CUBAN TRANSITIONS

As a child, the stories that my Abuelo and Abuela told be about their youth were never things I looked at as moments from the life of a generation two before my own, but rather moments from the life of Cuban culture, which was then coexisting with my present life in Portland, Oregon.

I never thought of Salsa as Cuba’s equivalent to the American Fox Trot, which in fact it is… to an extent. But while in Cuba I found that what the tourism industry there has done is force pre-revolutionary culture to persist in the international eye. My experiences that I would term “expected” or “familiar” based on stories and interactions with my relatives were ones that took place in a tourist-geared environment. From the music and dance of the government owned restaurant where we had our first official lunch to the structure of every organized meal following.

What I would have been surprised by had I not been exposed to so many educational readings prior to our departure was the prevalence of rap music and modern dance in the Cuban youth. The day that we were privy to a performance by, and class with the dance company of Rosario Cardenas was a show familiar to me not because of my familial origins but because of my participation in the dance program at my arts focused middle school.

It was something I would consider an American encounter, though that consideration would be abundantly wrong. Perhaps the growth of technology leading to the expanse of international communication has lead to lesser cultural divides in the arts, and it is amazing that this has reached embargoed Cuba. In fact, at the end of our lesson Colleen requested an additional Salsa lesson (because we had forgone such an opportunity to be there), which was met with a confused response by the dancers, one primarily of disappointment in our interest. This reaction, however, was not one of laughter in the way we would respond as Americans if asked to teach a foreign visitor the Fox Trot, but rather one of disenchantment and frustration with the tourism sector’s selling of Salsa to the international community.

Florence Babb (2012) conducts research on Cuban tourism and a recent project of hers “focuses on the coexisting cultural-historical tourism that is typified by longings for the revolutionary days,” she further writes, “Contemporary tourism reveals the frequent tension between these two sides of Cuban experience” (108). For me, it was an interesting to witness these two cultures that coexist in Cuba, and while it is true that in many ways they overlap, I couldn’t help but realize that the tension between them has become unavoidable. Furthermore, it was fascinating to discover during my research on music education in the public school system that all teachings are geared toward the transmission of Cuban culture by constructing the lessons solely from Cuban folk music. Not necessarily surprising considering the importance of instilling a Cuban identity to produce Socialist citizens, but surprising after witnessing the negative effect the tourist industry has had on these “Cuban” images for such citizens.

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