Sugar, Cigars, and Revolution: The Making of Cuban New York

Product Description

Winner, 2020 Herbert H. Lehman Prize for Distinguished Scholarship in New York historyHonorable Mention, 2019 CASA Literary Prize for Studies on Latinos in the United States, given by La Casa de las Américas The dramatic story of the origins of the Cuban community in nineteenth-century New York. More than one hundred years before the Cuban Revolution of 1959 sparked an exodus that created today’s prominent Cuban American presence, Cubans were settling in New York City in what became largest community of Latin Americans in the nineteenth-century Northeast. This book brings this community to vivid life, tracing its formation and how it was shaped by both the sugar trade and the long struggle for independence from Spain. New York City’s refineries bought vast quantities of raw sugar from Cuba, ultimately creating an important center of commerce for Cuban émigrés as the island tumbled into the tumultuous decades that would close out the century and define Cuban nationhood and identity. New York became the primary destination for Cuban émigrés in search of an education, opportunity, wealth, to start a new life or forget an old one, to evade royal authority, plot a revolution, experience freedom, or to buy and sell goods. While many of their stories ended tragically, others were steeped in heroism and sacrifice, and still others in opportunism and mendacity. Lisandro Pérez beautifully weaves together all these stories, showing the rise of a vibrant and influential community. Historically rich and engrossing, Sugar, Cigars, and Revolution immerses the reader in the riveting drama of Cuban New York. Lisandro Pérez analyzes the major forces that shaped the community, but also tells the stories of individuals and families that made up the fabric of a little-known immigrant world that represents the origins of New York City’s dynamic Latino presence.

Review

“En prosa clara y precisa, Lisandro Pérez cuenta la historia de los cubanos del siglo XIX en Nueva York con rigor y una dosis exacta de empatía hacia los protagonistas. Este libro académico, sin duda un aporte incalculable a la historiografía cubana, se lee, sin embargo, como si fuera una novela.” ―
Uva de Aragón, El Nuevo Herald

“In this colorful and scrupulously researched history, Pérez . . . traces the 19th-century origins of Cuban New York. [His] engrossing work showcases a little-discussed facet of New York City’s rich history.” ―
Publishers Weekly

“Pérez vividly describes how the tightly knit Cuban émigré community reproduced the political cleavages and social mores of its homeland.” ―
Foreign Affairs

“With a wealth of new data and illustrations, Pérez provides a fascinating narrative of Cuban migration to New York… Recommended for Latin Americanists and students of New York history.” — Choice

“In the 18th century a sugar trade sprang up between New York and Cuba, and with it a Cuban community grew in Gotham. Its evolution down to the 1898 war with Spain has heretofore been only lightly sketched. Now Lisandro Pérezs splendid study offers a full blown portrait. His research drills down to bedrock, and his absorbing narrative, which focuses on individual actors as well as sweeping historical forces, is engagingly written.” — Mike Wallace, Pulitzer prize winning historian of New York City

“A riveting history of exile and migration. More than a century before the rise of Miami, New York City was home to a vibrant transnational Cuban community. Its members lived in the city, using it to feed their business ventures, their intellectual and artistic pursuits, and their political visions, which were wide-ranging enough to include plots to annex the island to the United States and dreams of nationalist revolution. Lisandro Pérez provides a vivid glimpse into a relatively little-known Cuban and Latino New York in the nineteenth century.” — Ada Ferrer, author of Freedom’s Mirror: Cuba and Haiti in the Age of Revolution

“Few people are aware that during t