Description
Book SynopsisTrade ReviewSuspect Freedomsgoes a long way toward filling some enormous gaps in Cuban American history, especially in highlighting the often-ignored role of Afro-Cubans and the way in which diasporic discourses centered on race served to define cubanidad. It also makes a seminal contribution to our understanding of what has arguably been the least studied chapter in the history of the Cuban presence in the United States: the New York community during the Cuban Republic. * Hispanic American Historical Review *
Nancy Mirabal has reconstructed 134 years of relatively obscure Cuban presence in New York, a site where race, nationality, and gender have always been far more complex. * International Migration Review *
In Suspect Freedoms: The Racial and Sexual Politics of Cubanidad in New York, 18231957, Mirabal brings her sensitivity to the nuances of language, spatial temporalities, and archival research to bear as she charts more than one hundred years of diasporic history. The result is a book that is as engaging to read as it is pathbreaking, marking the first book-length history of Cuban racial and sexual politics in nineteenth- and twentieth-century New York. * American Historical Review *
Suspect Freedoms is a must-read for students and scholars interested in Afro-diasporic thinking and experience … historians of the Cuban diaspora will be impressed by Mirabal’s attention to labor and the leadership roles and perspectives of Cuban women. -- New West Indian Guide
Nancy Mirabal's Suspect Freedoms is a groundbreaking work of historical scholarship. Ambitious and wide-ranging, it is sure to redefine the way we understand the relationship between the Cuban Diaspora, Afro-Cuban activism and intellectual history, and their intersections with African American history and thought, especially in New York City. Building upon a dazzling array of sources and contributing to our theoretical understanding of concepts like nation and diaspora, this original and profound work establishes Nancy Mirabal as a major historian and thinker. -- Farah Jasmine Griffin,Professor of English and Comparative Literature & African American Studies, Columbia University
Suspect Freedoms is a remarkable book that rescues the rich history of Cubans of color in the United States from obscurity. Nancy Mirabal stitches together the entire span of the Cuban diasporic experience in New York, from the arrival in 1823 of Father Félix Varela to a fascinating and moving analysis of the club cubano interamericano in the latter half of the twentieth century. This splendid example of scholarship will be an essential text for scholars of Cuba, the Cuban diaspora, and U.S. Latino studies generally. -- Gerald E. Poyo,St. Mary’s University, San Antonio
