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Reviewed by:
  • Capitalism, God, and a Good Cigar: Cuba Enters the Twenty-First Century
  • John M. Kirk
Capitalism, God, and a Good Cigar: Cuba Enters the Twenty-First Century. By Lydia Chávez. Durham: Duke University, 2005. Pp. X, 253. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $21.95 paper.

Despite the bizarre title, this is an excellent—albeit impressionistic—introduction to Cuban reality. The original premise of the book (using a 2001 study-tour of journalism students from the University of California at Berkeley as a means of teaching them how to report on foreign affairs) could easily have gone badly wrong. That it did not is due to the excellent supervisory and editing skills of Lydia Chávez, who has managed to draw the best out of her students. Her updating in 2004 of many of the pieces, and some excellent photography from Mimi Chakarova, were also helpful. The end result is an extremely useful introduction to contemporary Cuba, magical realism and all.

There are four principal sections to the book—"Inventing," "Breathing," "Surviving," and "Searching"—each of which develops with personal insights, and [End Page 179] occasionally with great depth, aspects of the social condition in Cuba following the implosion of the Soviet Union. The thoughtful Introduction by Lydia Chávez sets the scene well for the contributions. The first section revolves around the struggle for survival in difficult times, and is beautifully edited. "Breathing" examines some key aspects of contemporary cultural life, and is generally well done. The third section is a more diverse collection of individuals—from disillusioned U.S. expatriates to street-smart Internet hackers—but the sum of the interviews also strengthens the overall impression of a society struggling to find its identity in a new international reality. The final section constitutes a similarly diffuse array of individuals, and is the most uneven.

"Hay que inventar" (You have to invent) is a common theme, and the book provides some beautiful cameos of Cubans who are doing just that to get by in this cruel new world following the end of Soviet subsidies. Little escapes the gaze of the journalists—including the dollarized economy, private enterprise (both legal and "informal"), the inequities resulting from family remittances, the issue of racial identity, the vibrant cultural reality of Cuba, and the diverse survival strategies employed by Cubans. During the course of the book we are introduced to people from all walks of life in the "new Cuba," right across the social spectrum. From loyal revolutionaries to artisans, from academics to jineteros (hustlers), and from true believers in the revolutionary system to exiles critical of Cuban reality, we meet an impressive selection of Cubans—largely in a well-balanced, credible, and truly representative array of characters. For anybody who has visited Cuba with any regularity in the past fifteen years, this collection of personal insights rings true.

What is disappointing, however, is the lack of attention to the many success stories in Cuba. Perhaps it is because they are less "newsworthy" for aspiring journalists? Cuba´s extraordinary medical internationalism is worth examining, and time spent with students at the Latin American Medical University or with medical staff returning from missions abroad would have been helpful to put Cuba's reality in context. Likewise a visit to a Cuban daycare center, to seniors at the cultural clubs or in their early-morning exercise in local parks, or to an agricultural cooperative, would have helped to round out this extraordinary set of vignettes.

This is an accurate and well-defined portrait of a society struggling to come to terms with the harsh reality of depending upon some aspects of capitalism in order to keep a socialist model (with first-rate social programs) afloat. Not an easy task, as the subjects interviewed attest and as the wonderful photographs of Mimi Chakarova illustrate. There are some problems; the bibliography is limited and superficial, and there are errors of fact. A couple of the chapters (notably those of Ángel González and Ezequiel Minaya) go somewhat awry. But in the larger scheme of things, these are minor quibbles. What comes across is a sense (portrayed with great accuracy) of the extraordinarily lively nature of Cubans...

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