Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

"Especiallly The Mulato Ones Like To Dance” Cuban Films And Discourses Of Ethnic Difference, Shannon N. (Shannon Nicole) Budelman

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

This paper examines the meaning of ethnicity in contemporary Cuba. By conceptualizing inequality as structured in both the public and private realms of society, I argue that the private realm should be given equal weight in social research on ethnic inequality. The paper differentiates between structural inequality in the public realm, which has been largely addressed by the previous literature on Cuban society, and the meaning of ethnic difference at the cultural level, which shapes the nature of social interactions in the private realm. Drawing on both the sociology of culture and cinema studies, I analyze Cuban films for representations …