Cuba is one of those few places, maybe the last one, where one can observe the past and present simultaneously — and maybe even the future as well.
That means different things for different people. During the years that I have been documenting the Caribbean island, I have encountered diverse opinions about what it means to be Cuban and why there is this feeling of love/hate towards their own country.
With a little over eleven million people, Cuba has been, for decades, at the center or periphery of the world’s geopolitics and historical moments. Empires have used the country as a stage for conflicts like the American-Spanish war, the missile crisis, or intelligence agencies' playground to name a few.
But the attention has never been, in my eyes, on the people, which is why my question is, was and will be:
How does it feel to be there beyond heroes and villains?
In this essay, I'm not interested in big events; this body of work is meant to explore what happens in between decisive moments. What it feels like for the people without names who carry the weight of history on their shoulders.
What some people told me, in no particular order.
Some asked me directly not to name them for obvious reasons.
"I'm not a communist; I'm a capitalist.”
"I have to speak quietly; you never know who is listening.”
"We received Spaniards with machetes once; now we hug you like brothers.”
"What's happening, this situation, with Castro would have been different. It's not that I liked the guy, but definitely things would be different. I don't know what that would look like, but it wouldn't be worse than this.”
“We are fighters, but we don’t really know who are we fighting with.”
"We have been saving for years. I sold everything and went to Nicaragua with my family to try to get to America. We lost everything. I had to borrow money to come back. Now we have nothing."
"If you see the news, everything is fine. Lies.”
"Of course, I don't want to leave. This is my country, my land, my culture. In Miami, I don't know anyone. I will be alone. But with a little bit of luck and Cuban ingenuity, my family will be able to eat properly.”
"I have trauma with the power cuts. When I was a kid, it used to happen all the time. There was a time that stopped, but now it happens more, and I can't stand it.”
"This is the week of the 11th; everything is very tense.”
"I would like to do something; everybody would, but the risk is too high. It's not worth yelling a couple of times and getting yourself a 15-year sentence in prison.”
"Brother, not now, but when you are about to go back to Spain, if you have an old t-shirt or you have a deodorant that you won't use, would you give it to me?"
With Castro:
I have been told by many Cubans living in Cuba (which is an important distinction), of a certain age, that right after the revolution, even amongst skeptics, there was a sense of belonging to the new system. No one knew for sure what that meant, but for several years under the command of El Comandante, many people felt that the little island in the middle of the Caribbean, a few miles from the titan of the west, was somehow also a player on the international stage, and a good-looking and intriguing antagonist at that.
I would argue that many Cubans, seeing themselves through that lens together with some of Castro's early reforms, felt a sense of pride, a newly discovered feeling, especially for the masses, for the countryside, for the workers.
"At the beginning, it was beautiful; everyone was invited to study, to be part of the revolution. Prostitutes, farmers, everybody was welcome. At the beginning.”
Everyone I have spoken with agrees there were bad times, especially in the 90s after the Berlin Wall came crashing down; the Cuban economy fell hard and fast during what’s now known as “El periodo especial”. From what I have been told, it was devastating.
But as of today, or yesterday, or tomorrow (it's hard to say), life kept going, albeit resolviendo, as Cubans call the act of hustling. A hustle in silence, a silence that started during Castro's government. The antagonist spirit ingrained in its citizens for years was not allowed against the government, of course.
Time stopped in '59, but the years kept going, and with them, problems grew one after the other, taller and tougher like a wall that surrounded the island in the form of embargoes and sanctions that the government used very carefully to their advantage.
"Things were bad sometimes, but Fidel was a good leader.”
After Castro:
When the leader died, many people thought that would be it; Gringos would be roaming Havana with cups of Starbucks frappuccinos in a week, or in a year, or ten, or maybe it already happened; it's hard to tell.
Cuba has always been a tourist destination, but the kind of tourism has changed through the decades. Modern tourism in Cuba started in the early '90s. With a newly formed Ministry of Tourism created in 1994, the Cuban state invested heavily in tourist facilities. Between 1990 and 2000, more than $3.5 billion were invested.
Beyond beautiful Caribbean beaches, their product is nostalgia. Old cars, bartenders with suits and ties, and old-fashioned cocktails define the experience.
This is probably one of the worst dramas for Cuba: their stagnation in time and lack of resources. The somewhat rebellious adventure of visiting the country of the revolution is exciting for the average tourist, and very well-marketed by the tourism offices. Usually, they don't see beyond the nice cars and the cigars. It's a kind of tourism unique in the world and generates 10% of the GDP for the state.
Big events in Cuba are like movies for the people on the street; they comment on it, sometimes openly and sometimes in petit comité, among just friends.
February 19, 2008: Fidel Castro resigns as President of Cuba.
February 24, 2008: Raúl Castro is elected President by the National Assembly.
December 17, 2014: U.S. President Barack Obama and Raúl Castro re-establish diplomatic ties between the two countries.
March 20, 2016: U.S. President Barack Obama begins a three-day visit to Cuba.
November 25, 2016: The death of Fidel Castro is announced. "The commander in chief of the Cuban revolution died at 22:29 hours this evening [03:29 GMT]."
June 16, 2017: U.S. President Donald Trump cancels the previous administration's diplomatic agreements with Cuba.
April 19, 2018: Miguel Díaz-Canel succeeds Raul Castro as President of the Council of State and Council of Ministers, becoming the first non-Castro leader of the country since the Cuban Revolution.
“What has changed? Nothing for us; everything is the same. "Resolver y más resolver.”
COVID-19 would soon come after. Even more severe shortages and rationing, and the biggest protest against the government since '59, and what they call a new special period but worse than the one in the 90s, and the biggest exodus of people leaving the country in recent history. Between 2022 and 2023, U.S. Customs and Border Protection estimates that over 425,000 Cubans migrated to America.
"The sharks are sharpening their teeth, waiting for Cuban meat.”
Photos and Text: Jorge Delgado-Ureña
This reminds me of Alex Webb🥂 Great layering👌👌
There is a saying that I love; 'To travel is to discover that everybody is wrong about the other countries.' Exactly!
On my first flight to Cuba in 2016, I was both fascinated and faced with poverty. Wonderful old cars and peeling buildings. A country that tries to live off tourism and on the other hand, it doesn't really care about the 'service sector'. Medicine is advanced but the food is not very healthy (for example, there were no vegan options anywhere). But still, Old Havana and its people warmed my heart.
Jorge, something very interesting happened. I was looking at the photos and remembered the corner where the man playing the saxophone was and I even remembered the dancing woman with the flowered scarf on her head in the photo. I took a photo there in 2018 and the woman is dancing in my frame. What a sweet coincidence.