I had read Hemingway's To Have and Have Not soon after returning from my first trip to Cuba, and it has suddenly come to my attention again now that I'm working on a project on Cuban immigration into the United States. This novel was published in 1937 at the height of restrictions against Chinese and East Asian immigration into the United States.
In chapter four of the novel, Harry Morgan, a fishing boat captain who runs contraband between Cuba and Key West, agrees to attempt to smuggle Chinese immigrants into Florida in order to feed his family. Morgan then kills Mr. Sing, the person in charge of getting the immigrants to Florida, and instead of taking the Chinese to Key West as agreed, he forces them off at gunpoint at the closest Cuban beach.
"So we're going to run Chinks. Well, by God, I always said I'd run Chinamen if I was ever broke" (p. 48).
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