Transnational Memories between Miami and Havana. How Imaginaries of Cuba’s Past and Future Are Negotiated in the Diaspora and Beyond.

As a driver of social change, migration can be a crucial factor in the renegotiation of collective memory. While the consequences of migration for both receiving and sending societies are inherently political, this political nature is intensified in the case of Cuba. Cuban migration is a highly politicized issue, still embedded in a polarized discourse of Cold War narratives with competing conceptions of what a just society should entail. Yet, transnational connections and exchanges, especially between Miami and Havana, are a lived reality.

How is this tension being dealt with both within transnational families and within the diaspora in Miami? To what extent do transnational practices and the act of migration transform individual and collective memories, thereby affecting imaginaries about Cuba’s past and future? How do intergenerational differences as well as categories such as race, class and gender shape these negotiations?

This paper will present the results of field research conducted with Cuban migrants of different emigration and age generations in Miami, and with their relatives in Havana. It analyzes how collective memories are constituted through diasporic practices, and how they travel and are reshaped in transnational spaces. For instance, Miami is a melting pot for Cubans from different emigrant generations and their descendants. Their memories of Cuba are different and highly contested, thus influencing imaginations of Cuba’s future. They depend on factors such as the reasons for migration, the particular point in time at which they left Cuba, and the transnational exchanges with families in Havana.

In sum, the paper takes a transnational perspective on the nexus of migration, transgenerational processes and memory.