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Abstract
This paper discusses mobility and migration, focusing mainly on the cases of Afro‐Cuban jineteras who seek relationships with Europeans. Healthy (educated) hookers or decadent women? While Cuban government officials condemn the actions of Cuban jineteras, society and the Cuban family often refer to them as luchadoras (fighters). The paper introduces the voices of Cuban jineteras in debates of jineterismo and migration in order to develop a broader understanding of the concept. Drawing on ethnographic research in Havana and the UK, I argue that what makes jineterismo a complex concept is that it encompasses a wide range of actions, including the desire to love the (idealised) European man, and in many cases, the aspiration to migrate to Europe.
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Notes
1. During Operación Lacra, tourist nightclubs in central Havana were closed and many jineteras were arrested. Fernandez Holgado states that while sex‐tourism disappeared in the public sphere, it continued in private spaces (Citation2002, p. 257).
2. One of my arguments is that a fixed definition of male jineteros as hustlers and female jineteras as sex workers ignores the fact that these roles can be blurred. In my total sample, male and female individuals use a wide range of gambits to meet tourists and gender‐specific strategies were not evident.
3. These restrictions operate at different levels. For example, Cubans from the Eastern Provinces (known derogatorily as Palestinos), unless they are recruited as police officers in Havana, are by law prevented from migrating into the capital. As a black tourist visiting in 1998, I was frequently stopped by Cuban officials in the neighbourhoods of Vedado and Old Havana. The fact that I speak Cuban Spanish fluently led many police officers to believe that I was a palestina. I was stopped outside museums by the police, security guards barred me from entering hotels and, when I was accompanied by other students, the police would call me apart to see my identification. Other black British and black tourists whom I met in Cuba narrated similar stories to me.
4. Being a black foreigner who grew up mainly in Europe proved to be an advantage, in terms of meeting black Cubans, but a great disadvantage as I felt that it was more difficult to meet and interview ‘white’ Cubans.
5. Although jineterismo is not an official crime, Cuban women caught more than three times can be arrested and put in detention for up to eight years (Fernandez Holgado, Citation2002, p. 255). Milania had been arrested when she first met her current husband. According to some of the neighbours, Milania served a five‐year jail term. Milania never mentioned this to me.
6. In Alamar, it was not unusual to see skilled workers exchanging their services for goods and/or services. For example, the father of one of my informants, a retired construction worker, would often work in various houses in the neighbourhood for free; in return, he would be offered lifts to central Havana, frequent gifts (i.e. used items of clothing) or neighbours would go to his house with papayas, coffee and other items.
7. The currency now used is the Peso Convertible. Nevertheless, the double economy prevails.
8. There is a Cuban popular phrase (strangely common even to date) which is ‘avanzar la raza’ (‘to advance the race’). Relationships with white men and women are seen as highly desirable because it means that the person is ‘climbing’ the racial scale. Since Cuba opened its doors to tourism, a relationship with a European was placed higher up on this socially constructed scale.
9. This attraction is also embedded in discourses of whiteness. For my interviewees, Europeans were seen as more desirable because they are imagined as being ‘whiter’ and more affluent. When I asked my respondents about Canada, not many had knowledge about life in Canada and stereotypical Canadian behaviour and images.
10. Because this interview took place late in the evening, Selas C. nervously whispered most of his answers; his greatest fear was that, if caught by the police, they would search us and find my dictaphone, and he would be arrested for passing information to a foreigner.
11. The interviews revealed that, for the Cuban men, flowers and gifts were not meaningful, and they cost money. The men I interviewed preferred to demonstrate their love with affection and intimacy and felt that foreign women had less expectations of men and appreciated their demonstrations of love more than Cuban women. One man described Cuban women as ‘expecting Cuban men to be supermen’. This highlights the Cuban males’ incapacity to perform their masculinities; contrary to women who, despite the struggles, are able to put a meal together, to care for the family and to perform emotional labour.
12. The catcall is part of Cuban courtship and friendship norms. Men on the street (and in unofficial settings too) whistle and praise women as they walk along the road. Most Cuban women I interviewed stated that they felt flattered when Cuban men ‘threw them piropos’ and flirted with them. In Cuba, and many countries in Latin America, the piropo is used as a way to initiate friendships and love relationships.