Racial Composition
The 1981 Cuban census, following practices akin to those used in United States censuses, classified 66 percent of the population as "white" and 34.0 percent as "nonwhite," the latter including black (12.0 percent), mulatto or mestizo (21.9 percent), and Asian (0.1 percent). The reliability of these figures, like those from earlier twentieth-century censuses, has been called into question; most analysts have concluded that the nonwhite share of the population is much higher than suggested by the censuses.
There is no broad consensus, however, regarding the "true" race distribution, although there is demographic evidence suggesting that since the 1959 Revolution the nonwhite share of the population has increased significantly. The socialist government has handled the race statistics issue very gingerly. This development, as in other countries with ethnic, religious, or racial cleavages, is not entirely surprising given the country's troubled history of slavery and race relations. Race data collected during the 1970 census were never released, and even those available from the 1981 census are very limited.
Several explanations have been offered for the unwillingness of the government to make these statistics public. One interpretation is that by not releasing the race statistics the revolutionary authorities have attempted to minimize racial distinctions formerly permeating Cuban society. The Revolution presumably did away with all racial distinctions. A more skeptical explanation is that by withholding the data, the socialist government can conceal remaining socioeconomic race differentials avowedly eradicated under the more equitable social and economic policies pursued over several decades. Yet a third and more cynical explanation is that by not releasing the data, the government withholds from a still racist white population the fact that since the Revolution Cuba has become a majority nonwhite country.
Some analysts have noted that Cuban censuses have always inflated, for a variety of reasons, the share of the "white" population, while underestimating that of others - blacks and mulattos in particular. The broader and most generally accepted reason is that in a historically stratified society of African-origin black slaves and dominant Spanish-origin whites, being regarded as "white" conferred privileges and opportunities denied to "nonwhites." Also, as in other countries (for example, in the Caribbean, Brazil, and the United States) cultural mores that evolved over centuries of slavery gave rise to racist attitudes that assign more positive valuations to notions of "whiteness" as opposed to "blackness." "Passing" from one race to another (for example, from black to mulatto, mulatto to white, or Asian to white) can occur because the designation of race, while primarily dependent on physical attributes, also involves cultural, social, and economic yardsticks. In the Cuban and Caribbean context, contrary to the situation in other societies (for example, the United States), being regarded as "white" does not necessarily preclude some degree of racial intermingling, something that has been occurring in the country for centuries.
The issue of population distribution by race categories is made even more complex when consideration is given to how the race of any given individual is determined (and by whom). While enumerators in the 1931 and 1943 censuses asked respondents to assign themselves a race category, in the 1953 and 1981 censuses enumerators determined the race of respondents on the basis of their observations. Between 1943 and 1953, the shift from self-reports to enumerator designations may have contributed to declines of 1 percent and 2 percent, respectively, in the mulatto and white populations, with a corresponding 3 percent increase in the number of those classified as black.
These shifts suggest that enumerators were more prone to classify individuals as nonwhite than were the respondents themselves. Enumerators in 1981, the year of the most recent census, assigned racial categories according to the "concept commonly understood by the population, although [the categories] may not necessarily reflect races or colors" (when in doubt, the enumerators were also instructed to ask respondents about the racial categories to which those not present in the households during the count belonged).
In general, however, the evolution of the population's race distribution tracks well with known demographic trends, including immigration and emigration, although other factors (for example, differential completeness of enumeration by race, emigration rates by race, fluctuations in fertility by race, and infant mortality rates by race) may cloud these trends. For example, between 1899 and 1931, when Cuba received hundreds of thousands of Spanish immigrants, the share of the population classified as white increased from 67 percent to 72 percent. Between 1931 and 1943, in contrast, when Cuban authorities deported thousands of Haitian and Jamaican immigrant workers, the black and mulatto share declined from 27 percent to 25 percent. Race distribution changes between 1953 (the year of the last population census before the 1959 Revolution) and 1981 are particularly consistent with well-established fertility, nuptiality, and emigration trends. The percent of the population classified as white declined from 73 percent in 1953 to 66 percent in 1981, whereas the share of mulattos rose from 14 percent to 22 percent (while the black percentage remained almost the same).
The dominance of white emigration from Cuba since 1959, particularly during the first fifteen years after the Revolution, is well established; some estimates suggest that more than 90 percent of those leaving socialist Cuba during this period were white. Later emigration has included a more representative cross-section of Cuba's racial composition, but the vast majority of the emigrants continue to be classified as white. Thus, emigration alone accounts for a major share of the decline in the white population between 1953 and 1981. Perhaps an even more important factor explaining the growth of the nonwhite population is differential fertility. At the time of the Revolution, nonwhite Cubans had birth rates considerably higher than white Cubans. Further, higher proportions of the former were concentrated in the provinces with the highest fertility rates (primarily in easternmost Cuba), whereas most white emigrants were from Ciudad de La Habana Province, the country's region with the lowest fertility. In addition, during the last four decades and partly because of more equitable social, educational, and employment policies, social barriers to cross-race sexual and marital unions have weakened, thus leading to an increase in the number of interracial births, another factor behind the increase in the mulatto population.
According to figures from the 1981 census, the provinces with the highest percentages of whites are Sancti Spiritus (84 percent of the populati9n classified as white), Villa Clara (82 percent), and Ciego de Avila (81 percent), all in central Cuba, plus La Habana Province (82 percent), the province that surrounds the country's capital. Guantanamo (74 percent nonwhite), Santiago de Cuba (70 percent), and Granma (57 percent), in eastern Cuba, are the country's provinces with the highest nonwhite percentages, followed by the capital, Ciudad de La Habana Province (37 percent).
In summary, there is consensus in the academic literature that censuses in Cuba have generally overestimated the share of the population classified as "white," while underestimating the percent of the nonwhite population, specifically its mulatto component. It is also generally accepted that since 1959 the share of the Cuban population classified as white has declined for several demographic reasons, namely differential fertility, selective emigration, and an increase in the number of interracial births. The actual extent of the bias is as difficult to establish as it is to define unambiguous criteria with which to define the concept of "race," although some observers claim that Cuba has become primarily a nonwhite country.
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