Perspective:
By Pat Zaharopoulos

Cubans are healthy, happy people who live with food and housing shortages, recent reforms and hope for a better tomorrow. We stayed eight days at the elegant Hotel National of Cuba which was dedicated in 1930—in a room occupied by Fred Astaire in 1941—and visited judges, lawyers and Hemingway’s estate, the hotel where he stayed and the bar where he drank his daiquiris. Hemingway gave his Nobel Prize to “the people of Cuba” and Old Man and the Sea is required reading for high school freshmen.

Our keynote speaker, Ricardo Alarcon de Quesada, third in the line of succession after the Castros, spoke about the “Cuban Five” who have been “political prisoners” in the USA since 1998 because they tried to protect Miami Cubans who do business or are sympathetic to Castro from the “terrorist attacks” of their fellow Cuban exiles. He emphasized the power of the Miami Cuban lobby in the USA and the lack of national news coverage of its violence.

The Cuban Five were convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage and other crimes. The US Supreme Court refused to hear their case in 2009. According to the FBI, there have been at least 25 bombings or attempted bombings in Miami, Florida since May of 1987. In the 54th year of the Cuban Revolution, the Cuban Five remain in the control of our prisons and we continue to blockade Cuba.

Revolution & Recent Reforms

On New Year’s Day 1959, Fidel Castro entered Havana with a victorious army, hours after dictator Fulgencio Bautista fled to Spain. Today, signs and conversation often state facts in terms of “since the triumph of the revolution.” “No one knows” where in Havana, Fidel and Raul Castro live, but as long as people do not criticize or rebel against the government, Cubans now enjoy quite a bit of freedom. However, earlier this year, Amnesty International reported that the Castro dictatorship maintains a “permanent campaign” against its opponents and denies free expression.

Cubans cannot visit other countries without an “invitation” from a relative, complex paperwork that takes a while and a travel tax. If they do not return in a year, their property used to be confiscated, but now can be sold with payment of a transfer tax or transferred to another family member at no charge. There are no annual property taxes. Cubans pay a 10% income tax, quarterly. They number about 12 million people with one fourth living in Havana.

Work, Private Ownership, Two Currencies and Tourism

The government provides free education, free medical care and a job “where your province needs you.” Childcare facilities are readily available at low cost for working mothers. So many educated men left Cuba after the Revolution that there was a severe shortage of skilled labor (there are still 5 women to every man.) The Russians sent consultants to train Cuban, gave Cuba subsidies and bought their products, especially sugar. As a result, the Cuban economy was better than South America’s, but it collapsed after the fall of the USSR and things were bad from 1991 to 1994. Cubans call this the “Special Period.” They are still struggling to return their economy to its prior production. “We are working on that,” was a frequent answer to our economic and political questions.

Wages average about 25 US dollars a month with professionals making over twice that. Wages are paid in Cuban pesos which are 25 to the US dollar, but non-Cubans must use convertible Cuban pesos which are about equal to the US dollar for all services and purchases. While there was relative wage equality in Cuba after the revolution, there was never an egalitarian wage system where every worker was paid the same. Dr. Che Guevara himself devised a new salary scale with 24 different basic wage levels, plus a 15% bonus for “over-completion.” It was adopted in 1964.

Since the revolution, there are no mortgages. A Cuban can inherit, buy or sell a car, one city home and a vacation home, but no rentals. Almost everyone rents, from the government. In the 1970s and 1980s, the state provided materials for workers to build their own housing, resulting in Soviet style 5 story, walk-up apartment buildings the Cubans call “Krushevskas.” There are no private landlords.

Private restaurants seating up to 50 people are allowed, but again, very few have the money to own a business.

Technically, only the government has employees, so people who work for private restaurants have no minimum wage or employment protection and their medical and educational contributions and those of the private owners are still evolving. We ate at a restaurant on a farm owned by Italians. Europeans and South Americans have invested in Cuba.

Hard currency also comes from the 2 million tourists who visit Cuba each year— mostly Canadians and Europeans. Since the mid-1990s, tourism, not sugar, is the primary source of Cuba’s foreign exchange. More Americans visit each year in charter planes for “educational purposes.” The Cuban people were very friendly to us.

Due to the US embargo, rice comes from Viet Nam. Cubans have rationing for basic foods like rice, beans, eggs, chicken and pork, but it is not sufficient for the whole month and food beyond the rations is their greatest expense. Beef is not available. It is reserved for feeding tourists.

We visited a mansion and golf course in Varadero on a beautiful sandy beach. At the turn of the last century it, plus a nearby airport, had belonged to Americans (the DuPonts) who had purchased 14 of the peninsula’s 18 kilometers along the Atlantic Ocean for 4 pesos each and sold them off for 130 each—keeping only the best section for their mansion, Xanadu, which was ultimately confiscated by the revolution and turned into a restaurant.

Free Education and Medical Care

There is little or no truancy or dropping out. Children begin to study English in grade school. Education is free at all levels and college students even get a stipend to live on. Schools have some computers. Admission to universities and trades is by tests and the government encourages skills that are needed. Men serve 3 years in the military or 1 year as soldiers and 2 years of public service wherever they are needed.

Everyone receives free medical care. Cuba has one doctor for every 120 inhabitants (USA 1 in 300+) and sends doctors all over the world for natural disasters. Infant mortality is very low and lifespan are now nearly 80 years.

Transportation, Music, Dance & TV

Cars are few and small, mostly, European or Asian, and can be inherited or sold. 1950s or 1960s American cars in good condition cost about 30,000 pesos. Tourists can rent 60 year old American cars in Havana and Cuban brides ride old American convertibles through town in their wedding dresses, horns honking.

Cuba is “working on it” when it comes to transportation. Buses are jammed full, people hitch hike and anyone whose job provides a car is told to give rides to hitchhikers. I took a 1957 Chevy taxi back to the hotel one night for 7 convertible pesos. The driver-owner uses it as a taxi after his state job for extra cash. He proudly told me the Chevy has been in his family for over 50 years and it will be inherited by his son and then, his grandson.

Salsa has its roots in the Afro-Cuban music of Santiago de Cuba. Music and dance remain an important part of life. We had live music at every lunch and dinner, enjoyed live jazz at La Zorra y El Cuervo where we paid a 10 convertible peso cover and got 2 free alcoholic drinks and the younger members of our group danced in clubs until the wee hours of the morning. Mojitos abound.

Nearly all homes have TV. There are five channels, two of which are educational. No commercials. People are currently being polled about what type of programs they want added. Schools and businesses have computers and so do a few homes. Home computers have intranet, but no internet. While the goal is equality, a few Cubans have substantial incomes. They are generally high government officials and diplomats.

We visited Las Terrazas, a planned, self-sufficient, cooperative community in the mountains about a two hour drive from Havana. It was re-forested and housing, a little of it in single family units, looked like California condos. Our visit included a coffee break at Maria’s, which is open 13 hours a day. Maria is 71 years old. Asked if the average Cuban is better or worst off under Castro than under Bautista, she said that all of the land we could see belonged to one man before the revolution and her mother worked sun rise to sunset for one peso a day. They had no school or medical care.

Now, she said, everyone has a nice little house or apartments and a job. “My grandchildren are in school, and even my son is taking some classes to improve himself. We have schools, right here. We have doctors. Life is good.”

Next week a view of Cuba’s Legal System.

Pat Zaharopoulos is a retired CA deputy attorney general who is an active volunteer in the community. She serves on the Boards of Middle Class Taxpayers, Neighborhood House and Labor Alliance (Employee Rights Center).