The Republic of Cuba consists of the island of Cuba, Isla de la Juventud and several archipelagos. Located roughly 90 miles south of the southern most point of the United States, Key West Florida, it is the largest island in the Caribbean Sea. The island of Cuba is more than 40,500 Square miles and has over 11 million inhabitants.
In the early 1950's Fulgencio Bautista a former President of Cuba led a successful military coup and reclaimed the Presidency with the support of the American government. He revoked many of their laws and political liberties including the right to strike. Bautista's tyrannical government over a short period of time led to the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. As their economy worsened many people were becoming dissatisfied with Bautista. A number of groups formed that advocated armed uprisings against the Bautista regime. One of these groups was led by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. Their communist revolutionary group became the leading force against Bautista. In 1958 Castro began his insurrection and on January 1st of 1959 Bautista fled to the Dominican Republic. On January 8th, 1959 Castro and his forces took Havana and declared victory for their revolution. As a result many people left Cuba. In October of 1960 the U.S. instituted a trade embargo against Cuba severely restricting trade and travel. The intention of the embargo was to put Cuba into economic isolation and encourage the overthrowing of the Castro regime. In late 2014 President Obama announced that relations between Cuba and the U.S. would begin to normalize. This included the re-establishment of diplomatic relations with Cuba, the removal of the designation that Cuba sponsors terrorism and finally the relaxing of restrictions on travel and trade. My wife and I found ourselves wanting to visit Cuba, something we never thought would happen. With that in mind we decided to go to Cuba before too many things changed. We felt that it would eventually become re-developed and over commercialized. In 2017 the current U.S. administration reversed some of the changes that came from the Obama administration. Trade sanctions and travel restrictions increased but despite the changes there were still ways for an American to visit Cuba. Support for the Cuban people was the official reason we were able to visit. I left Cuba with several distinct impressions. First the Cuban's were very friendly and also very proud of their culture. Many people we encountered were very hard working but others, not so much. I believe this to be caused by the extremely low wages irregardless of a persons level of education or skill set. To me this would seem to take away your desire to improve yourself and try to make a better life for your family. My wife and I visited Vietnam about a year ago and even though their government is communist as is Cuba's it seemed that the Vietnamese government wanted their people to become as successful as they can and therefore be less dependent on them. In my most humble opinion the Cuban government wants the people to stay totally dependent on them. It felt in many ways as if the Cuban people were still living in the 1960's. Check out my posts on Havana, Cien Fuegos and Santiago de Cuba.
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