W oodr ow W CHANGES IN CUB ilson Center Repor ts on the Americas • #15 AN SOCIETY SINCE THE NINETIES CHANGES IN CUBAN SOCIETY SINCE THE NINETIES edited by Joseph S. Tulchin Lilian Bobea FLACSO Mayra P. Espina Prieto REPÚBLICA DOMINICANA Rafael Hernández with Latin American Program Elizabeth Bryan Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars 1300 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W. Washington, DC 20004 Tel. (202) 691-4030 Fax (202) 691-4076 Latin American Program CHANGES IN CUBAN SOCIETY SINCE THE NINETIES Woodrow Wilson Center Report on the Americas #15 Edited by Joseph S. Tulchin Lilian Bobea Mayra P. Espina Prieto Rafael Hernández With the collaboration of Elizabeth Bryan ©2005 Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, DC www.wilsoncenter.org Cover image: “Composition 1976” by Wifredo Lam Latin American Program CHANGES IN CUBAN SOCIETY SINCE THE NINETIES Edited by Joseph S. Tulchin Lilian Bobea Mayra P. Espina Prieto Rafael Hernández With the collaboration of Elizabeth Bryan WOODROW WILSON INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR SCHOLARS Lee H. Hamilton, President and Director BOARD OF TRUSTEES Joseph B. Gildenhorn, Chair; David A. Metzner, Vice Chair. Public Members: James H. Billington, The Librarian of Congress; Bruce Cole, Chairman, National Endowment for the Humanities; Michael O. Leavitt, The Secretary, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; Condoleezza Rice, The Secretary, U.S. Department of State; Lawrence M. Small, The Secretary, Smithsonian Institution; Margaret Spellings, The Secretary, U.S. Department of Education; Allen Weinstein, Archivist of the United States Private Citizen Members: Joseph A. Cari, Jr., Carol Cartwright, Robin Cook, Donald E. Garcia, Bruce S. Gelb, Charles L. Glazer, Tami Longaberge WILSON COUNCIL Bruce S. Gelb, President; Elias F. Aburdene, Jennifer Acker, Charles S. Ackerman, B. B. Andersen, Russell Anmuth, Cyrus A. Ansary, Lawrence E. Bathgate, II, Theresa Behrendt, John Beinecke, Joseph C. Bell, Steven Alan Bennett, Stuart Bernstein, Rudy Boschwitz, A. Oakley Brooks, Donald A. Brown, Melva Bucksbaum, Richard Burnham, Nicola L. Caiola, Albert V. Casey, Mark Chandler, Peter B. Clark, Melvin Cohen, William T. Coleman, Jr., David M. Crawford, Jr., Michael D. DiGiacomo, Sam Donaldson, Beth Dozoretz, Elizabeth Dubin, F. Samuel Eberts, III, I Steven Edelson, Mark Epstein, Melvyn J. Estrin, Susan R. Farber, Julie Finley, Joseph H. Flom, John H. Foster, Charles Fox, Barbara Hackman Franklin, Norman Freidkin, John H. French II, Morton Funger, Gregory M. Gallo, Chris G. Gardiner, Alma Gildenhorn, David F. Girard-diCarlo, Michael Goldberg, Roy Goodman, Gretchen Gorog, William E. Grayson, Ronald Greenberg, Raymond A. Guenter, Cheryl F. Halpern, Edward L. Hardin, Jr., John L. Howard, Darrell E. Issa, Jerry Jasinowski, Brenda LaGrange Johnson, Shelly Kamins, Jim Kaufman, Edward W. Kelley Jr., Anastasia D. Kelly, Christopher J. Kennan, Willem Kooyker, Steven Kotler, Markos Kounalakis, William H. Kremer, James Langdon, Raymond Learsy, Dennis LeVett, Francine Levinson, Harold O. Levy, Frederic V. Malek, David S. Mandel, Jeffrey A. Marcus, John Mason, Jay Mazur, Robert McCarthy, Linda McCausland, Stephen G. McConahey, Donald F. McLellan, Charles McVean, J. Kenneth Menges, Jr., Kathryn Mosbacher, Jeremiah L. Murphy, Martha Twitchell Muse, John E. Osborn, Paul Hae Park, Gerald L. Parsky, Jeanne L. Phillips, Michael J. Polenske, Donald Robert Quartel, Jr., Bruce Ratner, Larry D. Richman, Carlyn Ring, Edwin Robbins, Juan Sabater, Roger Sant, Alan M. Schwartz, Timothy R. Scully, J. Michael Shepherd, George P. Shultz, Raja W. Sidawi, Kenneth Siegel, Ron Silver, John Sitilides, William A. Slaughter, James H. Small, Shawn Smealie, Gordon V. Smith, Thomas F. Stephenson, Norma Kline Tiefel, Mark C. Treanor, Anthony Viscogliosi, Christine M. Warnke, Ruth Westheimer, Pete Wilson, Deborah L. Wince-Smith, Herbert S. Winokur, Jr., Paul Martin Wolff, Joseph Zappala, Richard S Ziman, Nancy M. Zirkin ABOUT THE CENTER The Center is the living memorial of the United States of America to the nation’s twenty-eighth president, Woodrow Wilson. Congress established the Woodrow Wilson Center in 1968 as an international institute for advanced study, “symbolizing and strengthening the fruitful relation- ship between the world of learning and the world of public affairs.” The Center opened in 1970 under its own board of trustees. In all its activities the Woodrow Wilson Center is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, sup- ported financially by annual appropriations from Congress, and by the contributions of founda- tions, corporations, and individuals. Conclusions or opinions expressed in Center publications and programs are those of the authors and speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Center staff, fellows, trustees, advisory groups, or any individuals or organizations that pro- vide financial support to the Center. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 1 Joseph S.Tulchin, Lilian Bobea, Mayra P.Espina Prieto and Rafael Hernández Section 1: Contextualizing the Changes: The Emergence of Cuban Civil Society Chapter 1: Theoretical and Comparative Reflections 19 on the Study of Civil Society in Cuba Ariel C.Armony Chapter 2: Larval Actors, Uncertain Scenarios, 35 and Cryptic Scripts: Where is Cuban Society Headed? Haroldo Dilla Alfonso Chapter 3: Civil Society in Cuba: Internal Exile 51 Javier Corrales Chapter 4: Citizenship and Rights in Cuba: 61 Evolution and Current Situation Velia Cecilia Bobes Chapter 5: Structural Changes since the Nineties 81 and New Research Topics on Cuban Society Mayra P.Espina Prieto Chapter 6: Cuba in the “Special Period”: 103 from Equality to Equity Juan Valdés Paz | v | Section 2: Society, Culture, and the Production of Thought in Present Day Cuba Chapter 7: Changes in Cuban Society and their 125 Reflection in Cuban Thought from the Nineties to the Present Jorge Luis Acanda González Chapter 8: Mirror of Patience: Notes on 139 Cuban Studies, Social Sciences, and Contemporary Thought Rafael Hernández Chapter 9: Cuban Youth: Aspirations, 155 Social Perceptions, and Identity María Isabel Domínguez Section 3:Transnationality and Community: New Modes of Economic and Social Survival Chapter 10: The Desirable and the Possible: 171 Community Movements and Local Environmental Management in Cuba Armando Fernández Soriano Chapter 11: The Cuban-American Political Machine: 187 Reflections on its Origins and Perpetuation Alejandro Portes Chapter 12: The Transformation of the Diaspora 207 and the Transformation of Cuba Susan Eckstein | vi | Section 4: Religion, Culture, and Society Chapter 13: Civil Society and Religion in Cuba: 231 Past, Present, and Future Margaret E. Crahan Chapter 14: Relations Between the Catholic Church 243 and the Cuban Government as of 2003 Aurelio Alonso Chapter 15: Notes on the Role of Religious 257 Organizations in Community Work and Service Provision in Cuba After 1990 Raimundo García Franco Chapter 16: In Order to Wake Up Tomorrow, 267 You Have to Sleep Tonight Lázara Menéndez Participant Biographies 287 | vii | INTRODUCTION JOSEPH S. TULCHIN,MAYRA P. E SPINA PRIETO, LILIAN BOBEA AND RAFAEL HERNÁNDEZ his volume has a two-fold purpose. First, it seeks to present and assess critically the changes that have taken place in Cuban soci- T ety, economy, politics, and culture as Cuba emerges from the cri- sis of the 1990s. Second, this volume brings together contrasting per- spectives marked by occasionally opposing views, ranging from theoreti- cal discourses to empirical studies that bring together quite different experiences, from both within and outside the island. The pursuit of these objectives must begin with an understanding of the crisis unleashed in the 1990s, which was accelerated by the fall of the Soviet Union. The crisis precipitated the process of change in Cuba that continues to unfold yet remains poorly understood beyond Cuban borders. More difficult, these goals necessitate a critical dialogue among dissonant interpretations that span a broad range of approaches and are not reducible to a single line of conclusions and predictions about the future—a diversity of thought that characterizes both the state of knowledge about Cuban society on the island and that of Cuban studies abroad. From this diversity emerges a constellation of problems describing a new and changing face of Cuban society. Who constitute the new social actors? How have existing actors been transformed and how do these existing actors interact with the emerging ones? What new methods do these actors implement and what internal and external factors have facilitated the trans- formations of Cuban civil society? How have these processes influenced the redefinition of race, class, and gender within Cuba? What implications have these processes had in reshaping the relations between Cuban citizens and the state? To what extent do these internal changes affect the relations between Cubans and North Americans? In the majority of the experiences collected in this volume, there is a significant evident shift in the relations between civil society and the state. Among the salient factors are: the impact of economic reforms imple- | 1 | Joseph S. Tulchin, Mayra P. Espina Prieto, Lilian Bobea and Rafael Hernández mented to confront the crisis, changes in public agendas, and the recon- figuration of Cuban contacts with the rest of the world—including the shift in how various sectors, entities, and institutions that have contact with Cuba perceive the Cuban people and the Cuban system. Above all, this new situation