Cuban identity in the United States is inseparable from displacement. For the first wave of Cuban exiles — those who left after 1959 — the departure was not supposed to be permanent. They packed for a few months. They told themselves and their children: we're going back. Sixty-five years later, the children and grandchildren of that departure have built an entire culture around the tension between here and there, between the Cuba they remember (or were told about) and the Cuba that exists now. That tension produces a particular intensity of pride.
What is Cuban identity?
Cuban identity is shaped by an extraordinary cultural synthesis: Spanish colonial influence, West African traditions brought through the slave trade (Yoruba religion, Santería, Afro-Cuban music), Indigenous Taíno heritage, and a 20th century history that produced some of the most significant cultural exports in the Western hemisphere — son cubano, mambo, cha-cha-chá, salsa, the Buena Vista Social Club, Celia Cruz, Ibrahim Ferrer. Cuba's 1959 revolution created a diaspora that now numbers approximately 1.4 million Cuban-born people in the United States, according to the Pew Research Center, concentrated heavily in Miami (particularly Hialeah and Little Havana) but also in New York, New Jersey, and other cities. The Cuban-American community is notable for its political cohesion, its strong identification with Cuban cultural markers (music, food, Santería, the Cuban flag), and the persistence of exile identity across multiple generations — the nostalgia for Cuba maintained even by people who have never visited.
Caridad del Cobre and cultural faith
La Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre — Our Lady of Charity — is Cuba's patron saint and one of the most important religious and cultural symbols in Cuban and Cuban-American life. Her feast day, September 8, is celebrated in Cuban communities across the United States. She is the synthesis of Cuban identity: a Catholic saint with African Yoruba associations (identified with Oshún in Santería), venerated by Cubans of every background. Her image in the diaspora is a marker of Cuban identity that transcends the political divisions within Cuban-American communities. For Smile Mas, Cuban cultural pride includes this tradition — the faith, the music, the food, and the memory of a specific island that many diaspora families have never stopped calling home.
Keep reading:
Celia Cruz: The Afro-Cuban Queen Whose Voice Carried a Generation
Afro-Latina: The Identity at the Intersection
Primera Generación: The Weight and the Pride