sphere: a non-nationalist diasporic formation in which the nation-state is not the key arbiter of social change. The paper asks to what extent an identification with La Lenin is also an identification with Cuba as a nation, and to what extent is it a non-national identification. This is a significant issue in a context where both the government and political exiles have insisted on exclusive, territorially bound loyalties. It raises wider questions about the present and future role of the diaspora, and about belonging in a context of globalisation and transnational migration for the highly educated.

Author

• Mette Louise Berg, University College London