Cuba: Coca-Cola Colony of the Caribbean

Louis A. Perez, Jr., "On Becoming Cuban." Harper Perennial, 2001; new ed. 2007.

Professor Perez has done another outstanding job of exploring the complexities of U.S.-Cuban relations. Again he has shown that the Revolution of 1959 didn't happen just because Castro read Marxist books while in college. Professor Perez explains why Castro's generation were reading the Marxist books in the first place.

There are some things in the critique of U.S. culture which are disturbing, to a North American, not so much in Professor Perez' presentation as in the chauvinistic attitude of some Cubans quoted here, expecially regarding language. All languages borrow from each other. English is full of loan words, from French, Latin, etc., and are considered normal parts of speech. This can be accepted without a sense of victimization. The "I Love Lucy" episodes referred to were not as bad as portrayed; Ricky Ricardo was emphatically not a buffoon and corrected Lucy's miscomprehensions about Cuba (and herself) more than once.

One of the most revealing passages on US-Cuban relations details the betrayal of liberal-democratic Cubans, not so much by Fidel Castro as by the US. If Castro ultimately had no use for "bourgeois-democratic liberals," the US had less. Castro originally hoped that liberal-progressive elements in the US and Europe would help stabilize his regime and looked to them long before allying with the Cuban Communists or the USSR. But rather than maintain links with the first revolutionary government through Cuban liberals - often US-educated - the Eisenhower administration brushed them off as too liberal, in the same manner as Che helped squeeze them out for being "reactionary." To quote Perez:

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What is perhaps most remarkable about the growing [US-Cuban] dispute in 1959 was that so many reforms were devised and implemented not by radicals, but by liberals, Protestants, and graduates of U.S. schools, who, in fact, carried the moral of North American value systems to their logical conclusion. The ranks of the insurrection had been filled with Protestants of all denominations . . . [who] proceeded to fill numerous positions in the new government. . . .

Liberals of all types joined the new administration, many of whom were educated in North American schools. Almost all of them would resign by the end of the first eighteen months, as radicals took over the government. But the point here is that the U.S. dispute with Cuba in 1959 was, ironically, largely with the policies and programs enacted by men and women most closely identified with North American practices. . . .

U.S. opposition to the reforms of 1959 contributed to the undermining of the internal position of liberals. Men and women trained in North American methods of problem solving, and imbued with many of the same expectations, brought those experiences to bear in behalf of a better Cuba. They had been prominent participants in the formulation of reforms, thereby lending credibility and providing momentum to the proposed changes. In the end, they added legitimacy and respectability to Cuban demands as an expression of national sentiment. They gave their considerable expertise and prestige to the cause of national renovation and fully expected U.S. acquiescence to reforms that, within the logic of Cuban reality, were not only reasonable but also necessary. They justified the changes, and indeed made appeals on their behalf, in terms calculated to resonate within a U.S. frame of reference. . . .

Even from exile in 1961, former [Cuban National Bank President] Felipe Pazos continued to insist on the importance of precisely the reforms that the United States had opposed. “Cuba needed to break up large land holdings and to create a substantially larger number of land owners who cultivate their land,” Pazos insisted; “to establish new industries to occupy the unemployed (seasonal, cyclical, and structural); to step up its rate of economic growth; to tax more heavily high incomes and to collect taxes effectively; . . . to improve services for the people, especially education, health and housing.”

Liberals understood the nature of the market forces confronting Cuba; they also appreciated the limitations of market mechanisms in an export economy. What was especially striking about many of the reforms of 1959 was the degree to which the liberals chose to engage the North American presence in Cuba on its own terms, with its own rhetoric and rationale. They could not have known in advance that the United States would oppose their efforts, placing them in a position of extreme vulnerability, between U.S. opposition to reform and Cuban demand for revolution.

For those schooled in U.S. ways who participated in or were otherwise party to the reform project of 1959, the opposition of the United States was as incomprehensible as it was indefensible. They were dedicated to North American methods; indeed, they often defended reforms with reasoning derived explicitly from North American paradigms. They understood, too, that the ground was giving way under them and that the definition of “Cuban” was in transition. U.S. opposition and veiled threats against Cuba contributed to discrediting these representatives of North American ways. Cubans could not counter North American opposition without also calling into question some of the most fundamental assumptions on which their daily life had been based.

The result of U.S. opposition was to contribute to a profound crisis that transformed the proposition of revolution. The United States assumed the role of adversary, and henceforth the conventions that had insinuated themselves into almost every facet of Cuban life were subject to repudiation. It thus became increasingly difficult to hold on to North American affiliations without inviting scorn and arousing suspicion. (pp. 487-489.)

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Lessons to remember, as a post-Castro Cuba looms one step nearer. Yanquis (including Yanquified Miami "Cubans") should read it before they attempt to reconquer Cuba in the next decade.