The Arab Community of Cuba: The Case of Palestinians from the Past to the Present

• In Event: Palestine, Latin America and the Caribbean: Encounters, Crossings, Parallels. Part II

Abstract

Studies about the Arab community in Cuba flourished during the 1980s when a group of
scholars from Museo Casa de los Árabes and la Unión Árabe de Cuba began using archival,
documentary, bibliographic and oral accounts to reconstruct a history of this community.
The existence of a large community of descendants of immigrants and elderly immigrants
who still have vivid memories of decades of Arab immigration to Cuba enabled developing
new research directions and several publications on the cultural history of Arabs in Cuba,
most notably Rigoberto Menéndez Paredes’ Componentes árabes en la cultura cubana
(1999) and Los árabes en Cuba (2007).
This presentation seeks to shed light on the history of the Palestinians in Cuba, the second
largest community of Arab immigrants after Lebanese. Since the last quarter of the 19th
century, Palestinians migrated to Cuba for various reasons. They settled in the main cities
of the island and also in rural towns. They also formed important associations, such as
Sociedad Palestina Árabe de Cuba and el Centro Palestina. However, despite the evident
political, cultural and economic assimilation of Palestinian-Cubans, including the
Palestinian descendants of influential families, such as the Tabraue and Darwich families,
the modern and contemporary history of Palestinians in Cuba remains largely
understudied.
Recognizing the significance of Palestine and its right to self-determination as a priority
cause in Cuba, I will examine in my presentation the past and present efforts that have been
made by Cuban and Palestinian-Cuban scholars, cultural historians and community
members to archive the history of Palestinians in Cuba. In addition to describing some of
the major material conditions that have affected the creation of a Palestinian archive in
Cuba, I will address how cultural notions of integration and the categorizations of
Palestinians as members of the Afro-Asian diaspora influenced writing the history of
Palestinians in Cuba. Finally, I will discuss how the political solidarity of Cuba with
Palestine informed and championed documenting two parallel histories: the history of
Palestine and the history of Palestinians in Cuba.

Author

• Rigoberto Menéndez Paredes