A WORKING CLASS
NEIGHBORHOOD IN HAVANA
American embargo, it was hard to get building supplies.
For almost 30 years, the Soviet Union helped to counteract
this situation, but after the USSR imploded in 1990, the
Cuban people faced a decade of severe privation called
“the special period,” in which they were forced to impro-
vise to survive until Cuba found new ways of supporting
itself.
This Caribbean nation has a long history of excellence in
medical care. Wealthy people from elsewhere in the region
— and even from remote countries in Africa and elsewhere
— sometimes travel there for serious operations. Nowadays
Cuba sends many of its fine, locally trained doctors abroad
and trades their services for badly needed imports like food
and oil. Cut off from the West’s artificial herbicides, pesti-
cides and fertilizers, it has become a leader in organic agri-
culture and has developed “green” medicines and vaccines
that it also exports. Among its other exports are nickel,
sugar, seafood and honey.
The concern of its politically undemocratic but idealistic
one-party system that no class of individuals own much
more than the rest has impeded obvious solutions for some
of its problems. Particularly, the
deterioration of its housing stock.
Until recently the government
didn’t allow artisans like electri-
cians, carpenters and plumbers to
set up their own businesses to make
needed repairs for others for a fee.
Even after they reluctantly
approved, they didn’t permit inde-
pendent businessmen to hire peo-
ple aside from family members to
work for them. Meanwhile the
nation’s private homes and apart-
ment buildings fell deeper into dis-
repair.
Paladares — appealing, pri-
vately owned restaurants, family
owned and operated — fill a public need all over Cuba but
thus far it’s unthinkable that any family or company might
set up a chain of such restaurants. And here we run into
other consequences of earlier racial patterns.
Since whites dominated business before the revolution,
whites remaining in Cuba are more likely to have the skills
and inclination to set up their own businesses now.
Second, since almost all those who left Cuba were white,
virtually all remittances from relatives abroad have come
and continue to come to white Cubans, supplying them
with capital. Finally, enterprises like restaurants are often
set up in private homes. Many large, comfortable, conve-
niently located homes remain in the hands of white fami-
lies who remained in Cuba. The Airbnb accommodations
thriving all over the nation tend to be offered in just such
homes.
Six days after our delegation landed in Cuba, Pope
Francis arrived to universal acclaim. Much of the pope’s
enthusiastic welcome stemmed from the notion that he’s
played an important role in the recent thaw between this
country and the U.S. One widely accepted story claims
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that after the death of Nelson Mandela in December 2013,
when dignitaries from around the world converged on
South Africa for his funeral, the pope convinced Barack
Obama and Raúl Castro, Cuba’s president since 2008, to
shake hands and, thanks to the pope’s influence, negotia-
tions between our two countries have continued ever since.
Just days after the pope’s visit to Cuba and before his
meeting with President Obama a few days later, we
learned that, thanks to new actions by Obama, credit cards
soon would be usable, U.S. telecommunications compa-
nies would be authorized to build towers in Cuba, and
limits on remittances from the U.S. would be removed. In
a dramatic change of policy, U.S. banks were permitted to
facilitate leases and loans formerly forbidden and vital to
international trade.
Polls tell us that 73 percent of Americans favor restor-
ing normal relations between the U.S. and Cuba. American
farmers would love to sell their produce to this market just
90 miles from home. American corporations are eager to
establish footholds in this Caribbean neighbor with a well-
educated, healthy, yet low paid population where Canadian,
Brazilian and Spanish companies already are working with
the Cuban government on projects.
On Dec. 11, American officials announced that direct
postal service would soon resume between Cuba and the
U.S. Since Jan. 27, U.S. banks have been allowed to pro-
vide direct financing for most American exports to the
island nation. Still up for discussion is how to settle claims
for the property seized by the Castro regime 55 years ago,
though Cuban diplomats argue that damage to their econ-
omy caused by the American embargo greatly exceeds the
value of any property expropriated.
No one expects these issues to be resolved immediately.
Still whenever they are, let’s hope that normalizing rela-
tions will lead to beneficial economic and political reforms
in Cuba. Let’s hope, also, that the regime’s positive
achievements — like free health care and education for all
— will survive. ■
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