Culture, Nation And Social Cohesions : A Scrutiny Of Revolutionary Cuba

Culture is made up of different elements; symbols, language, values and norms. Every culture has a different perspective of the way individuals should lead their lives. Cuba is known for its cultural diversity that is made up from Spanish, African, French and Asian influences.

Generations upon generations of people have been thriving in Spanish speaking countries. Cuba is no different, through traditional clothing and special holidays they always are in tune with the past. With flamboyant traditional attire, that rivals the suns bright color and Spring flowers, coupled with fun to watch free flowing up beat music like Guaguancó or Pachanga, the Cuban culture is very exciting. In order to start to describe my family ties with Cuba, I will use an analogy: With every spin of a vibrant dress it seems as if the hands of time slowly turn back time. As the clock goes back so does my family history. In the early 1920's my great grandmother and her family made the trip from Spain to Cuba. Ever since then my family has had bearings

Cuba’s colorful history can be documented to before the days of the American Revolution in 1776, but today, American policy directly affects many Cubans’ lifestyles because of a nearly 45-year-old trade embargo that has been placed on the island nation. It is crucial to analyze the development of Cuba and its neighboring island nations in order to discern the reasons for Cuba’s current political situation with the United States. The following paper will discuss the events that shaped Cuba and larger Caribbean nations like Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Jamaica; next, a detailed description of Cuba’s turbulent history will help in explaining the Cuban transformation into a

US-Cuban relations have not been the friendliest since the Cuban Revolution in 1959. Only recently during President Barack Obama’s second term in office did the US really try to resolve the Cuban issue and only then did it become such a priority. US-Cuban relations have always been a mixed bag of plenty of good and evil deeds. The US needs all the allies it can get and it needs to refocus in Latin America. Cuba is no real challenge to American power but Cuba represents a sore spot for American foreign policy. The US must work as one with Cuba in order to normalize relations with Cuba and bring Cubans into the 21st century. There are plenty of Cuban-Americans who want desperately to see family and friends on the island and the US must work together with Cuba to achieve these goals. Cuba has been a hot topic of debate ever since the Cuban Revolution and it continues to be one which is why there is no better time to study Cuba. Cuba has a long cultural history which makes it interesting to study and now that the US is finally working with the Cuban government on normalizing relations, more scholars will be traveling to Cuba. More information about Cuba and the Cuban culture will become available as the US moves to being better neighbors. This is important for researchers and others to gain new insights on Cuba which have not been available for the past fifty to sixty years. The renewed Cuban-American relations and the so-called, “Cuban Thaw”, is the right approach by President

Over the course of the semester, I gained great knowledge about Cuba, including many factors that have influenced the way its current society functions. There are many different components that helped configure Cuba’s history and the customs and traditions that Cubans still follow today. Some of the specific factors I find have heavily influenced Cuban culture are: economy, race, wealth, religion, and cultural traditions. Like many countries, Cubans were directly affected by religious beliefs and culture. Cuba became the center of the world’s attention in 1492 when Christopher Columbus set sail for Asia, only to land in what was then declared the New World.

I am a Latin American, who grew up in the U.S, so I carry with me the values and traditions of my Cuban ancestors. Cuban culture is very interesting and colorful, usually with a bizarre mix of factors. This mix of different influences and factors is evident at various levels of the Cuban culture. After interacting with people from diverse cultures, I have learnt that Cubans are very positive, always happy and have no prejudices. They are always sociable, friendly and with a good sense of humor. This explains why people from this culture are more willing to share ideas, feelings and thoughts, even with strangers. Their communicative nature, their friendliness and open-mindedness help them to interact better with people from different cultures

In 1855 Spanish conquistador Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar began permanent settlement on the northern coast of Cuba with 300 men and their slaves. Five years after their arrival they had split our home country into seven sectors: Havana (La Habana), Puerto Príncipe, Santiago de Cuba, and Sancti Spíritus. Each had its own council that governed its affairs which resulted in a divided government and laid crucial behind the reasoning in which why did not have a proper representation in the voting of official affairs. However, Cuba became a key place for explorers o advance their knowledge of the land, thus, resulting in a vast amount different ethnic groups beginning to occupy not only our homeland but our workforce as well. “By 1570 most residents

The culture and history of Cuba was influenced by Spain, the United States of America, Soviet Union and the sugar industries’ slave trade

Cuba is an island country in the Caribbean, 90 miles south of the Florida Coast. It has had a contentious and violent history since it was claimed by Spain in 1492, but now has a 99.8% literacy rate, an infant death rate lower than many developed countries and an average life expectancy of almost 78 years (CIA, 2012). In 1959, Fidel Castro led a successful revolution and deposed Fugelico Batista, who fled to exile in Portugal. This had quite an effect on American foreign and economic policy because up until Castro, America owned all of Cuba's oil production, 90% of its mines, and 50% of its cattle, sugar and railroad industries. The capital city, Havana, was a tourist destination for Americans, and the U.S. Mafia shared power with Batista by controlling the islands drug trade, prostitution and gambling industries. This economic disparity continued to enrich many Americans and a few Cuban business owners, but resulted in a huge gap between rich and poor, lack of social services, and a crumbling infrastructure on the Island.

In the early 19th century, European power was starting to exert influence so that American diplomats took new interest in Latin America. The second half of the 19th century found Spain holding tenuously to their empire Cuba and Puerto Rico in the Caribbean.

The article first talks about the development and character of Cuban national culture: Cuba’s original people. It discusses the historical events that occurred in Cuba and how those historic events have shaped Cuba’s culture. It talks about the original tribes that were on Cuba’s land for decades, which were Taino and Siboney Amerindian tribes. They were originally one of the first groups to help shape the Cuban culture. After a while, Spanish invaders came to Cuba and took over the land and put its own set of rules and traditions. This is how Cuba got its mixture of cultures, between the Spanish culture, Armenian culture and African culture coming together in Cuba. Also, this section of the article talks about words that developed in Cuba from all the mixtures of countries and cultures. Kronenberg states in the article “Culture, nation and social cohesion: a scrutiny of revolutionary Cuba” (2008), that some of these words are “words like ‘hammock’, ‘manatee’, ‘yucca’, ‘hurricane’, and ‘tobacco’, which can be regarded as the ‘last surviving parting gift’ or ‘retributive curse’ the original inhabitants of the Caribbean offered to their Spanish captors”(pg. 51). This is a small interesting fact to learn about the early Cuban culture and to see where Cuba got some of its influences from and what they originally kept from those influential countries.

The forces that define Cuba today are in many ways the same ones that have defined it for centuries. The ethos of monism, or the tendency to centralize power and to use it to represent pluralistic, divergent or dissenting impulses, was established early in Cuba's colonial history. A small Spanish elite group used centralized power to rule for what they viewed as the common good. This common good usually coincided with their interest, and public office was often seen as both proprietary and legitimate source of private gain. Political monopolies were reinforced by economic ones, all of which served to limit accountability, social mobility, an expectation of fair play and economic development (Ellis, 2007).

According to Staten (2003) Cuba originally was occupied by American Indian’s identified as the Taíno, today the island is a mostly urban society with majority of their ethnic population being over 50 percent mix of African and Europeans (Staten, 2003.p.18). The economic resources of the country are an assortment of sugarcane, citrus fruits, tobacco, coffee, and livestock. The natural deposits are a culmination of cobalt, nickel, iron ore, silica, and petroleum just to name a few. The Cuban economy is heavily dependent on trade with a healthy hotchpotch of natural resources (Staten, 2003, p.5). The Cuban people gained independence from America in 1902 after the Spanish America War and their struggle for economic opulence ever since have not been easy. After the attainment of independence in 1902; the Cuban economy has been at the mercy of political conflicts and revolutionary uprising. The island became known as the Republic of Cuba and is currently a communist state based on socialist ideals and national controlled. Public policies and government doctrines contribute to the country’s unemployment rate, inflation, government

This was further confirmed in an article written by Mitchell Orenstein, “Cuban Political System- More than just Castro”. He wrote, “The Cuban government follows a socialist approach to economic development, where the state owns most of the means of production and hold thigh control of many facets of the economy. Currently, the state possesses the large majority of the firms in the island and employs more than 90% of the labor force. The main sources of revenue for the government include taxes, remittances, tourism, and the export of sugar and nickel. In addition, the presence of foreign capital is restricted to few sectors like mining, technology and oil extraction”.

Within the next few days, I will officially be a Drama major with a correlate in Africana Studies. My love for the arts, combined with my profound interest in the study of the African diaspora and its people is what draws me to this course. There is certainly much to learn about this country from many perspectives. Much of my curiosity lies in Cuba’s expression of art as it pertains to self-identity, culture, revolutionary actions and politics. Moreover, as a Black and Latina woman, I also find interest in the different racial identities of Cubans. Throughout the numerous Latin American countries, the existence of the myriad racial identities of the people can vary; often times those of the Afro-Latinx identity are marginalized or not as widely recognized in a larger conversation. I want to know where Cuba stands on these issues that affect its neighboring countries as well as the United