Books on Cuba

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By Miguel A. De La Torre

The Quest for the Cuban Christ  /  Santeria: The Beliefs and Rituals / Ajiaco Christianity

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Foreword

The History of African-American Religions series seeks to further historical investigations into the varieties of African-American religions and to encourage the development of new and expanded paradigms, methodologies, and themes for the study of these religions. The editors [Stephen W. Angell and Anthony B. Penn] see the series as an opportunity to expand the knowledge of African-American religious expression and institutional developments to include underappreciated regions and forms. 

This fine volume by Miguel A. De La Torre, the third in our series -- Laborers in the Vineyard of the Lord: The Beginnings of the AME Church in Florida by Larry Eugene Rivers and Canter Brown, Jr. (2001) and Between the Cross and the Crescent: Christian and Muslim Perspectives on Malcolm and Martin, by Lewis V. Baldwin and Amiri YaSin Al-Hadid (2002) --, concretely demonstrates that by the word American we include the whole of the Americas, including the Afro-Latin diaspora of the Caribbean and of Central and South America.

The story of religion in Cuba, an island only ninety miles from U.S. shores, uniquely brings together North American and Latin American realities that mutually and unexpectedly illuminate each other. Even the most cursory consumers of headline news found their minds and emotions engaged by the controversy over a six-year-old Cuban boy, Elian Gonzalez, which preoccupied Cuban and American officials and their respective publics from November 1999 to April 2000. De La Torre, in his brief comment on this matter, throws new light on the religious significance of the Elian story, so he does not ignore the topical.

But he goes much further, illuminating the current reality of Resident and Exilic Cubans by making profound use of long-ago manifestations of the bifurcation of Cuban existence. He highlights the ambiguity of usable memories by showing how the present exiles and Cuban residents both misappropriate and justifiably appropriate the figure of Jose Marti, a North American exile for fourteen years before his martyrdom for the cause of Cuban independence. 

At times, De La Torre's quest for the historical Marti seems to be as intricate as the quest by Albert Schweitzer and others for the historical Jesus. And De La Torre shows that even Fidel Castro himself found the North American exile community useful in 1955, as he raised funds for his coming campaign against the regime of Fulgenico Batista.

Inevitably, the race question in Cuba looks somewhat different from the way it appears on the other side of the Florida Straits. "Blackness" is not always as obvious a theme in De La Torre's work as it will be in many other volumes in the series, but it remains a  very important factor in the background and sometimes in the foreground. De La Torre provides a forcible rejoinder to those (including, at times, Castro) who have insisted that Cuba does not have a problem with racial discrimination.

Neither does De La Torre portray Cuba as  employing the mestizo racial category as easily as most other Latin American nations. But, quite appropriately, not all matters of oppression and injustice in Cuba are rendered in black-and-white dimensions. In fact, the opening of his book gives a penetrating look at the original sin of Cuban's existence, what he calls the Spanish "ethnocide" of the island's aboriginal inhabitants, the Taino. De La Torre commendably resists efforts to reduce Cuban complexities to patterns more familiar to its North American neighbors.

De La Torre's study gains great strength from its fascinating blending of methodologies, including ethnohistory, historical theology, and art history. Just as the Cuban and American historical relationship plays on minds and hearts at many levels, so does this work. As De La Torre methodically searches the Cuban cultural inventory for a vision of Christ that will speak to all of the varying needs of Cuba's humildes (the poor), he will bring all of his readers to new levels of appreciation of the richness and poignancy of Cuban religion and history.

Readers are urged not to overlook the beauty and provocativeness of the images that he has employed to illustrate the significant themes from the essence of Christ's nature to speak tot he spiritual needs of the humildes. Anyone interested in liberation theology will find important insights in De la Torre's book.

For all of these reasons, we strongly commend this illuminating book to the widest possible readership.

Stephen W. Angell and Anthony B. Pinn 

Series Editors

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