CONSUMER CULTURE AND EVERYDAY LIFE IN REVOLUTIONARY CUBA, 1971-1986 By ALEXIS BALDACCI A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2018 © 2018 Alexis Baldacci To my parents and to Ahren. For believing it was possible, even when I did not. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First and foremost, I thank my doctoral committee for all of their advice and direction, not only with regard to this dissertation, but also in the years leading up to my first research trip to Cuba. In seminars and office hours and emails, their support has been central to my development as a scholar. I thank my advisor, Lillian Guerra, for her tireless passion and work ethic, which have been an inspiration to me. I continue to learn from her constantly, even when she is not actively teaching. I thank Matt Jacobs, for demystifying many of the murkier elements of academia, and Ida Altman, for her frank and insightful comments on multiple chapter drafts. I also thank Jeffrey Needell and Efraín Barradas, in addition to the rest of my doctoral committee, for their guidance as I finish this dissertation and look forward to transforming it into a book. I am grateful to have met many people in both Cuba and the United States who have suggested sources and approaches, commented on drafts of my work, and debated the legacies of the Cuban Revolution. My research in Cuba would not have been possible without the institutional support of the Fundación Antonio Nuñez Jiménez and Professor Reinaldo Funes. I also thank the staff of the Biblioteca Nacional de Cuba Jose Martí for their help in accessing many of the sources that form the backbone of this project; I extend similar gratitude to the staff at the Cuban Heritage Collection at the University of Miami. In Cuba, especially, it feels like almost every person that I met influenced this project in some way, either by sharing their recollections of the period that I study or reflecting on what scarcity continues to mean for Cuban daily life. I am grateful for each of these encounters, and I hope that, should any of those men and women ever get to read it, that this dissertation rings true to the complexity of these issues in the past and present. Personally and professionally, I am so grateful to have met Claudia Martínez, who was my partner for many long walks and even longer conversations on the malecón and was a one- 4 woman family to me in Centro Habana. In Gainesville, Lauren Krebs has been the first audience for my scariest and most ambitious ideas. I cannot thank her enough for talking through big concepts and petty frustrations or for all the hikes and happy hours that let us leave both of those things behind for a little while. My thanks also to Mike Bustamante, Michelle Chase, Jesse Horst, Rachel Hynson, and Billy Kelly, for their contributions on all things Cuba and Cuban history. At the University of Florida, Andrea Ferreira and Danny Fernández have been great colleagues and even better friends. I also thank Johanna Mellis and Elyssa Hamm for commenting on my work and challenging me to think big picture, beyond the borders of Latin America. Finally, I wish to thank my parents. My dad, for asking me every week if I had “finished the dissertation yet,” and my mom, for talking to me about anything else. Thanks also to my future husband, Ahren, who has supported me throughout this long process and given me countless pep talks. I would not have finished without him. 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...............................................................................................................4 LIST OF FIGURES .........................................................................................................................8 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ..........................................................................................................9 ABSTRACT ...................................................................................................................................10 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................12 Arguments ...............................................................................................................................15 Historiography ........................................................................................................................23 Sources and Methodology ......................................................................................................26 Chapter Overview ...................................................................................................................29 2 WOMEN IN THE INSTITUTIONALIZED REVOLUTION, 1971-1975 ............................33 Integration into the Soviet Bloc ..............................................................................................35 The Turn towards Consumption .............................................................................................37 What to Buy and How to Buy It: The Situation Facing Consumers in the Early 1970s ........53 Combatting Scarcity through a Traditionally-Gendered Approach ........................................68 A Radical New Approach .......................................................................................................78 The Limits of State-Led Women’s Liberation ........................................................................91 Conclusion ..............................................................................................................................99 3 THINKING LIKE A THIN COW IN THE ERA OF THE FAT COWS, 1976-1985 ..........100 Soviet Models and Cuban Realities: Rationalizing Consumption in the late 1970s ............103 Poder Popular: Female Legislators in a Popular Democracy ...............................................118 I Now Pronounce You Husband, Wife, and Revolutionary State: The Impact of the Family Code ......................................................................................................................123 The Self-Actualized Cuban Woman (or Superwoman) ........................................................142 Quinceñera Politics ...............................................................................................................158 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................173 4 SOCIO-LISM: AUSTERITY AND A NEW CUBAN CULTURE, 1976-1985 ..................175 (Ab)normalizing Crime?: The Struggle to Legitimize Socialist Legality ............................177 Socio-lism: The Importance of Having Friends in a Socialist Society .................................193 Time and Lines: from Coca-Cola to Cola-Cultura...............................................................199 Killing Time: Free Time and Boredom in a Collective Society ...........................................209 To Invent or to Resolve?: Cuban Ingenuity as a Marker of National Identity .....................219 6 Socialist Ownership and Shared Property in a Context of Austerity ....................................225 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................231 5 SHOWDOWNS BETWEEN EAST AND WEST, 1972-1980 ............................................233 Cuban Realities Collide: The American Dream in Exile ......................................................233 Ideological Diversionism and the Temptations of Mass Consumerism ...............................251 The Cuban Press as Ideological Handbook ..........................................................................264 “Pants from Outside the Island and Mindset from Outside as Well”: Debates over International Youth Culture in Cuba .................................................................................277 Exile in Blue Jeans: The Mariel Boatlift as Blue Jean Revolution .......................................287 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................297 6 SOCIALIST CONSUMERISM: EXPERIMENTS IN MARKET REFORM, 1980-1986 ..300 Shared Needs, Collaborative Solutions ................................................................................303 Farmers’ Markets ..................................................................................................................314 Vegetable Invasions: “The Only Invasion That We Would Welcome with Open Arms” ...330 New Dimensions to the New Man ........................................................................................343 Conclusions...........................................................................................................................352 7 EPILOGUE ...........................................................................................................................357 LIST OF REFERENCES .............................................................................................................363 Archival Sources ...................................................................................................................363 Cuban Heritage Collection, University of Miami, Miami, FL ......................................363 Special and Area Studies Collections, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL .............363