CUBAN TRANSITIONS

The U.S. imposed embargo on Cuba has lead to substantial American insulation from Cuban culture, and in many ways created a significant gap in the American understanding of the conditions of the Cuban revolution and regime. While my knowledge of Cuba has resembled this typical American perspective in most realms, for me there has been one major exception to the mystery of Cuba. As a classically trained ballet dancer, Cuba has been of interest to me for many years as the home of Ballet Nacional de Cuba, one of the most prestigious ballet companies in the world, which under the direction of Alicia Alonso has produced world-class ballet stars for the past sixty years. However, while I have long been conscious of the existence of Ballet Nacional de Cuba, it is only over the course of the past two months that I have been able to place the ballet within a Cuban context. I have been able to identify its value not only as a part of the Cuban art culture, but also as a politicized institution that, like most Cuban institutions has experienced and reflected the push and pull, first of revolutionary change, and more recently of the beginnings of a new, more open Cuba.

Ballet Nacional de Cuba performs Swan Lake

Founded by international ballet star Alicia Alonso, Ballet Nacional de Cuba began as a distinctly political venture. Following the 1952 coup in which General Fulgencio Batista seized power and demanded that Alicia’s ballet company earn its subsidy by becoming part of the government, which Alicia staunchly refused to do, the company refused to continue performing on Cuban stages (Chavez). However, when the success of the revolution brought Fidel to power, Alicia and Ballet Nacional de Cuba, now receiving generous funding through the revolution, quickly fell into line with Fidel, with Alicia making public shows of revolutionary zeal that included performances of ballets choreographed around political themes with storylines featuring El Commandante and the entire company’s participation in the national harvest of sugar and coffee (Chavez). Additionally, Alicia pushed to remove the “elitist” audience of ballet and make performances accessible to all social classes of Cuba. This was a distinctly revolutionary initiative that had rarely been seen in the ballet world ever before, and even today remains practically unheard of.

Alicia Alonso and Fidel Castro

However, during the development of Ballet Nacional de Cuba as a politicized Cuban institution, an interesting leadership dynamic began to form around Alicia. Just as the Cuban revolution depended on the leadership of Fidel, Alicia’s leadership of Ballet Nacional de Cuba began to take on a similarly centralized characteristic. Over the course of sixty years, Ballet Nacional de Cuba has never parted from the path of its visionary leader. However, the path chosen by Alicia has not always been popular. While the commitment to a distinctly Cuban form of ballet training has resulted in the production of some of the world’s best dancers, Alicia’s tight-fisted control over the company’s repertoire, touring schedules, and casting has occasionally lead to dissent and unrest within the company. Just as the Cuban people grew restless and weary of constraints on personal liberties, these sentiments were likewise reflected within Ballet Nacional de Cuba. Several dancers defected while on international tours, later citing Alicia’s rigid power hold over the company as a primary reason for their decisions.

Thus, we can identify parallels between the political state of the Cuban nation, and the state of Cuban ballet. Both lead by visionary individuals, both based on explicit principles of which neither leader was willing to compromise on. Additionally, just as Cuba has experienced both internal and external pressure, to open markets and look to a new vision for the future, Ballet Nacional de Cuba has had a similar experience. While Alicia Alonso continues to act as artistic director at the age of ninety-one, new rising stars in the company have begun to push for more variety of dance within the company’s repertoire, a change that would absolutely require a certain amount of “opening” to the world. It seems, just as Raul Castro now faces the challenge of negotiating the old and the new, Alicia Alonso too must face the decision to allow Ballet Nacional de Cuba to open to the world or face the possibility of becoming irrelevant in a world that may not stop to wait for Cuba or Alicia.

In the early 1990s, rap became an evolving genre of music in Cuba, particularly the urbanized Havana, Cuba. Initially, Rap music was perceived as an imperialist and commercialized art form imposed upon Cuba by the United States. However, the Cuban state began to recognize the ability to reconcile revolutionary ideals with the notion of “message rap”, a style of Rap music that emphasizes conscious expression. By the mid-90s, Cuba succumbed to the pressures of “the Special Period in Time of Peace” and experienced a “cultural perestroika”. In other words, cultural groups and institutions were restructured more commercially such as the Agencia Cubana de Rap (ACR). The more commercialized culture of Cuba spurred the emergence of Reggaetón, a divergent style of rap that embraces music as an “aesthetic cultural commodity” (Reggaetón, Baker). Reggaetón is characterized by vulgar and explicitly sexual and misogynistic language and dance. It does not seem to be a politicized art form, but it has become extremely popular because of its danceable rhythms.

(Cuabn Regaetón) Cubanito 20.02, “Pideme”

On the contrary, “message rap” values language and ideas represented in its lyrics., but it does not offer the most danceable music and rhythm. Nevertheless, Rap Cubano has been coopted into the canon of Cuban National Music.

(Cuban Rap) Hermanos de Causa, “Lágrimas Negras”

Many bureaucrats, representatives of the Cuban state, have identified Reggaetón as a counter-revolutionary musical genre. Therefore, the question is whether Reggatón can be absorbed by the state and re-appropriated to serve the state’s revolutionary ideals.

However I would argue that Reggaetón is not a dissident art form. The music initially, especially the lyrics, seems completely dissident and apolitical. Yet, perhaps the apolitical nature of Reggaetón is a politicized message. Reggaetón seems to preoccupy itself with the body, a carnivalesque concern (i.e. a concern of the working class). Politicized Rap music, in terms of abstract notions such as the state, may not be the most digestible music for the Cuban youth. Therefore, Reggaetón, the popular youth musical movement, may actually be revolutionizing the revolution by presenting more relevant values than those of traditional revolutionary ideals.

Sources:

Reggaetón. “The Politics of Dancing: Reggaetón and Rap in Havana, Cuba”. Geoff Baker. Duke University Press. 2009

In Havana Fever, set in 2003, the reader is presented with a very stark contrast between the days of plenty and the scarcity at that time. Selling books from the Montes de Ocas library was shameful for its caretakers. Really, selling books at all was a clandestine affair. It suggests that Cubans sold their culture every time they sold a book. Finding out that Cuba’s 21^st International Book fair jut took place in February does not fit in very well with this image.

Havana Book Fair at the Pabellón Cuba

The fair, held in Havana, was held every other year from 1982 to 2000, when it became an annual event. At this year’s event, Castro presented his new book Fidel Castro: Guerrilla of Time. Eduardo Fernandez, director of Cuba’s literary chamber said “the International Book Fair is perhaps the most important cultural event that takes place in Cuba.”  This year the theme happened encompass the ‘Greater Caribbean” and offered special tributes to Bob Marley. And of course, Fidel Castro.

Castro presents his book: Fidel Castro: Guerrilla of Time

With such a stark contrast between the book fair and the Cuba presented in Havana Fever, there’s immediate suspicion. On one hand, there are those who needed to sell books for food, but at the same time, this book fair was happening on a regular basis? The answer comes from the voice of the youth. The numbers given for attendance are extraordinary, but an article from the Havana Times explains that people are there for socializing and the variety of food more than the books, and that book presentations are themselves sparsely attended.

Young Cubans hanging out at the book fair

While the book fair puts Cuba on the map as extraordinary at promoting culture, it is apparent that the book fair is not achieving that goal. If the fair isn’t actually attracting people for books or playing a part in educating the masses, what is it there for other than to remind Cubans of the harder times during the Special Period? Or is it there to put forward a cultural and intellectual front to the rest of the world?

Sources:

AFP: “Cuba book fair highlights Fidel Castro, Bob Marley” http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5ikiTNQge00Z6hBfgDanizsWfynBQ?docId=CNG.167d46c3971901bf118adde206ff8e2f.111&index=0

Havana Times: “Cuban Youth: Hanging Out at the Book Fair” http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=63185

One of the most interesting concepts today when looking at how different people in the United States perceive Cuba is that there is a stark generational difference between the generation that grew up prior to the declaration of the “Special Period in Time of Peace” and those who were born and raised in the 1990s, or my generation. The main difference is that whereas by and large the older generation knows pretty much only bad ideas about Cuba, my generation, save a small group of young adults and students who are self-motivated or take classes, know approximately nothing about Cuba. It appears as if there is a quite simple explanation for this: the end of the Cold War and fading of the prominence of socialism on the world stage coupled with the erosion of support among conservatives and older Cuban Americans.

The Cold War lasted from 1945-1991

As it were, the Cold War was a conflict between the two largest superpowers in the world: the USA and the Soviet Union. Prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba was seen as a proxy state (despite Havana and Moscow not agreeing on several issues) in the Western Hemisphere for the Eastern Bloc to use. During the Cold War the United States used extensive resources to oppose Cuba in all manners possible: assassination plots against Fidel, actual armed invasion, and naturally the embargo. Essentially, Cuba was a much bigger deal for the United States from the 1960s until 1990; it meant something else—because it was affiliated with the Eastern Bloc it was a physical manifestation of the Cold War only 90 miles from the United States. This is how the older generation in our country learned about Cuba. They were born and raised in a time of anti-communist fervor, and Cuba was one of the easiest targets because it was nearby, and the United States was much more powerful. They learned of Cuba as the Soviet pawn, and that’s one of the reasons older generations generally know only negative things about Cuba.

Cuba relied on Soviet aid for its economy

So we move on to my generation, who knows shockingly little about Cuba or its history, because it is not relevant to our own. This is because the focus in the United States was past Cuba’s communism and past the Cold War as we grew up; the collapse of the Soviet Union meant the triumph of the United States and Cuba had thus faded into irrelevance. After the declaration of the Special Period and collapse of the Cuban economy, the small socialist country 90 miles away presented no more threat, real or perceived, to the United States: out of sight, out of mind. This is how my generation learned about Cuba, via small blurbs in about its basic history in textbooks or a passing mention that we were not allowed to go there. We don’t really know anything because the older exile community in Miami was fading away and becoming less vocal as we were growing up. As that older exile community faded, they were being replaced by a younger generation who didn’t have any life experience in Cuba to speak of and saw Cuba differently than their parents. We don’t perceive Cuba as a threat, and our national security focus has been drawn to the Middle East in Afghanistan and Iraq. The word “Cuba” doesn’t have an emotional attachment hung to it, so we view Cuba in a much different light than previous generations.

The Embargo

We know nothing of Cuba in part due to the embargo as well; it has taken several generations but an embargo blocks a transfer of ideas and knowledge as well as goods. But however limited our generation’s knowledge as a whole may be, there’s so much potential to study and learn from the small Caribbean country.

Sources:

http://isla.igc.org/Features/Cuba/cuba2.html

Cuba has long held out to opening its borders to the United States, just as the US has maintained its embargo on Cuba, but it seems to be the case that American tourists will soon be able to flock to the island. Already Obama has made it easier for American groups like schools and churches to travel to the island, though there are still regulations on their activities. During the Bush administration, restrictions were tightened so that only Cuban-Americans could return to the island to visit their families. Though it certainly will not be American tourism, it can be considered a step in that direction.

Playa Pilar

With images of the island as show above and an increasing number of Americans visiting Cuba each year, more people will be seeking a vacation on the island that has long been an enigma. If Cuba were to open its borders to US tourists, then, there could potentially be extreme negative implications for the island. Already Cuba has been forced to commercialize its culture to an extent to cater to tourists from other countries and by allowing Americans to visit the island this will only be exacerbated. The engagement of Cuba in heritage tourism is already evidence that the island has been forced to sell its culture.

Americans coming to the island will also create an interaction between capitalism and communism that is unprecedented on the island. Likely never having learned about Cuba and accustomed to travel in other countries centering on material goods, Americans will be looking to consume Cuban culture as well. This is exactly contrary to the ideals of the Revolution, which could be devastating if Cuban citizens were to learn from Americans and adopt their values. This is not to say that Cubans are envious of American society, but the two are certainly different and there is potential for undesirable cultural exchange.

Havana

Permitting American tourism on the island would also have a negative impact on tourism in the rest of the Caribbean. Instead of going to the same Latin American countries where they have toured for years, Americans will instead choose to explore what has been unavailable to them for so long. Now it is really a question of when this change will occur and how Cuba will prepare for it.

Source:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/obama-loosens-travel-restrictions-to-cuba/2011/01/14/ABGKrhD_story.html

Recently, I went to the East Coast Chican@ Students Forum at Brown University. It was overall a rather inspiring event, and so when it came to write to start writing my first blog post, I naturally began thinking about what I talked about during that conference. One of the topics that was raised was Gloria Anzaldúa’s “La Frontera/The Borderlands” and it’s impact on Chican@ literature; this in turn got me thinking about the border between Cuba and the US.

The Border between Cuba and the US is quite different than that of Mexico and the US. Instead of the long, harsh land border that exists between the latter two, Cuba and Mexico have the free flowing and mixing ocean, the “unconscious, the imagination, the imaginal world”; the free flowing, natural, and organic ocean, which represents non-rational and hierarchical knowledge is what separates Cuba and the US, not the harsh rational and Euclidean lines which separate Mexico and the US (Anzaldúa, 108). Nevertheless, the former two have restricted each other much more than the latter two in terms of travel and interaction. This is turn makes the borderlands bewteen Cuba and the US a much more violent place than that of the borderlands of the Southwest. As we saw in the movie Balseros, during the period where people migrated to the US in large numbers, there were many people who died on their way to the US, drowned in a storm or dead of heat and starvation in what ought to have been a quick 90-mile trip to Miami (although I do not wish to gloss over the fact that many Mexicans and Central Americans die in the desert or get shot by Border Patrol on their way here). For those Cubans who did make it to the US these days, they had to be careful to be found on US soil, lest they get sent to a camp like the one in Guantánamo in Balseros, which made their lives circumscribed by what the US military allowed them to do in the refugee camp. While remittances are allowed to Cuba, even monetary transactions are very restricted, with travel and spending money in Cuba being illegal in America. Likewise, in Cuba, those who leave are considered traitors of the revolution and are not necessarily welcome back. Thus, overall, crossing the borderlands (or rather water) of US and Cuba is a very traumatic process.

Many people die on their way to the US, drowning in a storm or dying of heat of starvation

This traumatic process set up along the Cuba-US border I imagine must influence what both Anzaldúa and Mignolo call border thinking, the “double consciousness” which comes from “multi-languaging” and thus creates as Anzaldúa sees it “a change in the way we perceive reality, the we way see ourselves, and the ways we behave;” that is to say that the much less porous border affects the ways in which people who do cross it end up creating a new consciousness and culture based having two lives, one on either side of the border (Gilyard). Part of this comes out of the fact that some migrants form one of the largest pressure groups which is maintaining the blockade of Cuba; one of the legacies of immigrants to Miami from the early 60s is a population wholly dedicated to eradicating Castro’s Cuba, and usually dedicated returning to some form of the Cuba of the 50s. Having Castro as anathema to their conception of Cuba means that this part of the Cuban-American community is entirely unwilling to engage with Cuba in its current form at all. They refuse to think about Cuba beyond memories, or perhaps reclaimation. The border for them is not only a spatial border but a temporal one as well which lies in 1959. While this is something of conjecture, I would have to guess that because this group of Cuban-Americans are so tied to the old order of Cuba, and that their only thought about “home” becomes one reversing or demolishing the revolution, such a group of immigrants won’t engage in the sorts of thinking about the border which allows them to have a new, blended identity. They are either concerned with going back to Cuba entirely, or have given up on the island and now want to reside wholly in the US.

For the generation of migrants we saw in Balseros, however, the border between Cuba and the US might be a different marker. While, some, such as the family which come over, seem to feel that life in America supersedes and/or erases their old life in Cuba, others definitely feel, as the movie puts it, “shipwrecked between two worlds.” As the people in the movie move not just within Cuba but also within the United States, their conception of what “home” becomes changes in ways which could possibly affect ways in which they think about the borders separating the various places in which they have lived. The movie itself also created a sort of link back to Cuba that many other migrants would not have, through the video interviews which reached the Balseros’ families back in Cuba. While the movie itself does not explore what sorts of new consciousness can be formed from living throughout the US after making the trip from Cuba, it is clear that the experience of these migrants is not only different from those of the first generation of migrants which came to Cuba, but also different in way in which those migrants can reflect critically on what the border means to them and how they can create a new kind of culture based on their living in between spaces.

The theme of the Conference at Brown was “Neo Chicanismo.” As more and more migrants from Latin America come into the US, it is important to revamp the old political and ethnic markings which we have for new socioeconomic contexts, especially as anther “new” form of thought, neoliberalism, encroaches ever further upon our lives. The old generation of Cuban immigrants, whose migration was born not in revolution but counterrevolution and who think of Cuba as a place where they cannot go until it resembles the 50s once again, are unlikely to take much of a part in the construction of Neo Chicanismo, if at all. But I do have hope for new generations of Cuban-Americans, who are beginning to look at Cuba not in a Cold War context, but as a homeland held away from them by a new iron curtain, one held up by the US as much as Cuba itself. Upon realizing the death of their cubanidad, and should the lack the desire to fully integrate into Anglo society, to keep their culture, then I have faith they will begin to think of the space in between the two cultures, their veritable borderlands, as a place with which to start a new way of looking at things and become part of this discussion about Neo Chicanismo.

Sources:

Anzaldúa, Gloria, and Keating, Ana Louise. The Gloria Anzaldúa Reader. (2009). Duke University Press.

Gilyard, Keith. “Gloria Anzaldua Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza”. http://thoughtjam.wordpress.com/2009/01/02/gloria-anzaldua-borderlandsla-frontera-the-new-mestiza/

Balseros. 2002. Bausan Films.

In many of the revolutionary governments in Latin America, there have been remarkable advancements in the welfare and social condition of the population through policies and programs that increase access to education, employment, healthcare, housing, and nutrition. With further study, it seems that these achievements in social justice come at a price to the population – the restriction of democracy and political liberties such as the freedom of expression, association, peaceful assembly and movement. Social justice, based on the principles of equality, solidarity, and economic egalitarianism, is implemented at the expense of democracy and liberty. Democracy and liberty, based on the principles of equality before the law, individualism, and economic liberalization, is implemented at the expense of social justice. What explains this seemingly inverse relationship between liberty and social justice and is it possible for both to coexist? How is this question further complicated by the competing visions of democracy particularly between direct and representative democracy?

In the case of Cuba since 1959, the revolution has achieved rural land and urban housing reform, universal healthcare and education up to the university level, a high literacy rate, and greater economic egalitarianism. Agrarian reform brought the distribution of land to thousands of landless small farmers. Urban reform brought the reduction of rent for tenants, opportunities of home-ownership, housing construction in marginal shantytowns, and investment in employment opportunities. In 1959, 45% of primary school children did not attend school and 23% of the population over 10 years old was illiterate. The National Literacy Campaign reduced the illiteracy rate from 23% to 4% in the space of one year. “In 1980, 98.8% of the children 6-11 were attending primary schools. Enrollments in secondary education also climbed from 14% in 1960 to a high of 90% in 1990…Enrollments in higher education increased from a low of 7% in 1970 to a high of 21% in 1990” (Uriarte, 11). In healthcare, the infant mortality rate dropped from 35 deaths for every 1,000 live births in 1959 to 7.2 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1999. The life expectancy of Cubans has increased and Cubans die of diseases that cause the death of persons in developed nations such as heart disease, cancer and strokes, rather than the infectious diseases that are the most prevalent causes of death across developing nations (Uriarte, 10). The Cuban government has also implemented state-backed social security, retirement benefits, disability pensions, social assistance benefits, and subsidized food, rent, mortgage, and utilities. By 2000, the total social expenditures accounted for 35% of the nations GDP. It is clear that Cuba has its priorities in the social welfare of the population, however this social justice may come at a cost.

According to Amnesty International, which published Restrictions on Freedom of Expression in Cuba in 2010, the Cuban government suppresses freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly through harassment, intimidation, arbitrary detention and criminal prosecutions by the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR), government officials and law enforcement. The state has a monopoly over all forms of media including restrictions on access to internet websites and blogs critical of the government, thus there is no freedom of the press and freedom of information. There is no democracy in Cuba due to the existence of one official political party – the Cuban Communist Party (PCC). All of these restrictions on political liberties are justified as the protection of national security.

Which is more important for society – liberty or social justice? Many members of impoverished populations would not hesitate to give up their liberties to have access to food, shelter, education, and healthcare because they perceive liberty alone as useless if one is malnourished and cannot provide for their family. Members of the middle and elite classes would never sacrifice their political liberties as they have already meet the needs for survival and comfort. I would argue that both liberty and social justice must complement one another in society. True liberty cannot exist without social justice and vice-versa. In other words, is there really democracy in the United States when law enforcement respond to peaceful protestors with violence and repression as is the case with student protests in universities and the Occupy movement?

Works Cited

Uriarte, Miren. Cuba: Social Policy at the Crossroads: Maintaining Priorities, Transforming Practice. An Oxfam America Report. 2002, pp. 6-12. February 2012.

Amnesty International. Restrictions on Freedom of Expression in Cuba. 2010

In November 1999, soon to be six year old Elián González was found on a Florida beach. His mother had secretly taken him on a dangerous boat voyage out of Cuba to live with relatives in Miami, but she and ten others did not survive the trip. Due to US law that allowed all Cubans who reached American soil to remain in the country, Elián was brought to live with relatives in Little Havana. Immediately his father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, began to petition for Elián to be returned to his custody in Cuba. The events began a months-long affair which renewed hostilities in US-Cuban relations and became a major political issue.

The affair occurred at a particularly critical period in US-Cuban relations. As cited by Julia Sweig, many hoped that the end of Democrat Bill Clinton’s second presidential term would bring about a liberalization of relations between the two countries. The heated political debate surrounding Elián quickly put an end to those hopes. In the US, Republican lawmakers sought to push a bill through Congress to grant Elián US citizenship, but were ultimately unsuccessful. The US public was very divided on the issue. Both Elián’s grandmothers traveled to Washington DC to attempt to negotiate the boy’s return to Cuba. As the international debate surrounding the affair intensified, media camped outside the González’ Miami home.

On April 20, 2000, federal agents stormed the small house in Little Havana and removed six year old Elián at gunpoint, to be reunited with his father and returned to Cuba. I was only eight at the time, but I have distinct memories of watching the news on TV and not understanding why I had been hearing this little kid’s name for months, and why armed federal forces had to take him away in a pre-dawn raid.  On June 28, the US Supreme Court refused to hear the relative’s case seeking asylum for Elián. This ended the Miami relatives’ legal battle, and Elián and his father returned to Cuba.

However, the return was not an end to the affair, as Elián became an important symbol in Cuba and a part of the larger cultural zeitgeist. In a 2000 episode of Saturday Night Live, Chris Kattan played Elián’s father in a recurring sketch called “Janet Reno’s Dance Party”, where Will Farrell dressed up as the US Attorney General who authorized the raid to extract Elián. In 2002, he was awarded the Free Spirit Award by The Freedom Forum. In a 2005 60 Minutes interview, Elián referred to Fidel Castro friend and a father figure, re-igniting debates in Miami, where his relatives claimed that Elián must have been coered into giving such statements.  Elián now attends military school and is a member of the Young Communists Union.

When Elián turned 18 on December 7, 2011, it was news on both sides of the Straits of Florida. This proved how he had inadvertently transformed from a young boy, lucky to survive a dangerous journey that killed his mother and ten others, into a Cuban national symbol.

Sources

BBC News, “Elian interview sparks Miami row,” http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4299294.stm (accessed February 29, 2012).

CBS News, “Elian Gonzalez turns 18, quietly celebrates,” http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57338130/elian-gonzalez-turns-18-quietly-celebrates/(accessed February 29, 2012).

Sweig, Julia E. Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.

Cuba is proud of its natural resources.  Beyond the fertility of the Cuban campo and the famous beauty of its playas, the island boasts one of the most diverse, unique, and protected natural environments of the Caribbean.  Cuba’s large swaths of forest and wetlands are home to many species of flora and fauna found nowhere else on earth.  Of all these rare endemic species, perhaps none is as visible, or as threatened, as the Cuban crocodile, Crocodylus rhombifer.  Found in just two Cuban swamps and likely numbering only 4000 individuals in the wild, the Cuban croc is one of the rarest crocodilians on earth. While efforts are being made to protect the species from extinction, the future of the Cuban crocodile remains uncertain in the face of increasing development on the island and rapidly changing environmental conditions in these fragile ecosystems.

Crocodylus rhombifer, the Cuban crocodile

While the Cuban crocodile originally ranged throughout Cuba and sometimes even to neighboring islands, today the population is confined to Zapata Swamp on the southwestern coast of Cuba and in Lanier Swamp on the Isle of Youth.  In these natural locales, the crocodiles live as they always have, lurking in freshwater swamps and flooded fields as they hunt for turtles, fish, and small mammals.  These crocodiles are particularly well adapted to capturing their prey; they have long legs and are comfortable walking and even running out of the water.  They can also leap several feet straight into the air to grab animals out of tree branches.  Cuban crocs are widely regarded as the most pugnacious of the New World crocodilians, although they have been reported to be among the most intelligent as well, able to respond to names and simple commands.

Map of Cuba showing the Cuban Crocodile's current distribution in red

Several factors contribute to the decline of the Cuban crocodile in the wild.  As with many species the world over, Cuban crocs are threatened with habitat destruction as more and more ecosystems are destroyed to make room for human habitation and use.  The risk for island species is especially high because land in these areas is both highly limited and highly desirable. That being said, the Cuban government has made several attempts to preserve their natural environments, including creating the Zapata Biosphere Reserve, the largest protected area in the entire Caribbean at 1.5 million acres. Island endemics are also at risk due to their naturally small numbers and often-precarious environs; disasters such as hurricanes often wreak destruction on these fragile ecosystems.  Additionally, Cuban crocodiles are known to interbreed with their cousin, the American crocodile.  The resultant hybrids pollute the gene pool and threaten the purity of the species.

By far the biggest strain on the Cuban crocodile population is hunting by locals, which has increased since the 1990s in response to food shortages on the island.  The tail meat of these reptiles is regarded as both delicious and a natural aphrodisiac.  Additionally, many crocodiles are killed in the wild to be sold in the tourist industry, as meat for restaurants, skin for belts and handbags, or curios for travelers.  These activities continue despite the protected status of most of the crocodiles’ territory.

To combat these threats, the Cuban government has implemented several plans of actions.  The first and perhaps most important is the previously mentioned creation of protected areas on the island, including the Zapata Biosphere Reserve.  The reserve is one of Cuba’s several national parks, and has been deemed a Wetland of International Importance by the IUCN. The area is set aside for the islands species, and access to visitors is limited.  There are also several government-authorized crocodile farms on the island, which breed the animals for both human consumption and reintroduction into the wild.  The crocodile population on the Isle of Youth is a direct result of these efforts.  There has also been some success in breeding the crocodiles at other crocodile farms around the world.

Zapata Swamp Crocodile Farm

Cuba is a one-of-a-kind place on many levels, not the least of which is its biodiversity.  The Cuban crocodile is just one example of an endemic species that faces extinction if steps are not taken to ensure its survival.  While the Cuban government has taken some steps in this direction, the crocodiles’ future remains uncertain.  Only time will tell if these aggressive, ancient reptiles will continue to stalk the swamps of Cuba.

Sources:
http://www.iucnredlist.org/apps/redlist/details/5670/0
http://www.iucncsg.org/ph1/modules/Publications/ActionPlan3/ap2010_19.html
http://crocodilian.com/cnhc/csp_crho.htm
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0311/feature4/index.html?fs=www7.nationalgeographic.com

Habanastation

As the semester has progressed our class has been exposed to Cuban society at many different stages of revolution and progression. Through the movies, documentaries and videos we have seen, we have experienced Cuban society during the special period, and post special period but have not, until now, really gotten a view of Cuban society today.

monumento de Jose Martí

In the movie Habanastation we are given a direct, if not somewhat biased, view into what Cuban society has become. Through the eyes of Mayito, an upper class child with an internationally recognized father and a ‘blonde” mother, we are shown a modern day Cuba. Although the movie is quite recent (2010) there are certain values and ideals from the revolution that manifest themselves in the daily lives of Cubans. We see these revolutionary ideals as the movie opens in the gathering of students before the start of classes and their communal celebration surrounding the 1st of May. The gathering ends with a with a shout of ” viva el primer de Mayo” and a response of “Viva” from the students. Providing similarities to the documentary we watched earlier in the class where students and revolutionaries alike used call and response chants to invoke a sense of united togetherness.

los padres di Mayito

The movie has a carefully selected cast to shed light on the issues of race and identity in Cuba. Actors are chosen from a wide range of backgrounds, skin colors, races and ethnicities to prove that Cubans come in all colors and that the racial boundaries of the past have been broken down. While they may try to show a raceless Cuba, issues of class and race do appear in the movie. Mayito’s father self defines as a mulatto and his mother is a blonde but not a natural one, Carlos, the story’s antagonist, is darker skinned and lives in Guanabo, a slum unlike anything Mayito has ever known but Carlos is not that much darker than Mayito himself and it goes to show how class factors into the interpretation of skin color in Cuba. Along similar lines the movies’ visual message provokes sentiments of national pride and history. We are treated to a plethora of flags, colors and music along with strategically placed vistas of the Jose Marti monument that subtly convey a sense of cuban’s continuing pride and nationalism.

Habanastation sends a deeper message as well, that even with fancy technology and play stations galore there is still something to be said for the attractions of traditional amusement without electricity or electronics. Habanastation is a beautiful movie gaining international recognition for its portrayal of Cuban society and Cuban ideals and gives us much needed insight into the Cuba we will soon be visiting.