Resolver: Food Security in Post-Soviet

Cubas Dual Economy

Jaime Hamre

May 2013
Division III
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Bachelor of Arts Degree from the
School of Critical Social Inquiry at Hampshire College, Amherst,
Massachusetts
Committee Chair: Helen Scharber, Ph.D. Professor of Economics
Committee Member: Michelle Bigenho, Ph.D. Professor of Anthropology

Acknowledgements
THANK YOU / MIL GRACIAS
Al pueblo cubano To the dozens of Cubans who, for months, gave me their friendship and
trust. My project would have been nothing without them.
To Niurka Nez Gonzlez for sharing with me her friendship, brilliance, and endless supply of
patience and optimism.
To Roberto Garcia and Alfredo Prieto for countless hours spent helping Hampshire students over
the years.
To David, Estrella, Pablo, and Abel for their work and guidance.
To Helen Scharber and Michelle Bigenho for all the time, thought, and faith they put into me and
this project.
To Katie Irwin, Jackie Hayden, the GEO office, and the whole Hampshire in Havana program
team!
To my host families for taking care of me like a daughter.
To the KPQS crew (you know who you are), y a todas las tu,tu,tu,tus de Cuba.
To Noah Enelow for sparking my interest in the world food system way back in Fair Trade class.
To Sayres Rudy for helping me understand that survival was at the root of my studies all
along.
To Tom for his encouragement and help with the technical stuff.
To Amber for being my best friend since the beginning.
To Sam for always letting me tag along (and to Sergio for letting us tie up his phone line).
And finally, to my parents and sisters for always doing everything they can to support me, no
matter where I am in the world.

In memory of Gabriella Do Amaral F09

Table of Contents
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................................................... 2
TABLE OF CONTENTS ...................................................................................................... 3
PROLOGUE ......................................................................................................................... 6
INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................. 9
Survival Strategies: Resolver, Luchar, Inventar .............................................................................................................. 11
Food is the primary lucha .................................................................................................................................................... 14
The Food Window ............................................................................................................................................................. 16

CHAPTER 1 A BRIEF HISTORY OF CUBA THROUGH FOOD ................................... 19

Colonization Arroz Congr ................................................................................................................................................ 19
Independence and Pre-Revolution Sugar ..................................................................................................................... 21
Economic and agricultural dependence ........................................................................................................................................... 22
Inequalities in a booming country ...................................................................................................................................................... 26
1959 Revolution La libreta ................................................................................................................................................ 28
La Libreta ................................................................................................................................................................................................... 30
Changes in Food Culture ...................................................................................................................................................................... 31
The Special Period picadillo de soya ............................................................................................................................... 36
The Dual Economy: Americanos ........................................................................................................................................ 38

CHAPTER 2 RESOLVER: STRATEGIES FOR ACCESSING HARD CURRENCY .. 43

Remesas (Remittances) ......................................................................................................................................................... 43
Work in the legal emergent sector ..................................................................................................................................... 44
Jineterismo (hustling or prostitution) ........................................................................................................................... 45
Negocios and cuentapropismo ............................................................................................................................................. 47

CH. 3 FOOD ACCESS IN THE POST-SOVIET ERA: SOURCES AND STRATEGIES . 52

Subsidized Goods ................................................................................................................................................................... 52
La libreta (The ration card) .................................................................................................................................................................. 52
State cafeterias .......................................................................................................................................................................................... 56

Puestos (vegetable stands) and Agromercados (Farmers Markets) ...................................................................................... 56

Supply and Demand / Free Market ................................................................................................................................... 58
El Mercado Paralelo (The Parallel Market) .................................................................................................................................. 58
Los Agromercados (Farmers markets) ............................................................................................................................................ 59
Carretilleros (mobile vegetable vendors) ....................................................................................................................................... 59
Vendedores ambulantes (mobile vendors) .................................................................................................................................. 61
La shopping (the CUC store) ............................................................................................................................................................... 62
The Black Market / Informal Economy ........................................................................................................................................... 63
Urban Agriculture and Autoabastecimiento (Self-Production) ................................................................................... 69
The romanticization and the reality ................................................................................................................................................... 73
Redes Sociales (Social Networks) ....................................................................................................................................... 78
Overview of Expenditures ................................................................................................................................................... 79

CH. 4 INEQUALITY: PRE-REVOLUTION DJA-VU ? .................................................. 82

Tourist Apartheid .................................................................................................................................................................. 83
Cubas Nouveau Riche .......................................................................................................................................................... 84
Unequal Food Access ............................................................................................................................................................ 86
Racial Inequality ................................................................................................................................................................... 90

CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................... 97
WORKS CITED................................................................................................................. 100

Resolve, struggle, invent: they are synonyms that refer to the multiple ways in which we
Cubans guarantee ourselves a plate of food every day."1 Niurka Nez Gonzlez

1
Resolver, luchar, inventar: son sinnimos que se refieren a las mltiples maneras en que los
cubanos nos garantizamos tener un plato de comida todos los das.

Prologue
As noon rolled around, my stomach always started to growl. Although considerably
luxurious by Cuban standards, the breakfast my host family provided me of fruit, powdered milk,
coffee, and the infamous and ubiquitous dry, crunchy Cuban bread started to leave me famished
as late morning approached. I had given up cooking my own lunch long ago, perpetually
stumped by the lack of both food and cooking supplies. The only groceries I knew where to
purchase were the thin, wilting lettuce, flavorless carrots, and unripe tomatoes from the farmers
market. But if I bought them, what then could I do with them? The only thing I ever saw Cubans
do was sprinkle them with white vinegar and salt as a garnish for the plates of rice, beans, and
meat. After a few failed attempts at cooking rice and beans, I had quickly given up on that, too,
knowing I could expect a dramatically better version from my host family for dinner that
evening. And if I wanted to attempt to cook the chicken or fish they often included with dinner, I
wouldnt even know where to find it. I heard a rumor that I could find eggs at a market by my
house, but even though I sometimes passed Cubans in my neighborhood carrying a crate home, I
never actually found any in the market itself.
My classmates and I spent the afternoons wandering the streets, unsuccessfully scouring
the city for any food that wasnt the same greasy and nearly cheese-less pizza, watery spaghetti,
fried mystery meat, or sugary pastry sold on every corner that constituted our lunch every day for
three months. In my most desperate moments, I took to guiltily paying the equivalent of a
Cubans entire month salary for a jar of peanut butter and a box of Raisin Bran at the tourist
stores, also splurging on cheese the days when it appeared in the otherwise empty cooler. In
group meetings my classmates and I enthusiastically shared such discoveries. Someone found the
only Indian restaurant in Cuba! (With prices, again, nearly equivalent to a Cuban salary).

Another claimed to have found the best of the churro stands. (Its kind of tucked away down
Calle 6 between the other two churro stands along Calle 23, he explained.)
The food crisis was immediately apparent after my first few days of living in Havana. I
quickly realized that capitalisms stocked supermarkets, with their wide variety of rotating,
impeccable, competitive goods, did not exist on these shores. Faced with perpetually empty
supermarkets, stocked primarily with alcohol and soda, and with no networks of my own to track
down goods like eggs, yogurt, and meat that seemed to circulate only outside of the stores, not
even my 200CUC stipend was enough to save me from the daily challenge of having a satisfying
diet. If it werent for my host family I would have wilted away like the lettuce at the farmers
market.
So how do Cubans get by on an average salary that is one tenth that of my own Cuba
budget? Food is a major preoccupation, constantly a topic of discussion. I would hear
everywhere, I have been searching so hard for coffee, but theyve been out of it for weeks! and
You want how much for this cut of pork? Thats 5CUC more than last time! Scarcity and
dissatisfaction were overarching themes in the life of everyone I came to know. They all seem to
walk around carrying with them the weariness of the lucha (struggle) that is everyday life in
Cuba.
I spent the next three months both cursing those who had not warned me to bring an
entire suitcase stocked with food and working with Anthropologist Niurka Nez Gonzlez to
figure out the reasons one would need to and what Cubans do instead. Niurka Nez Gonzlez
is a researcher with the Institute of Anthropology in Havana and author of the award-winning
book El Cacao y Chocolate en Cuba (Cocoa and Chocolate in Cuba) (2010). In the
introduction of the book, she defines food anthropology as a frame of inquiry, which I have

adopted as a lens for my thesis. In addition to extensive sessions with her in which she helped me
understand the Cuban food system and Cuban food culture, I spent my time conducting
interviews with friends, friends of friends, and neighbors, as well as experts in the field
anthropologists, farmers, and professors. By the end of my first semester in Cuba (January-April
2012), I felt that I had gained a general understanding of Cuban food culture and the failings of
the food system. I returned for the Fall semester (September-December 2012) to work with
Nez Gonzlez again and continue gathering stories to put the puzzle pieces together. The
result is a compilation of oral histories, anecdotes, and personal reflections including my
tutors and my own weaved with analysis based on academic interviews and a wide array of
textual sources. In total, I worked with approximately 30 interviews. I identify all professional
sources by name and title. However, to protect the informal sources who so graciously shared
their stories with me, I have changed their names. I did all of the translations myself and for
accuracy have provided the original text or transcription in footnotes.

Introduction
As David Gonzlez Lpez and I sat in his kitchen in a Havana suburb facing the sea, he
volunteered to paint me a picture of the Special Period: He traveled the 13 kilometers to work as
a professor at the University each day on a heavy Chinese bicycle, under the hot sun. On his way
home, he searched for little pieces of wood for cooking on his patio, because fuel had
disappeared from the Island. Once equipped for fire, he had to wait for the start of the 8-hour
period when the government would turn on the electricity in his neighborhood. One day, hungry
and exhausted, he decided he couldnt go on that way. He had three days worth of rice and three
days worth of beans all that he could find in the market and he was going to cook them all at
once for a ready supply to save himself two days of work. He closed the door to the fridge,
content with his newfound efficiency.
Upon opening the fridge the next day, he realized his mistake. The smell of the spoiled
rice and beans reminded him that he had put them in a refrigerator that only had 8 hours of
electricity each day. Tears started to roll down his face, and he asked himself, What do I do?
From that very moment, I started believing in God, he remembered with a laugh, there
with me in his kitchen more than ten years later.
He continued his story: I started believing in God, and just then I heard a knock at the
door. It was his next-door neighbor. She had brought with her a bowl of soup.
I will never forget that moment, he continued.
In the face of his gracious neighbor, he was speechless, not even able to mutter a mere
thank you.
Later, that very same neighbor fled the country on a raft, he added.

Gonzlez Lpezs story illustrates the hardships that Cubans endured during the 1990s
crisis, which Fidel Castro euphemistically termed the Special Period in a Time of Peace: a
shortage of everything; government rationing of the few resources that were still available (e.g.
electricity); constant dissatisfaction and exhaustion; new beliefs and credence in a time of
desperation; the importance of social networks and inventiveness for survival; a new wave of
economic emigration that represented also the creation of a new Cuban diaspora and subsequent
flow of remittances to the Island; and hard times for all regardless of profession or status.

On January 1, 1959, the world was shocked when Fidel Castro and his band of less than
2,000 guerilla rebels ousted U.S.-backed President Batista in a popular Revolution (Benjamin,
Collins, Scott: 1984, 1). Equal access to an adequate supply of food for basic nutrition what
today would be termed food security was a major goal of the 1959 Cuban Revolution. In
addition to opening access for the entire population to an array of basic needs, such as health
care, education, and housing, the Revolution also ensured access to a standardized monthly food
supply in the form of the libreta de abastecimiento, an all-inclusive ration card. However, the
economic turmoil of the Special Period caused by the collapse of Cubas number one trade and
aid partner, the Soviet Union, made it impossible to fully sustain many of these reforms in the
Post-Soviet era (as illustrated by Gonzlez Lpezs story). The ration card that once ensured
most basic needs now consists of only a bare minimum of items (from which, I am told, no
person could ever live today). To lift itself out of the Special Period, Cuba split its economy into
two sectors: one for private businesses and foreign-oriented enterprises, which were essentially
permitted to trade in United States dollars, and the other, the continuation of the old socialist

10

order, built on government jobs that pay an average of $20 a month (Zurbano, 2013). In the
climate of this Dual Economy, as it shall hereby be referred, every day is a struggle to get by.
This is an investigation into how Cubans have survived and continue to survive, on a
daily basis, the Post-Soviet era. Suddenly plunged into an inhospitable economic climate and a
world in which they are no longer priority, Cubans have had to draw on a long cultural history of
resourcefulness, resilience, and solidarity to adapt to the new conditions and evolve for their
survival. At the core of this struggle is negotiating access to adequate nutrition. In order to
survive, Cubans have had to inventar (invent), resolver (resolve), and luchar (struggle) three
words whose special connotations continue to resonate deeply with every Cuban who lived, and
continues to live, the crisis. However, as Cuba moves towards a new future, the meaning of these
words has again morphed. For some it signifies a struggle that is long over, whereas others are
still barely hanging on.

Survival Strategies: Resolver, Luchar, Inventar

As I spent time in Cuba, I became aware of the vocabulary used to speak of these
struggles. I ascertained that three specific verbs resolver (to resolve), luchar (to struggle),
and inventar (to invent) are commonly and interchangeably used to refer to any form of
surmounting hardship, ranging from small daily tasks to negotiating access to survival needs.
Its a concept related to daily living that is used habitually,2 Niurka Nez Gonzlez explained
in one of our tutoring sessions. Resolver, inventar, and luchar are used to refer to the crucial
negotiation of access to an adequate diet, but these terms have also slipped into everyday casual
conversation. I even use it a lot, Nez Gonzlez realized. She said that when people ask her,

2 Es un concepto relacionado con la vida cotidiana que se usa de manera habitual.

11

Hows it going?3, she, like many, replies, aqu, en la lucha (here, in the struggle). She
elaborated on what this popular phrase means: Here, in la lucha la lucha, as a category, of
finding myself food, of working, you understand? I dont do any illegal activities, but I, too, am
luchando [struggling]. With my means. With my resources. With my strategies.4
Nez Gonzlez speculated that the special connotations of these terms in Cubas history
developed long ago, citing a Spanish book from 1944 that humorously references the special use
of resolver and other words particular to Cuba. She corrected me when I assumed that the
specials meaning of resolver, inventar and luchar began with the personal hardships
created by the rationing system during the Revolution. She explained that she links it more with
the perception that Cubans have always had of themselves as resilient, resourceful, and
optimistic people. [Cubans] have this capacity to luchar [struggle] for daily life, she affirmed,
but since ancient times. It doesnt have anything to do with the Revolution, nor with the war of
Independence, but rather this spirit of survival that is part of our idiosyncrasy Not even in the
worst moments do Cubans lose optimism.5
Nez Gonzlez recognized also that these terms developed a special connotation starting
with the Special Period, becoming even more culturally embedded with necessity. [The term
resolver] distinguished itself during the crisis because this innate capacity of Cubans to struggle
for his/her survival and on top of that with a great optimism really had to be developed since

3
Cmo andas?
4
La lucha como categora de buscndome la comida, de trabajando, entiendes? Yo no realizo
ninguna actividad ilegal, pero tambin estoy luchando. Con mis medios. Con mis recursos. Con
mis estrategias.
5 Porque tiene esa capacidad de luchar por la vida cotidiana, pero desde tiempos antiguos. No
tiene nada que ver ni con la revolucin ni con la guerra de independencia, sino con ese espritu
de sobrevivencia que es parte de nuestra idiosincrasia. Ni en los peores momentos el cubano
pierde el optimismo.

12

the crisis.6 The fall of the Soviet Union cost Cuba 80% of its import-export trade according to
the authors of the History of Havana (Cluster and Hernndez: 2006, 255). This translated to the
extreme scarcity illustrated by Gonzlez Lpezs story. The meaning of resolver, inventar, and
luchar deepened and became more complicated as this way of life became a means necessary to
survival. The simple tasks of everyday life, from procuring groceries and household goods and
cooking, to getting to and from work, became an enormous struggle with the disappearance of
most material resources that fuel these day-to-day actions (e.g. food, petroleum, electricity).
Nez Gonzlez summarized it nicely: Resolve, struggle, invent: they are synonyms that refer
to the multiple ways in which we Cubans guarantee ourselves a plate of food every day."7
Nez Gonzlez explained that with the crisis and the loss of value of the salary [CuP]
in the Dual Economy, one has to inventar [invent] For this they receive the name survival
strategies because theyre not the usual ways in which one made a living; they are inventos
[inventions] to survive because you dont even live,8 she explained. She explained that when the
traditional model for making a living fails, as it did during the Special Period, then its already
talking in terms of survival. Its not living, because until the 80s, one could live without much
trouble With your work, you obtained in accordance with the law of socialism to each
according to his work a certain income that allowed you to live, in an organized way, without

6 Se distingui durante la crisis porque esa capacidad innata del cubano de luchar por su
sobrevivencia y adems con un optimismo grande hubo que desarrollarlo mucho a partir de la
crisis.
7 Resolver, luchar, inventar: son sinnimos que se refieren a las mltiples maneras en que los
cubanos nos garantizamos tener un plato de comida todos los das.
8 la perdida del valor del salario, hay que inventar Por eso reciben el nombre de estrategias
de sobrevivencia porque no son las maneras habituales en las cuales uno garantizaba su vida;
ya son inventos para sobrevivir porque ni siquiera vives.

13

much worry.9 Before the Special Period, everyone was an employee of the State under the
socialist model. Most of the population of this country lived from his/her salary and with quite a
bit of security,10 Nez Gonzlez remembered. This is in great contrast with the instability of
the economic situation in the Post-Soviet era, in which each day is a negotiation of access to
basic needs, the success of which is often dictated by factors that are outside of ones own
control (as will be elaborated on in the follow chapters). Nez Gonzlez explained that survival
strategies are avenues for accessing goods and services that depend on each persons personal
initiative. She reiterated that survival strategies are defined as methods outside of the traditional
ways of getting by (i.e. State employment), and often range from the use of other capacities that
you have (that arent those that link you to [your State post]) to illegal activity of all kind.11 As
a general rule, Nez Gonzlez explained, Cubans have a hard time making ends meet and,
towards the end of the month, have invented who knows how many things12 to get by. As the
economic climate continues to change, however, some find themselves having to invent more
than others.

Food is the primary lucha

According to a typically ironic joke often heard in the capital, The revolution only has three
problems: Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. (Cluster and Hernndez: 2006, 255)
One evening during my first week in Cuba, my neighbor Miguel and I embarked on a
walk up into the hilly neighborhood behind the Almendares Park where Havanas pre-Revolution

9 Ya se estn hablando de trminos de sobrevivir. No es vivir, porque hasta los aos 80, se viva
sin mucha preocupacin y por tu trabajo, obtenas segn tal ley del socialismo a cada cual
segn su trabajo, obtenas una determinada ganancia que te permitas vivir, organizadamente sin
mucha preocupacin.
10
La mayor parte de la poblacin de este pas viva a su salario y con bastante seguridad.
11
utilizacin de otras capacidades que tu tienes que no son las que te vinculan a un puesto de
trabajo determinado hasta las actividades ilegales de todo tipo.
12
inventamos qu cantidad de cosas

14

wealthy residents used to live. I wanted to get to know the area a little better. As the sun started
to go down, we stopped to pet a cute little dog sticking its nose through the gate in front of a
house. Its owner, a friendly older woman, approached the gate and told us to come inside to pet
the dog not uncommon to Cuban hospitality. We took her up on her offer. We stood just inside
the gate, forming a triangle around the dog, making small talk, when she asked what I was here
studying. Cuban food culture, I replied. To my surprise, she immediately entered a fit of
laughter, and I noticed that Miguel began having a hard time holding back as well. I was
obviously missing something. Thats the best joke Ive heard all year! she exclaimed between
laughs.
Over the following months this incident started to make more and more sense. Obtaining
a satisfactory diet for oneself and ones family continues to be one of the primary struggles today
in Cuba, even after the extreme scarcity that characterized the Special Period ended. Today the
food supply remains inconsistent and expensive. This, for most Cubans, translates to a
monotonous, unsatisfying diet. Today there is no national culinary project. Instead there is the
national search for food, an interviewee told Emma Brewster when she spent three months in
Havana in 2008 studying Cuban food culture with the Hampshire in Havana program (40). It is
no wonder that the older woman laughed when I told her I was there studying their food culture.
Today, food is the great drama for Cubans,13 Havana anthropologist Pablo Rodrguez
Ruiz told me in an interview. It is a reflection of the disproportionate amount of income it now
takes to maintain a healthy diet. According to Rodrguez Ruiz, the population now spends 70%
of its income on food a telling statistic in light of the fact that, according to him, that rate was

13
Hoy el alimento es el gran drama del cubano.

15

54% among the poorest populations before the Revolution (interview). Income goes solely
towards food, and it isnt enough,14 a neighbor told me.
In 1993, a bottle of cooking oil cost 150 Cuban Pesos (CuP), or just over one American
dollar, which was equivalent to the amount that half of the work force was taking home every
month (Rodrguez Ruiz, interview). The salary15 at the time of one of Clusters and Hernndezs
interview subjects, Vernica, plus that of her husband and her parents pensions equaled less
than seven dollars a month (2006, 257). This disparity is less dramatic now, as the Convertible
Peso (the Cuban national equivalent of the dollar) is valued at 24 CuP, but still highly
problematic because the cheapest bottle of oil available last I checked is 2.50CUC. Exacerbating
this problem is the fact that the majority of the products the libreta originally offered were
dropped, leaving the gamut of subsidized goods very sparse indeed and by no means an
amount that any person could live off of for an entire month. Through the complete scarcity of
the Special Period to the paradox that is affording food in the Dual Economy, the primary lucha
(struggle) in the Post-Soviet era has been to obtain an adequate and satisfying diet.

The Food Window

The authors of No Free Lunch: Food and Revolution in Cuba justified their focus on food
in their 1984 study by explaining that a societys food system (from production through
consumption) is so fundamental to its functioning that food serves as a window through which
we can observe a great deal of any societys makeup (xii). Food habits are not arbitrary, as
anthropologist Niurka Nez Gonzlez points out in her work El Cacao y el Chocolate en Cuba

14 Los ingresos van solo a la comida, y no alcanzan.
15 The word salary will be used throughout the thesis to refer to income gained from official
State employment.

16

(2010). Rather, they correspond to a complex array of factors that create their conditions,16
she writes (2010, 39). Elaborating on the concept of food anthropology, she contends that the
differences in food consumption between regions and countries of the world, between social
classes, and even genders and ages can be explained by socio-economic and political factors
that manifest themselves in the entire chain ofdistribution and consumption; as well as in the
link between food and notions of social status17 (2010, 37). The contemporary food situation in
Cuba is rife with commentary about the changes currently in abundance, and through this lens, I
saw the implications of the half-century-old U.S. embargo, the crisis (the Special Period), the
Dual Economy, and the inequalities therein.
In the first chapter, I briefly profile Cubas history from colonization to the present
Dual Economy through the lens of food. I address the development of a specific food culture,
as well as the way colonial agricultural systems have impeded Cubas capacity to curb food
insecurity by producing for itself. In the second chapter, I make a contribution to the field of
knowledge about Cuba by specifically focusing on the survival strategies Cubans have developed
since the Special Period to negotiate access to a sufficient supply of basic necessities. In the third
chapter, I again contribute to the body of research on Cuba by providing an overview of food
sources in the Post-Soviet era, as well as survival strategies that aim to directly increase
household food security (e.g. self subsistence and urban agriculture). In the fourth chapter, I
analyze the social inequalities that have (re-)surfaced in the Post-Soviet era and how they have
affected food access. In conclusion, I join the many who have begun speculating about Cubas

16
... sino que responden a un complejo conjunto de factores que los condicionan.
17
Factores socioeconmicos y polticos explican, a su vez, la existencia de diferencias en el
consumo alimentario entre regiones y pases del mundo, entre grupos socioclasistas y hasta por
genero o edad; se manifiestan en toda la cadena de abastecimiento, distribucin y consumo de los
alimentos; y en la vinculacin de las comidas con nociones de status y prestigio social.

17

future since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

18

Chapter 1 A Brief History of Cuba through Food

Colonization Arroz Congr
Among the restaurants and food stands my classmates and I passed on our daily lunch
hunt, many advertised comida criolla. Comida means food, and criolla, I came to learn, is the
word that designates something born on the Island something Cuban. A typical Cuban dish
consumed daily and available in almost every restaurant is arroz congr. Arroz is the Spanish
word for rice and congr is presumably an African word. Arroz congr is a simple mix of rice and
black beans cooked together in the same pot, most often accented with salt, garlic, and green bell
pepper. Its history dates back to the Spanish colonization of the Island. Arroz Congr remains
representative of Cuban culture, considered the epitome of comida criolla (Cuban food), because
it contains reflections of the three cultural elements that formed the nation: Beans grow natively
in Cuba and were cultivated on the Island before the Spanish arrived, representing the indigenous
element; Spanish colonizers imported large quantities of rice from Spain to feed a massive
African slave population (estimated at approximately 50% of the total population on the island
until 1600) (Bolvar Arstegui and Gonzlez Daz de Villegas: 1993, 4-5); And cooking the
beans and the rice together was the invention of slaves who, born on the Island, were criollos
(Nez Gonzlez, interview). As Nez Gonzlez described the formation of arroz congr,
Different ingredients get added together until a dish forms that is no longer indigenous, no
longer Spanish, and no longer African; its Cuban18 (interview).
When the Spanish colonized Cuba, they brought with them their culinary preferences and
habits. Despite importation of some goods, colonizers initially received relatively little from the

18
Se van aadiendo ingredientes hasta formar una comida que ya no es indgena, ya no es
espaola, ya no es africana; es cubana.

19

Iberian Peninsula because of the complicated and long transatlantic journey (Nez Gonzlez,
interview). For this reason, they implemented, with varying success, their own agricultural
systems in Cuba, as well as making use of foods that could be produced on the island, such as
root vegetables (viandas) and beans. Meanwhile, slaves who prepared the food did so often in a
manner that reflected African food customs, ultimately resulting in the mix of cultures that is
now such a key part of Cuban/criollo (born on the Island) identity.
Another daily element in contemporary Cuban food culture is bread, a custom brought by
the Spanish. As importation from Spain was complicated, and wheat doesnt grow well in Cubas
climate, colonizers initially attempted to substitute bread with cazabe, a tortilla made from yucca
(a starchy indigenous root vegetable) that stored well when dried (Nez Gonzlez, interview;
Cluster and Hernndez: 2006, 5). But the ubiquitous wheat flour bread of todays Cuba is
indicative of two of Cubas biggest tragedies: both an indigenous culture destroyed and nearly
entirely erased from the Island by colonizers (Nez Gonzlez, interview; Bolvar Arstegui and
Gonzlez Daz de Villegas: 1993, 3), and the cultivation of a food culture that is inherently
dependent on imports. As retired professor of African Studies David Gonzlez Lpez explained
to me in an interview at his home just outside of Havana, unlike other Latin American countries,
such as Nicaragua or Mexico, that still have an indigenous food culture that relies on crops that
are cultivated in the country (e.g. corn), [Cuban] indigenous culture didnt leave us [hardly]
anything, and as a consequence, almost all foods consumed by Cubans are imported.19

19
La cultura indgena no nos dej nada, y como consecuencia, casi todo en la alimentacin del
cubano es importado.

20

Independence and Pre-Revolution Sugar

Sugarcane stalks on Carlos suburban farm (described in Chapter 3) on the outskirts of Havana. Photo
taken by a student on the Hampshire in Havana study abroad program, Spring 2012.

My friend Louie from Germany may be the only person I have ever met who has a bigger
sweet tooth than I. As we walked through the streets of Habana Vieja (old Havana), I explained
to him that I was studying the food situation here, a phrase every foreigner studying or living
in Cuba can understand, having spent many hungry hours navigating the complexities of finding
something or somewhere to eat (as I described in Prologue). As we stopped to purchase a warm,
triangle-shaped guava-filled pastry for the equivalent of $0.15 from a street vendor, he remarked:
Though, the dulce [sweets] situation is not so bad.
Through all the crises and upheavals Cuba has survived, sugar seems to have remained a
stable part of the food culture, as evidenced by the two grocery bags full of sugar both raw and
refined that came with the other ration goods included in the libreta that I helped David

21

Gonzlez Lpez carry home after our interview. The kilos of sugar were visibly disproportionate
to the much sparser offerings of other goods (which will be listed in Chapter 3). The lasting
importance (and presence) of sugar on the Island is indicative of its longstanding, deeply rooted
history in Cuba.

Economic and agricultural dependence

Cuba, with its rich and abundant resources and strategic geographic location, known as
the Key to the Indies, was established as a colony for the purpose of serving the economic and
political interests of the Spanish crown (Cluster and Hernndez: 2006, 1). In addition to the
popularization of a food culture whose main staples could not be produced well enough, if at all,
on the Island, the Spanish colonizers reinforced Cubas dependence on importation (rather than
self-subsistence) through the export-minded agricultural systems they put in place. The authors
of the History of Havana write that after the Haitian revolution, Cuba became the number one
producer of tropical products, specifically sugar. As Nez Gonzlez writes, Of priority granted
to large scale production of some or another product according to gains (in terms of profits) that
it yielded, there is no better example than the predominance of sugar production in the agroindustrial history of [Cuba]20 (2010, 36).
The sugar plantation structure spread across the country, establishing an infrastructure
that preemptively inhibited Cubas capacity to feed its own population without imports. Despite
the fact that colonizers did cultivate some of their own food supply, such as pork, their systems
were mainly for the purpose of exploiting Cubas fertile lands for profit from leather, tobacco,
and sugarcane the beginning of a trend that would continue for centuries in varying forms

20 De la prioridad otorgada a la produccin a gran escala de unos u otros productos segn los
beneficios, en trminos de ganancias, que reporten, no se puede encontrar mayor ejemplo que el
predominio azucarero en la historia agroindustrial de nuestro pas.

22

(Nez Gonzlez: 2010, 40). Cluster and Hernndez explain that Cuba likewise became the
importer of everything that, in its fever to produce sugar, it could not or would not produce for
itself (2006, 37).
The fight for independence from Spain sprouted in the 19th century, pushed forward by
both the burgeoning population of criollos people born on the island, either to Spanish,
African, or mixed parentage. After two long wars for Independence in the latter half of the
century, the United States military intervened in 1898, thrust into the conflict after the sinking of
the U.S.S. Maine, a battleship which had been sent to protect American interests in the midst of
chaos (Cluster and Hernndez: 2006,102). After triumphing in the battle against Spain that lasted
less than a year, the United States turned Cuba into a U.S. Protectorate until May 20, 1902, when
it was finally granted its own independence (Mitjans Alayn, interview; Cluster and
Hernndez: 2006,110).
Independence was conditional, however, in the form of the Platt Amendment, introduced
into the Cuban Constitution in 1901, giving the United States the right to intervene militarily to
defend its own interests or more specifically, its sugar industry, which had already begun
blossoming decades before (Cluster and Hernndez: 1984, 110). This marked the beginning of
what Reinaldo Funes Monzote calls the period in which the Island was converted into the great
supplier of European and American markets,21 (2010, 28) undercutting the possibility of
producing for itself. Many refer to this period in Cuban history as the time when Cuba was a
neo-colony, ruled by the sugarocracy. The imperial exploitation of Cuba was to be continued
in different hands. The United States exercised the power gained in the Platt Amendment in
1906, 1912, and 1917, landing troops on the Island (Benjamin, Collins, and Scott: 1984, 10).

21 el perodo en que la Isla se convirti en la gran abastecedora de los mercados europeos y
de Estados Unidos desde inicios del siglo XIX.

23

In 1934, the Amendment was eliminated as part of Franklin Roosevelts Good Neighbor
Policy of, as Cluster and Hernndez put it avoiding direct military interventions in Latin
America (2006, 175). However, the United States had, since 1902, implemented and updated a
series of free trade agreements that not only guaranteed the continued exploitation of Cuban
lands by American individual and corporate interests by way of sugar plantations, but also
established Cubas deep economic and agricultural dependence on the United States. The authors
of No Free Lunch explain that in this way, the U.S. government remained the dominant
influence in internal Cuban politics (1984, 10).
Such so-called reciprocal trade agreements meant that Cuba was guaranteed preferred
entry into the U.S. market for a fixed quota of sugar, determined yearly by U.S. Congress, as
well as for some of its rum and leaf tobacco, in exchange for letting the U.S. flood its markets
with American goods by way of abolished and lowered duties, internal taxes, and quantity
restrictions on imports (Benjamin, Collins, and Scott: 1984, 11; Cluster and Hernndez: 2006,
135). As Agricultural University of Havana history professor Anabel Mitjans Alayn said, these
were contracts that completely eliminated the diversity of the Cuban economy22 (interview),
and, as the authors of No Free Lunch wrote, undermined Cubas potential to produce consumer
goods for its own people [and] ... any movement toward food self-reliance (Benjamin,
Collins, and Scott: 1984, 11-12).
In the decades preceding the 1959 Revolution, the United States was virtually in control
of the Cuban economy. By the 1950s, raw sugar and its byproducts, alcohol and molasses,
accounted for about 80% of the countrys exports and paid for the bulk of its imports
(Benjamin, Collins, and Scott: 1984, 9). The U.S. sugar quota accounted for 60% of those sugar

22 un tratado que ha eliminado la diversidad de la economa cubana.

24

exports (Benjamin, Collins, and Scott: 1984, 11). It is worth mentioning that internal industries
such as transportation, banking, and trade were also inextricably tied to sugar, augmenting
U.S. influence and control (Benjamin, Collins, and Scott: 1984, 9).
As well as seizing control of the economy, U.S. sugar interests in Cuba also preemptively
thwarted any efforts by Cuba to produce for itself. The free trade agreements opened the
floodgates of American goods to the Cuban market, and almost a third of the food consumed in
Cuba [before the Revolution] was imported including staples that the island seemingly could
have produced in abundance [such as] rice, lard, vegetable oils, beans, potatoes, etc. (Benjamin,
Collins, and Scott: 1984, 8). The inefficiency, injustice, and, on some level, irony of this
dependence is best illustrated by the authors of No Free Lunch, who point out that, An exporter
of raw sugar, Cuba imported candy. Cuba exported tomatoes but imported virtually all of its
tomato paste. Cuba exported fresh fruit and imported canned fruit, exported rawhide but
imported shoes. It produced vast quantities of tobacco but imported cigarettes (Benjamin,
Collins, and Scott: 1984, 12).
Even if Cuba were allowed to produce for itself, sugar operations consumed much of the
cultivatable land, as sugarcane was planted on over half of the total area under cultivation before
the Revolution (Benjamin, Collins, and Scott: 1984, 8). In addition, large tracts of unused land
were set aside by the industry as reserves in case they needed to augment production mid-season
depending on harvest prospects, U.S. beet sugar production, and market developments
(Benjamin, Collins, and Scott: 1984, 9). In 1934, U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull even
authored a memorandum arguing for the active discouragement of Cubas agricultural
diversification in order to maintain it as a favorable market for U.S. foods and raw materials

25

(cited in Benjamin, Collins, and Scott: 1984, 11). The United States government was aware of
the kind of agricultural and economic dependence it was imposing on Cuba.

Inequalities in a booming country

The U.S. sugar industry operations in Cuba fostered a boom in Havana, converting it into
a glamorous cosmopolitan city frequented by many of the biggest names in Hollywood at the
time (Cluster and Hernndez: 2006, 135). Cubas string of U.S.-backed presidents in the decades
preceding 1959 sustained the industry by defending U.S. economic interests. The thought of preRevolution Cuba to the educated mind, however, is grim, tainted with the infamous image as an
American gambling and prostitution playground in the Caribbean, and home to corruption. The
authors of No Free Lunch reveal that With governments important, if unstated, purpose being
personal enrichment In 1950, an astounding 80 percent of the national budget was spent on
government salaries (Benjamin, Collins, and Scott: 1984, 5).
Facing an impending loss in the upcoming elections, former president Fulgencio Batista
staged a surprise coup detat in 1952, ousting constitutionally elected Carlos Pro Socarrs
(Cluster and Hernndez: 2006, 192). Batista declared himself a friend of the United States and
the United Nations and immediately gained recognition from Washington, DC, despite the fact
that he had staged a coup ousting a democratically elected president who was already supportive
of U.S.-Cuba economic ties (Cluster and Hernndez: 2006, 192). Batista personified the
corruption that characterized this last imperial chapter in Cubas history, making it his personal
ambition to turn Havana into the Monte Carlo of the Caribbean, hiring American underworld
gambling figure Meyer Lansky as an official adviser (Cluster and Hernndez: 2006, 193).
The dominance of the sugar and gambling industry created a new upper class and divided
Cuban society along racial and class hierarchies, consisting of American businesspersons,

26

bourgeois Cubans, and poor Cubans (Cluster and Hernndez: 2006, 135). Ramiro Guerra,
condemning the plantation system, writes that this era divided the Cuban population into two
groups, a small number dependent on capitalism, who manage and administer the cultivation,
manufacture, and shipment of sugar, and a mass of salaried black workers whom necessity
obligates peremptorily to resign themselves to a low daily wage and tolerate a low standard of
living23 (cited in Funes Monzote, 29). The authors of No Free Lunch point out that there are no
official figures for income distribution before the Revolution, but include in their study estimates
that they gathered from other researchers and economist Carlos Rafael Rodriguez: respectively,
the poorest 20 percent of Cubans received only between 2 and 6 percent of the total national
income, while the richest 20 received more than 55 percent, and the wealthiest 15 percent of
families captured 43 percent of the income (Benjamin, Collins, and Scott: 1984, 3). Historian
Hugh Thomas estimates that before the Revolution, Cuba had the highest number of millionaires
per capita in all of Latin America (Benjamin, Collins, Scott: 1984, 5). The poorest of the
population were landless rural farmworker families and also those unemployed living in the
shantytowns of Havana and other major cities (Benjamin, Collins, and Scott: 1984, 2).
The inequalities perpetuated by these systems are evident in the differences in food
access and high levels of food insecurity during this period. Whereas those with enough money
could reportedly eat as well as anyone in the United States or Western Europe, poor families
spent over two-thirds of their income on food and were still unable to afford or access meat or
eggs regularly (Benjamin, Collins, and Scott: 1984, 1-3). This was a particularly devastating
issue in a culture where animal protein is considered the single most important staple of the

23 un corto nmero de dependientes del capitalismo, que dirigen y administran la siembra de
caa y la fabricacin y embarque del azcar y una masa de trabajadores asalariados de la raza a
que la necesidad obliga ms perentoriamente a conformarse con un jornal mnimo y tolerar el
nivel de vida mas bajo.

27

diet. Nitza Villapool (1923-1998), a famous Cuban television chef and authority on food culture,
wrote that poor folks subsistence was sopa de gallo (rooster soup): a mix of water and
brown sugar (cited in Benjamin, Collins, and Scott: 1984, 2). Making matters worse for poor
rural families who were jobless during the majority of the year and awaiting the 4 months of
harvest season cultivating their own crops for self-subsistence was criminalized by large
landowners as squatting (Benjamin, Collins, and Scott: 1984, 1). These were the stark
inequalities that would take a national Revolution to dismantle.

1959 Revolution La libreta

The deplorable living conditions and extreme food insecurity experienced by the majority
of the population, as well as class and racial segregation and the blatant corruption of the U.S.backed government, were all key factors that motivated a popular revolution in Cuba. Fidel
Castro, then a young lawyer and congress candidate, was propelled to action by Batistas 1952
coup. He launched a failed armed attack with 123 others on a military garrison in the East of
Cuba. He and other surviving revolutionaries who were eventually freed from jail left for Mexico
where they gathered forces. In 1956, 81 of them left Mexico for Cuba on the Granma, a yacht
they bought off of a Texan rumored to have named it after his grandmother. This marked the
beginning of two years of guerilla warfare that continued until Bastista fled the Island on New
Years Eve, 1958 (Benjamin, Collins, Scott: 1984, Chronology).
The Revolutionary government defined itself, according to Cluster and Hernndez, as
representing the poor, the patriotic, and the revolutionary against the conservative, the Americandominated, and the rich (2006, 217). Within the first ten years the new government succeeded
in the nationalization of all businesses and systems, land and property repartition, universal
healthcare and education, alphabetization campaigns, and the creation of the libreta de

28

abastecimiento the rationing card that gave equal access to basic nutrition as well as a thorough
array of other basic material needs (Benjamin, Collins, Scott: 1984, Chronology and 26).
One of the main goals of the 1959 Revolution was what today is widely known as food
security. Che Guevara declared in 1960 when he was president of the Cuban National Bank,
Our duty is, I repeat, first of all, before anything else, to see to it that no one in Cuba goes
without food (cited in Benjamin, Collins, and Scott: 1984, 14; Cluster and Hernndez: 2006,
230-231). The first attempt to achieve food security in Cuba was to increase income and
diminish other costs by full-employment measures and the socialization of basic-needs services,
opening access to poor populations for whom cost had been the barrier to adequate nutrition
(Benjamin, Collins, and Scott: 1984, 15-17). After opening access to the entire population,
however, it quickly became apparent that Cuba did not have the capacity to produce the supply
to meet the increased demand, a symptom of its history of colonial-dependent infrastructures
(Benjamin, Collins and Scott: 1984, 18).
Further exacerbating the problem of meeting the new demand was the Eisenhower
administrations 1960 economic embargo on Cuba. Prior to Revolution, Cuba had become
almost entirely dependent on food imports, with 80% of those imports coming from the United
States (Benjamin, Collins, Scott: 1984, 9). However, in response to the nationalization of
American industries in Cuba and Fidel Castros general non-cooperation, the U.S. State
Department and CIA deemed it impossible to carry on friendly relations with Castro
government, and necessary to devise means to help bring about [Castros] overthrow and
replacement by a government friendly to the United States (cited in Cluster and Hernndez:
2006, 216), imposing an embargo that banned all trade with the Island. Cubas shipping and
storage facilities, geared to accommodate frequent and short 90-mile jaunts to Florida, now had

29

to accommodate trade with countries much farther away. The embargo also further inhibited
Cubas capacity to produce for itself by cutting off the supply of industrial agricultural
machinery and inputs (Benjamin, Collins and Scott: 1984, 18).

La Libreta
In contrast to the previous method of using markets to allocate food through the price
mechanism, Cubas revolutionary government turned to rationing. In a free market society, an
increased demand is generally met with a price increase, solving the problem of supply by
reducing the effective (money-backed) demand by closing off access to the parts of the
population that arent able to afford higher prices. As Benjamin, Collins and Scott put it,
however, doing so would have dealt with the shortages but not with peoples hunger (1984,
16). Fidel Castro stated that it would have been nothing short of a ruthless sacrifice of that part
of the population with the lowest income (cited in Benjamin, Collins, and Scott: 1984, 16).
In 1961, lard, a Cuban cooking staple in great demand, was the first item to be rationed.
In 1962, a wide array of other necessities, food and non-food alike, were added to the list by the
newly created National Board for the Distribution of Foodstuffs. Items included: rice, beans,
beef, chicken, fish, eggs, milk, salt, sugar, and bread, as well as cigars, shoes, soap, clothing, and
numerous other household items (Benjamin, Collins and Scott: 1984, 22). Rationing was only
supposed to be a temporary measure, a way of distributing the most important and scarcest goods
equally until production could be increased enough to not only satisfy but surpass demand
enough to create an export industry. Predictions were optimistic and rationing wasnt anticipated
to last any longer than 1963 for meat and lard, and 1965 for all other goods (Benjamin, Collins
and Scott: 1984, 22-23). However, as Cluster and Hernndez point out, Centralized decisionmaking and supply, combined with the mushrooming of administrative regulations and the

30

growing effect of the U.S. economic embargo, kept the new [nationalized businesses] from
running with the expected efficiency (2006, 232). Production woes continued to impede the end
to rationing, and Cuban society became accustomed to its many inconveniences.

The bodega where Cubans pick up the goods offered in the libreta each month. Photo by author, Spring
2012.

Changes in Food Culture

According to professor David Gonzlez Lpez, who considers himself an expert on the
subject of food for [having] been eating almost three times a day for the last 64 years,24 Cuba
was the third largest beef producer in all of Latin America before the Revolution, after Argentina
and Uruguay (interview). In 1959 there were as many cows as there were people in Cuba

24
[haber] estado comiendo casi siempre 3 veces al da en los ltimos 64 aos.

31

(Gonzlez Lpez, Interview; Eaton, 2004). It was a daily staple for those who had access to it
(Nez Gonzlez, interview; Gonzlez Lpez, interview). However, stocks diminished quickly
after the Revolutions reforms created a surge in demand. The State began prioritizing milk
production over meat production to be able to maintain the supply for infants and children
(Gonzlez Lpez, interview). Because milk and beef remain scarce, it is illegal to kill a cow in
Cuba (Gonzlez Lpez, interview; Eaton, 2004).
In a recently released satirical Cuban film, Juan de los Muertos (Juan of the Dead),
another spinoff of Dawn of the Dead, Havana is invaded by zombies. Juan decides to go into the
zombie killing business and gives out his number, advertising his services. But one day when he
receives a call about killing a zombie cow, he refuses vehemently and hangs up, offended. The
punishment for killing a cow is worse than for killing a person!25 a neighbor informed me.
Tracey Eaton of the Dallas Morning News confirms this, writing that cow killers can get up to
ten years in prison, whereas the sentence for homicide starts at seven years (2004). Beef is one of
the most pursued segments of the black market. According to Eaton, Those who transport or
sell the meat from an illegally slaughtered cow can get three to eight years. Providing beef at an
unauthorized restaurant or workplace can fetch two to five years. And buying contraband beef is
punishable by three months to one year in jail or a steep fine (2004). Gonzlez Lpez
remembered that during the crisis of the 1990s, there were many mysterious mishaps involving
cows in the countryside (interview).
The advent of rationing in the 1960s, with its inconsistent selection of goods, marked the
beginning of a new change in Cuban food culture. One had to stand in line, sometimes for many
hours, was offered only a sliver of the variety that existed before the Revolution (for those who

25 Se castiga ms fuerte quien mata a una vaca que quien mata a una persona.

32

could afford it, of course) and often had to go without certain items for long periods of scarcity
(Benjamin, Collins, Scott: 1984, 27-31). And even without moments of scarcity, rationing was
an egalitarian one-size-fits-all system, in which a two-day-old baby gets the same ration as a
six-foot, twenty-five-year-old laborer, as the authors of No Free Lunch point out (1984, 37).
The option of consuming exactly what and how much one desired when one desired was a thing
of the past, regardless of socio-economic status. Illustrating this turmoil, one journalist from the
Washington Post wrote in 1982 that the ration book is the Cuban consumers hated little
passport to survival (cited in Benjamin, Collins and Scott: 1984, 24). Many food customs were
difficult to maintain, and some even almost disappeared altogether due to the unavailability of
certain goods, as is the case for beef consumption. Gonzlez Lpez illustrated this dilemma,
describing his experience when the libreta first came out:
The vegetables that came [to the market] were always the same: boniato, plantains The
plantains were always very green because they had to pick them that way because of
difficulties in transportation, so there were never ripe plantains. [Therefore] you could
never make fried plantains. All of these things changed. There were many [dishes] that
you could [no longer] make. But, all the same, one continued eating.26 (Interview)
Hand-in-hand with ration culture, so to speak, was a national campaign to conserve
resources. Nitza Villapool, who had a television program, Cocina a Minuto, changed her recipes
after the Revolution in adjustment. Gonzlez Lpez related to me that before the Revolution
Villapool would say, for example, add lots of oil, and after 1959 add a little bit of oil
(interview).
Another influence in food culture and food security in Cuba after the Revolution was
Cubas alliance with the Soviet Union. It began in 1960 when Cuba and the U.S.S.R signed

26
Los vegetales que venan eran siempre lo mismo: boniato, pltano El pltano era un
pltano verde que [por] dificultades de transportacin lo tenan que coger muy verde, entonces
nunca haba pltanos maduros. T nunca podas hacer pltanos maduros fritos. Todas esas cosas
cambiaron. Hubo muchas cosas que no se podan hacer. Pero, bueno, se sigui comiendo.

33

extensive trade agreements (Benjamin, Collins, Scott: 1984, Chronology). In 1961 Fidel Castro
stood on the busy street corner of Calle 12 and Calle 23 (three blocks from where I was living in
2012) and described the Revolution as socialist for the first time, signifying the adoption of a
Marxist-Leninist ideology (Cluster and Hernndez: 2006, 219). Cluster and Hernndez write that
the alliance provide[d] more consumer goods while maintaining the vital supply of petroleum
and arms (2006, 240). Foodstuffs such as sauerkraut began to enter the Cuban market (Gonzlez
Lpez, interview). More importantly, however, the Soviet Union, along with subsidy aid and
ideological support, in many ways filled the void of the United States in terms of trade. Cuba
redirected its economic dependence to the Soviet Union, who became its new biggest sugarcane
customer, as well as an important source of imported goods. Cubas efforts at food sovereignty
were once again dwarfed by foreign dependence.
By the 1970s, the libreta began to offer fewer and fewer goods. Part of the reason for this
was the governments effort to create greater variety in the market by liberating many goods.
Once liberated, they were sold in the parallel market (Benjamin, Collins and Scott: 1984, 27
and 40). Although no longer part of the highly subsidized libreta (ration card), these goods were
price controlled and still largely affordable with the average salary (Nez Gonzlez, interview;
Benjamin, Collins, Scott: 1984, 28).
In 1980, in another effort to diversify supply, the government opened private farmers
markets (agromercados) where farmers could sell their excess produce in prices controlled solely
by supply and demand (Benjamin, Collins and Scott: 1984, 60). This was another way of
pumping greater variety into the marketplace for Cubans whose basic needs were now
thoroughly covered and thus had soaring consumer aspirations (Benjamin, Collins and Scott:

34

1984, 59) but also, in part, a way to control sales that were previously happening only on the
black market (Benjamin, Collins and Scott: 1984, 61-62).
The farmers markets did make it possible for Cubans to have more diverse and therefore
satisfying diets; however, as prices were not controlled and farmers often employed capitalist
mechanisms such as hoarding and speculation, the existence of the markets created class
differentiation between consumers and profiting vendors/producers (Nez Gonzlez, interview).
The authors of No Free Lunch discovered in their research in the early 1980s that in a single
day a vendor could easily take in twice what a worker makes in a month. In 1981, the daily
receipts of a vendor averaged 297 [CuP], at a time when the average daily wage was slightly
over 6 [CuP] (1984, 67). As for the consumers at the markets, the authors of No Free Lunch
state that there is no reliable information on the percentage of households that could afford to
make regular purchases at the markets (by regular we mean at least once a month) since income
distribution data in Cuba is a closely guarded government secret (1984, 65).
The markets also fostered illegal activities such as the prohibited use of middlemen to sell
the goods and the diversion of state supply to the private market where higher prices could be
fetched for personal enrichment (Benjamin, Collins and Scott: 1984, 65). The farmers markets
the dash of capitalism in socialist Cuban society, as the authors of No Free Lunch refer to it
were, after many attempts at reform, eventually closed down altogether in 1986 in a government
anti-rich operation27, and vendors were persecuted for their abuse of the regulations
(Benjamin, Collins and Scott: 1984, 72; Nez Gonzlez, interview). The markets wouldnt
reopen until dire necessity called upon them.

27 operacin anti-riqueza

35

The Special Period picadillo de soya

One of the main Revolutionary feats, national food security, came to an end when the
Soviet Union disbanded in 1991. Cubas economy had become dependent on the Soviet Union
through the course of the latter-half of the 20th century. As Cluster and Hernndez write:
The demise of special trade and aid agreements with Eastern Europe cost Cuba 80
percent of its export-import trade, brought an end to cheap oil and stable sugar prices, and
cost the economy its main source of loans as well. As had happened with the loss of U.S.
trade thirty years earlier, spare parts for machinery and inputs for agriculture and industry
disappeared. Sixty percent of Cuban factories shut down or produced at bare minimum
capacity. (2006, 255)
In the first three years of the crisis, Cubas GDP dropped by 36% (Valds Paz, 106). The reality
that these losses translated to for Cubans is illustrated by Gonzlez Lpezs story in the
introduction. Electricity plummeted, as did supplies of food, Cluster and Hernndez confirm
(2006, 255). Goods literally disappeared from the market, and even though the libreta continued
to exist, the foods it was supposed to offer were often nowhere to be found.
Domestic production of goods such as rice and beans had never been sufficient to satisfy
the amount offered in the libreta, and the goods that could be imported after the demise of the
trade and aid agreements with the Soviet Union were in much higher world-market prices
(Nez Gonzlez, interview). To make matters worse, the United States strengthened the 30year-old trade embargo with the Helms-Burton act, making it illegal to not only conduct trade
with Cuba but also penalizing any companies who conducted business with partners that also
traded with the Island, seeing it as the optimal time to starve Cuba into submission (Benjamin,
Collins and Scott: 1984, xii). I remember for months and months you couldnt find an onion,
Nehanda Isoke Abiodun, an American expatriate who has lived in Cuba since 1990 for political
reasons, related to me and a group of other students in a discussion in Havana. Rodrguez Ruiz

36

explained that despite the crisis, people were still receiving salaries, creating therefore an
enormous mass of money in the street, without a backing of products to buy28 (interview).
Despite the dire conditions in which the population suddenly found itself, it is important
to point out that the crisis did not cause starvation in the most extreme sense of the word,
especially by Latin American standards, as the authors of History of Havana point out (2006:
255). No one died from hunger. But yes, things were very tight,29 Gonzlez Lpez
remembered (interview). It wasnt a hunger from not eating at all, but rather a hunger from not
eating enough of what was necessary for balanced nutrition (Nez Gonzlez, interview). It was
an epidemic of extreme dissatisfaction and malnutrition. Any kind of variety disappeared
completely and there were very long periods during which only one or two goods were available
on the market, such as the rice and beans in Gonzlez Lpezs story. The same day Gonzlez
Lpez told me that story, he also recounted a time when his University cafeteria was serving
only chcharros (peas). In my interview with Pablo Rodrguez Ruiz, he admitted that he
remembers going to bed after having only eaten watercress all day. Daily vitamin and protein
intake fell drastically, expounded by the petroleum shortages which lead to long treks on heavy
Chinese bicycles, such as Gonzlez Lpez experienced (Cluster and Hernndez: 2002, 255). As
Cluster and Hernndez describe in the last chapter of History of Havana, Havana became a city
of citizens who ranged from slender to skinny. Very few looked like their photos from a few
years before, (2006, 257).
In an effort to improve nutrition levels across the nation during this great crisis, the
government re-opened the private farmers markets (agromercados) across the Island in 1994 in
addition to injecting into the market high quantities of soy products, such as soy yogurt and

28 masa de dinero enorme en la calle, sin respaldo de productos para comprar.
29 Morirse gente de hambre, no ha ocurrido. Pero s, estrecheces.

37

picadillo de soya (ground beef mixed with soy). Cubans, with no other choice, adopted these
products into their diet and prepared the picadillo de soya the way they would have prepared
regular ground meat. Illegal street vendors sprang up, selling croquetas (usually breaded and
fried meat) made from soy product (Brewster: 2008, 9). I even heard many stories of desperate
times when one would sell croquetas made of grapefruit peel and even mop heads. One Cuban
professor joked that in the Special Period, there wasnt socialism, but rather soyalism30
(Brewster: 2008, 16). Today, soy still offered in many places, but rarely preferred represents
for Cubans the horrors of living through the food crisis, and also the way in which they adapted
their food culture to the new conditions. More important than the change in food culture is the
way the crisis changed how Cubans had to negotiate access to not only nutrition but to surviving
every day life in general.

The Dual Economy: Americanos

eggs were known for a time as americanos because no one knows when they are coming or
how many they will be. (Cluster and Hernndez: 2006, 256)
One of the first things the Hampshire in Havana faculty taught me and the other students
when we arrived in Cuba was how to catch almendrones private taxis that charge 10 CuP per
ride and whose name literally translates to big almonds. I remember asking why that was the
name, and a Cuban casually responded because they look like big almonds. Little did I know,
those would be the only almonds I would see all semester.
The big almonds they are referring to are the typical 1950s Fords and Chevys that still
constitute the majority of the cars on the road 70 years after they were first brought to the Island.
The almendrones that charge 10 CuP (0.50CUC), however, are a world apart from the handful of

30 soyalismo

38

beautifully preserved ones carting tourists up and down the Malecn (waterfront) all day long
and populating every Cuba tourism brochure.
The almendrones we were learning how to use are oftentimes little more than the shell of
the vehicle they once were, held together with hours of its owners hard labor and the countless
inventos (inventions) necessary to obtain a vital part (or more often than not to keep it running
without it). These cabs, legalized as an addition to the giant, packed city buses, run regular
routes. For Cubans who can afford it, almendrones constitute a more convenient alternative to
the bus, and for informed foreigners, a cheap alternative to spendy tourist cabs.
Because our stipends were only 200CUC a month, the study abroad program coordinators
thought it important that we understand that there are two worlds in Havana: the world that
charges in CuP and the world that charges in CUC. These worlds are invisible to the untrained
eye, and I frequently came in contact with foreigners who didnt even realize a currency other
than CUC exists. It is rare that price tags, if provided, designate which currency, often leaving
even those privy to the existence of the Dual Economy guessing, usually to the benefit of the
vendor. This guessing game is how the lucky Cubans living in Old Havana who own one of the
ubiquitous cafeteras are sometimes handed a 10CUC bill for one of their 10CuP (0.50CUC)
pizzas. However the existence of two worlds goes both ways. Cubans are, by way of price,
excluded from much of their own city. These inequalities will be further addressed in Chapter 4.
In light of the extreme crisis created by the fall of the Soviet Union, Cuba turned its
economy towards tourism. For the first time in many years, Cuba opened its doors to the world.
Foreign enterprises, mostly from Spain and Canada, established joint ventures with the Cuban
State, providing the start-up capital and know-how and then allowing the State to keep a little
more than half of the profits (Nez Gonzlez, interview). It was done through foreigners

39

because Cuba hadnt developed a tourism geared toward foreign visitors. This is when five-star
hotels began, 31 Nez Gonzlez explained.
The tourist economy operated on the U.S. dollars foreigners brought into the country.
The foreigners that most of Havana saw were the growing influx of Italian, Spanish, German,
and Canadian tourists, as the government promoted tourism for a quick source of foreign
exchange, Cluster and Hernndez write (2006, 259). In wake of the crisis, the Cuban
government was desperate for this foreign exchange, or hard currency, competitively
exchangeable on the world market with other major currencies such as the Euro, as a means of
revamping its economy and being able to purchase imports without Soviet Union subsidies,
loans, and sugar purchases, and largely without credit, as a result of the intensified U.S. trade
sanctions.
Tourism from all parts of the world flourished, and the government issued its own hard
currency in 2005, the Convertible Peso (CUC) (Cluster and Hernndez: 2006, 278). After a few
years of fluctuation, the CUC is now valued at 24 times the CuP. The coexistence of the CuP and
hard currency (first the American dollar, then the CUC) is part of a series of economic reforms
that the government has undertaken since the beginning of the Special Period. Other reforms that
characterize this period, known as the Dual Economy, are, as laid out by Cuban sociologist Juan
Valds Paz, diversification of the forms and structure of ownership of the means of production;
expanded currency trade relations; and the emergence of parallel markets, (2005).
The influx of the dollar led the government to legalize its possession in 1993 for Cubans
who were still earning salaries in Cuban pesos (CuP). The legalization of the dollar and

31 Se hizo con extranjeros porque Cuba no haba desarrollado un turismo con miras a atender a
un visitante extranjero. Fue cuando empezaron los hoteles 5 estrellas.

40

subsequent creation of the CUC meant, among other things, that Cubans could receive monetary
remittances from their family living abroad in addition to the material remittances some of them
had been already receiving. Cubans who traveled abroad for work and brought dollars home no
longer had to find a foreigner to make purchases for them in the stores that previously existed
only for tourists and diplomats (Nez Gonzlez, interview).
The legalization of the dollar was most significant, however, because it represented the
new importance of having access to hard currency for daily survival in Post-Soviet Cuba.
Tourism reopened Cuba to the capitalist world market by bringing the State a new source of
hard-currency income. Hard currency was suddenly the only way to buy the everyday products
and food stocks that were available before the Special Period in the libreta, or in the then still
highly-affordable parallel market. Despite these changes, the population, however, continues
earning an average socialist salary in CuP equivalent to $19 a month (BBC, 2008).
These relatively rapid changes are reflected in Lea Ashkenas autobiographical novel, Es
Cuba, about her experience living in Havana in the year 2000. Her boyfriend-turned-husband,
Alfredo, then in his late 20s, recalls:
When I was a teenager, it was illegal to possess U.S. dollars. Just for having one dollar,
you could go to jail. Then one day they became legal, and today you cant live without
them. So we do whatever we have to to acquire them. I started thinking about negocios
[money-making deals]. This was during the Special Period, and everyone was
scrambling. For a while I bred doves on my fathers roof because people use them in
religious ceremonies. Then I had an uncle who worked in a panaderia [bakery], so each
day hed bring home a little dough, and someone else would know someone who could
get tomato sauce or cheese. Every day after work, Id bike to my uncles house, and wed
make pizzas to sell. It was almost all profit (32-33).
As Alfredos story illustrates, negotiating access to the hard currency for daily survival became
key, representing the socio-economic implications of the shifts in the economy during this period
in relation to tourism and the dual currency system. Through the 1980s, earning a professional

41

salary used to be enough to live a relatively comfortable life in Cubas socialist terms (Cluster
and Hernndez: 2006, 256). But in the Post-Soviet era, it is no longer enough to even guarantee a
satisfying diet, let alone other comforts. Many professionals have left their State-salaried posts in
pursuit of earning all or part of their salary in the ever-necessary hard currency, or even, like
Alfredo, mounting a negocio to sell goods or services to other Cubans to garner a share of the
elevated amount of money in circulation. According to the History of Havana, approximately a
quarter of the workers who had previously worked for the State now lived on income from this
[alternative] type of work, at the time the book was published in 2006 (269). In a report
published in 2012, The Economist estimates that that number will rise to one third by 2015. One
such ex-professional who now has her own negocio as a florist, explained to me that with only
the 253 CuP (10.50CUC) she was earning monthly with her State job, if she bought a bottle of
oil she wouldnt have enough for shampoo or deodorant because everythings in dollars.32
The people have to luchar to get what they need,33 she added.

32
Todos son en divisas.
33
El pueblo tiene que luchar para conseguir lo que necesita.

42

Chapter 2 Resolver: Strategies for Accessing Hard Currency

Remesas (Remittances)
The changing history of emigration in Cuba since the Revolution has affected the levels
of remittances sent to the country each year. In the first three years of the Revolution, 200,000
Cubans fled the country, primarily of the bourgeoisie, for ideological reasons and in the face of
having all of their assets seized by the State (Cluster and Hernndez: 2006, 217). Many of these
families now make up what the official newspaper of Cuba, el Granma, terms the Miami
Mafia the affluent, conservative political contingent in Miami largely responsible for the
tenacity of the U.S. trade embargo. However, according to Cluster and Hernndez, many in
Havana kept up with their Miami relatives in spite of prohibitions (2006, 248).
The political climate changed as the Revolution grew older. A brief dtente with the
Carter administration in 1978 legalized travel to Cuba for U.S. residents for two years. This
opened up a dialogue with the migr community and soon they were recognized in Cuba not as
traitors, but as the Cuban community abroad (Cluster and Hernndez: 2006, 248). According
to the History of Havana, 100,000 Cuban-Americans returned with suitcases packed full of
American consumer goods (2006, 248). This brush with the other side motivated another giant
wave of emigration. But, as Nez Gonzlez explained, by the 1980s, emigration was no longer
an act of ideological dissent but rather emigration was basically economic, by those who had
other aspirations.34 The 125,000 Cubans who formed the waves fleeing in the 1980 Mariel
Boatlift and the 35,000 subsequently in the 1994 Balsero Crisis left Cuba because of economic
hardship and capitalist or material aspirations, as Nez Gonzlez alluded to. Because

34 la emigracin fue bsicamente econmica, de gente que tena otras aspiraciones.

43

emigration shifted to a primarily economic phenomenon, rather than political or ideological,

the younger diaspora maintained a much greater identity and material connection to the Island.
They sent material remittances to the Island in the form of care packages, and, after the
legalization of the dollar in 1993, monetary remittances.
With the Special Period and continuing into the Dual Economy, remittances became
absolutely crucial. As Cluster and Hernndez wrote, Fifty or a hundred dollars sent or brought
each month by relatives and friends living abroad began to signify, for many families without
other incomes in dollars, a way to keep their heads above water (2006, 262). At the time of
publication of their work in 2006, such remittances reached 800 million dollars per year (262).
To survive the crisis, all you need to have is F (faith) Familia en el Extranjero (family
abroad), goes the popular joke.

Work in the legal emergent sector

Sitting in a newly opened cafe in Old Havana, the tourist mecca, my American friend and
I got to chatting with the bartenders two men probably in their early twenties. Somewhere in
the hours of small talk, I inquired about their job at the new place: Did they like it? What were
the hours like? How much did they get paid? Over the rumble of the Friday night dinner crowd,
one of them replied with a smile, in a natural low voice, that he alternates working two days in a
row, sixteen hours each day, with taking one day off. Having just paid about 10CUC each for our
dinners and glancing at the packed house around us, my friend and I were incredulous when he
revealed that his salary is only 2CUC a day. Oh, but the real money you make is in tips! my
friend guessed after a short pause, realizing that the lack of tip culture in Cuba didnt exist in the
tourist sphere. He nodded, with a smile. We eventually said our goodbyes and slipped 5CUC on
the counter before leaving.

44

The growth of tourism created a new job market for Cubans. More and more Cubans are
finding work in this burgeoning and newly legalized private sector, as the above story illustrates.
Also, as many of the larger enterprises in the emergent (private) sector (sector emergente) are
joint ventures with foreign companies, even workers still technically employed by the State are
more likely to be paid at least part of their salary in CUC. Even if the salary itself is not in hard
currency, workers in this sector are still also often offered CUC bonuses (Nuez Gonzlez,
interview).
In addition to the increased chances of obtaining a hard currency salary, the tourism
industry also offers access to walking and talking CUC35 the foreigners themselves. This
segues into other important strategies for accessing hard currency: jineterismo, negocios, and
cuentapropismo.

Jineterismo (hustling or prostitution)

One of the most well-known and well-studied survival strategies catalyzed by the crisis
and the Dual Economy is jineterismo. Before the crisis, the word (whose seemingly-unrelated
literal meaning is jockeying) referred to hustlers who lived off of the small number of tourists
who visited the Island, acting as informal concierges or the like (Cluster and Hernndez: 2006,
266). After the crisis, with the explosion of both tourism and its corresponding prostitution
industry, jinetero or jinetera (one who conducts jineterismo) now has a connotation more closely
linked with sex work, but continues to refer to those who hustle tourists for a living, whether or
not it involves a sexual exchange.
I met Jose at the beach my first weekend back in Havana in September. He and his
cousin, visiting from Mexico where he works, approached my classmate Sam and I in the water.

35 CUC que camina y habla

45

Do you speak Spanish? he asked immediately. I nodded as I rolled my eyes at Sam. As foreign
women, we were used to getting approached by, quite literally, every passing male when we
werent already in the presence of one. With one semester in Cuba already under our belt, we
had already learned to laugh at such staunch and pervasive machismo. After paying little
attention to Jose and his cousin, he, in true Cuban machismo fashion, was impressively persistent
and eventually won our attention.
As I strolled through Old Havana one evening with Jose on our way back from an art
exposition, he quietly made comments on jineterismo, lifting the veil on some of the characters
passing us by. Aiming towards pointing out the prevalence of the phenomenon, and perhaps also
attempting to vouch for his own sincerity in our relationship, he told me about simple, everyday
ploys Cubans use to profit off foreigners, with no need for outright theft or sexual exchange. He
spoke of an ingenious ploy in which a Cuban pre-arranges with a bartender to charge the tourist
he or she is accompanying double the price for their drink. Thus, the foreigner paying 4CUC for
a mojito (rather than the 2CUC it is supposed to cost) is unknowingly allowing both the Cuban
they are with and the bartender to each pocket 1 extra CUC for themselves.
As Cluster and Hernndez point out, many people who could be classified as jineteros are
also well-educated professionals with day jobs in search of the necessary dollars to get through
the month and, for some, even a passport (2006, 266). Authors such as Sujatha Fernandes,
Amalia L. Cabezas, and Ariana Hernandez-Reguant offer analyses of the specificities of this
phenomenon, its scope, and its often-blurred line between sex work and legitimate
relationships.

46

Negocios and cuentapropismo

Nez Gonzlez explained to me that before the Special Period, she, as an anthropologist,
was well paid. When the Special Period began, however, her salary stopped being enough to live
on, not even to survive, she added. I had to look for other resources to access goods and
services.36 She recounted trying to find a way to make an extra income that kept within her
professional skillset. She started giving classes at the university. Lamenting the days before the
Special Period, she remembered being able to dedicate herself entirely to her work at the Institute
of Anthropology, and the time that was left open was mine, she pointed out. Now, instead, she
has to always make sure she has something else lined up, whether its an additional teaching
position or seeking publications that would pay her author royalties. These are Nez Gonzlezs
negocios deals or business that constitute an additional source of income.
With the sudden need to ensure a steady additional income to get by, Cubans have
quickly learned to take advantage of their saleable skills or assets. Those who occupy official
posts in the tourism industry, as translators or tour guides for example, often use their contact
with tourists as an opportunity to create their own negocio. An official Russian translator may
offer the Russian tourists with whom he comes into contact his informal services as their guide
around the city. Those who are already employed by the State as official tour guides often use
their personal contacts to conduct informal (illegal) tours that are more specialized. It seems that
everyone has found something to sell, such as the babalawo (Santera priest) in Lea Ashkenas
novel who has turned the practice of his Santera religion into his negocio for curious tourists. To
gain access to the ever-necessary hard currency, anthropologist Rodrguez Ruiz explained,

36
Ni siquiera para sobrevivir. Yo tuve que buscar otros recursos para acceder a los bienes y
servicios.

47

Cubans started to turn to renting rooms, offering transportation, and illegal paladares
[restaurants inside homes]. They did everything they had to survive.37
Negocios arent solely in the form of services for tourists, however. It is important to
point out that for many, these strategies do not necessarily equal direct access to the CUC, but
rather access to a higher income in general. A higher income in CuP can translate to access to
CUC, as CUC can be purchased at one of the many Cadecas (money exchange houses) at the
rate of 24 to 1. Many Cubans offer services to other Cubans, such as sewing or cleaning houses.
My neighbor, a 50-something year old woman who now owns her own florist business, reflected
on her life before private business ownership: My day off from work was Saturday and that day
I would go and clean three houses to supplement my income. They gave me 500 CuP (21CUC)
and gave me lunch. This is how I got ahead, but not everyone has this capacity or the necessary
health.38 Other goods and services are offered to Cubans by Cubans, as both small-profit
operations like food stands that charge in CuP and higher-scale restaurants and other services
offered in dollars that cater to the tourists and Cubans alike who have found access for
themselves, one way or another.
Beyond established or recurring informal business, negocio also refers to single
transactions (as hinted by its double translation as both deals and business) in the form of an
opportunity that presented itself, or that, more often than not, one created for his or herself in a
time of need. Nez Gonzlez told me a story of when times were tight and she had nothing she
could sell. She resolved her situation by using cloth she had to sew a dishtowel and oven glove

37
Empezaron a acudir a alquileres, transportistas, paladares ilegales. Se hizo de todo, haba que
sobrevivir.
38 Mi da libre en el trabajo era el sbado, y ese da iba a limpiar tres casas para complementar
mis ingresos. Me daban 500 pesos Cup. Y me daban el almuerzo. Y as fui saliendo adelante.
Pero no todo el mundo tiene esa capacidad ni la salud necesaria.

48

set which she commissioned to one of many randomly interspersed street vendors whose goods
extend outwards into the street from their front doors. This is indicative of a well-established
network of people who have turned to negocios since the crisis.
Negocios no longer forcibly refer to something informal or illegal. In an effort to control
(as well as capitalize off of) negocios that began happening illegally with the crisis, such as the
now-ubiquitous paladares, the State has slowly but surely since the mid-1990s been legalizing
many forms of cuentapropismo small scale self-employment (Nez Gonzlez, interview).
Many have obtained activity-specific cuentapropismo licenses and pay the corresponding taxes.
Those who legally rent out rooms in their home (casas particulares) are currently charged
150CUC per month, per room, whether or not the room is occupied.

One Cubans bike taxi business in downtown Havana. Bike taxis generally charge Cubans in CuP and
foreigners in CUC. Photo taken by a student on the Hampshire in Havana study abroad program, Spring
2012.

49

Hefty licensing fees and taxes constitute one of the main reasons why many negocios
continue unregistered. Illegality slips in, even for those who have licenses; one who legally sells
peanuts downtown, for example, may also illegally sell boxes of cigars or souvenirs to their
tourist customers, as is the case for one of the characters in Nico Chavez-Courtwrights 2012
documentary theater piece, Aqu, Luchando. In History of Havana, Cluster and Hernndez
illustrate this first resurgence of capitalist practices since the Revolution:
many in Havana set up shop as auto mechanics, carpenters, manicurists, or
plumbers. Fast food stands like that of [ones] great-grandfather repopulated the streets
of the city, offering homemade sweets and drinks and fritters and sandwiches. More new
services flourished with government licenses or without them: baking birthday cakes to
order, teaching private classes of English or Italian, selling crafts, gardening, cleaning
houses and renting rooms and houses to tourists along with food or city tours or classes
in Cuban dance. (2006, 269)
Many people have found a way to sell their skills. But as Cluster and Hernndez write, not
everyone could set up a paladar or had a saleable skill (2006, 270). Many dedicate themselves
to the resale of goods. It is common to pass walkways of urban homes that, resembling a yard
sale, are covered with an impressive array of books, hair products, shoes, or tourist trinkets.
These resold goods are either obtained legitimately, like cigarettes or sugar from the ration, or
illegally, brought unregistered from abroad or stolen from State production (Cluster and
Hernndez: 2006, 270).
The end of the year, when both Christmas Eve (La Nochebuena) and, more importantly,
New Years Eve (Fin de Ao) roll around, negocios become a very important strategy for
Cubans. It is traditional in Cuban culture to celebrate any special occasion with a pork dinner,
and Christmas and New Years Eve are inarguably the biggest holidays of the year. If there isnt
pork, there isnt New Years,39 one neighbor assured me. However, in the climate that the crisis

39 Si no hay puerco, no hay fin de ao.

50

and the Dual Economy produced in Cuba, purchasing pork, especially at a time of great demand,
has become a great challenge. I heard many stories about people selling their belongings from
a nice pair of pants to their camera (as in the case of another neighbor) in order to be able to
buy pork for the celebration. One December evening, a friend walked to my apartment from his
home a few miles away. He commented that he was afraid to even wear nice shoes this time of
year. Responding to my surprised look, he assured me that when New Years around, people are
absolutely desperate.
Havana writer Eduardo Heras Len comically and exaggeratedly illustrates this yearly
phenomenon in his recently released collection of short stories, Dolce Vita. The story entitled
La Ultima Cena (The Last Supper), chronicles the misadventures of a father who, desperate
to find pork for the New Years celebration, attempts to conduct his first-ever black market
negocio by trading an electronic device to a pig farmer in the countryside. Upon arrival, the
farmer leads him to a backroom where from the floor to the ceiling are stacked electronic
devices. Youre not the only one looking to get a pork, he explains.
Cluster and Hernndez sum it up best: All told, the ingenious residents of [Cuba] came
up with hundreds of activities illegal, semilegal, or quite legal but not quite by-the-book
(2006, 270). Each person has invented the avenue that was most within his/her reach,40 Nez
Gonzlez pointed out.

40
Cada quien ha inventado la va que estaba ms a su alcance.

51

Ch. 3 Food Access in the Post-Soviet Era: Sources and Strategies

Subsidized Goods
La libreta (The ration card)
The adoption of an egalitarian rationing system in the 1960s truly revolutionized
consumption in Cuba. It was a step down for those who had previously been able to afford a
steady, varied food supply, but a huge shift for the majority of the population (primarily in the
countryside) that oftentimes subsisted solely on sopa de gallo (sugar water). Before the Special
Period, the rationing card covered everything necessary and in laughable prices,41 Nez
Gonzlez assured me. As explained in Chapter 1, supply was not sufficient to meet demand in
the first years of the Revolution. During periods of scarcity in the 1960s and 1970s, the libreta
often constituted the only means of food access (Benjamin, Collins, Scott: 1984, 40). However,
as supplies of certain goods increased enough to consistently meet demand, they were liberated
taken off the ration, and sold in relatively low prices in unregulated quantities on the State-run
parallel market (Benjamin, Collins, and Scott: 1984, 40). The authors of No Free Lunch point
out that although the libreta provided access to basic nutrition, it was only part of a greater array
of affordable food sources in 1983. By the 1980s, Cubans could supplement what the libreta
offered with goods from the parallel market (explained later in this chapter) and a variety of
publicly owned restaurants, snack bars, and cafeterias (Benjamin, Collins, and Scott 1984, 40).
These alterative sources of food were still very affordable due to Soviet subsidies, stable sugar
prices, loans, and cheap imports (Rodrguez Ruiz, interview).

41 cubra todo lo necesario y a precios irrisorios

52

After the Special Period, however, price-controlled supplements to the libreta ceased to
exist, and as Nez Gonzlez explained, the libreta itself experienced a great slimming down42
within the first years of the crisis. The libreta continues to shrink in scope and size even today;
matches, crackers, and potatoes are the most recent goods to be taken off the ration. The last of
almost all of the non-food items were also removed from the ration in recent years, including
toothpaste and bath, laundry, and dish soap (Nez Gonzlez, interview).

The months ration I helped Gonzlez Lpez carry home from the bodega after our interview. Clockwise
starting at the far left: Rice, black beans, powdered milk, salt, raw sugar, refined sugar, cooking oil. Photo
by author.

42 adelgazamiento

53

Table 1. The goods offered in the libreta in 1983 and 2013

ITEM

MONTHLY RATION (one person)

1983

Rice
Beans
Bread
Pasta
Refined sugar
Raw sugar
Vegetable oil
Lard
Coffee
Salt
Eggs
Chicken
Fish
Beef
Soy mincemeat
(picadillo de soya)
Sausage
Milk
Tomato sauce
Potatoes
Oranges
Tomatoes
Bath soap
Laundry soap
Detergent
Cigarettes
Cigars
Sanitary napkin

2013
2.27 kg
0.57 kg
6.80 kg
1.81 kg
0.27 kg
0.45 kg
0.11 kg
0.23 kg
0.77 kg

3.18 kg
0.23 kg
30 rolls 1.81 kg
0.20 kg
1.36 kg
0.91 kg
0.23 kg
0.23 kg
0.33 kg
10 each 0.25 kg
0.45 kg
* 0.23 kg

0.57 kg
0.11 kg
0.08 kg
3 cans 1.02 kg
1 can 0.33 kg
2.72 kg
0.45 kg
1.36 kg
1 bar
1 bar
0.20 kg
3 packs
4 (per male adult)
1 pack (per female)
* or "chicken for fish"

It is not reflected in this table that children under age 13, seniors over age 65, and persons
in need of a special diet (with diabetes or high blood pressure, for example) receive some
additional rations for reinforced nutrition (alimentacin reforzada), such as powdered milk,
fish, soy yogurt, and ground beef mixed with soy (picadillo de soya).

54

The amounts of food shown in Table 1 represent the official government rations, but in
practice, the goods available in the libreta are dependent upon supply and vary across provinces
according to availability. The list given here is deceptively long and varied, as the majority of
goods listed have rarely been available all at once, even before the crisis. Were always joking
because they sell chicken for fish, one friend in her late 20s told me, explaining that Cubans
are supposed to receive half a pound of fish each month with the libreta. But for as long as she
can remember, an extra chicken ration has always been given instead of fish. [Cuba] is an
island!43 she exclaimed, continuing in English: Wheres all the fucking fish? And you know
where the chicken comes from? Your country!
Her frustration indicts the reality that Cuba remains unable to become food self-reliant.
Magalys Calvo, the then Vice Minister of the Economy and Planning Ministry, said in 2007 that
84 percent of items in the libreta were imported (cited in Altieri and Funes-Monzote, 2012). It is
likely that my friend was right in saying the chicken comes from the United States. Since the
Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act of 2000 made an exception to the
embargo for food and agricultural products on a cash basis, the United States has become
Cubas largest supplier of food and agricultural products (USDA report, 2008). According to the
USDAs 2008 Cuba Food and Agriculture Situation Report, Cuba has consistently ranked
among the top ten export markets for U.S. soybean oil, dry peas, lentils, dry beans, rice,
powdered milk, and poultry meat. Cuba also has been a major market for U.S. corn, wheat and
soybeans.

43 Somos una isla!

55

State cafeterias
In addition to the monthly libreta, the State also offers subsidized food centers, called
Centros de Atencin a la Familia (Family Attention Centers), where seniors, underweight
pregnant women, and other at-risk groups can obtain prepared meals at a very low price. In an
interview with Nez Gonzlezs colleague, anthropologist Estrella Gonzlez Noriega, I learned
that lunch used to also be ensured44 at most workplaces through State cafeterias where a meal
would cost around 1 CUP. That hardly exists anymore, she explained. The alternative is to
bring food from home or change your hours. You have to ensure [for yourself] one more meal
than you had to before,45 she added. Primary schools, however, still provide lunch service each
day at the low price of around 7CuP monthly (Nez Gonzlez, interview). Once a student
reaches la secundaria (middle school/high school), however, State provision is reduced to a
snack (merienda) of just bread and yogurt. At this stage, parents have to inventar to provide
lunch,46 Nez Gonzlez explained (interview).
The language that Nez Gonzlez and Gonzlez Noriega used, on separate occasions, to
explain this system hints at the precariousness of the food situation in Cuba. Their use of the
word ensure when describing meal programs still offered by the State implies that today if its
not ensured by a State organ, there is the potential of not having it otherwise.

Puestos (vegetable stands) and Agromercados (Farmers Markets)

The dry and processed goods offered monthly in the libreta and the meals offered to
some via State cafeterias are supplemented by price-controlled fresh produce. The puestos are

44 garantizado
45
Ya casi no existe ninguno. La alternativa es llevar cosas de la casa o cambiar el horario. Hay
que garantizar una comida ms que antes.
46
los padres tienen que inventar para proveerles almuerzo.

56

small, State-run produce stands planted throughout the city, creating greater access for those who
live further away from the larger State-run agromercados (farmers markets). In line with the
running pattern, the produce offered through each of these State avenues is of notoriously poor
quality and in unstable supply, Nez Gonzlez explained (interview). The produce comes from
agricultural cooperatives that are required to sell a portion of their production to the State at a
low, controlled price. The rest of the production can be sold on the free market (which will be
detailed in the next section). For this reason, producers often designate the lowest quality goods
to fill the State quota, reserving the highest quality goods for free market sale (Nez Gonzlez,
interview). Because higher prices can be fetched on the free market, the produce destined for the
State puestos and agromercados is often victim to interception by middlemen who illegally
divert the supply to the private agromercados and carretilleros (wheelburrow pushers)
(elaborated on in the next section). For these reasons, Nez Gonzlez explained, the puestos
and State agromercados are really only a reliable source of certain root vegetables; one must turn
to the pricey free market for all other fruits and vegetables (interview).

Subsidized food sources today la libreta, State cafeterias, puestos, and agromercados
still constitute a substantial enough source of food access to prevent those of the lowest socioeconomic status from perishing from starvation (as might have been the case before the
Revolution), but nowhere near enough to constitute a healthy, balanced diet that one could live
off of. And in the absence of the additional affordable food sources that existed before the
Special Period, Cubans in the Post-Soviet era have to resolver, inventar, and luchar to gain
greater food access from the free market.

57

Supply and Demand / Free Market

El Mercado Paralelo (The Parallel Market)
As explained in the previous section, the rationing system itself was supposed to be
temporary, and goods in sufficient supply were systematically taken off the ration. Many of the
same products offered in the ration, such as bread, sugar, rice, beans, and eggs, were additionally
available for purchase in unlimited quantities in the parallel market. The authors of No Free
Lunch, who conducted their research from 1980-1983, wrote that these liberated goods were
generally inexpensive (1984, 40).
However, as explained in the previous section, today the prices of all goods outside of the
libreta and State-run puestos and agromercados are determined by supply and demand
(interview). Nez Gonzlez explained that even though goods in the parallel market today are
still sold in CuP, the prices are now so high that they are oftentimes equivalent to the CUC
stores. She informed me that sugar costs 0.01CuP per pound with the libreta and 8CuP per pound
in the parallel market. 8CUP, taking into account Cubans high consumption [of sugar], its a
barbarity!47 she exclaimed (interview).
The most desirable goods, such as eggs, run out very quickly and are often claimed by
those who stock up large supplies for themselves for personal consumption and/or illegal resale.
One friend told me that oftentimes the vendor himself pretends stocks have already run out, only
to whisper in your ear that hell sell you a flat of eggs for 20CuP more than the list price
(interview).

47
Ocho pesos, teniendo en cuenta el consumo elevado que tiene el cubano. Es una barbaridad.

58

Los Agromercados (Farmers markets)

The private farmers markets were reopened during the Special Period in an effort to
increase production and food access. They are supplied by small farmers, cooperatives, and state
farms, with the addition of a series of middlemen. Regulated by supply and demand, private
markets are significantly more expensive than the State agromercados and puestos. For example,
Nez Gonzlez explained that a banana at the private market costs 1CuP each; at the puesto,
she can purchase a whole handful for 2CuP. Boniato, a widely-used starchy root vegetable, costs
2 or 2.50CuP per pound at the private market, but only 0.80CuP per pound at the puesto
(interview). As much of the supply gets diverted to the private market before making it to State
market or puesto, however, consumers often dont have the choice.

Carretilleros (mobile vegetable vendors)

A carretillero pushing vegetables in the street below my apartment in the Vedado neighborhood. Photo
by author.

59

Los carretilleros (wheelbarrow pushers) roam neighborhoods with crates of vegetables,

selling staples such as garlic and onions, as well as a wide variety of seasonal fruits and
vegetables. Prices are even slightly higher than offered at the agromercados themselves. It is
assumed that this higher price is an extra commission for the service of bringing the goods to
your front door, Nez Gonzlez explained (interview). It is also assumed that the goods the
carretilleros offer were purchased from the State agromercados; however, oftentimes the goods
they offer are the very goods that were intended to be sold at the State agromercado or puesto
(Nez Gonzlez, interview). Nez Gonzlez mentioned the Friday complaint pages of the
Granma newspaper that had been filled lately with complaints about the carretilleros because
the production that is supposed to arrive at the State with precios topados [price controls] isnt.
Nez Gonzlezs sister-in-law was in the house folding laundry in the next room during this
particular interview. When the trucks arrive to stock the State agromercados, [middle men and
carretilleros] buy directly from the trucks, she interjected. Ever since the government
authorized the carretilleros, in 2010 with the large wave of cuentapropismo licenses, the State
markets arent well stocked,48 Nez Gonzlez explained (interview). They want to resolve
problems but the solutions they find bring new problems. I dont know how the water gets into
the coconut, as we Cubans say, because its complicated,49 she added (interview).

48
Desde que autorizaron a los carretilleros, los agros no estn tan abastecidos.
49
No s por dnde le entra el agua al coco, como decimos los cubanos porque es complicado.

60

Vendedores ambulantes (mobile vendors)

STR AFP/Getty Images A Havana street vendor sells bread.

Repaaaaro colchones. Se repaaaara en la casa los colchones (Mattress repair

Mattress repair in your own home) I heard from my window each day in a sing-song voice
reminiscent of baseball game snack vendors. In addition to the carretilleros carting around
vegetables, hundreds of Cubans vendedores ambulantes (mobile vendors) roam
neighborhoods selling or re-selling anything theyve made or acquired in hopes of making some
kind of extra income. Every week, I heard or saw vendors passing down my street advertising
brooms, bleach and other household necessities, homemade confections such as guava pastries
and ice cream, extra libreta coffee packets, services such as mattress and jewelry repair, and
even the purchase of gold or other metals.
The more regular vendors, such as those who populate busy downtown street corners
selling roasted peanuts in little paper cones, have cuentapropismo licenses specific to their

61

activity. It would be safe to assume, however, that those roaming the neighborhoods re-selling
libreta coffee packets are in a bind and trying to make a quick, illegal negocio.

La shopping (the CUC store)

In addition to the other sources listed above, almost anything can be purchased
alternatively in CUC in la shopping. La shopping is the name used to refer to the stores that
existed previously only in tourist hotels and for diplomats. Much like the re-opening of the
farmers markets in the early years of the Special Period, la shopping was opened to Cubans
during the crisis to create another food access point. But as the products in la shopping are
prohibitively expensive for most Cubans, you resort to it when you need a specific product and
you have the money to buy it,50 Nez Gonzlez explained.
All Cubans, however, have no choice (aside from the black market) but to turn to la
shopping to obtain products that State production no longer offers, doesnt offer enough of, or
only offers in significantly inferior quality. Milk and yogurt are only offered in subsidized prices
to those who have special dietary needs, as explained earlier in the chapter. The only alternative
sources are la shopping and the black market. Those who dont receive the powdered milk that
the libreta supplies to people who qualify for alimentacion reforzada (or those who dont receive
enough of it) have to turn to la shopping and pay almost 6CUC for the same amount that is
offered in the libreta for 2.50CuP.
Another important item in la shopping is coffee. Even though its not nutritive,51 coffee
is an important and daily part of Cuban food culture, Nez Gonzlez assured me (interview). Its
importance has historical roots in the first stirrings of Cuban nationhood when criollos would

50
a eso recurres cuando necesitas un producto especfico y tienes el dinero para comprarlo.
51
El caf, parte de nuestra dieta habitual aunque no alimente

62

drink it to differentiate themselves from the Spanish who preferred hot chocolate, she added
(interview). The coffee that is now offered in the libreta is one small packet of roughly ground,
low-quality coffee stretched with chicory. Because domestic, high-quality production is
prioritized for export, good coffee can only be found in la shopping for 4 CUC. Nevertheless,
many Cubans find a way to drink it each morning, in addition to offering it to the many habitual
daily visitors. One popular strategy is to mix the low-quality libreta coffee in with the CUC
coffee (often purchased instead from the black market).

The Black Market / Informal Economy

Exchanges outside of official, regulated markets (i.e. on the black market or as part of an
informal economy) are born from necessity, signifying that certain needs are not otherwise being
met. As explained in Chapter 1, the rationing system adopted in the 1960s motivated informal
exchanges between neighbors. The authors of No Free Lunch write about families exchanging
baby food flavors with each other to accommodate the specific tastes of their child (1984: 44).
Nez Gonzlez explained that people adopted the custom of selling or trading excess from their
ration in order to tailor the monthly food supply to their needs. When she was a kid, she
remembers her mother, who smoked a lot, traded the familys excess sugar each month for
extra cigarettes (interview). Cluster and Hernndez write that, many other families bartered
odd lots of hardware brought home from the workplace, pointing out that these exchanges
satisfied needs formerly fulfilled by a wide array of street hawkers and small shops that had just
about vanished from the citys mix with the 1959 Revolution (2006, 232).
Anthropologist Pablo Rodrguez Ruiz explained in an interview that rationing in the
1960s also limited the goods in circulation to those that the State was capable of supplying and
distributing to the entire population equally. Thus, goods not produced on plantations, like the

63

tropical fruit chirimoya or the root vegetable malanga, disappeared from the market after the
Revolution. He then pointed out, however, that everything was still always being produced, but
in informal circuits.52 He added that he, like many, used to go to the countryside to buy
malanga so that his young daughters could still consume the very nutritive vegetable (interview).
On the edges of this state economy, small gray markets of semi-legal private activity continued
to exist, confirm the authors of History of Havana (2006, 232).
Even decades later in the 1980s when production became more stable and many goods
were available on the parallel market, the black market and informal economy constituted the
other important means of food distribution in Cuba outside of State production (Benjamin,
Collins, and Scott: 1984, 44). When Benjamin, Collins, and Scott conducted their research in
Cuba in the early 1980s, they found that State butchers were short-weighing their customers to
fetch 3CuP per pound for chicken and 8CuP for beef on the black market; snack bar
administrators were snipping cheese from sandwiches for resale at 4CuP per pound; and coffee
producers were selling parts of the crop otherwise destined for State distribution and export
directly to Cuban consumers (1984, 45).
As Benjamin, Collins, and Scott observed in 1984, The black market forces Cubans to
live by a double standard, and this is probably its most pernicious effect (46). The line between
the informal economy and the black market is often blurry. However, the overtly illegal activities
such as theft from State production were in obvious contradiction to socialist ideals that
encouraged personal sacrifice for the betterment of all. Such boundaries are evidenced in No
Free Lunch, when one interviewee explains that she purchased guavas regularly from a woman
who sells them door-to-door. But when she was approached by a man on the street whose

52
Siempre se produjo de todo, pero en circuitos informales.

64

selection was much more uniform and looked like export quality, the interviewee deduced that
they had been stolen from the State rather than grown on a tree in someones yard. She did not
buy them for this reason (Benjamin, Collins, and Scott: 1984, 46).
The Cuban government responded to the growth in black market activity after the
implementation of rationing in the 1960s by making more non-rationed food available through
legal channels, such as the parallel market and State-run restaurants described earlier in this
chapter. The authors of No Free Lunch write that the expansion of the parallel market had thus
effectively reduced the importance of black market foods (1984, 46). It was a very localized
black market; it wasnt a widespread phenomenon,53 Nez Gonzlez confirmed in an
interview.
The Special Period changed everything. As illustrated in the Introduction and Chapter 1,
the economic crisis caused by the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 translated to extreme
scarcity. Because the traditional means of food access were no longer sufficient, participation in
the black market became a key survival strategy. During the Special Period, the small producers
in the countryside who once illegally filled the need of those in search of malanga and other
goods not included in the rationing system became one of the only sources of food access,
especially for staples such as beans, eggs, and vegetables. Cluster and Hernndez write that
during this period many goods were stolen from the hard-currency stores in tourist hotels or
those maintained for diplomats (known now as la shopping, as explained in the previous
section) (2006, 257).
The black market became so prevalent after the crisis that the government commissioned
a multi-disciplinary team to do a study to determine its scope in 2002. Rodrguez Ruiz, a

53
Era un mercado negro muy localizado. No era un fenmeno extendido.

65

researcher at the Cuban Institute of Anthropology in Havana, was one of the academics assigned
to this unpublished project. My interview with Rodrguez Ruiz was like most others I had
conducted. Despite his status as renowned anthropologist, it was very informal and frequently
interrupted by the busy Cuban social world. On this particular occasion, a painter friend of his,
Jose, stopped by to talk about a project they were collaborating on. Patiently, he witnessed a
large part of our interview, which was interrupted again as Rodrguez Ruiz got up to answer the
phone. Just as Rodrguez Ruiz left, Jose leaned in to me and said, We survive(d) thanks to the
black market.54
Jose perhaps unknowingly employed one of the verbs in Spanish whose preterit is the
same as present, appropriately alluding to the fact that buying and selling on the black market
continues to be a key survival strategy even today, over twenty years after the start of the crisis.
As Cuba moved out of the Special Period and into the Dual Economy, goods reappeared on the
market but in unregulated and unsubsidized world market prices. The CUC stores la shopping
became the only legal source of many important goods such as cheese, vinegar, tomato sauce,
and even toilet paper. Even goods still sold in CuP on the parallel market, such as eggs and meat,
are in elevated free-market prices, as explained earlier in this chapter. The black market is now
an incredibly prominent part of everyday life in Cuba for everyone, regardless of socio-economic
status or political beliefs.
The Special Period marked a great shift in the cultural and social imagining of the black
market. In History of Havana, Cluster and Hernndez illustrate this phenomenon with an
anecdote about interviewee Vernica Loynaz, who in spite of being a committed member of the
Communist Party found herself with no alternative but to buy food on the mushrooming black

54
Sobrevivimos gracias al mercado negro.

66

market (2006, 257). Nez Gonzlez explained that the situation got to a point where in terms
of everyday life, for the people, [participating in the black market] stopped being
reprehensible55 (interview).
She remembered when her brother-in-law was taken to jail in the 1990s after having been
caught stealing from the State deli where he was a butcher. Her daughter, a small child at the
time, asked if he was a criminal. Nez Gonzlez told me she didnt know how to answer. Its
very hard for me to judge someone because its about a situation of survival,56 she explained.
She remembers answering her daughter: I dont have access to that kind of resource. I dont
know if I worked in a deli, if I would have the morals to not bring home meat for you.57 She
then added, So who am I to judge someone?58
As Rodrguez Ruiz told me in our interview, the black market has not only an economic
implication, but also in the ethical readjustment of the people.59 When Nez Gonzlez
recounted the story about her daughter, she remarked that the crisis itself could be fixed through
means of production, but that the moral ramifications will last for a long time to come. The
border between the good and the bad was lost,60 she added.
In our very first tutoring session in January 2012, Nez Gonzlez described the different
sources of food access, as I have delineated in this chapter. When she explained the black
market, she said, its where you buy goods without knowing where they came from, but you

55
a nivel de vida cotidiana, para la gente, dej de ser repudiable.
56
a mi me resulta muy difcil juzgar a una persona porque se trata de una situacin de
sobrevivencia.
57
yo no tengo acceso a ese tipo de recurso yo no s si trabajando yo en una carnicera, tendra
la interesa moral para no llevarme carne para ti
58
Entonces, quien soy yo para juzgar a nadie?
59
Tiene implicacin no solo econmica, sino en el reajuste tico de las personas.
60
se perdi la frontera entra lo bueno y lo malo

67

dont care because they are cheaper than in the parallel market.61 Or oftentimes, as is the case
for milk or cheese, the black market constitutes the only alternative source for goods in la
shopping (CUC stores).
Nez Gonzlez admitted that she doesnt ask where the milk she buys on the black
market comes from:
Because I want my daughters to keep drinking milk, because it is part of [a basic diet].
So, as long as the seal isnt broken on the packaging, I buy it, not finding out where it
comes from. Because I need it.... Everybody does it. Because if your income doesnt
allow you to buy all of the products in the CUC store, you look for other ways. There are
strategies of all kinds.62
Her explanation illustrates the shift in the moral imagining of the black market since before the
Special Period. Nez Gonzlez even added that now, because of the need that he fills, the black
market vendor is someone highly esteemed.63
One evening in my apartment I asked my friend Alejandro about his negocios. He told
me that he works for an arts organization in Cuba that often receives funding and resources from
foreign organizations. His main negocio is siphoning some of the art supplies into the black
market. He explained that by doing so, he is both filling a need in the market for Cuban artists
and providing for his family. Very adamantly, he told me: thats not called stealing; thats
called luchar.64 He then proceeded to explain that no one lives solely off of a Cuban State
salary. The black market is not only an alternative source for many necessary foods, but also a
heavily utilized means of augmenting ones income and accessing hard currency, which in itself

61
donde compras los productos sin saber de dnde salieron, pero no te importa, porque son ms
baratos que en el mercado paralelo.
62
Porque yo quiero que mis hijas sigan tomando leche, porque es parte de una alimentacin
bsica. Entonces, siempre que el envase est sellado, yo lo compro, no averiguo de dnde sale.
Porque la necesito.Todo el mundo lo hace. Porque si tu ingreso no te permite comprar todos
tus productos en la tienda en divisas, t los buscas por otras vas. Hay estrategias de todo tipo.
63
una persona super estimada
64
eso no se llama robar; eso se llama luchar

68

is a strategy for creating greater food access. Because the black market is now a staple of
everyday life in Cuba something that everyone has relied or does rely upon just to get by
there is a tacit social and even political acceptance of it. Pablo Rodrguez Ruiz explained that
when the black market exploded with the Special Period, the government couldnt do anything.
It was an escape valve,65

Urban Agriculture and Autoabastecimiento (Self-Production)

In addition to the loss of steady sugar sales and aid from the Soviet Union in 1991, Cuba
also lost its source of agricultural inputs and machinery, as it had at the beginning of the
Revolution with the U.S. embargo (Cluster and Hernndez: 2006, 255). The authors of No Free
Lunch explain Cubas historical dependence on foreign inputs in terms of its own natural
endowment that is lacking in the fossil-based sources of energy upon which modern
agriculture has become dependent. No substantial oil or coal deposits have been found so far,
and there are few minerals for chemical fertilizers. There are few rivers suitable for hydroelectric
power and no inland water transport routes (Benjamin, Collins, and Scott: 1984, 7). In 1991,
Cuba found itself without the tools with which its modern agricultural sector had been founded.
With the help of foreign permaculturalists, Cuba made great strides toward reverting to a
traditional, low-input, organic form of agriculture that, in light of the oil and energy crisis,
emphasized urban and suburban farms for their proximity to the largest pools of consumers. The
government reorganized its agrarian sector into State-run cooperatives of farmers who are
required to sell a portion of their production to the State (Nez Gonzlez, interview). These
urban and suburban parcels contribute first to social consumption (i.e. the State cafeterias and
Family Centers described earlier in this chapter) then stock the State agromercados and puestos.

65
el gobierno no poda hacer nada. Era una vlvula de escape

69

Special Period scarcity also started a great wave of autoabastecimiento home selfsubsistence production. Mirrored by scarcity on the industrial level, individual households had to
invent new ways to deal with the disappearance of goods from the market. Nez Gonzlez
explained that outside of State-run urban agriculture operations, many people used their own
personal patios for production. According to Nez Gonzlez there is still a strong movement in
favor of planting on every piece of land possible.66 She told me that these themes are often
discussed on television, and the State created agricultural technical offices (consultorios tcnicos
agropecuarios) where she buys her seeds. An agronomist even comes to the house if she gets
pests.
Proponents of sustainability and organic farming outside of Cuba have long since greatly
romanticized this forced agricultural and social transition, as will be illustrated in the next
section. Absent from their discourse, however, is the importance of meat in the Cuban diet and
the effect it has had on urban agriculture. In traditional Cuban food culture, vegetables are
merely a table adornment, expendable next to the traditional plate of rice, beans, and, most
importantly, animal protein (i.e. red meat, chicken, egg, or fish). A Cuban does not feel that
he/she has eaten a real meal if some kind of animal protein was not included (Nez Gonzlez,
interview). Since the Special Period and the States promotion of urban agriculture, there has
been a rise in the consumption of vegetables, but it continues to remain unimportant to most
Cubans (Nez Gonzlez, interview).
The preference on a household level has largely been to raise animals. A neighbor told
me that during the worst years of the crisis, the State sold chicks for 1 CuP for Cubans to raise in
their backyards. Other friends and neighbors told me stories of having chickens on their patios

66
cada trozo de tierra que se pueda

70

during the Special Period. Nez Gonzlez, who lives on the outskirts of Havana, far from the
city center, and thus has a small backyard, remembers having not only chickens, but also ducks,
rabbits, a goat for milking, and pigs. Cluster and Hernndez in History of Havana write again of
the Loynaz family, who also devoted their yard to raising chickens, rabbits, and piglets, (2006,
257) during the crisis. The authors explain that the family acquired the animals from both
government stores and friends who traveled to the countryside to buy illegally from farmers.
Because many people living in the cities are cramped into Soviet-style apartments or
large homes that have been partitioned off for many families to share, many Cubans even went
so far as to illegally raise a pig in their bathtub during the crisis. So many, in fact, that according
to Emma Brewster, who conducted research on Cuban food culture in Havana in 2008,
veterinarians began specializing in an operation that cut the vocal cords of pigs to eliminate
squealing (14). Cluster and Hernndez write that those who didnt have yards, [used] porches
and makeshift window-boxes (2006, 257) to raise animals.
Comical reflections on this phenomenon the conflict between treating these animals as
pets or as food, as Cluster and Hernndez put it (2006, 257) are now common sources of
humor. One joke or true story told of the parents who named their chickens Breakfast,
Lunch, and Dinner so the children would not lose sight of the problems they were intended to
solve, Cluster and Hernndez write (2006, 257). In Cerrado por reparacin (closed for
repairs), Nancy Alonsos book of short fiction about families living the crisis, the story Csar
recounts the tale of a family living in a 5th floor apartment filled with plants, without a way to
satiate their carnivorous necessities67 (2002, 10). They decide to raise a pig, named Csar, in
the bathtub, like so many other families. Over the course of the story, each family member

67 saciar [sus] necesidades carnvoras.

71

becomes attached to Csar, and there is a pivotal moment at which he is about to be shipped off
to slaughter and is shuffled last minute back into the apartment by frantic family members. Csar
had converted himself into a member of the family and his owners instead went on eating
croquetas of potato and yucca, as if it were ham68 (15).
The less comical reality is that infrastructure for raising animals in the city was
inadequate and many animals died for lack of attention. Its not good, because it requires a lot
of hygiene and not everyone is that careful,69 anthropologist Estrella Gonzlez Noriega
explained (interview). She remembered the odious smell given off by pigs being raised by her
neighbors during the crisis. But during the Special Period, it was allowed. Those were very hard
years,70 she added, hinting to the widespread tacit acceptance of illegal activity created by
Special Period necessity.
As Cuba moved out of the Special Period and into the Dual Economy, and pork, imported
chicken, and other goods were newly available (albeit at much higher prices), self-subsistence
greatly declined. During my time in Havana, I met many other students who had come to study
Cuban agriculture. I had many conversations with them about our initial surprise that the
romanticized sustainable Cuba we had heard so much about did not translate to the reality we
were seeing. Wasnt everyone we knew supposed to have their own indoor garden? Where were
the rooftops and windowsills overcrowded with plants? Where were the supposedly food-secure
people, fed at their own hands and by the local, sustainable, organic urban farms supposedly
everywhere? We found no extensive indoor gardens, nor homes whose food security was
necessarily related the existence of urban gardens in their neighborhood.

68
croquetas de papa o de yuca, como si fueran de jamn
69
No es bueno, porque requiere mucha higiene y no todo el mundo es tan cuidadoso.
70
Pero durante el Periodo Especial se permiti. Fueron aos muy duros

72

The same people who recounted stories of Special Period backyard menageries now only
source the occasional plantain from their yards. Only one neighbor I talked to still had an animal
in her backyard a chicken that lays eggs but later is going into the pan.71 Nez Gonzlez
explained that now that the Special Period is over, he who grows on his patio is looking for
vegetables for health or taste or family tradition. Never would it be an option for lack of food.
One doesnt raise as many animals in the middle of the city anymore like in the 1990s. Today,
for he who grows on his patio its more than the necessity, the desire to have a certain product on
hand.72 Contrary to the popular romanticization of sustainable Cuba, the culture of producing
for oneself has dissipated with the absolute necessity of doing so, both on an individual and
State-wide level.

The romanticization and the reality

Sometime in February 2012, the group of 13 other students and I piled into a minibus and
were chaperoned to a seaside town on the western border of Havana, the furthest out of the city
we had been since arriving in Havana a few weeks before. The town was noticeably different
from Havana. The air seemed to flow more freely, unblocked by Havanas decaying metropolis,
and we could smell the ocean in the distance. The field trip had been arranged at the request of
one other student and myself. The program required that each student complete a semester-long
independent project, in addition to Cuban culture and Spanish language classes. My project,
originally on Cuban food culture, and his, on campesino [peasant farmer] culture led us out
of the city to see food production first hand.

71 ahorita va para la cazuela
72 El que siembra en su patio es que busca el vegetal por salud o gusto o tradicin familiar,
nunca sera opcin a la falta de comida. Ya no se cran tantos animales en plena ciudad como
en los 90. Hoy el que siembra en su patio es, ms que una necesidad, el deseo de tener
determinado producto a mano.

73

As with most things in Havana, it all began with a contact. We showed up at David
Gonzlez Lpezs house and, after a few good hours of food and chitchat, he led us on an
improvised tour of the towns thriving suburban agriculture. We meandered through the flat
suburb of modest, beach-style homes, passing its unhurried residents in the streets, until finally
coming to a rusted gate saved from the blazing sun by large overshadowing trees. There, an old,
sun-weathered farmer with dirt-worn clothes and mud-soaked boots ushered us through the gate.
As if stepping through the wardrobe into Narnia, we were suddenly in a different world, out of
the suburbs and on a tree-shrouded path. Coffee plants, palm trees, avocado trees, and mango
trees were interspersed with other tropical plants I had never seen before. As he led us to a
clearing around a fire pit and shed, we could catch glimpses through the trees of small fields,
some with rows of sugarcane and others with vegetables.

A mango growing on Carlos and Danias farm. Photo taken by a student on the Hampshire in
Havana study abroad program, Spring 2012.

74

There the farmer introduced himself and his wife, who was working in the shed, as
Carlos and Dania. As we gathered around on makeshift chairs and Dania tended the fire, Carlos
unraveled the history of urban agriculture in Cuba. Like many of the stories the group had
already heard from tutors and interviewees, Carlos began with the Special Period, stating that a
very difficult situation emerged when Cuba lost 80-85% of its international commerce in 1991.
He then recounted a much more epic tale:
We were left practically without external trade. It was necessary to take internal
measures Thousands of families dedicated themselves to farm work, giving rise to this
movement that is known as urban agriculture [Urban agriculture] was a necessity that
presented itself. On all patios where it was possible to plant PLANT. To bring
production closer to the city, to the people. [Urban agriculture] surfaced as a necessity for
national security, for salvation. Left without trade, the North American [U.S.]
government worsened the embargo, which now is an economic war against Cuba. They
chase all over the world after Cubas assets all the companies that trade with Cuba are
fined. Its not an embargo; its an economic war against Cuba. This is where the
necessity to work the land came from.73
Urban agriculture was created to resolve our food problems,74 he explained.
The other student and I feverishly took notes while the rest of our class was lulled into a
sleepy silence by the heat. Everyone jolted back awake when Carlos led us on a tour of the rows
of malanga, yucca and other common root vegetables fenced in by several varieties of lemon and
mango trees, as well as coffee bushes and a field of sugarcane stalks. The grand finale was the

73 Nos quedamos prcticamente sin comercio exterior. Fue necesario tomar las medidas
internamente en el pas miles de familias se dedicaron al trabajo del campo. Y surge este
movimiento, es lo que se conoce como agricultura urbana... [La agricultura urbana] fue una
necesidad que se present. Para todos los patios donde era posible sembrar, SEMBRAR. Acercar
la produccin a la ciudad, al pueblo. Y ha surto como una necesidad de seguridad nacional, de
salvacin. A quedarnos sin comercio, el gobierno norteamericano arreci el bloqueo, que ya le
convirti como una guerra econmica contra Cuba, que persiguen por todas partes del mundo los
activos de cuba, todas las empresas que comercian con cuba son multadas no es bloqueo, es
guerra econmica contra Cuba. es aqu donde vino la necesidad de trabajar la tierra.
74 resolver nuestros problemas de alimentarios.

75

vermiculture (worm) composting system. Finally, we were each awarded our own fresh coconut,
which Carloss chopped open with his machete.
Carlos and Dania explained that they were among the founders of urban agriculture 21
years prior at the start of the Special Period. They both came from rural, coffee and sugar
producing families, and once retired, came to the city to be part of this movement. They
explained that said movement took off with a series of Campesino a Campesino (farmer to
farmer) interchanges, part of a greater global movement fueled by La Via Campesina and other
activist groups promoting sustainable agriculture and food sovereignty worldwide. They listed
long visits and workshops with farming groups from countries such as Mexico and Panama, as
well as six months working closely with an Australian permaculture expert. Studying food policy
before traveling to Cuba, I had come across a lot of literature glorifying the Island that, stripped
of its chemical inputs and source of imports, returned to traditional, organic agricultural systems
to feed its people and become a food self-reliant nation. As it turns out, many of those
researchers, such as the authors of Sustainable Agriculture and Resistance: Transforming Food
Production in Cuba, visited Carlos farm. Carlos and Dania even appear in a 1997 documentary
by Jaime McKibben called The Greening of Cuba: Verde Que Te Quiero Verde.
At Carlos and Danias invitation, the other student and I returned to the farm a handful of
times throughout the semester after that initial visit with our class. Upon arrival they always
offered us coffee before splitting off; the other student and Carlos headed to the farm to do farm
labor while Dania and I prepared lunch at the house. I came to understand that this is a typical
division of labor for the couple. Carlos is primarily responsible for the farm, whereas Dania also
contributes to farm work and takes part in the aforementioned skill trades with other farmers, but
is in charge of preparing meals for Carlos, herself, and any visitors. When lunch was ready, we

76

loaded all of the food into Danias pushcart and walked to the farm a mile away. After helping
ourselves to generous servings of arroz congr and farm fresh vegetables, the other student and I
whipped out our digital recorders to start the interviews while Dania prepared coffee on the open
fire.
Each time the other student and I came to visit, Carlos spoke to us very much the same as
he did on our very first visit with the class. His very practiced and manicured discourse mirrored
both the romanticized ideology of the international sustainability groups who had come to visit
the farm in the 1990s, as well as a typical revolutionary discourse I often heard from
interviewees when they defended the gains of the Revolution. Dania, however, otherwise quiet
during the interviews, occasionally interjected with comments that reflected more the reality of
the current food situation in Cuba. Carlos went on long patriotic lectures about the heroism and
stoicism of the Cuban people for 50 years being loyal to the cause for our independence,
without compromising on principle and keeping ourselves defending the independence, which is
the most sacred thing that a people has being independent75; whereas Dania complained about
the outrageous prices of cooking oil and milk and how the libreta wasnt enough.
While the information that Carlos imparted to us and the plethora of research on
sustainable Cuba and its organic transition that supports it is truthful Cubas agriculture
sector did undergo the largest conversion to organic farming ever attempted (Food First
website), their discourse doesnt reflect the current reality on the Island. At the farmers
markets in 2012, I was hard pressed to find organic produce among the gas-ripened tomatoes and
chemical-injected bananas. While the social campaigns that Nez Gonzlez described continue

75 En eso, el pueblo cubano ha sido heroico, estoico, en resistirse 50 aos siendo fiel a la causa
de nuestra independencia. Sin ceder en principio y mantenerse defendiendo la independencia,
que es lo ms sagrado que tiene un pueblo ser independiente.

77

to promote household production and the government has started to turn over fallow land to
private farmers and reduce the sugarcane cultivation (UN World Food Programme, 2013), Cuba
has largely reverted back to a food system made up of chemical-heavy domestic production
supplemented by huge amounts of imports thanks to a new source of hard currency through
international tourism and trade with Venezuela and China. Since 2001, Cubas agricultural sector
output has declined, and more than 80% of all food consumed in Cuba is imported
(EconomyWatch, 2010; UN World Food Programme, 2013). In short, the Special Period did
awaken Cuba to the necessity of becoming more self-sufficient, but the reforms undertaken have
yet to overcome the reality that is largely a product of centuries of foreign-dependent systems.

Redes Sociales (Social Networks)

Theres also el cubaneo (the Cuban way), Nez Gonzlez told me in our first
tutoring session as we went over the different food sources in Cuba. As illustrated by Gonzlez
Lpezs story in the introduction, friends, family, and neighbors generally maintain very close
relationships in which is it normal to assume some level of responsibility for each others well
being. Social networks were fundamental [during the Special Period],76 Gonzlez Noriega told
me, explaining that she used to get goods from her family in the countryside (interview). Social
networks function as social capital,77 and create an additional source of survival support,78
Nez Gonzlez explained (interview).
Nez Gonzlez elaborated on the importance of family as a potential source of food
access, stating that if there is a family member in a more comfortable position, from there

76
Fueron fundamentales las redes sociales.
77
Las redes sociales funcionaron como capital social
78
apoyo de sobrevivencia

78

comes more food and other basic needs79 for the rest of the family. She told me that I need to
keep these social networks in mind, because in Cuba, there are people who dont work, who
dont have a stable income, but have family and are not in need.80 One neighbor told me of two
homeless people to whom she always gives whatever she can spare, even if its only 5CuP, she
said. During the cold time of the year, she makes them a strong soup. This same neighbor also
often brings milk, coffee, beans, plantains, cheese, and other goods to her less fortunate sister in
a province two hours away.
Neighbors and friends often provide for each other in the same way as family. Nez
Gonzlez remembered that when she was a student, a neighbor would send her food in the
evening so that she didnt have to cook. After telling me the story of his neighbor and the bowl
of soup, Gonzlez Lpezs said that he always shares the plantains in his backyard with his
neighbors instead of selling them. Beyond providing for friends, neighbors, and family, it is a
common custom for Cubans to also greet unexpected company with a cup of coffee and a plate
of food at a moments notice. From this stems the popular Cuban aphorism: He who has a
friend has a sugar mill.81

Overview of Expenditures
Table 2 represents typical monthly household expenses for a family of four based off of
one interviewees personal estimates. As reflected in the table, the food sourced from the ration
card and social consumption (i.e. school snacks/lunches) (54 CuP) accounts for barely over 3%
of total monthly food expenses (1,669 CuP). An approximate additional 1,615CuP, or

79
Si hay un familiar en posicin ms cmoda, por ah entra ms alimentacin y otros productos
de primera necesidad.
80
Tienes que tener en cuenta esa red, porque en Cuba hay gente que no trabaja, no tienen
ingreso estable, pero tienen familia y no les hace falta.
81
El que tiene un amigo tiene un central.

79

67.29CUC, is spent each month on food. By far, the biggest food expenses are fruits, vegetables,
and meat.

Table 2. Typical monthly household expenses for a family of four in 2013

With the calculation of estimated additional monthly costs, including utilities,

transportation, toiletries, and household supplies (i.e. dish soap), an additional 937Cup (about
39CUC) is needed. Other common expenses not reflected in these calculations are rum, coffee,
milk, and clothing, usually sourced either from CUC stores (la shopping) or the black market.
The family whose data was used for the table above is comprised of two parents, both
employed professionals earning among the highest State salaries, an equivalent of about 30CUC
each. The lowest State salary amounts to an equivalent of about 10CUC. Assuming that the table
here accurately reflects approximate typical monthly costs for a family of four, each Cuban

80

family must find a way to negotiate access to an additional estimated 45-95CUC of goods each
month to cover basic needs.
Cost, availability, and sometimes quality influence Cubans to follow a certain purchasing
hierarchy, at the foundation of which is the ration card, which is then supplemented by other
price-controlled avenues (i.e. State agromercados and puestos), the parallel market, the black
market, private agromercados (farmers markets), and la shopping (typically a last resort.)
Inherently out of line with socialisms egalitarian ideology, the combination of strategies
and sources Cubans use to fill the needs outlined above vary dramatically, dependent on factors
that will be outlined in the next chapter.

81

Ch. 4 Inequality: Pre-Revolution Dja-Vu ?

There are strategies that depend on your own sweat, and there are strategies that depend on the
sweat of others.82 Nez Gonzlez
It was the night of Tanias birthday. She was somewhere in her late thirties, but like most
Cubans, Tania has deceptively youthful skin, energy, and spirit that make it easy for any stranger
to be ten years off the mark. My closest friend in Havana, Cristina, had invited Tania to go out
with us. I wanted to go dancing and we had heard of an event nearby that was going to be free
for ladies and 3CUC for men. These prices, reasonable in comparison with the usual 5-10CUC
cover charge in most clubs in Havana, made it so that going out dancing with my Cuban friends
was for once a possibility. We were not going to have to face the customary, awkward moment
in which I had to decide whether I could afford to pay for both myself and others; nor did
whomever I was with have to decide whether to accept my invitation or abstain from the
activities. Tania, who had saved up enough to buy a couple bottles of rum but not enough to pay
the usual cover at a club, was excited to be able to go out and celebrate this year. Tania, her
husband, cousin, cousins boyfriend, Cristina, another American girl studying in Havana, myself,
and another close Cuban friend, Alejandro embarked the two-mile walk down to the club.
We had heard that it was going to be electronic music. None of us were particularly
thrilled, but wed take what we could get. We arrived at the old mansion-turned-disco and piled
into the entryway, only to discover that Cristina and I had heard wrong; there was actually going
to be a 2CUC cover for ladies. Tania accepted the news with sad eyes and, to my surprise,
immediately began giving us all her farewells. But wait, where are you going? I asked,

82 Hay estrategias que dependen de sudor propio, y hay estrategias que dependen de sudor
ajeno.

82

somewhat perplexed that she would let what seemed to me like such a minor setback stand
between her and her birthday celebration. Were just going to go drink on the Malecn, she
replied, referring to the nearby seawall to which other Cubans without CUC flocked on the
weekends. Wait! Are you kidding? You have two foreigners here with you! I exclaimed,
making an attempt at a little humor and pleading with her to stay. And a rich Cuban! Alejandro
interjected, pulling out a few CUC bills that his negocios had earned him that week. And a rich
Cuban! I repeated to Tania with a laugh. She smiled and eventually accepted with a little more
convincing. We shuffled ourselves back into the club and with a little help from Tanias birthday
rum, danced the night away with the mix of other foreigners and Cubans who had somehow
found their own way in.

Tourist Apartheid
As I briefly mentioned in the first chapter, the creation of the Dual Economy divided
Cuba into two worlds: one that operates on hard currency and another in CuP. Before the
circulation of hard currency spread widely within Cuba, the string of restaurants, hotels,
nightclubs, and almost entire cities (as is the case for tourist hotspots like the beach town of
Varadero) were off limits to Cubans by both an economic bar and an unwritten rule that Cuban
doormen and hotel employees enforced. There was never a law that prohibited Cubans from
buying themselves a hotel room, but they werent even allowed to enter the hotel,83 Nez
Gonzlez remembered. In the first years of the crisis when the country first re-opened itself to
international tourism, these tourists increasingly monopolized the few nightlife venues that were
able to stay open, as Cluster and Hernndez write (2006, 259). Such tourist apartheid hadnt
been seen in Cuba since before the Revolution, making the years of lean cows especially

83
Por ejemplo aqu nunca hubo una ley escrita que prohibiera a los cubanos pagarse un hotel
pero no se poda ni entrar al hotel.

83

bitter in a city all of whose people had grown used to having access to these particular
playgrounds (Cluster and Hernndez: 2006, 259). Nez Gonzlez remembers being frustrated
by this in 1993, when she wanted to treat a French student of hers to dinner. The restaurant that
normally charged in CuP insisted that they pay in dollars, making it so that the student inevitably
had to pay for both of them instead of the other way around. It wasnt written anywhere, but it
was madness,84 Nez Gonzlez commented.

Cubas Nouveau Riche

It changed in 2009, Nez Gonzlez explained, because there is now enough CUC in
circulation among Cubans that CUC establishments were losing out on a frontier market.85 She
added that low tourist season in the summer months, when the heat is insufferable even for
Cubans, coincides with Cuban work and school vacations. Even though the hard currency world
is officially open to Cubans now, most Cubans still face a huge economic barrier, as illustrated
by Tanias story. Nez Gonzlezs youngest daughter turned fifteen last year. For her
quinceaera celebration (much like the sweet sixteen in the United States), her daughter
wanted to go to the beach for a week, so Nez Gonzlez had to save up for years in order to pay
30CUC a night. And I didnt do it because I could, but rather because her dad was working in
Angola and he sent money. Because otherwise, she wouldnt have even made it to the corner,86
she added.
However, as illustrated in Tanias story, seeing other Cubans in the plethora of Havana
bars, restaurants, and shopping centers that only serve in CUC was not a rare occurrence. In fact,
during my time in Havana it seemed to me that many of those establishments were primarily

84
Eso no estaba escrito en ningn lugar pero era una locura.
85
perdiendo un mercado en frontera.
86
y no lo hice porque pudiera, sino porque su pap estuvo trabajando en Angola y mand
dinero porque si no, no va ni a la esquina.

84

filled with Cubans. This was reflected in the consistently long lines at the Cadeca. Cadecas
currency stands opened up all over the country, primarily in tourist locations and next to the
largest of the private agromercados (farmers markets) so the remittances could be changed in
Cuban pesos [CuP] to buy vegetables and meat (Cluster and Hernndez: 2006, 262).
On any given day, walking by the private farmers market on the corner of 19th and B in
the posh Vedado neighborhood, the line at the Cadeca consistently extended to 20 or so people,
mostly Cubans and the handful of other foreign students residing in the neighborhood. Not only
does the Cadeca serve as a place to buy CUC with CuP for a bottle of oil (only available in la
shopping for 2.50CUC or 60 traded CuP), it is also where those who work in the tourism
industry, have family abroad, or have some kind of other negocio go to change their CUC for
CuP. Despite the necessity of the dollar for the goods only sold in la shopping, the CuP is the
currency for the web of goods and services that still exist for Cubans, ranging from day spas to a
perpetual array of cultural events and performances. However, even many goods still priced in
CuP (such as on the parallel market or at the farmers market) are so expensive that it is not
uncommon to see CUC bills handed over to vendors (who dont seem to have any trouble
making change).
So who exactly are these Cubans trading their CUC for CuP at the Cadecas and
populating the night clubs and restaurants without needing a tourist to escort them? Many of
them have friends or family sending remittances from abroad. Nez Gonzlez pointed out that
even if they only send $20 a month, that is almost 500CuP. Thats a salary87 (interview). In the
same conversation, she also talked about how those who work in the tourism industry the

87 Aunque solo manden US$ 20 mensuales, son casi Cup 500, es un salario.

85

doorman at a hotel, a waiter in a restaurant, a hotel worker 88 are usually paid in CUC and thus
in a better socioeconomic position. Beyond remittances and official work in the tourism sector,
one neighbor pointed out that, Old Havana is privileged: they have special attention from the
Historian of Havana, referring to the office of the Historian of the City which, according to
Cluster and Hernndez, has been given unprecedented resources and authority to revamp the
historic downtown district since the priority granted to tourism in the 1990s (2006, 264).
They have interaction with tourists. Old Havana is like the Vatican and the rest of Havana is
like Italy,89 the neighbor continued. Many of those who live in Old Havana have seen their
homes (or at least the faades of their homes) renovated by the City. Also, with the presence of
tourists, those in Old Havana are physically closer to the highest concentrations of CUC in
circulation and can choose how to make use of that proximity with the strategies described in
Chapter 2. Those who have access to CUC through family abroad or a well-located house, for
example, are also more likely to have access to start-up capital for mounting a negocio (business)
and becoming a cuentapropista (private business owner), contributing to the widening income
gap in the Post-Soviet era. Not everyone has the conditions to own their own business. For that,
you have to have certain conditions,90 as Nez Gonzlez put it.

Unequal Food Access

After her birthday celebration, Tania and I became close and spent time together on many
other occasions throughout the semester. The day before I left Havana, she stopped by my house
to say goodbye. She had told me days before that there was something important she wanted to

88 el portero de un hotel, camarero de un hotel, un obrero
89
La Habana Vieja es privilegiada: tienen atencin especial del Historiador de La Habana, tienen
interaccin con los turistas. La Habana Vieja es como el Vaticano, y el resto de La Habana es
como Italia.
90
No todo el mundo tiene condiciones para hacer trabajo por cuenta propia. Para eso t tienes
que tener determinadas condiciones.

86

talk to me about. We sat on the couch in my apartment and she began telling me a little bit about
her situation. She asked me if I remembered all of the delicious food she cooked for the
Thanksgiving party some other American students and I held for our Cuban friends two weeks
prior. I had given her money to buy groceries and cook. I asked her how I could ever forget; the
food she had made was so delicious! She told me in an unusually serious voice that before the
feast, she and her husband had only consumed sugar water for the last 72 hours. I was shocked.
So you can imagine how we felt at the party, she continued. She repeated what I had already
heard many times: the libreta isnt enough for anyone to live off of. She explained that she has a
Canadian friend who sometimes sends her a small care package with 60 Canadian dollars hidden
inside, but that she and her husband dont have any other access to the necessary hard currency
to get by. That was what she wanted to talk to me about. She began listing off her skills. I can
cook. I can dance, she began. She topped off the long impromptu list by pointing out that even
if she cant do it, she has all the connections to easily find someone who can. I was still confused
as to what my role could be as someone about to leave Cuba. She then started talking about the
many organizations in the U.S. that now have licenses to take people-to-people educational trips
to Cuba, and suggested that we could start one up together and split the profits. I told her that I
would see what I could do, but that I am still a student for now. She mentioned that in the mean
time, she planned on selling empanadas to one of the many cafeterias CuP restaurants run out
of homes, thickly populating most neighborhoods in Havana for Cubans on the go or on their
lunch break. She would sell each empanada for 1CuP to the cafeteria where they would be sold
at 3CuP each.
Anthropologist Estrella Gonzlez Noriega explained that the libreta unifies access to
nutrition, but today its turning into a situation in which there are differences in consumption.

87

The libreta that today is depressed used to be very extensive and was equal for the whole
country,91 she remembered. The neighbor who now runs her own florist business out of her
home told me in an interview, We dont live off of what comes in the rationing card. It doesnt
last more than 15 days. Today its easier for the people who have two jobs.92
Because the libreta no longer offers a sufficient supply of food to last the whole month
and the goods outside of the libreta are no longer affordable with the State salary, consumption
(and therefore survival) are now determined by an individuals negotiation of access to an
additional source of income. As Cluster and Hernndez explain, in contrast with the generalized
shortages affecting the whole country in the first decade of the Revolution which simply
distributed nothing among all, in the Post-Soviet era, [CUC] stores and a thriving black
market constitute an escape valve for those who are capable of negotiating access to it (2006,
240).
In their chapter The Farmers Market: A Dash of Capitalism, the authors of No Free
Lunch briefly touch on the issue of inequality in food access as it existed in the early 1980s.
They noted that families of lower incomes could usually only purchase extra rice and beans
when [their] ration was running out and root crops to serve as fillers; whereas others with
higher incomes could additionally afford garlic, onions, and some fresh produce like tomatoes,
avocados as well as meat (1984, 65). They write that the private agromercados allowed for a
greater variety in the diets of those who could afford the elevated prices regulated by supply and
demand. They admit, there is no reliable information on the percentage of households that could

91 La libreta de abastecimientos unifica el acceso al alimento. Hoy se vuelve a una situacin en la
que hay diferencias de consumo. La libreta, que hoy est deprimida, era antes muy amplia, y
era igual para todo el pas.
92 No vivimos con lo que dan en la bodega, no alcanza ms de 15 das.
Hoy es ms fcil para las personas que tienen dos trabajos.

88

afford to make [purchases at the market at least once a month] since income distribution data in
Cuba is a closely guarded secret, but at the time, estimates from Cuban officials and the U.N.
Food and Agriculture Organization ranged from 50 80% (1984, 65).
As explained in Chapter 1, the private farmers markets were shut down after only a few
years because of participants capitalist tendencies and, as the authors of No Free Lunch
illustrate in their chapter, the visibility of the social differentiation the markets caused. They
elaborated on this, noting that during the two decades of the Revolution prior to the opening of
the markets in the early 1980s, Cubans saw themselves as part of an egalitarian society in which
the essentials were to be equitably shared. This increasing differentiation among people was a
significant departure, resented by some (1984, 65).
The reopening of the markets in 1994 had similar ramifications as their brief existence
did in the 1980s; they are now one of the many avenues through which socio-economic
inequality is visible in the Post-Soviet era. Although I was not able to undertake comprehensive
quantitative anthropological research during my time in Havana, I did see patterns in
consumption that were manifestations of these inequalities. Cristina, mentioned earlier in the
chapter, is from a predominantly black and poor working class neighborhood on the very edge of
Havana city limits. Many of her friends from her time at the University of Havana lived in my
neighborhood, however, so she would often spend days at a time with us to avoid the long
commute. Both with theses to work on, we spent many quiet evenings together in my apartment.
I could tell that Cristinas favorite part of those evenings was always when 7:30pm rolled around
and I brought up the dinner my host family had prepared for me downstairs. Years of bussing
tables back home came in handy as I climbed the marble staircase with several plates in hand.
Arriving upstairs, Cristinas eyes would light up at the sight of the rice and beans piled next to

89

chicken, fish, or croquetas (breaded mystery meat nuggets), and her favorite of all the plate
full of colorful, seasonal vegetables fresh from the farmers market on 19 and B, drizzled with
olive oil my host family brought home from Spain, lime juice, and salt. Cristina, the only Cuban
vegetarian I have ever met, is tired of settling for just rice and beans while sufficient amounts of
fresh fruits vegetables remain prohibitively expensive for her, assuring me that this is in spite of
the fact that she makes what is considered a good salary. As Cristina started on the plate of rice
and beans, she stopped and realized out loud, Wow, this rice doesnt taste like rice from the
libreta. Shaking her head, she suddenly exclaimed, Wow, your host family even buys rice
from la shopping?!

Racial Inequality
Sarah A. Blue, in her 2007 article The Erosion of Racial Equality in the Context of
Cubas Dual Economy, argues that social differentiation between those who have access to
hard currency and those who do not has gradually eroded many of the gains of the Cuban
Revolution, which had tended to minimize social difference in Cuban society (1). The
equalizing forces of the reforms of the Revolution are no longer effective with Cubas
integration into the neoliberal world economy (1). The crisis and subsequent economic reforms
exacerbated the social inequalities that the egalitarian reforms of the Revolution had masked and
assuaged for several decades.
Roberto Zurbano, editor at the Casa de Las Americas publishing house in Havana wrote
an op-ed in March 2013 entitled For Blacks in Cuba, the Revolution Hasnt Begun. About the
economic reforms undertaken in the Post-Soviet era, he writes: the reality is that in Cuba, your
experience of these changes depends on your skin color. The private sector in Cuba now enjoys a
certain degree of economic liberation, but blacks are not well positioned to take advantage of it.

90

He cites the more than three centuries of slavery and the continuation of racial exclusion after
the abolition of slavery in the late 1800s and independence in 1902. A half century of revolution
since 1959 has been unable to overcome it, he argues (2013). Anthropologist Pablo Rodrguez
Ruiz confirms this in his 2011 work Los Marginales de las Alturas del Mirador: Un Estudio de
Caso (The marginalized of Las Alturas del Mirador: A Case Study): in the midst of the
crisis and the resulting economic adjustment measures, spaces were being configured that
marked inequalities: sectors of the population that saw the situation get worse, often starting
from positions already precarious, while others managed to situate themselves advantageously
and thus began to change their consumption patterns and behavior93 (7).
Before the Revolution, Blacks and mulattoes, who numbered at least one-third of the
population, were among the poorest, the authors of No Free Lunch explain (4). The reforms of
the Revolution had, by the end of the 1960s, made a complete sweep across the Island, and food
security, healthcare, and education became a reality for the entire population. Reforms were not
made specifically to address structural racial inequalities, but rather the general egalitarian
reforms that were undertaken by nature most benefitted marginalized blacks who experienced the
greatest leap in standard of living and opportunities. The 1980s produced a generation of black
professionals, like doctors and teachers, Zurbano confirms (2013).
In the name of equality, the actual recognition of racial difference was itself outlawed,
and to question the extent of racial progress was tantamount to a counterrevolutionary act,
writes Zurbano. This made it impossible to confront lasting societal manifestations of racism that

93
en medio de la crisis y las consecuentes medidas de ajuste econmico, se estaban
configurando espacios que marcaban desigualdades contrastantes: sectores de poblacin que
vieron empeorar la situacin, en muchas ocasiones desde posiciones de partida ya precarias,
mientras otros lograban situarse ventajosamente y en consecuencia comenzaban a cambiar sus
pautas de consumo y comportamiento.

91

continued to exist despite official desegregation. Because the reforms of the Revolution did not
address racial justice specifically through affirmative action measures, for example, many
manifestations of structural and societal racism continued to live through the Revolution.
Although generally in significantly improved conditions compared to before the Revolution,
black Cubans suffered a paralysis of economic mobility, which became apparent during the
crisis (Zurbano, 2013). As Zurbano writes: Now in the 21st century, it has become all too
apparent that the black population is underrepresented at universities and in spheres of economic
and political power, and overrepresented in the underground economy, in the criminal sphere and
in marginal neighborhoods (2013).
When the dollar was legalized in the first years of the Special Period, suddenly those who
had family abroad were able to receive remittances. This created a barrier to access for black
Cubans, who historically have left the Island in much lower numbers and, even once outside of
the Island, often have a harder time than their white counterparts amassing wealth to send home.
Those who left in large waves at the beginning of the Revolution and established lives (and
riches) outside of Cuba were the Cuban upper-middle class and sugar elite whose assets were
most threatened and had the most to lose under Castros reforms. In History of Havana, Cluster
and Hernndez confirm that In a space of barely four years, Havana was abandoned by its elite
and invaded by the poor people of the countryside (2006, 224). As Zurbano writes, Most
remittances from abroad mainly the Miami area, the nerve center of the mostly white exile
community go to white Cubans. They tend to live in more upscale houses, which can easily
be converted into restaurants or bed-and-breakfasts the most common kind of private business
in Cuba. The lack of family abroad for blacks and all unfortunate Cubans who dont receive
remittances creates another great barrier to access: the lack of start up capital to establish

92

businesses such as paladares (restaurants run out of homes for tourists and the Cuban nouveau
riche).
Much like in the United States, black Cubans have, because of their historic
marginalization, long since been victim to self-perpetuating stereotypes as criminals. For this
reason, in addition to not generally having access to start up capital for CUC-earning projects,
like their white counterparts with family in Miami, black Cubans are also generally excluded
from job opportunities in the tourism industry. Of the explosion of tourism in the 1990s, Cluster
and Hernndez write: The foreign business sector, however, was unknown territory to most of
the citys residents. Among habaneros of color, the feeling was common that in this sector old
patterns of racial discrimination had reared their head (2006, 259). Thus, many have been
forced to perpetuate the stereotype and turn to illegal means of accessing hard currency. The
most frequently employed strategy among black Cubans is jineterismo (hustling or prostitution,
as explained in Chapter 2), a market fueled by the exotification by white foreigners, conscious or
otherwise. Explaining this disproportionate number of blacks taking part in jineterismo, Cluster
and Hernndez write: With relatively fewer relatives abroad and less presence in the well-paid
posts in tourist hotels administered by foreign firms, black Havanans did not so much try to
escape the city as to find new niches which would permit them to advance (2006, 271-272).
Because black Cubans are generally barred from official positions in the tourism industry
and often are forced instead to fill the demand for jineterismo, they are most frequently targeted
by police. The first time I witnessed this, I was walking towards the waterfront in the Vedado
neighborhood on a weekend evening. I was with three male Cuban friends, Jordy (white),
Samuel (black) and Pablo (black). We were stopped by the police, who asked us for our
identification. Samuel and Pablo obliged, and when they got to me I said that I left my passport

93

at home. They assumed Jordy standing next to me was also a tourist and asked for name instead
of passport. Just before Jordy could open his mouth, Samuel chimed in with his best possible
Americanization of Jordys name. The officer didnt think anything of it and just asked Samuel
and Pablo to come with him to the cop car, where they remained for several minutes. When they
finally returned and the cop car drove away, they revealed that Jordy didnt have his ID on him,
grounds for detainment in Cuba, and Samuel knew that the moment Jordy opened his mouth,
theyd realize he wasnt a tourist. I asked why we were stopped, and they explained that the cops
assumed they were jineteros, hustling Jordy and me. The police ran their ID numbers at the car
to check for other offenses. This was only the first of many similar occasions.
Yes, there is racism, without a doubt, Nez Gonzlez asserted in one of our meetings.
She continued:
What happens? It was thought, with the triumph of the Revolution, that all of its politics
of equality were going to kill racism by nature of creating equal opportunities. It wasnt
taken into account that at the starting line, they werent all even. Black people were
always in the worst condition. When the Revolution triumphed, blacks were concentrated
in the worst neighborhoods, the worst conditions. If the starting line isnt the same, even
if you give the opportunities, some are left behind; they dont arrive evenly at the finish
line.94
Nez Gonzlez explained that with the crisis in the 1990s, this started to become visible,95
She gave a personal example:
I lived in this neighborhood, in this house. My house went out to there. I had a daughter.
I had only one room. There wasnt a problem. But I had another daughter, so I built this
room and I create[d] conditions. But if now my daughter has children, and doesnt have
anywhere to live (the housing problem is serious), I have a patio. I could build more. In

94
S, racismo hay, sin duda. Qu pasa? Se pens, con el triunfo de la Revolucin, que todas
sus polticas de igualdad iban a matar casi de muerte natural al racismo al crear igualdad de
oportunidades. No se tuvo en cuenta que en la lnea de arrancada no estaban todos parejos. El
negro siempre estuvo en la peor condicin. Al triunfo de la Revolucin, el negro se concentraba
en los peores barrios, los de peores condiciones. Si el punto de arrancada no es el mismo, aunque
t pongas las oportunidades, alguno sali de ms atrs, no llegan parejos a la meta.
95
Con la crisis de los 90, esto se ech a ver.

94

the poor neighborhoods, the houses dont have patios to spread out. The family grows,
the conditions get worse.96
The crisis broke the social safety nets that provided equal access to goods for Cubans.
Even though a bare minimum still exists today, it is still a struggle for survival for those who
have not negotiated access to greater income.
In Lea Ashkenas autobiographical novel, she recounts her first visit to her friend
Liudmilas house, a black woman who works a State job as an accountant at the University of
Havana. Ashkenas is invited to stay for dinner, though Liudmila expressed her concern that they
didnt have any meat. Ashkenas replied that she is a vegetarian. Liudmilas mother commented,
We dont have many of those here Cubans like their meat. Liudmila interjected, But now
we are like vegetarians We eat eggs, but never meat. Its just too expensive. Liudmilas
grandmother then cut in, Times are difficult Although, of course, they were more difficult for
our people before the Revolution. She then pinched her skin, a Cuban gesture denoting skin
color (2000, 36). Unequal food access in the Post-Soviet area is reminiscent of the inequalities in
pre-Revolution Cuba, when those with enough money could reportedly eat as well as anyone in
the United States or Western Europe, while poor (predominantly black) families spent over twothirds of their income on food and were still unable to afford or access meat or eggs regularly
(Benjamin, Collins, and Scott: 1984, 1-3).

96
Yo viva en este barrio, en esta casa. Mi casa llegaba hasta ah. Tuve una hija, tena un solo
cuarto, no haba problema. Pero tuve otra hija, entonces constru esta habitacin y creo
condiciones. Pero si ahora mi hija tiene hijos, y no tiene dnde vivir (el problema de la vivienda
es serio), tengo un patio, podra construir ms.
En los barrios pobres las casas no tienen patio para ampliarse. La familia crece, las condiciones
empeoran."

95

Cuba turned towards tourism and the global economy as a way to lift itself out of the
crisis in the 1990s. Cluster and Hernndez write that, thanks to these economic reforms, in the
second half of the 1990s and first years of the new century By and large, habaneros gained
back some of their lost weight (2006, 262). However, the very measures that helped lift Cuba
out of the Special Period have also contributed to the resurfacing of great social inequalities and
resulting socio-economic disparities reminiscent of Cuba before the Revolution. As Cluster and
Hernndez write,
A light grew visible at the end of the long, dark tunnel, but everyone emerged into a very
different place than the one from which they had entered a decade before. What
protection the tunnel had offered them had been distributed unequally, which became
markedly visible when they came out. Some now had children abroad, while others had
retired from old jobs and taken new ones. A good many had better salaries, sometimes
double, and some (such as doctors, teachers, sports instructors, and artists) now counted
on regular stints working in other countries of either the First or Third World, with
modest hard-currency salaries to subsidize their Havana lives (2006, 271).
In the Post-Soviet era, many aspects of everyday life remain a hardship in Cuba, even after the
new economic reforms have revamped the economy, but the brunt of the struggle is now bared
unevenly. Today, those who receive remittances from abroad, who work in the emergent sector,
or have otherwise negotiated access to the CUC, have effectively moved out of the Special
Period in that they are no longer luchando for survival, whereas others still struggle to secure
basic necessities day-to-day. I am sure that there isnt a person whom the introduction of the
dollar [into the Cuban economy] bothered more than Fidel Castro; because he knew the
difference it was going to create,97 Gonzlez Lpez assured me that afternoon in his kitchen.

97
Yo estoy seguro que no hay una persona a la que le molestara ms que a Fidel Castro la
introduccin del dlar; porque saba la diferencia que se iba a crear

96

Conclusion
Everyone in Cuba has to, in one way or another, luchar, resolver, and inventar to negotiate
access to an adequate diet in the Post-Soviet era. However, in Cubas current transition, the old
socialist trope from each according to his ability, to each according to his need is no longer
applicable. Survival is now dependent on external factors, often completely outside of ones own
control. Stories from Cubans like Tania, who are not only excluded from large parts of their own
city but also at risk of going hungry at the end of the month, represent the inequalities that have
manifested themselves in the Post-Soviet era and the new, dangerous correlation they have to
household food security. The advantage that some have over others in accessing hard currency
has exposed many deeply-rooted social inequalities that the egalitarian reforms of the Revolution
had quelled for several decades.
As Gonzlez Lpez said, the government is well aware of the social ramifications of the
economic reforms. New tax laws are part of the newest reforms, geared to garner a greater share
of domestic commerce, as well as, as expressed by the official communist party newspaper, El
Granma, to ensure greater equality and keep socialism alive. I saw no advertising while I was in
Cuba, with the exception of the political billboards and murals dotting the walls of the city in
peeling paint. The slogans jumping out at me condemned the embargo and stated, This battle is
an economic one. The newest billboards, however, were ones that read, We have and we will
have socialism.98 While the Economist officially deemed the new economic reforms in Cuba a
Transition to Capitalism in a March 2012 special report, Cluster and Hernndez were careful
to point out in the History of Havana that these new economic reforms and the survival strategies

98 tenemos y tendremos socialismo

97

that go hand in hand with them keep the socialist project alive (as Nez Gonzlez referred to
it in our interviews). Cluster and Hernndez explain:
In any family, someones racket may allow someone else to dedicate herself or himself to a
job in a hospital or clinic or theater, and the same individual often works in both spheres.
The teacher who coaches emigrants in English for dollars also teaches in a high school or
college with equal care. The electrician who moonlights installing cables for pirate internet
access also keeps the low-rent apartment buildings collective water pump working. The bus
driver who sells gas on the black market also drives the camello [city] bus, under very
difficult conditions, every day. (2006, 271)
My friend Alejandro sells art supplies from foreign-funded exhibitions on the black market so
that he can keep his day job as an art teacher for local kids. His artist friends might sell a few
kitsch paintings in the tourist markets in Old Havana in order to mount their own free exhibitions
in their neighborhood. And world-famous Cuban musicians are known to return to the Island
frequently to play for free.
The Dual Economy forces Cubans to live dual lives. Benjamin, Collins, and Scott
unknowingly foreshadowed this phenomenon when, in 1984, they wrote: The black market
forces Cubans to live by a double standard, and this is probably its most pernicious effect (46).
Cubans now navigate, with varying degrees of success, the two worlds that the Dual Economy
has created, straddling every day the boundaries between legality and illegality, formality and
informality, morality and immorality, the old socialist order and the free market.
There is no question that food security remains an issue in Cuba and that many Cubans
struggle every day to make ends meet. However, it is important to recognize the strides that Cuba
has made towards food security throughout history in the face of great adversity, becoming one
of the only nations to successfully wipe out hunger for several decades. As Pablo Rodrguez Ruiz

98

told me during our interview: Some outside still have an idyllic vision of Cuba, but its more
contradictory than what the right paints dictatorship, and the left paradise.99

99
Algunos en el exterior tienen todava una visin idlica de Cuba. Pero es ms contradictoria
de lo que te pintan la derecha (dictadura) y la izquierda (paraso).

99

Works Cited
Alonso, Nancy. Cerrado por reparacin. Havana: Ediciones UNIN, 2002. BBC, 2008
Ashkenas, Lea. Es Cuba. Berkeley: Seal Press, 2006.
Benjamin, Medea, Joseph Collins, and Michael Scott, No Free Lunch: Food & Revolution in
Cuba Today. New York: Grove Press, 1984.
Blue, Sarah A. The Erosion of Racial Equality in the Context of Cuba's Dual Economy.
Latin American Politics and Society 49, no. 3 (2007): 35-68.
Bolvar Arstegui, Natalia and Carmen Gonzlez Daz de Villegas. Mitos y Leyendas de
la Comida Afrocubana. Havana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 1993.
Brewster, Emma J. Taste of a Nation: National Identity Through Food Based Memory.
Senior thesis, Hampshire College, 2008.
Chvez-Courtwright, Nicola. Aqu, Luchando. Senior Project. Hampshire College, 2012.
Cluster, Dick, and Rafael Hernndez. The History of Havana. New York: Palgrave
MacMillan, 2006.
Eaton, Tracey. Cuban Cattle No Longer a Cash Cow. Dallas Morning News. 19 June 2004.
Funes, Fernando, et al., comp. Sustainable Agriculture and Resistance: Transforming
Food Production in Cuba. Oakland: Food First, 2002.
Funes Monzote, Reinaldo. De los bosques a los canaverales: Una historia ambiental de
Cuba 1492-1926. Havana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 2010.
Heras Len, Eduardo. Dolce Vita. Havana: Ediciones UNION, 2012.
Juan de los Muertos. Film. Muestra de Cine Joven. Havana, April 5 2012.
Nez Gonzlez, Niurka. El Cacao y el Chocolate en Cuba. Havana: Fundacin
Fernando Ortiz, 2010.
On the Road Towards Capitalism. The Economist, 24 March 2012.
Rodrguez Ruiz, Pablo. Los marginales de la Alturas del Mirador: Un estudio de caso.
Havana: Fundacion Fernando Ortiz, 2011
Cuba Food and Agriculture Situation Report. USDA. 2008.
Special Report: Revolution in Retreat. The Economist, 24 March 2012.

100

Zurbano, Roberto. For Blacks in Cuba, the Revolution Hasnt Begun. New York Times. 23
March 2013.
Interviews
Gonzlez Lpez, David. Interviews by author. Tape recordings and personal notes.
Havana, Cuba. March 26 2012.
Gonzlez Noriega, Estrella. Researcher for the Cuban Institute of Anthropology.
Interview by author. Tape recording and personal notes. Havana, Cuba. February 21
2012.
Isoke Abiodun, Nehanda. Interview by Hampshire in Havana Delegation. Personal notes.
Havana, Cuba. March 6 2012.
Mitjans Alayn, Anabel. Interview by author. Tape recordings and personal notes. Havana,
Cuba. February 6 December 6 2012.
Nez Gonzlez, Niurka. Interview by author. Tape recordings and personal notes.
Havana, Cuba. February 6 December 6 2012.
Rodrguez Ruiz, Pablo. Researcher for the Cuban Institute of Anthropology. Interview by
author. Tape recordings and personal notes. Havana, Cuba. March 15 2012.

101