Article by Annie Sourbis
Martha Cabanas Etcheverry, a Cuban-born American and mother of a daughter, has not been back to Cuba since her family escaped in 1958. Her mother, an accountant, and her father, a city bus dispatcher, thought it was safer to drop everything and take their two children to the unfamiliar and daunting United States. “No one in my family has been back to Cuba and none plan to. The Cuba my family left does not exist anymore,” said Cabanas Etcheverry, 60, “We’re not going to travel there because our money is only going to benefit the government and not support the everyday Cuban who needs it.”
Yet in Cuba, many people are much more optimistic.
On Dec. 17, 2014, President Barack Obama and Raul Castro, the president of Cuba, announced on television that the two nations had agreed to normalize relations and to eventually lift the embargo that the U.S. had imposed on Cuba after the revolution in 1959. The news was greeted mostly with excitement from the people in both countries. But one particular group in the U.S. expressed more mixed emotions—Cuban Americans, 54 percent of whom are immigrants.
“I think it’s a noble initiative, but I think in reality it will only benefit the Castro regime and not the Cuban people who need the money that will be made from the new U.S. relations,” said Natalie Barton, 25, daughter of Cabanas Etcheverry.
Many American politicians agreed, perhaps most emphatically Senators Marco Rubio of Florida and Ted Cruz of Texas, both Republicans, and Robert Menendez of New Jersey, a Democrat.
Bicitaxis came onto the scene 15 years ago, and many Cubans started pedaling in order to get in on some of the action that was typically left only for owners of older American cars.
Among the optimists in Cuba is Yanis Gutierrez, 29, a fruit salesman. “We’ve only seen a few changes so far, but we think that there will be many great changes to come with the U.S. and its tourism,” he said He pointed out the numerous buildings in Havana that are being restored and the increase in Internet access around the city. Freedom House, a U.S. nonprofit in Washington and New York City that promotes democracy, estimates that 150,000 Cubans now have daily Internet access, compared with 75,000 in 2014.
Since the normalization, small business entrepreneurs have rapidly emerged. The World Policy Journal estimates that self-employed Cubans, or cuentapropistas, increased to 500,000 people from 150,000 in the last five years. These include people who have opened restaurants, rent out rooms in their homes, transport passengers in pedicabs or sell frozen treats on the street.
“We started our restaurant a few years ago for tourism,” said Niuris Higueras, owner of El Atelier, and her business has grown 75 percent in the last year. With some financial help from her family and microloans, Higueras was able to open El Atelier, her family’s third restaurant. Higueras and her family have been able to lead a life mostly unheard of in Cuba; thanks to the success of her business, they were able to sell their four homes in rural Cuba and purchase four homes much closer to Havana.
And this is despite the amount of taxes that private paladare owners are expected to pay. Higueras pays 25 percent of her income in taxes, additional taxes to have her 20 employees, and 10 percent of her net profit at the end of the year. “I probably only keep 25 percent of what we made at the end of the year,” she said.
Many Cubans have taken advantage of the recent increase in tourism. With government approval, families can rent out rooms in their homes to tourists. These are called casa particulares. Viñales, a town of 27,100 in the province of Pinar del Rio, has seen a large spike in casa particulares. According to town historian Ricardo Alvarez Perez, 1,600 beds are now available in private homes, nearly 10 times as many as in state-run hotels.
For a resident’s house to be approved by the government, the room must have lock on the door and a private bathroom. As long as the local community can vouch for the homeowners, they can receive a bank loan to help build the mandatory amenities.
Laura Machado, 32, moved to Viñales 14 months ago with her husband, mother and son. So far, Machado has had over 100 guests at $40 per night.
Like private restaurant owners, casa particulares are also heavily taxed. At the end of the month owners must pay $30 each night per occupied and at the end of the year they pay 10 percent tax on their net income from the rentals.
“I think in the short run, yes, the government will get the most of the money from the lifting of the embargo. But the government is also what runs our health care and education,” said Cristina Muñoz, 35, a teacher. “I think in the long run we will see the benefits greatly. The money from tourism will be felt by the businesses and the people.”