Laboring for the State
Laboring for the State by Rachel Hynson, published by Cambridge University Press on January 23, 2020, is a comprehensive examination of the Cuban government’s approach to family and citizenship during the revolutionary period. This 314-page book, written in English, challenges the notion that socialism was inherently opposed to the family unit. Hynson utilizes a variety of sources, including Cuban newspapers, government documents, and oral histories, to illustrate how the state engaged in social engineering to redefine the nuclear family and mobilize citizens to serve its interests.
In this work, Hynson explores four key campaigns aimed at controlling women’s reproduction, promoting marriage, ending prostitution, and compelling men into state-sanctioned employment. The author reveals how these initiatives were intertwined with the state’s authoritarian progression and its efforts to monopolize morality. Additionally, Hynson highlights the resistance and counter-narratives from citizens who opposed these mandates, demonstrating that the leadership has since reconfigured or obscured these programs from the broader narrative of the Revolution. Through her analysis, readers will gain insights into the complex interplay of gender, labor, and state authority in 20th-century Cuba.
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Contrary to claims that socialism opposed the family unit, Rachel Hynson argues that the revolutionary Cuban government engaged in social engineering to redefine the nuclear family and organize citizens to serve the state. Drawing on Cuban newspapers and periodicals, government documents and speeches, long-overlooked laws, and oral histories, Hynson reveals that by 1961, and increasingly throughout this decade, revolutionary citizenship was earned through labor. While men were to work outside the home in state-approved jobs, women found their citizenship tied to affording the state control over their reproduction and sexual labor. Through all four campaigns examined in this book – the projects to control women’s reproduction, promote marriage, end prostitution, and compel men into state-sanctioned employment – Hynson shows that the state’s progression toward authoritarianism and its attendant monopolization of morality were met with resistance and counter-narratives by citizens who so opposed the mandates of these campaigns that Cuban leadership has since reconfigured or effaced these programs from the Revolution’s grand narrative.
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