Word: cubans
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Although there is a certain homogeneity--from city to city, hotels are designed alike, restaurants often use the same china, waiters and waitresses wear the same austere black and white uniforms--the government maintains diverse economic establishments that cater to different Cuban clienteles. There is the local bar in the town of Trinidad in which the only barstool is a concrete stoop. And then there is the Tropicana nightclub, still perhaps the most lavish in the world, where dancers in glitter and feathers parade across an outdoor stage set amid a grove of palm trees...
...these improvements have sometimes been detrimental to what most Americans would consider inviolable political liberties. When the revolution took a turn to the left in the early sixties, the government changed the motto on the Cuban centavo from "Country of Liberty" to "Country or Death." Certainly, Cubans have lost at least several liberties; the freedom to travel to non-socialist countries, for example. This restriction was implemented in part for ideological effect, but mainly for the more practical reason that it is impossible to exchange Cuban currency in the West. The government also prohibits emigration of citizens...
...heavyset black woman who did piecework and was barely able to survive financially under the Batista regime, does not suffer for lack of some freedoms. Today she is a singer in a cultural group, secretary of the union where she works, and a member of the Federation for Cuban Women. With the availability of day care and a guaranteed job, she says the Cuban women have more "liberty" than ever before...
Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDRs) are the primary grassrooots organizations; there is one on each block of every Cuban city, town or village. Each block elects a steering committee of 11 that is responsible for maintaining public health and combatting educational truancy. The committees also are charged with a vague responsibility known as "vigilance," a system, critics say, that leads to neighbor spying upon neighbor...
...speech to the Cuban congress last July, Castro said that some Cuban workers, particularly in the service industries where performance is difficult to evaluate, have responded to the lack of immediate material incentives by simply goofing off: waitresses shuffle their feet while customers wait, and bus drivers omit stops. Despite the fact that some continue to exploit the system, Cubans are proud that they have "reclaimed their country" from the American interests that have dominated the region since 1898. Today Havana is a Cuban city. Havana in the fifties was an American sailor's brothel; a friend...