Casino Chung Wah, Havana哈瓦那中华总会馆

Type

Overseas Daoist Temples

Location

Cuba · Havana Province · Havana · Within the Chinatown of Havana; former site of the affiliated Wah Shung Chinese school

First built

the end of the nineteenth century · No reliable record of the exact founding year survives; the 1940s to the 1950s marked its most flourishing period

Overview

The Casino Chung Wah is the highest umbrella organization of Cuba's Chinese community, uniting the various native-place associations, clan associations, and lodges; it once maintained the affiliated Wah Shung Chinese school to carry on language and cultural education, and reached its height along with the whole Chinatown from the 1940s to the late 1950s. Today the association is devoted to rescuing and preserving traditional culture, including dance, music, and culinary arts. It must honestly be noted as to its nature: the Casino Chung Wah is a federation of Chinese associations rather than a religious site; although the hall does contain a shrine and ancestral tablets, its functions are primarily community governance, charity, and cultural transmission. The Sociedad Central de Beneficencia China of Peru and the Chinese Benevolent Association of Jamaica belong to the same type of institution. Such organizations, in the Chinese communities of Latin America and the Caribbean, have taken on some of the integrating functions that temples perform in North American Chinatowns, and are key to understanding the scarcity of Chinese religious sites in this region.

Highlights

• The highest umbrella organization of Cuba's Chinese community
• Maintained an affiliated Chinese school to carry on language education
• Reached its height from the 1940s to the late 1950s
• A federation of associations rather than a religious site
• Of the same type as the Sociedad Central de Beneficencia China of Peru and the Chinese Benevolent Association of Jamaica