Chapter Notes: Casey — Empire's Guestworkers See main entry: casey empires guestworkers

Chapter Notes: Casey — Empire's Guestworkers See main entry: casey empires guestworkers Introduction: The Uses of Haitian Migrants Opening Figure: Aurelio Castillo Casey opens with Aurelio Castillo — a Haitian migrant to eastern Cuba whose prison record from 1936 provides the book's first archival encounter. By thirty-five, Castillo bore the physical record of a life in the cane fields: Face, hands, and body covered in machete scars — "all too common in a world of dangerous work and periodic fighting" Vaccination pockmark: injected by a company doctor in compliance with Cuban and Haitian law when first recruited Right forearm tattoo: Cuba's patron saint (Virgin of Charity) with the date 1922 and the caption "Remember the Virgin of Charity" Left arm tattoo: a bouquet of flowers, a nude woman, and the initials "A.C.Z." The vaccination and machete scars = the world of harsh working conditions and strict state regulations. The tattoos = social relationships, religious beliefs, and personal meanings that "managed to flourish amid this difficult and monotonous world." This opening encapsulates the book's dual argument: immense institutional control that was never absolute; and the interior life of migrants that official records can only glimpse.