Abstract

This thesis examines the impact of Fidel Castro’s regime on the religious lives of Cuban immigrants currently residing in Montreal. Outlining a history of the socio-political milieu which allowed Castro to come to power, as well as the subsequent regime he instituted for nearly sixty years, this project focuses on the impact of Castro’s restrictive policies on religious practice throughout the island. By conducting life story interviews with ten Cuban immigrants who now call Montreal home, this paper argues that the Revolutionary government’s oppression of religious practice throughout the island produced religious illiteracy among the population due to a severe lack of religious education coupled with laws forbidding religious practice. To define religious illiteracy among the interlocutors, I move away from discussing a general lack of religious knowledge, as some do have knowledge about religion to a certain degree, especially in regards to their own religion. Instead, I am referring to a lack of comfort and a lack of breadth of knowledge which, in turn, manifests as intolerance against certain religions, continuing the anti-religious stance of the Cuban Revolutionary government, regardless of the interlocutors’ political views towards the State. Engaging with scholars who have focused on the intersection between migration stories and oral histories, as well as scholars whose works problematize or explore the religious diversity of Montreal, I aim to bring the religious plurality of Montreal and Cuba in conversation with the comparative experiences that emerge from the interlocutors’ respective migrations to Canada. Also working with scholars who have focused on the tempestuous relationship between religion (the Catholic Church, Protestant Christianity, and Afro-Cuban religions) and the Revolutionary government, this paper concludes by considering the interlocutors’ perspectives of Montreal as a religiously diverse city as well as the impact of living in such a space on their understandings of religion(s), their personal religious practices, and beliefs.