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The
Coolie Speaks
Chinese
Indentured Laborers and African Slaves in Cuba
Lisa Yun
“Little 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, labour migration, and the international
division of labour. 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 labourers. 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
Introducing
radical counter-visions of race and slavery, The Coolie Speaks focuses
on Chinese labourers who worked side by side with African slaves in Cuba. The
Chinese wrote of their peculiar yet prescient experiences of new bondage in a
slave society that was transitioning from slavery to abolition. Through an
examination of these narratives of resistance, the book re-conceptualizes
diasporic representations and histories to offer transformative re-examinations
of “Chinese,” “African,” and “Latino” in
mutually imbricated contexts. In that historical moment of multi-racial
encounter, trans-culturation, and intense daily conflict, Yun argues,
discourses of “freedom” and the contract institution emerged as a
globalizing system of enslavement. With a historical introduction and literary
readings, this first-time examination of writings by Chinese coolies and of a next
generation Afro-Chinese author, raises timely theoretical and methodological
questions regarding freedom, race, diaspora, trans-nationalism, and
globalisation.
Temple
University Press
April 2009
336pp £16.99 PB 9781592135820
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