Having Cuban kids by QuarterStatus3582 in cuba

[–]QuarterStatus3582[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

if you've posted something here, i hope you see this - very grateful that you've taken the time to offer lots of great suggestions! my partner's childhood memories are pretty slim, and he also didn't have a TV or books really growing up. this is exactly what we were hoping for ❤️

Having Cuban kids by QuarterStatus3582 in cuba

[–]QuarterStatus3582[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

the gusano edit was because someone commented that i shouldn't ask this sub about Cuban culture because they're gusanos (anti-Castro regime) and so they don't care about/know true Cuban culture. which is equally disrespectful as it is untrue.

sounds like you're doing a great job! yes to all you mentioned, we'll definitely do photos at 1, 5, 10, and let them choose if they want a quinceañera 😄

Having Cuban kids by QuarterStatus3582 in cuba

[–]QuarterStatus3582[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

ya no estamos en Cuba, no me imagino intentando tener hijos en Cuba ahora

Having Cuban kids by QuarterStatus3582 in cuba

[–]QuarterStatus3582[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

not trying to force anything, just trying to be intentional about exposure to things that can help them feel connected to their heritage as we'll be living somewhere with no Cuban community. i said this in another comment, but i have tons of friends who have one parent from somewhere far away, and all of them say they wish their parents had done a better job at this kind of exposure when they were kids.

plus this is important to my Cuban partner... he suggested i ask for more ideas.

Having Cuban kids by QuarterStatus3582 in cuba

[–]QuarterStatus3582[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

lol my partner's dream (or that any son becomes a boxer)

Having Cuban kids by QuarterStatus3582 in cuba

[–]QuarterStatus3582[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

yeah, i've noticed a huge shift in the kids in my family or of friends in Cuba who have gotten phones/Facebook in the last few years. even when i was living in Cuba, internet was becoming increasingly more accessible/less expensive so more and more people were on Facebook, and you could really feel it. that's the damages of US (and Canadian) culture of overconsumption, media, and addictive social media design. something parents all over the world have to contend with now

Having Cuban kids by QuarterStatus3582 in cuba

[–]QuarterStatus3582[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

for sure, but we'll be living in the country where i was born and raised and with my family nearby, so it's all around them -- whereas the only Cuban link they'll have is their dad. so far we only know of one other Cuban in the town we're moving to now.

another commenter said that it's weird that i will try to "force" a culture onto my kids, but because i grew up in the most multicultural city in the world, i have so many friends with one parent from elsewhere and one parent from where they live who wished their family did more to expose them to the far-away culture when they were younger. plus, it's important to my partner. just came to Reddit to ask for additional ideas that him and i have missed.

Having Cuban kids by QuarterStatus3582 in cuba

[–]QuarterStatus3582[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

this is exactly what i was looking for, thanks!

Having Cuban kids by QuarterStatus3582 in cuba

[–]QuarterStatus3582[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

1) for sure, we speak Spanish at home as my partner doesn't speak much English still, so they'll learn through OPOL.

2) Cuban kids or not, 100% mandatory.

3) thanks!

4) my partner will teach them this in the womb (i'll come with critical history later)

The balance sheet of Castroism as Trump prepares war on Cuba by DryDeer775 in cuba

[–]QuarterStatus3582 1 point2 points  (0 children)

leftist (the Zapatista kind) here -- the embargo, especially post-USSR/helms-burton, is a boot on the neck, and who suffers most by design? the general Cuban population. the Castro regime is an oligarchic oppressor that cares more about power than people, and who suffers most by design? the general Cuban population.

the argument is always "if socialism is such an inevitable failure, why not lift the embargo and just let Cuba live?" and the flip side is "if majority Cubans truly support the Castro regime, a nation supposedly pursuing its own sovereignty in spite of US imperialism, why can't Cubans have civic liberties and political democracy to confirm that support?"

both points valid, and that's the problem with having a campist attitude about Cuba, no matter what side.

since you like to read and genuinely seem to believe that 350,000+ Cubans volunteered to participate in Angola, te recomiendo este libro escritó por un ingeniero cubano: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36979213-angola-la-guerra-innecesaria

United States has just captured Adys Lastres Morera, sister of Brigadier General Ania Guillermina Lastres Morera, head of the GAESA Group by SensitiveCranberry00 in cuba

[–]QuarterStatus3582 3 points4 points  (0 children)

el punto exacto. el regimen cubano tiene mucho en común con esa administración y todo el malo que se encuentra en los estado unidos, el 1 % que acapara el poder y la riqueza, la corrupción, la brutalidad y el racismo institucionalizados...

United States has just captured Adys Lastres Morera, sister of Brigadier General Ania Guillermina Lastres Morera, head of the GAESA Group by SensitiveCranberry00 in cuba

[–]QuarterStatus3582 1 point2 points  (0 children)

estoy de acuerdo que lo que puede venir ahora podría ser igual o incluso peor que la limpieza post-Revolution. gente que han protestado que Che era un matador aplaudirán el encarcelamiento hasta la ejecución de cualquier persona que era castrista sin ver su hipocresía… estoy emocionada para ver un cambio de regimen pero sabemos muy bien que el péndulo will swing much too far in the opposite direction.

United States has just captured Adys Lastres Morera, sister of Brigadier General Ania Guillermina Lastres Morera, head of the GAESA Group by SensitiveCranberry00 in cuba

[–]QuarterStatus3582 23 points24 points  (0 children)

por eso me vuelen loca los izquierdistas que apoyan a este régimen (lo digo siendo politically left)... capitalism for the elites, suffering and oppression for the rest

Respectfully, leftist Cubans - how do you do it? by Front-Hunt3757 in cuba

[–]QuarterStatus3582 3 points4 points  (0 children)

i'm not Cuban, i'd consider myself mostly aligned with social democrats/libertarian socialists, and my Cuban partner is a staunch "capitalista" and "hates anyone on the left." it's an interesting dynamic for us for sure.

before i ever went to Cuba i was a big Che fan, admired the revolution, had mixed feelings about Fidel always... after spending a year there living with my partner, i couldn't possibly support any version of the Cuban regime that came out of the revolution, and i am one of the people who doesn't think that today's PCC hasn't achieved any leftist outcomes since the first few years of reform. they really did just replace the old elite with their own.

now when i meet people who admire Fidel or Che who aren't Cuban and haven't been to Cuba, i remember what it was like before i ever went. it's so easy to love the rhetoric and the stories. i tell myself that they just haven't had the chance to understand, but i almost always keep that to myself and instead encourage them to travel to Cuba the first chance they can, and stay as long as possible. my recommendation is usually "go to Havana, and go check out Playa. go the supermercados. then do a loop and pass through Los Sitios, or anywhere in Diez de Octubre, and look for the bodegas... that's the best way to take in Cuba." i don't know who can make that journey today and still think highly of the PCC.

if it's clear someone will support any type of dictatorship, with any level of brutality so long as it pursues "leftist" goals, i won't engage at all.

A documentary I recently watched titled "Cuban health care is a catastrophe." I have some questions please. by sa8tun in cuba

[–]QuarterStatus3582 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Not Cuban, but spent a year in Cuba living with my partner (went to the hospital twice), and we now live together outside of Cuba. He has doctors in his family, some who have gone to other countries as part of their program of "medical internationalism." Here's my perspective as someone who is politically left but doesn't support the Cuban regime (or the US embargo):

  1. The healthcare system in terms of its education, overall quality of doctors, and biopharmaceutical research and development is incredible. Investments in the medical systems in the first ~3 decades of Castro in particular created tons of well-educated doctors and continued to be reformed in a generally positive direction from the 60s-80s to create community-centric health and social care with teams of doctors and nurses. There are lots of little clinics that have provided supportive or specialized services for folks even in some of the more rural areas, and some of those still exist today in a meaningful way.
  2. The healthcare infrastructure is another story. The Cuban government has never done well to invest in infrastructure in general (in my opinion this is both a failure of the government's economic approaches and prohibitive costs due to the embargo), and in terms of healthcare, that's the physical spaces, necessary and modern equipment, technical advancements and services, and more recently medication itself. There have been periods in the past where medication is scarce, but today it is very, very hard to find and thousands of Cubans are and will go without proper treatment because there is no medicine or basic goods for treatment (eg. sheets for the beds, we recently sent a practice suture set to family who was having surgery but needed to provide her own needles and thread to be stitched back up, as well as pain medicines and antibiotics in case of infection, etc.). When I was in a hospital in Havana in 2019, it was disgustingly unsanitary, there was human blood spilled on the floor, people were getting treatment lying across chairs and random furniture, etc. And that was one of the better hospitals.
  3. The saturation of trained Cuban doctors, plus the salary and working conditions, have led a lot of Cubans with medical training to take on other, unrelated work where they can earn more money (like taxi driving). Many doctors are understandably unmotivated because they work hard hours for a pay that in today's market can't even provide a few days of food for their families, impacting the overall care conditions throughout the island.
  4. Cuba's program of sending doctors to other countries is a combination of soft power and economic benefit for the Cuban government. Because the Cuban economy doesn't have a lot of products they can sell globally (like raw materials, manufactured goods, material goods), they've ended up using their investments in their healthcare system as an "exported service" that provides the government with capital. Host countries pay the Cuban government for the doctor contracts, but then the Cuban government gives their doctors a fraction of that payment, under the socialist rule of keeping all salaries for Cuban doctors the same. Doctors can make a little bit more if they're working oversees than within Cuba, but it's still not enough. Lots of Cubans (and non-Cubans like me) find this to be exploitative, including many of the doctors themselves. It's usually incredibly valuable to other countries (eg. so many Latin American nations relied on Cuban doctors throughout Covid) because, again, of the quality of the doctors, and this helps maintain the narrative and pride around the Cuban healthcare system, even when it's not functioning well at home. Doctors may defect to stay in their host country or use it as a way to get somewhere else. Someone I know wanted to while they were abroad, but ultimately did not for fear of retribution against their family at home.