Download or read book Migrants Between Empires and Nations written by Kathleen Maria López and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 640 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This dissertation examines the transition of Chinese from indentured to free laborers in the late nineteenth century, and the formation of transnational communities in the early twentieth century. Between 1847 and 1874 tens of thousands of men from southeastern Guangdong Province went to Cuba as indentured labor for sugar plantations, providing labor prior to and during the period of gradual abolition of slavery. Restricted during the U.S. occupations (1899-1902 and 1906-1909) and in the early years of the first and second Cuban republics, Chinese immigration was re-initiated in response to a demand for agricultural workers to boost sugar production during World War I. This dissertation examines how racist ideology (in the Spanish colony, the U.S.-occupied island, or the Cuban republics), a multiethnic society, class stratification among Chinese immigrants, kinship and commercial networks, and the gender imbalance converged to shape Chinese experiences in Cuba. ...By demonstrating how integration and transnationalism may coexist, this study replaces notions of the Chinese diaspora that define migrants as either "sojourners" or "settlers" with a portrait of an early and interactive "globalization" of labor, politics, and commerce..."-Abstract.