Overview

Since 1959, the Cuban revolutionary government has proudly proclaimed that """"the revolution is for the children."""" Many Cuban Americans reject this claim, asserting that they chose exile in the United States to protect their children from the evils of """"Castro-communism."""" Anita Casavantes Bradford's analysis of the pivotal years between the Revolution's triumph and the 1962 Missile Crisis uncovers how and when children were first pressed into political service by ideologically opposed Cuban communities on both sides of the Florida Straits. Casavantes Bradford argues that, in Havana, the Castro government deployed a morally charged """"politics of childhood"""" to steer a nationalist and reformist revolution toward socialism. At the same time, Miami exile leaders put children at the heart of efforts to mobilise opposition to Castro's regime and to link the well-being of Cuban refugees to U.S. Cold War foreign policy objectives. Casavantes Bradford concludes that the 1999 Elían González custody battle was the most notorious recent manifestation of the ongoing struggle to define and control Cuban childhood, revealing the persistent centrality of children to Cuban politics and national identity.

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9781469611525

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Reviews

[An] insightful study.-- American Historical Review

Fits well within an important strand of scholarship addressing the nonmaterialist dimensions of the revolution and its impact at home and abroad.-- The Journal of Southern History

The role of children in the revolution and counter-revolution is a highly complex and controversial subject that has been treated very lightly in the existing literature. Casavantes Bradford makes a significant contribution to the field of Cuban studies by taking on subjects long considered taboo or off limits due to their politically charged contents. As the author shows, the political uses and misuses of children by the revolutionary government, the exile community, and the Catholic church, as well as the reality of racism in Miami and Havana, were factors in the development of post-1959 Cuba, and her insights in this regard make a valuable contribution to the scholarship on twentieth-century Cuban nationalism. -- Felix Masud-Piloto, DePaul University

Author Information

Anita Casavantes Bradford is assistant professor of history and Chicano/Latino studies at the University of California, Irvine, USA.

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