I have friends in Havana and sent a letter out; obviously things aren't great between both of our countries but I'm hoping my letter at least lands with them. Haven't corresponded in a while.

Any idea of a timeframe is appreciated. I have low hopes.

Thought this was good for sharing.

U.S. Lawmakers Challenge Trump’s Claims About Cuba After Visiting the Island

YouTube vid from article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsQbwjoUO8I

U.S. lawmakers Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI), Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández (D-NM), and Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-IL) gave an exclusive interview to Belly of the Beast during their recent visit to Havana.

Their trip to Cuba comes as the Trump administration ramps up its oil blockade and economic war on the island, which it has justified by claiming that Cuba poses a threat to U.S. national security.

After meeting with doctors, farmers, entrepreneurs, diplomats and ordinary Cubans, the lawmakers accused Donald Trump and Marco Rubio of pushing a “false narrative.”

“We have seen no proof," said Pocan. "Congress needs to demand it.”

“Walking through a hospital that is dark and empty because we've cut off energy, we’ve cut off fuel,” said Leger Fernández. “Why would Americans support that?”

Toda vez que hoy es el aniversario 337 de Santa Oscura... perdón...Santa Clara, he aquí más detalles sobre su fundación:

#Historia

https://cubahistorias.wordpress.com/2025/07/15/la-fundacion-de-santa-clara/

Para tí ¿qué artista vivo, nos representaría completamente?
No podemos incluir a los fallecidos, dígase Celia Cruz (obvia merecedora) etc

Descartados en mi opinión: Buena Fe, Silvio Rodríguez…

Creo que los cubanos llevamos muchos años preguntándonos qué significa ser cubano y qué clase de personas queremos ser. Por ejemplo, José Martí escribía mucho sobre los valores con los que deberían crecer los niños y sobre la clase de carácter que debía formar una sociedad.
Al mismo tiempo, escucho muy a menudo a otros cubanos quejarse de ciertos comportamientos entre nosotros, de cómo han cambiado los jóvenes, de la delincuencia, de la falta de respeto, del egoísmo, de la desconfianza, etc.
Y no digo que los cubanos seamos perfectos, obviamente, pero también creo que hay que tener en cuenta que Cuba lleva muchos años en una situación terrible y que muchísima gente dentro del país vive bajo una presión enorme. Cuando una persona siente que todo ya está jodido y que mañana puede ser peor, entiendo que aparezca esa mentalidad de “me da igual si el mundo se cae, si ya está ardiendo.”
Así que tengo curiosidad:
Si pudieran escoger algunos valores o cualidades que les gustaría ver más entre los cubanos, ¿cuáles serían? ¿Por qué les gustaría que los cubanos fueran conocidos?
Y al revés: ¿qué comportamientos, hábitos o actitudes les gustaría que dejáramos atrás? ¿Qué cosas entre nosotros les molestan, les decepcionan o directamente odian que se hayan normalizado?

Increíblemente, a pesar de que sería de lo más imposible de creer, por alguna razón se vendieron vehículos de una marca americana en Cuba en plena guerra fría. Pero cómo rayos se pudo hacer esto sin molestar a Washington con sanciones hacia Argentina, que producía estos vehículos Ford???

As a Jamaican in America, I have always been curious, what is the thoughts of the Cuban people as it relates to the relationship between Cuba and Jamaica because of the US?

Hace pocos días inmortalicé esta imagen. Caía la tarde en la bahía de Matanzas, me encontraba compartiendo con amigos, de fondo sonaba “Arenas de Soledad”.

A lo lejos vi esta escena y consolidó la melancolía que ya se respiraba. El mar que a tantos ha visto partir, la nostalgia, la incertidumbre…

Siento genuina curiosidad por saber la respuesta de la gente a esta pregunta, sea cual sea tu postura política. Si crees que es inevitable la instauracion de una democracia multipartidista en Cuba, ¿cuándo estimas que llegará ese día?

Me interesa especialmente escuchar a cubanos, cubanoamericanos o a cualquier persona que haya vivido en la isla.

Contexto:

Ha medida que he ido aprediendo e investigando cada vez mas sobre Cuba desde la secundaria a mi siempre me ha llamado mucho la atencion lo anomalo que es Cuba entre los estados americanos porque de alguna forma u otra siempre ha sido facil para mi preveer las caidas de los estados autoritarios y dictaduras que alguna vez se han instaurado en suelo americano pero Cuba siempre ha estado ahi para mi como la unica excepcion la cual no logro entender que esta pasando ni que pasara.

Mientras todas las demas dictaduras que alguna vez han existido en America siempre fueron muy inestables y sus caidas fueron facilmente predecibles, es una rareza unica y excepcional que una dictadura con las caracteristicas de Cuba siga existiendo hoy en America en pleno siglo 21, principalmente por ser la dictadura mas larga y estable que las Americas alguna vez haya concebido y porque hoy la sociedad latinoamericana es muy reacia y consciente contra cualquier tipo de autoritarismo y paradigma que amenace el estilo de vida compartido entre latinoamericanos.

A pesar de que hace muy poco Venezuela estuvo atravesando un proceso regresivo con respecto a su democracia, Venezuela siempre estuvo muy lejos de acercarse y asemejarse a la dictadura y autoritarismo expuesto en Cuba hoy en dia. Lo que hace a Cuba aun mas rara.

Meanwhile, Los Angeles had a pro-Cuban regime rally with zero Cuban speakers.

Was wondering if anyone had any recommendations on the best model. Got an older grandmother in Camagüey and we’d like to ship it from the US

Are there any walk around on getting my documents from Cuba? My package has been stucked with DHL since last week and a friend just told me they’ve seized operations, I need all the suggestions please because I need to have them before 22nd.

i've just found out about pru and have no idea what this could taste like, but it reminds me of maví, one of my favorite drinks. i heard it's very refreshing and naturally carbonated.

In 2025, the US reported 809.6 million in exports to Cuba. That’s up from 176.7 million in 2020 (an over 400% increase), 185.7 million in 2015, and 363.1 million in 2010. Source: https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c2390.html

Fuel exports from the US to Cuba in 2026 from January-April are US$24million, mostly from Miami. Source: https://www.cubatrade.org/blog/2026/6/11/cjdkwk1odg6r2rbl9bv55gz4tmqftn

Learn more: https://preview.mailerlite.io/emails/webview/1476379/191348594342626577

Second nationwide blackout in less than a week.

I just wanted to share this for all the people who support or want to see the regime stay in power. Look at, 'through our glasses'.

Hey r/cuba, Priya from USA TODAY here:

Cuba has confirmed that the man without an official position — but the right last name — is their approved negotiator with the United States. And he wants to negotiate with President Donald Trump.

The government made the statement after the grandson of Raul Castro, Raul Rodriguez Castro, gave an exclusive series of interviews in Havana to USA TODAY.

Read the full story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2026/07/09/castro-grandson-has-top-leadership-blessing-to-negotiate-with-u-s/90862798007/ 

Good afternoon friends, I want to go in deep today about an issue that's rarely touched upon when it comes to discussing modern cuban society and imo, it's the main thing tearing my country apart, not the economic blockade nor oil embargo, im referring to the often times unspoken and taboo subject of our own self hatred, self sabotaging and the general envy between us in society.

However, I theorize that things are this way by design rather than a natural phenomena of the circumstances we have to endure.

Unlike other places in the world, it's borderline imposible to climb up the social ladder by one's own hardwork and effort, there's always a deus - ex machina element to the upper and middle echelon of society, mainly having someone close abroad, either being a family member or a friend that is able to help you materially speaking.

Hence societal division, jeaulsy wnd animosity is rampant between us, most people (including me) me believe that it's not fair that a so called "egalitarian" system is really bulit around mainly extracting wealth from the diaspora while seclduing and marginalizing the working class that is the blood and soul of this nation. it's not fair for me or anyone to bust our butts working grueling hours under extremely difficult circumstances for a paycheck that dosent cover our most basic living expenses and having to ration everything in order to have some food on the table everyday while the so called "privileged" don't do anything positive for anyone and get rewarded and treated better just because they have someone out there that looks after them.

From the moment we are born we are taught to be fake, to never express our true feelings to the world and instead gossip and trash talk everything and everyone behind they're back. That is how we keep the appearance of a cohesive and functioning society in the eyes of the world, that is why everyone appears to be friendly and open towards eachother while harboring negative emotions towards eachother for a variety of reasons, mainly but not limited to econmic reasons.

You can see this class divisions that supposedly don't exist starting from school, it is a fact that teachers will favor and protect wealthy kids and the parents enable this rather than discouraging it. There are no private schools but it is very common that a certain class group ((think 6th grade A) is composed by wealthy kids and the rest (6th B,C etc) by common kids, the first group would have the best and most upkeeped classroom and the rest would get the worst ones, also the wealthier group would almost always get the careers they want by pure nepotism and they'll qualify with A+ grades because the exams would be handed out to them before the test day.

Most of those privileged kids if they stay here would aim for a career in the medical sector since its viewed historically as the most respected field, but I can personally attest that they're abilities as medical personnel are non existent and it's so obvious that they're not qualified by the way they handle the most basic medical procedures. They just choose the career either due to family pressure or as a status symbol. Unfortunately, those are current representatives of what once called the best health system in the latam, it's no longer that way.

Our parents would often teach us to distrust and dislike one another, gender doesn't matter, boys and girls would act that way and almost every friendgroup would eventually collapse for the most pitty of reasons and friendships often feel like they're timed to end when one can no onger benefit from the other in a material way. having that in the back or your mind, the fear of being played and used keeps us from developing meaningful relationships, and this applies also to romantic ones not just friendships.

The toxicity between us young people will never allow us to group and organize to create any serious political oposition much less make a meaningful change, everyone hates the way things are but everyone still follows the same system because it's deeply embedded in our minds.

We are our own worst enemy, We are the blockade...

I feel that alot of things that are being said about what's going in cuba are lacking In depth to say the best and most people don't get the full picture, instead they pick a side and go with it and that pisses me off. as a cuban living in cuba I want to address a couple things, mind you I hate politics in all forms and I'm only biased towards my people, not any system of governance or political wet dream so here are some hot takes on reality here ;

0 - there is a schizm between the military (far) and the Civil goverment (pcc) they've been having beef in the shadows since raul stepped down and diaz canel came up, a significant part of the military dosent respect the authority of the president and remain loyal to the castros, they view the civil goverment and its officials as weak, unworthy and basically puppets that have to answer to them since they're the ones that control the economy, the guns and decision making de facto since the beginning of the aperture policy in the 90s and the creation of gaesa, the Civil goverment is a façade meant to white wash the dictatorship that's been going on here since 59

1 - it's impossible to remove the Castros and communists from power without direct military intervention and that's not happening anytime soon. It would be extremely costly and unpopular for the us to intervene in cuba as of right now and instead they rely on the good ol embargo policy that would other wise work if not for our goverment basically not giving a f about its people, they know people have been weakend and conditioned to obey big brother and even when people go protest they don't budge since people rarely become violent so when the police shows up they just stand there watching people scream and bang on pans since they know people won't harm them. To take away that conditioning that basically starts when ur born is a hard thing specially when u feel like it's beyond u and there's nothing u can do. When people actually step up in the protests nobody follows and instead they just let the cops take them away even if they're outnumbered. It's not cowardice it's psychological conditioning.

2 - even if the us keeps it's chokehold on the oil our goverment won't fall, they'll adapt and use alternatives like solar energy (very prominent in my area and all cuba) and people will somehow save up or get sent the money to get those and the like

3 - there is no way of cutting the regimes main artery which is remticances, it's often done via third party people always living abroad and imposible to track since they're not sending money directly to cuba, it always looks like a us to us transaction and they'll need a whole Lotta evidence to know what's really going on

4 - the worst enemy of a cuban is another cuban, there is no doubt that business owners here will exploit and borderline enslave they're workers paying sometimes even less than 1$ per work day for retail jobs and others. I worked a long time as a cook and the most I'd make in a week is 9-10$ including tips and that's being generous

5 - drugs are a goverment psyop, there is an actual epidemic of a drug called "quimico or papelito" (synthetic weed mixed with fentanyl) that's destroying a lot of young peoples life, depression and hopelessness is rampant among young people and alot of them turn to drugs as an answer and the goverment knows 100% who sells it on every neighborhood and they allow it to keep going since they rather have young guys spend most they're day getting the money to buy them and spend the rest zooted out they're mind and it's an endless cycle that keeps the threat of a youth uprising quelled down and they purposefully keep them cheap (around 20 cents a hit) to controll young Cubans

6 - the goverment is keeping people poor and helpess on purpose, they basically have us as hostages to keep extracting money from exiled Cubans, it's impossible to "make it out the hood" here by working hard and saving. The system is rigged and they won't allow anyone to succeed beyond a certain threshold unless you're getting remmitances and relying on family and friends abroad to keep injecting dollars to the economy and they won't let go of that system anytime soon

7 - controlled opposition is a very very very real thing, I believe that a good % of anti govement infuelncers both in cuba and miami are paid off by the government itself, first thing u see when u open Facebook here is anti goverment propaganda, it's almost as if they want u to hate them and go complain about things, none of those voices actually does anything substancial other that repeating the same mantras and bitch and moan without having anything else to offer beyond ragebait and desmoralization.

Feel free to argue on any point I made so far, I might do a follow up post going more in detail about the cuban reality from my pov. God bless u all and viva cuba libre!

Alguien ha visto algún tipo de documento producido en la isla que diga detalladamente proyecciones como:

Ejemplo 1: Si se levanta el embargo el mes próximo y recibimos X mil millones de dólares en inversión, la generación eléctrica aumentará un 40% en dos años.

Ejemplo 2 Con X cantidad de crédito internacional, reduciremos los apagones al 20% del tiempo para 2028.

Ejemplo 3 Con acceso al mercado estadounidense, aumentaremos la producción agrícola un 50% en cinco años.

Ejemplo 4 Con la eliminación del embargo, el salario real promedio alcanzará X dólares mensuales.

Me interesa saberlo porque las vagas proyecciones que he visto son solo para recaudar dólares, pero no el plan ni el propósito de estos en beneficio de los cubanos.

Solo he visto una acumulación de políticas orientadas a:

Atraer inversión extranjera.
Recuperar el acceso al mercado estadounidense.
Incrementar exportaciones.
Expandir turismo.
Obtener financiamiento internacional.
Integrar a la diáspora cubana como fuente de capital.

Es decir, en los verbos atraer, recuperar, incrementar, expandir, obtener e integrar no veo una acción concreta planificada y dirigida al bienestar de la población cubana.

¿Me pueden ilustrar?

Hi everyone, I'm wondering about a plot point and its historical accuracy in Scarface (1983).

The protagonist (Tony Montana) arrives in Miami via the Mariel Boatlift. The opening scene introduces Tony via his interrogation by U.S. Customs and Immigration officers, who discover Tony's criminal background.

In the next scene, Tony and his friend Manolo (who, we realize, is also a criminal) are sent to a detention center, and they have the following exchange:

TONY: So, what happened?

MANOLO: I told them what you told me to tell them, that I was in sanitation. They didn't go for it.

TONY: I told you to say you were in a sanitarium. That you had TB, and you were cured.

The next series of scenes involve Tony and Manolo in the detention center, and arranging an assassination in exchange for citizenship.

Here are my questions:

1. What is the significance of the sanitarium? Why did Tony tell Manolo to say he'd been in a sanitarium, with tuberculosis? Wouldn't having had TB been a red flag for immigration? Did Cubans who'd been in sanitariums get special treatment or preference over other refugees?
2. Why did Tony and Manolo have to lie about their status, and assassinate someone in exchange for citizenship? Once the Mariel Boatlift refugees landed in Florida, weren't they automatically granted U.S. citizenship, regardless of their past? Did refugees need sponsorship from a citizen to stay in the United States?

What's the story?

These are genuine questions and are not intended to antagonize or offend. My apologies in advance if these questions are problematic or disrespectful.

ETA: I appreciate your honest and informative answers, thank you!

Soy un curioso de su cultura y quería saber si algunos de los estereotipos que se dicen sobre Cuba son ciertos.

1- ¿Todavía producen buenos puros?

2- ¿Conocen a buenos boxeadores o el boxeo sigue siendo muy popular allí?

3 - ¿Toman ron? Si es así, ¿conocen el ron Bacardí? ¿Es común beberlo en Cuba?

4 - ¿Qué opinan de otros países de América, como Colombia, Haití y la República Dominicana? ¿Tienen alguna opinión en particular sobre ellos?

Solo soy una persona a la que le gusta el español y que encuentra muy interesante su cultura.

¡Un abrazo desde Brasil!

He visto mucho debate sobre qué hacer con los que han hecho negocios con el régimen cuando la situación cambie. Mi pregunta va al grano:

¿Los dueños de MIPYMES que operan hoy en Cuba, que pagan impuestos al gobierno y en muchos casos tienen que negociar directamente con funcionarios para conseguir licencias, divisas o simplemente para que no los cierren, deben ser considerados "colaboracionistas" y tratados como basura cuando caiga la dictadura?

Por un lado, están sacando provecho del sistema y engordando la maquinaria estatal con sus impuestos. Por otro, muchos simplemente están tratando de sobrevivir y dar empleo en medio de la crisis, sin ser "enchufados" del régimen.

¿Merecen el mismo castigo que los altos funcionarios? ¿O son víctimas del sistema que hicieron lo que pudieron para salir adelante?

I'm researching Cuban music education and I'd love to hear from people who know the local scene.

Which conservatories or music schools in Cuba are genuinely respected by Cuban musicians?

I'm especially interested in schools where someone can deeply learn Cuban musical traditions while also studying composition or contemporary music.

I'm not looking for rankings—I want to know which schools local musicians truly value.

If you studied there or know someone who did, I'd really appreciate your recommendations and why you recommend them.

Desperate Cuban farmers are trying to sell land at knockdown prices as Donald Trump’s fuel blockade hampers harvests and has left some produce rotting in the fields.

The communist island has been suffering blackouts lasting up to 22 hours a day since the government ran out of oil and diesel after the US forced an end to almost all shipments early this year.

Even before then, seven in 10 Cubans were skipping at least one meal a day. Now, without fuel for irrigation, tractors or deliveries, dozens of people are advertising their farms for sale on social media.

Read the full story, here.

In Spanish:

Desesperados, los agricultores cubanos están intentando vender sus tierras a precios de saldo, mientras el bloqueo al suministro de combustible impulsado por el presidente estadounidense Donald Trump dificulta las cosechas y ha dejado parte de la producción pudriéndose en los campos.

La isla ha estado sufriendo apagones de hasta 22 horas al día desde que el gobierno se quedó sin petróleo y diésel después de que Estados Unidos pusiera fin a casi todos los envíos a principios de este año.

Incluso antes de eso, siete de cada diez cubanos ya se saltaban al menos una comida al día. Ahora, sin combustible para el riego, los tractores o el transporte de las cosechas, decenas de personas están anunciando la venta de sus fincas en redes sociales.

Lee la historia completa aquí.

Victoria - FT social media team