Cuba. (photo: Flickr)
By Michelle Chase, Boston Review
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Will the normalization of U.S.-Cuba relations mean worsening inequality for Afro-Cubans and women?
In December 2014 President Obama made the stunning announcement that he had used his executive power to negotiate with Cuba and would reestablish diplomatic relations with our erstwhile enemy. Throughout the subsequent year, the U.S. media focused on the more exciting aspects of reestablishing diplomatic ties: the long-overdue removal of Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism; the moving act of raising the flag above the reinstated U.S. embassy in Havana; and most recently, the sudden announcement of big business interests sitting down with U.S. and Cuban officials to negotiate compensation for properties expropriated by the revolution a half-century ago. Our official recognition of the Cuban government after fifty-five years of isolation, open aggression, and clandestine destabilization is extremely important and must continue.
Yet what already seems clear is that the renewal of U.S. relations will not automatically bring widespread prosperity, much less social equality, to Cuba. The December 17, 2014 rapprochement between Cuba and the United States came on the heels of several years of Cuban internal reform that have deepened inequality, stacking the deck of the new political landscape in favor of some Cubans. Not surprisingly, race and gender figure prominently in Cuba's growing disparities.
Even the most measurable change so far this year-the spike in American visitors-may contribute to the island's deepening inequality. The growing flood of U.S. tourists will inevitably provide new clientele for the restaurants, home-stays, and other urban services that are the bread and butter of Havana's new upwardly mobile class of business owners, who tend to be light-skinned and often male, threatening to leave Afro-Cubans, women, and vulnerable groups, such as the elderly, behind. |
