Funny how there seems to be a Chinatown in just about every major city in the world. In this public lecture presented by the Asia Research Institute at NUS and the Asian Civilisations Museum, A/P Cheng Yinghong talks about Chinatown in Cuba.

The Decline and Revival of Chinatown in Havana 1959-2000s by Assoc Prof Cheng Yinghong
Date: 27 Oct 2011
Time: 19:00 – 20:30
Venue: Asian Civilisations Museum, Ngee Ann Auditorium, Basement 1, 1 Empress Place

The abstract of the talk from the ARI website:

Bringing to light extremely valuable data on the Chinese-Cuban experience since 1959, this lecture reconstructs an important history in global migration unwritten for political reasons. Called “the little Paris in the Caribbean” and once the largest Chinese community in Latin America (and globally perhaps second only to the one in San Francisco), Havana’s Chinatown drastically declined after the 1959 Cuban revolution but has undergone a limited revival since the 1990s. The lecture introduces the dramatic transformation of the ethnic space in the context of socialist revolution and reforms, the Cold War and post-Cold War, and Sino-Cuban relations. It addresses a number of concerns essential in discussions on the history of Chinese migration and its interactions with local and global politics. How exactly did Castro’s revolution affect the Chinatown in Havana? How did the Chinese-Cubans struggle to preserve some institutional structures and hold on to the seeds for the community’s revival when the whole community lost its economic foothold? Under what circumstance has the Chinatown undergone a limited revival and the Chinese-Cubans pioneered Cuba’s economic reforms? How did the decline and revival of the Chinatown show politics of inclusion and exclusion of an ethnic minority serves a nation-state’s agenda in changing circumstances? The lecture provides audience in Southeast Asia—a place with high concentration of Chinese immigrants and their descendants—a perspective for the understanding of Chinese migration at global level.

Registration to this talk is required, click here for more details.