WHAT REALLY HAPPENED DURING CUBA’S SPECIAL PERIOD

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Literature Review:

This literature review will be reviewing 3 major areas. (a) The economic effect of the

Cuban Special Period on the government and people. (b) The effect that it had on the

environment and people. (c) The politics that took into place when this happened. This study will

not be limited to age, just to the people who have experienced it. Age will be shown in the

interviews.

Cuba has been through a lot when it comes to the experience of life. It all started with the

dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. The communist-led group by Fidel Castro were successful in

the mission of overthrowing him. (Sierra, 1999). Fidel Castro was known as a national hero for

freeing a lot of people from oblivion. Although the start was all great, as time passed, people

noticed that he was not living up to what he said. He mentioned that he would have free elections

to make sure to have the best candidates in office. He failed. Now, he did do some good things

such as education and health. Cuba has one of the most competitive education systems in the

world, and they have free healthcare with top-tier doctors. You have to apply to get into high

school, and many fail at reaching their goals. Also, high schools are based on careers. For

example, my cousin was recently accepted into a telecommunication high school where the
acceptance rate barely surpasses 14 percent. (Farber S) states that in 1953, Cuba ranked 4th

among Latin countries in GDP. When communism took place, the gross domestic product had a

very significant fall. The ideology of communism makes perfect sense when you lay it on paper.

Everyone is equal, no one is rich. When incorporating this tactic into the real world, it simply

does not work and we have seen many cases of failure. Everyone, even those who spent

countless days of studying live a life of mediocrity. There is no true exchange when it comes to

getting what you put in. My own parents went to a super prestigious college for 5 years just to

earn a little above 40 dollars a month. They were at the head of the biggest telecommunications

company in all of Cuba. This being said, Cuba has a really good education system. According to

the CIA World Factbook, Cuba has an education expenditure of 12.8 percent which ranks 2nd in

the whole world. Also, their literacy is almost perfect coming in a 99.8 percent of the whole

population. This brings back up the ups and downs of having a socialist government versus a

capitalist.

In the 12th of March of the year 2014, Irina Pino presented her thoughts on what

happened during the Special Period. This sparked a lot of debate and noticed that not a lot of

people know what it was like to live. That is what made up my mind that I will be discovering

this. It makes a solid connection to (Ford, 2009). It shows that there was a way of learning from

mistakes. No One thought that Cuba would be able to survive and get past this issue. It actually

ended up a lot better than people thought. They were very quick to get everything back together.

Now, many European countries are basing their farms on their way of living while going through

this. Cuba lost 80 percent of their trade overnight.

This led to the political spectrum of the Special Period. Everything started with Fidel

Castro and the revolutionaries at the time. They overthrew dictator Batista and made Cuba
communist. Enriquez Hernandez explains this by showing the harsh significance that the island

had to experience during the time. There was this huge controversy with “el bloqueo.” When ties

ended with the soviet union, Cuba went into shutdown mode. Now, only 25 percent of the Cuban

population has access to the internet. For the year that we are in, Cuba is very late to

technological advances. To access the internet, you have to go to a hotspot only available in

parts of the city or have your own router (extremely expensive). You then pay for it hourly. Only

38.8 percent of the population has an internet connection.

(Panagiotopoulos, 2017) talked about the agricultural lens when it came to this topic. He

explained the rural life in Cuba was very significant and how the Special Period kind of shattered

that. Once again this article makes a connection to Ford. With how Cuba’s government was set

up, there could not be private companies. Everything was run by the state. Entrepreneurs and

innovators had to present their ideas to the state. They then basically gave away their company.

They only got a percentage of what THEIR company made.

Many people ask for multiple perspectives when it comes to exploring the dimensions of

a country. (J Wiley, 2000) explains everything while coming from a European perspective. He

talked about how he saw the people truly suffering and the quality of life completely changes.

One point that I have clearly made is that the money system is very bad over there. The average

worker is paid in Cuban Pesos. A good engineer makes only 30 dollars a month. The good things

sold over there are paid by the dollar. The only way that people survive is by buying very low-

quality products that are not even fully safe. Over the last trip, I noticed that acquiring a bar of

soap was a struggle for a lot of people. The Special Period wiped Cuba out.

By looking at these authors pieces, I was able to hypothesize what really happened. This will

ultimately help me when considering the people’s emotions during this period of time.
INTRODUCTION:

The Special Period in Cuba was not so special. After all, Fidel Castro named it this so it

would not look so bad on the island. Let’s admit that it was the complete opposite. People

starved, lacked basic needs and lost access to pretty much everything. Many authors have

attempted to cover this topic and many have succeeded in the statistical perspective. But one

thing that no author has been able to accomplish in a thorough way, is going in depth with the

people’s feelings and how they were affected. You can look up the topic and gain many

important facts and stats, but the people’s voices were not and still are not taken into

consideration after roughly 30 years. This is a recurring issue in research in general. Instead of

putting all focus on what happened, researchers also need to see how the people felt about this.

The population of Cuba was being used as a statistic, a number, instead of human beings.

Coming from a Cuban background, I decided to take a trip to my homeland over winter break

and dig a little deeper into this topic. I was able to interview four people, detailing their full

experiences during this tragic time. This made me open my eyes to the real world and the

problems that they are facing. When asking these questions, the people were very nice and

cooperative. These people deserved to have their experiences out there in the world. I was

offered traditional Cuban coffee and bread everywhere I went. These participants all had a

different story, a different experience, and a different background. I made sure to interview

participants from the city as well as those living in the rural life. This allowed me to get multiple

perspectives coming from diverse economic backgrounds. When gaining the information, I was

able to find out that what I predicted was not what actually occurred. The population that was

living in metropolitan areas had the hardest time going through the Special Period while the
people in the rural areas thrived. By reading the following, you will be able to gain the full grasp

of what really happened.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION:

As we know, Cuba got to this point because of their relations with the Soviet Union.

Cuba was actually in great wealth, but they also had to do with dictator Fulgencio Batista.

Innocent people were being murdered and everything was just unbalanced. Army captain and

later to be known as president, Fidel Castro decided to take over. First of all, they were super

popular among the Cuban population. During the year 1959, Fidel Castro and the

“Revolucionarios” were able to overtake the government and that is where communism came

into place. Castro was so against the United States that he based everything on the complete

opposite. This is what ultimately led to the tag team of the Cubans with the Soviets. While the

Soviets provided those necessities and replenished them, Cuba offered their location (Right next

to the United States) as a threat to the U.S. “That was Cuba’s biggest mistake. They put all their

coins in one slot and that slot got bankrupt.” That is what ultimately led to the needs for goods in

all of Cuba.

When understanding the political structure of Cuba, you have to also understand the

economics. Panagiotopoulos, social anthropologist at the University of West Indies at Trinidad

and Tobago went deep into this situation. She states how market value is little to none-existing in

Cuba. Being a socialist country, there were certain brands that were legally allowed to reach the

market. This allows these companies to completely exploit their power. In order to have a good

economy, there needs to be competition. You wonder why fast food chains open close to each

other? This is because of the cluster in a central location as a result of competitive forces. Many
of the interviewees mentioned something having to do with the lack of basic necessities. It is

clearly not only the lack of supply, but the prices are so high because of their political system

and structure. As time has passed, though, things are completely changing. Small businesses are

growing at an incredible rate. Local pizzerias and taco shops are the talk of Cuba at the moment

and let me tell you, competition is at an all-time high. One major difference among the

commerce of the United States and Cuba is sales competition. In America, business will use

discounts and special promotions to make their service appeal more. This is a huge trend going

on in Holguin with special discounts and unique values. It is like something new being injected

into the island and it is going to have a huge impact on economics.

I was able to gain some really good background information from an actual primary

source. Ever since I was two, my family was really close to a military family that lived across the

street. The grandfather of this family was a member of the Revolucionarios that fought for liberty

versus Fulgencio Batista. He had some of the deepest stories about his experiences as a rebel

against the Cuban government. I started the regular process by letting him take control of the

conversation. While sitting down, watching a baseball game and eating “saladitos” (crackers

with salami and cheese), he started everything by talking about life at these camps. As soon as he

started talking, I noticed a certain sadness in his voice. This was due to the life of these people

who were putting their lives on the line just for the justice of the humble Cuban people. They

were known as absolute heroes at the time because they really cared about their fellow

countrymen. After that, my parents told me that there were basically just two sides. The side that

supported Fidel Castro and the movement versus the ones who opposed. If you actually travel to

Cuba, you see that a lot of the elders are very supportive of Castro. This is because, at the time,

Castro freed them. At the time, he was an international hero and he received a lot of recognition
for it. After that, the grandfather told me that Castro took a lot of drastic measures to change up

Cuba. I will be discussing these changes as the study continues.

Throughout my study, I was able to gain much information from common themes spread

throughout the interviews. One major point that each and every interviewee mentioned was the

shortage of food and other necessities.

METHOD:

Looking for a specific method was one of the easiest processes in my study. Through

looking at the most popular methods, I encountered a study of the impact of Hurricane Katrina.

From that instant, I knew what I needed to use. For this research study, I used the method of

phenomenology. In these interviews, five people were asked questions all about their unique

experiences. I chose to interview people from different economic regions of the province.

Ranging all the way from the wealthy people to those living in poor, rural areas. This was an

important aspect of the selection process to make sure that the results were not skewed. This

would allow for more perspectives to be introduced without completely changing the study.

Before starting everything, I explained the whole process to the people, and they surprisingly

supported the study. I then went on to ask them a very basic question: How did the Special

Period affect you and your family? The reason that I started off so broad was that I wanted them

to answer without feeling pressure, Other questions can be considered as lead questions that

already assume something. To get the best results from my respondent, I decided to start with a

simple question and continue depending on their level responses. Participants were guaranteed

their safety by not having their names included in the project. No participants wanted their

interviews recorded, so I was only able to take notes on their responses. These interviews lasted
all the way from 20 minutes all the way to 2 hours. I made sure that the subjects had no time

limit to explain their unique experiences. Since I had to adjust my previous plan of having

everything recorded, I was only able to get a handful of direct quotes from the subjects.

Everything else was jotted down in a nook book, so all the stories retained their relevance.

Results/Findings

When traveling through the paradise of Cuba, I first decided to visit my grandfather who

was a wealthy man back when the Special Period happened. Through the great tasting traditional

Cuban coffee and a sandwich, he told me everything related to this topic. He first started off by

talking about how it was actually Cuba’s fault for this. Well, a lot of people do not think this is

the case because the Special Period started when the Soviet Union completely fell apart. Cuba

solely relied way too heavily on the Soviet Union. To this day, there are a lot of traces that lead

back to Russian products. Things such as my cousins car, which is a Moskvich 1400. As the

conversation proceeded, he stated “There was simply no water to be found and electricity was

very rare.” Throughout Cuba, there were these outages throughout the country by the name

“Apagones.” People struggled to do everyday life things such as cooking. My grandfather

actually had a truck and he brought food for the whole neighborhood so that everyone could eat.

I asked a follow up question to all of this and it was “How was work for you, how did it

change?” He went on to answer that the basic supplies needed to work were wiped out. Also, the

supply of gas, all coming from Russia, was very rare to find. So those who lived a ways from

their job had a very hard time even getting to their job. My grandfather even told me that there

was no type of body wash. Artisans tried making their own version, but it left a very large

amount of oil on the skin. This was completely unhealthy. Many Cubans lost their jobs, so they

decided to turn to bicycles to gain their income. As a way of making some type of money, people
attached a seat close to the bike and used it as a taxi. This was more commonly known as a

“Bici-Taxi”. From personal experience, streets to this day are filled of these cyclists transporting

all kinds of people wherever they desire to go. It’s a good way to let people who are in need of a

way of acquiring money for their families. When subject one spoke, he mentioned as time went

by, things started to get better. Cuba made alliances with other countries and the communist

mindset started fading away. Private businesses were becoming a thing and they were booming.

You would even see tourists eating delicious plates of “La cosa buena” (Referred to as being

something really good and rich) at these private businesses. I was even able to have a

conversation with a Canadian tourists visiting for the winter. Having tourism is a huge asset to

Cuba and is a huge reason for their country’s income. The Canadian man stressed how culture-

filled and diverse Cuba was. He was telling me how this was his 5th time visiting the north part

of Cuba.

On the 6th day of the trip, I went to a seaside restaurant with ocean view in Gibara, a

small town in Holguin. While enjoying an amazing dish of swordfish and traditional Cuban rice,

I had a conversation with the owner of the restaurant. I thought this way the perfect opportunity

to get some very valuable information. Small businesses and entrepreneurship are growing at a

very fast pace in Cuba as regulations are being loosened. She was telling me how this restaurant

has been standing in good conditions since 1999. The owner opened it with the intention of

attempting to open doors for entrepreneurship locally. I immediately made the connection to my

own father, who really hustled to get his family out of the bad neighborhood they have lived in.

Many people believe that Cuba is not a prime hotspot for entrepreneurship and I would have to

totally disagree. One way or another, legally or illegally, people find a way of feeding and taking

care of their families. At first, this restaurant was opened with the permission of the government.
The whole issue with opening a business back in the day over there was that even if you were the

owner, you were the employee. Yes, I know that sounds confusing. The way it worked was that

if you wanted to open up your own business, you would virtually hand over your company to the

government, and they would make you an employee. In other words, you were still being paid

the same as everyone else, even if you were the founder. “Don’t worry, things are starting to

change here. I am now the full owner. I really don’t do this for the money. I want those who

come after me to succeed.” The name of the restaurant will not be named for safety reasons.

Unlike subject 1, the third interviewee had a completely different story on how this

affected her and her family. I took a trip to the countryside with my grandfather and his 1920

Jeep. Seeing the relaxing palm trees and the beautiful green land was honestly one of the most

beautiful sights that I have ever seen. We saw the perfect opportunity to visit a very rustic house

with a pleasant view. There I was able to interview a very nice lady who was alive when the

Special Period happened. As I mentioned before, her story was completely different when it

came to how her family went through this. “My family had little to no difficulty living when the

Special Period happened. It’s not that we are rich or had a surplus of supply, we knew to live

without a lot of things. We had no electricity, we cooked using a lighter.” People in the rural

areas were already used to life without basic needs, that this had little effect on them. She even

told me that it united her family even more. Her family from the city would stay over for long

periods of time, and they had a very good time. “Nowadays, everything is technology and

television. Back then, we had the funniest and deepest conversations ever. Going outside was our

source of fun and entertainment as kids.” That is when I immediately found out that one of my

assumptions was completely wrong. Of course, because of the small sample size, there may be

concerns.
 The next interview came in the hands of a family who went through this. Unlike the

previous interviewee, this was a humble family of three who were financially safe at the time. It

was an average couple with a very intelligent daughter. They lived in a metropolitan area right in

the center of the city of Holguin. So you would maybe assume that their life was easier at the

time of the Special Period. Well when they say timing is everything, it is very true. Their

daughter just got accepted into the prestigious Universidad de Oriente in Santiago, Cuba. Once

again, food was a huge issue. She mentioned “Food was the most difficult item to obtain. People

would literally fight over who can get the last sandwich. It was hard for everyone.” Her parents

went on to say that they would have to drive all the way from Holguin to Santiago (141.9 km)

every weekend to ensure that their daughter would have enough food for the week. “It was

definitely something hard, but we would do anything for our daughter’s well-being”, stated the

father. What really interested me was a story that the daughter told me. She said that there were

these two guys selling hamburgers around that university. “There were about 5 students who

fought (all the way up to blood) just because there was not enough food to feed everyone.” This

family continued to struggle with the hygienic side, having to limit their shower use due to lack

of water in the area. To make things worse, this family was recovering from a hurricane hit their

brick house. They were just getting on to fixing everything and all the sudden, the resources

disappeared out the area. Matter of fact, from experience, I saw the full city of Gibara who was

completely wiped out by natural disasters. This had to come at the worst time for the humble

family.

Conclusion:

First of all, I would love to express how incredible it was to travel to another country and

experiencing a different culture. As I went on my trip, there were very common themes that were
easy to point out. Lack of resources dominated the whole study. Every single subject was not

hesitant to state their strong opinions on necessities. The people of Cuba had to live through a

horrible time spam. Now as we saw, there are many factors that need to be taken into

consideration. The full reason behind this happening is due to decisions made by the

government. They put their citizens into such a rough spot where we evidently found out that

people were really struggling. There were some very common themes that I was able to analyze.

The main theme that was brought up in everyone’s interview was the necessity for nutrition.

Other factors came in being lack of water, oil, and soap.

Future Discussion:

This study has the potential to lead to many different paths for further evaluations. As I

have tried to change and manipulate the way of studying historical events, I strongly believe that

it should be followed. Adding real perspectives to historical context supports the credibility of

not only the author but the main source where it is coming from. What I tried to really focus on

future studies while conducting my research. Not only can there be more digging into this

subject, but I believe that this type of study should be done more. Understanding people’s

emotions instead of just using them as a number can be very beneficial. As for this subject, there

can be a larger investigation done with a larger sample size. That would guarantee more accurate

results. Also, there needs to be a study that compares the lifestyle, statistics and politics of Cuba

then versus now. This would allow previous readers to make a valid comparison.
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