Paper short abstract:

The paper will analyse early 20th century representations of Afro Cubans in illustrated magazines and newspapers, focusing on adverts, pictures, graphic humour and comics.

Paper long abstract:

The paper will consider early 20th century representations of Afro Cubans in illustrated magazines and newspapers at a time when Cuba, a newly established republic since 1902, was undergoing the process of nation building, which ran parallel to the development of the mass media. With the 1912 rebellion against the Morúa Law (1909), which forbade any political movement to be formed on the basis of colour, and the subsequent violent repression in the background, the paper focuses on a wide sample of primary sources, ranging from adverts, pictures, graphic humour and comics, in order to shed light on how the new black urban population experienced not only the contradictions of a more general discourse around modernity and progress as free citizens, but the internal Cuban politics too which restricted Afro Cuban participation on the public sphere to very specific roles.