Storytelling and Diasporic Cohesion: The Community-Building Power of Early Chinese Ethnic Press in Latin America — Evidence From Hoy Men Kong Po (开明公报) in Cuba

In the first half of the twentieth century, Chinese communities in Latin America endured numerous challenges while demonstrating remarkable resilience and vitality. Among them, Chinese-language media played a pivotal role in sustaining community cohesion. In Cuba—the regional hub of Chinese-language publishing— Hoy Men Kong Po stood out as one of the longest-running and most influential Chinese newspapers. Through triangulated textual analysis combining quantitative coding and qualitative interpretation, this study examines how the newspaper’s diversified network of storytellers and balanced geo-ethnic storytelling constituted an integrated ethnic information system that could support community belonging. By strategically emphasizing themes at national, regional, and neighborhood levels, Hoy Men Kong Po provided narrative resources through which community members could negotiate identity, collective participation, neighborhood intimacy, and boundaries between “us” and non-ethnic “others.” Taken together, these patterns suggest a form of internal unity that was “dispersed yet undiminished,” as Cuba’s Chinese diaspora remained physically scattered but socially interconnected. The findings provide new perspectives for understanding communication patterns in overseas Chinese communities and offer contemporary insights into the evolving role of ethnic media in diasporic cohesion.