Chapter 5: Idealized Pre-Revolutionary Cuba

To hear my husband’s extended family and most of the Jewbans I interviewed, Cuba was the best place on earth until that awful Communist Castro took power. It was a land of great beauty, opportunity, friendly people, and lacking discrimination and antisemitism until Castro took that all away So, they say. This is similar to what Perez (2013) found in her interviews with exiles (albeit non-Jews).

Few I interviewed had ever been to Cuba, while only one of the exiles had returned in 60 years. Only two others—one second and one third generation—had visited. Thus, the exiles’ view of the island, and the stories they told, were formed partly through nostalgia. Further, the social, cultural, economic, and political position of the Cuban Jews likely slanted their views on Cuba’s perfection pre-Castro. The slightly rose-colored glasses about the perfection of pre-revolutionary Cuba also shaped their feelings and beliefs about post-revolutionary Cuba, the reasons people left both immediately after and in subsequent waves, and about social, cultural, and political issues in Cuba immediately post-revolution and today. These feelings and beliefs were passed along the generations, creating an idealized image of Cuba that is not quite accurate.