Cuba, America, and Broken Promises

Six years after my last visit, I returned and realized that both nations are much changed.

The first time I went to Havana was in 2016 after JetBlue opened up the route to U.S. citizens. It was, on introspection, a curiosity trip, rooted in my desire to visit a colonial sibling of my own distant mother, Puerto Rico, that I had heard so much and yet knew so little about. I chose the dates at random, and when they arrived, the trip coincided with both Fidel Castro’s funeral procession and the feast day of Santa Barbara—one of the most important days of the year for practitioners of Santeria, which, in Cuba, is estimated to be as high as 70 percent of residents. The result was a city blanketed in the quiet of mourning—the public playing of music had been banned, as had the sale of alcohol (but like most things in Cuba, rules were worked around)—but also the bustle of preparation, albeit subdued.

My small band of travelers also arrived in mourning, albeit for a different reason. Like nearly 3 million other Americans, we had all recently voted for Hillary Clinton and were still reeling from the election results. As if he sensed this, the driver who picked us up from the airport asked us how we were feeling about our soon-to-be next president and, being Americans, we freely spoke our minds. “Well, remember this,” he said, “at least you get to have another election in four years.” Chastened by this fact and the disparity between his reality and ours, we shut up.

Over the course of the next few days, we encountered Cubans with a wide range of opinions about Castro, Communism, and the United States. The true believers—and there were several—were vocal and outspoken about their pride in what they believed Castro had done for them and for Cuba. The skeptics—and there were many—spoke in more hushed tones about their hope for changes in a post-Castro Cuba. We were in the cab back to the airport when the ban on music was officially lifted, and the driver immediately put the radio on. Because now he was allowed to.

I returned to the United States grateful for all the things that we as Americans have been told are unique and valuable about our country: my right to participate in free and fair elections, my right to speak my mind, my right to pursue my own destiny (I had, at that point, the chance to own my own business), and my ability to choose to mourn—or not to mourn—the loss of a political figure.

I am currently at work on my second novel, which is, in part, the fictional retelling of the life and afterlife of a Cuban American artist who came to America as a child as part of the highly secretive Operation Peter Pan. After much research and consternation, I realized that my character’s Cuban-ness and her path to America were an immutable part of the story. I couldn’t write a book with a character who longs for a home that I myself didn’t know. And so, last week, I found myself in Havana again. I traveled in a tiny car on the lush green roads of Cuba, getting more familiar with other parts of the island.

Much has changed for both Cuba and the United States in the six years since Castro died and Donald Trump was elected, and I could probably write a string of essays on the subject—but for now, I’ll give you the highlights of some of what I observed, and perhaps more importantly, what I felt. It was strange to reflect on our cab driver’s remarks from 2016 as I rode from Jose Marti Airport in 2022, knowing how dangerously close to an overthrow of democracy the U.S. had come and what a perilous place that democracy is in. Over the past half decade, I have had ample painful reminders that not all of us have equal rights of citizenry, and I know that the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is not enshrined for all. It was frankly strange to set foot on soil where many fundamental liberties are restricted, and yet the right to an abortion has been enshrined in law for over half a century and gender reassignment surgery has been free since 2008. To put it another way, while the trip still left me grateful for many of the privileges of being a U.S. citizen, being an American visiting Cuba didn’t carry quite the same sense of security as it did in 2016.

This point is not an endorsement of the Cuban government. As I said, much has changed there as well. Yes, there are gorgeous hotels in Havana. There are stunning new all-inclusive resorts lining the beaches of Varadero, many of which are financed by Canada, Spain, and China, all catering to tourists from countries other than the United States. This has brought some moderate increases in prosperity for the Cuban people. But food, bottled water, gasoline, basic sundries, and over-the-counter medicines remain as hard to come by now as they were last year, when peaceful protests over shortages were met with brutal acts of violence and long-term arrests. It’s true that on this visit, more Cubans spoke openly to me about their frustrations with their economic circumstances, about the “lie” of Castro’s Communism, and about their deep wishes for more opportunity. They said these things not sotto voce, but in full-throated statements issued in highly public places. Still, when I commented on how empty the streets of Havana felt compared with my last visit, I was told in low whispers about apartments and artists’ lofts abandoned in the night, as many of the city’s youth have fled the country. About people who have gone missing or have left. Of plans these residents themselves have to leave one day, in no small part because of last summer’s protests and the government’s response.

With so much in peril in my own country—a rogue Supreme Court, a highly dysfunctional Congress, and an ulcer-inducing 2024 election on the horizon—I asked myself, what do I still feel confident in about the promise of America? Stocked aisles at Target are not a promise of America, and yet I would be lying if I said I didn’t appreciate the convenient abundance that being an American with some fiscal security affords me. Free speech? Well, for all I find stifling about cancel culture, I was able to publish a novel earlier this year that criticized politicians and my own government, and it landed me on the best-seller list, not in prison. I have no interest in gun ownership, but I suppose if I did, as maddening as it is, I’d be pretty bullish on my rights in that regard. But, more than anything, what I felt in talking to people on this particular trip was gratitude for the ability to have made my own way.

I’m skeptical of it as a point of mythology, but I’m aware that I have personally lived what, at its most simplistic, many would consider the American dream. I started with a very modest beginning; grew up to run a sustainable, successful small business; and then pursued a secondary career of my dreams and had it result in economic security and homeownership. And yet I have long felt that, generationally, I am barely two steps ahead of catastrophe. I am a member of the last generation to enter into adulthood bathed in optimism about what’s possible through capitalism and hard work, even if that optimism was rooted in fantasy over fact. In today’s America, this experience is the exception and certainly not the rule. As capitalism has evolved into hyper-capitalism, its promises here in the United States seem to have left our young without much to be optimistic about. When Millennial and Gen-Z Americans look at what their parents’ generation and my generation have been able to do for ourselves economically, it seems out of their reach. Similarly, young people in Cuba with access to social media look around at much of the world and find themselves longing for more.

One of the more striking moments of my trip was a night sharing drinks on a rooftop overlooking the Capitolio with some young Cuban writers and visual artists I’d met and spent the day with. One was writing a novel, and I asked him what it was about—as much as any novelist can answer that impossible question. “Well,” he said (and pardon my paraphrase), “it’s about feeling isolated here; it’s about social media making us think we are connected, but still feeling anxious and alone. It’s about wishing we were more supportive of each other as we seek to better ourselves, but instead climbing on top of each other, trying to claw our way out. Of wishing we had more—not a lot, but just a chance at something to call our own.” And I thought to myself, if I closed my eyes, I could just as easily be listening to someone describe the next great Gen-Z American novel.

We’ve taken starkly different routes, but somehow, the paths of our nations have led our young people to strikingly similar outlooks. What, I wonder, does this mean for our future?