August in Cuba is scorchingly hot and oppressively humid-over one hundred degrees nearly every single day; though an ice cream cone can be readily had for 2 pesos, or about eight cents. I spent most of the month studying Spanish at Havana University-five hours of class a day, five days a week at this gorgeous gothic university in the middle of the Vedado District. In the center of the campus, nestled among all the palm trees and lush hanging vines sat a huge green tank that was captured from the CIA during the revolution. Our classroom was a small, sweltering room with a tile floor and a rattly little air conditioner. Periodically the power would go out for fifteen or twenty minutes at a time and I would just watch the sweat slowly drip from my body and collect in puddles on my desk and think about capitalism and ice cream.
Havana University is the same school where Fidel Castro received his law degree over fifty years ago. Over ninety years ago my grandmother, Gloria, was born not far from that same college, long before the socialist revolution, back when the Mafia ran the island with an iron fist. My great-grandmother, Salome, ran a school for girls in Havana. My great grandfather built the first ice factory in Cuba and also ran guns from Cuba to Mexico for Maximilian . Things went badly for the family when Pancho Villa liberated Mexico. My great-grandfather narrowly escaped execution by Villa's troops for supplying the enemy with weapons, saved only by the intervention and fierce pleading of his wife. The family ended up fleeing Cuba and moving to San Clemente, in Orange County California. My great-grandfather was so pissed at the Mexicans for the rest of his life that he forbade any of his progeny to ever speak Spanish again. Even though he was married to a Cuban woman. Like most of the men in my family, my great grandfather was a bit of an asshole. Which brings us back to why I was in Havana, still trying to learn Spanish.
A brief history
At the turn of the 20th century Cuba was finally at the point of achieving independence from Spain. This struggle was led by José Martí, the leading Cuban intellectual and protagonist of the time. Martí was frustrated with the exploitation of the masses and the corruption that he had seen in the emerging republics throughout Europe and in the United States; his desire was to create a nation built on equality and social justice. "In the case of Cuba," writes Juan Antonio Blanco, "the independence movement was not only a political struggle to achieve national sovereignty, but it was also strongly based on an ethical ideal of social justice. To use José Martí's words, the goal of the revolution was to build a republic with all and for the good of all--'con todos y para el bien de todos'."
However, such idealistic social reforms were definitely not in the best interest of capitalism; and the United States saw fit to immediately intervene. The Marines occupied the island until 1902 in an effort to thwart Cuba's attempts to become a sovereign nation. In order to finally be granted independence Cuba was forced to add a special amendment to its constitution.
"This amendment was not even written in the congress of Cuba, but by a U.S. senator whose name was Platt. The Platt amendment said that the United States had the right to intervene in Cuba whenever the United States perceived that its interests were in jeopardy. To guarantee that the United States would have the ability to intervene, it established a naval station, the Guantánamo Base , that still exists today, against the will of the Cuban People."
In the first half of the twentieth century over 80% of Cuba was owned by U.S. based international land companies like the United Fruit Company. Corrupt dictators like Batista allowed politics to be run by the mob. The Cuban citizenry basically served as slave labor for the interests of the Mafia and United States corporations. Millions of people were illiterate, unemployment, abject poverty, racism and exploitation were rampant throughout the country.
