[5][6] In Cuba, there are many terms to classify Afro-Cubans of varying portions of African descent, related to the historic Spanish casta system.

That is, biracial persons are typically classified by others as belonging to the race or ethnicity with lower social status, even if their ancestry is majority European.

[7] [failed verification] A DNA study in 2014 estimated the genetic admixture of the population of Cuba to be 72% European, 20% African and 8% Native American.

The Minority Rights Group International says that "An objective assessment of the situation of Afro-Cubans remains problematic due to scant records and a paucity of systematic studies both pre- and post-revolution".

Although the indentured workers were nominally free to return to Cuba when their tenure was over, most settled in these countries, marrying into the local African indigenous tribes.

They are descendants of Afro-Cuban soldiers who were transported to serve as military in the country in 1975 as a result of Cuban involvement in the Cold War.

Cuba's Prime Minister, Fidel Castro, deployed thousands of troops to the country during the Angolan Civil War to support a faction of society.

The violence associated with the final years of the 1791–1804 Haitian Revolution resulted in a wave of ethnic French settlers fleeing to Cuba, and often taking numerous African slaves with them.

Later, Afro-Haitians continued to emigrate to Cuba to work as braceros (Spanish for "manual laborers") cutting cane in the fields and processing it during harvest.

In the 21st century, classes in Haitian Creole are offered in Guantanamo, Matanzas and the City of Havana, in an effort to preserve the traditional language of the Afro-Haitians.

Genres like Nueva Trova are seen as live representations of the revolution and have been affected by Afro-Cuban musicians like Pablo Milanes who included African spirituals in his early repertory.

African artists, particularly those from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola fused Afro-Cuban musical influences with their traditions, crafting distinct sounds.

The result was an array of genres popular in West and Central Africa namely Congolese rumba, soukous, mbalax, semba, kizomba, and highlife.

[19] Afro-Cuban arts emerged in the early 1960s with musicians spearheading an amateur movement bringing African-influenced drumming to the forefront of Cuban music.

For example, Enrique Bonne's drumming ensembles took inspiration from Cuban folklore, traditional trova, dance music, and American Jazz.

Pello de Afrokan created a new dance rhythm called Mozambique that increased in popularity after his predominantly afro-Cuban folklore troupe performed in 1964.

The first revolutionary institution created for the performing "national folklore" (Afro-Cuban artistic traditions) was Conjunto Folklórico Nacional.

Members of religious groups earned their living by performing and teaching ritual drumming, song, and dance, to tourists visiting the country.

Santería and Abakuá both have large parts of their liturgy in African languages (Lucumí and Ñañigo, respectively) while Palo uses a mixture of Spanish and Kikongo, known as Habla Congo.

[24] Esteban Morales Domínguez, a professor at the University of Havana, says that "The absence of the debate on the racial problem already threatens ... the revolution's social project".

[23] The Economist noted "The danger starts with his example: after all, a young, Afro-cuban, progressive politician has no chance of reaching the highest office in Cuba, although a majority of the island's people are of mostly African descent"[25] In the years between the triumph of the revolution and the victory at Playa Girón the Cuban government was one of the world's most proactive regimes in the fight against discrimination.

Fidel Castro's first public address on racism after his rise to power was on March 23, 1959, at a labor rally in Havana, less than three months after he defeated Fulgencio Batista.

In addition, he attempted to close the class gap between wealthy white Cubans and Afro-Cubans with a massive literacy campaign among other egalitarian reforms in the early and mid-1960s.

"[29] The government's announcement easily allowed the Cuban public to deny discrimination without first correcting the stereotypes that remained in the minds of those who grew up in a Cuba that was racially and economically divided.

The large mestizo populations that result from high levels of interracial union common to Latin America are often linked to racial democracy.

[40] This stage paralleled the Harlem Renaissance in New York, Négritude in the French Caribbean, and coincided with stylistic European Vanguard (like Cubism and its representation of African masks).

It was characterized by the participation of white intellectuals such as Cubans Alejo Carpentier, Rómulo Lachatañeré, Fortunato Vizcarrondo, Fernando Ortiz and Lydia Cabrera, Puerto Rican Luis Palés Matos and Spaniards Pablo Picasso and Roger de Lauria.

The African-inspired art tended to represent Afro-Cubans with cliché images such as a black man sitting beneath a palm tree with a cigar.

[43] Although the actual movement of Afrocubanismo faded by the early 1940s, Afro-Cuban culture continues to play a vital role in the identity of Cuba.

The Revolution has funded many projects that restore the work of Afro-Cubans in an effort to accommodate an African-driven identity within the new anti-racist Cuban society.