Cuba, que linda es Cuba...
Atlantic City has just opened up a whole shopping center of
pseudo-Havana, Disneyland Cuba....what does this mean? At the very moment when the Bush administration has essentially cut off ALL travel to the actual, real, Cuba...suddenly the sanitized, commercialized decor version seems to be a sure-fire popular draw for visitors and gamblers taking a few minutes away from the slots. For the past year, the US law has even prohibited Cuban-americans from going to Cuba to see relatives
(mothers are ok, aunts and cousins are not) and even humanitarian projects such as the Cuban-american group in California that collects wheelchairs for Cubans who need them are not allowed to ship the aid or visit the projects they work with. Yet fake palm trees and plastic images of "old Havana" are now the cool background for getting drunk or buying more unnecessary pairs of jeans (made in
Indonesia, Malaysia, and other non-unionized locations). Unlike President Bush, and unlike the vast majority of day-trip visitors to the Atlantic City version of Havana, I actually remember pre-revolutionary Havana, AND the same city after the revolution. My memories of "old" Havana, though, include some features that Atlantic-City-Havana leaves out-I remember beggars wandering the streets and climbing the stairs of
apartment buildings to knock on doors to ask for food. I remember the streets of Havana filling with floods and sewage when it rained because there was no public health agency to repair
the infrastructure. I remember that all the public schools ran on half day sessions because of underfunding and overcrowding. I remember the large US military establishment in Havana, there to train and support the dictator Batista, an establishment so accepted that the US army even had its own amusement park for the children of US troops, along with separate schools and stores for the US military. Cuba today, the real Cuba, has schools and healthcare and-yes- nightclubs, musicians, and dancing-all part of a real and complex country that exists for its own sake, not to be our decorative motif-of-the-week.
Peacewoman 1213
pseudo-Havana, Disneyland Cuba....what does this mean? At the very moment when the Bush administration has essentially cut off ALL travel to the actual, real, Cuba...suddenly the sanitized, commercialized decor version seems to be a sure-fire popular draw for visitors and gamblers taking a few minutes away from the slots. For the past year, the US law has even prohibited Cuban-americans from going to Cuba to see relatives
(mothers are ok, aunts and cousins are not) and even humanitarian projects such as the Cuban-american group in California that collects wheelchairs for Cubans who need them are not allowed to ship the aid or visit the projects they work with. Yet fake palm trees and plastic images of "old Havana" are now the cool background for getting drunk or buying more unnecessary pairs of jeans (made in
Indonesia, Malaysia, and other non-unionized locations). Unlike President Bush, and unlike the vast majority of day-trip visitors to the Atlantic City version of Havana, I actually remember pre-revolutionary Havana, AND the same city after the revolution. My memories of "old" Havana, though, include some features that Atlantic-City-Havana leaves out-I remember beggars wandering the streets and climbing the stairs of
apartment buildings to knock on doors to ask for food. I remember the streets of Havana filling with floods and sewage when it rained because there was no public health agency to repair
the infrastructure. I remember that all the public schools ran on half day sessions because of underfunding and overcrowding. I remember the large US military establishment in Havana, there to train and support the dictator Batista, an establishment so accepted that the US army even had its own amusement park for the children of US troops, along with separate schools and stores for the US military. Cuba today, the real Cuba, has schools and healthcare and-yes- nightclubs, musicians, and dancing-all part of a real and complex country that exists for its own sake, not to be our decorative motif-of-the-week.
Peacewoman 1213
posted by peacewoman1213 at 10:15 AM
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