My Weekend with Michael
I encountered the first obstacle of my trip to the Isla de la Juventud before I even left Havana. Since American credit cards don’t work in Cuba, I couldn’t buy my plane tickets online. But that was no…
Read More
Country: Cuba
Mis Memorias de Cuba
Ever since I was little, I was immensely proud of my Cuban heritage. My grandparents had immigrated to the U.S. in 1960 after the Revolution. Maybe it was because of a knowledge of all of their hardships and…
Read More
The Moving Landscapes of Cuba
I originally wrote this piece in the summer of 2017. Although my main points were theoretical and thus I think remain valid ––that Cuba’s vehicle fleet is a material site that can be read in geopolitical and historical…
Read More
My Summer Research in Moscow and Havana
On June 1st, 2019, I set off for Moscow with a stack of business cards, three hard drives and a suitcase full of peanut butter. In other words, I was equipped with all of the essentials for a three month-long reserch…
Read More
Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba – a “Troika of Tyranny”?
President Trump’s National Security Advisor John Bolton recently applied this label to these three countries, while asserting that “it’s our hemisphere”. As a U.S. diplomat for more than 30 years, I had the opportunity to serve in Venezuela and Nicaragua, and to closely follow events in Cuba.
Read More