“¿De qué color es el oro?: Race, Environment, and the History of Cuban National Music

Abstract

This article examines the history of an important cultural practice: history writing. It focuses on ideologies of national unity developed by four influential Cuban intellectuals: Eduardo Sánchez de Fuentes, Emilio Grenet, Alejo Carpentier, Fernando Ortiz. Like contemporaries in Brazil and many other parts of the world, they looked to music to define Cuba’s national essence. Inevitably, their histories of Cuban music focused on race, the most divisive social issue of the day. They applied theories of environmental influence in an attempt to reconcile racial difference and national unity—and to define the true origins and “color” of Cuba’s most valuable cultural treasure.