—Nancy Stout
I am somewhat embarrassed to admit that what I heard most clearly in President Obama’s recent speech on U.S. normalization of relations with Cuba were his reassuring words that the American people will soon be able to use credit cards on the island. Try to live, do research, or simply travel without the gracious backup of a piece of plastic, as I have done. I can promise you, it is very hard.
My first trips to Cuba, during the post-Soviet economic hardship of the early 1990s, happily corresponded with the popularity of the Wonder-bra—beautifully shaped with all the enhancements of under-wiring and petal-shaped pockets for push-up padding. There, I’d put rolls of $50 bills to finance my sometimes extended stays in Havana. Later, I got my translator to keep some of my cash, which she placed in a book in her library, usually.
Once, I spent nearly seven months in Havana, in 2000, when the Cuban government suddenly allowed me access to their archives to research the life of Celia Sánchez [a major leader of the Cuban Revolution and Fidel Castro’s closest companion]. As banks and ATMs in Cuba were useless for Americans, at one point I flew to Mexico City in order to go withdraw more money. I lost lots of it in the required conversion of dollars to Mexican pesos, and lost even more changing those pesos into Cuban pesos. Recently, I’ve been making shorter trips and paying in advance for a hotel room through a Canadian travel agency—again, all on account of the embargo.
I’ve made nineteen trips to the island and none easily because of the money factor. Manageable, yes, but there was never the complete ease of saying to your friends one night (except on the eve of a departure), “Let me pick up the tab.” Every year or so there were predictions that things between our governments were going to change, but I had learned to be skeptical. And, I don’t think I’ll throw away my Wonder-bra just yet.
Nancy Stout is the author of One Day in December: Celia Sánchez and the Cuban Revolution (Monthly Review Press, 2013).
Related content
- Video: Nancy Stout on the early life of Cuban revolutionary heroine, Celia Sánchez
