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Epilogue

The Erasure and Legacies of Four Early Revolutionary Campaigns

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 January 2020

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Summary

The Epilogue explores the legacies of the state campaigns and shows that the New Family never succeeded in capturing Cubans’ lives and labor. It is for this reason, I suggest, that the Revolution’s official narrative has omitted many of the early campaigns to regulate the Cuban family, specifically women’s labor practices. Yet these silences in the grand narrative reveal how government goals and discourse have transformed over the past sixty years to meet the changing needs of the state. The government explanation for the country’s high rates of abortion and divorce and low rate of official economic productivity is ordinary Cubans’ laziness and lack of commitment to the Revolution. The epilogue argues, on the contrary, that these trends are in fact a direct consequence of government efforts to advance its own version of socialism. Specifically, the very state policies intended to construct the New Family inadvertently contributed to non-nuclear family forms and labor practices. Ordinary Cubans have responded to the discourse of the state with counter-narratives, which frame their non-normative actions as noble and legitimate. Laboring for the State, then, provides evidence of the historical continuity of Cubans’ exercises in autonomy and resistance to the government and its grand narrative.

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Chapter
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Laboring for the State
Women, Family, and Work in Revolutionary Cuba, 1959–1971
, pp. 257 - 274
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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  • Epilogue
  • Rachel Hynson
  • Book: Laboring for the State
  • Online publication: 09 January 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108105330.006
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  • Epilogue
  • Rachel Hynson
  • Book: Laboring for the State
  • Online publication: 09 January 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108105330.006
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Epilogue
  • Rachel Hynson
  • Book: Laboring for the State
  • Online publication: 09 January 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108105330.006
Available formats
×