Cuba's New Wave

Cuba s

NEW WAVE

About the Project We are a group of student videographers, web designers and developers, reporters and faculty brought together by a common goal: to share the voices of Cuba’s youth.

We are a part of an annual project by UNC-Chapel Hill’s School of Media and Journalism. In past projects, students have reported across five continents and produced award-winning multimedia work. As students, we’re learning the rewards and challenges of reporting on different cultures; as journalists, we are working as a team to tell the stories that are shaping the globe.

Fidel Castro’s death and normalizing relations with the United States have fostered an openness that Cuba hasn’t seen in decades. This wave of change is overtaking the country, and while the population is aging, it is the young Cubans who will determine the nation’s future as it finds its place on the global stage. We bring you their stories.

The Team

BEN AIJIAN ’17

NICOLE BASILE ’17

KATE BOYD ’17

VIDEOGRAPHER

DESIGNER, TRANSLATOR

SENIOR DEVELOPER

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MARY CLAIRE BROGDEN ’17

LINDSAY CARBONELL ’17

EMMA CARL ’17

DESIGNER, TRANSLATOR

LEAD DEVELOPER, TRANSLATOR

VIDEOGRAPHER

PEYTON CHANCE ’17

KIANA COLE ’17

CLAIRE HANNAH COLLINS ’17

DEVELOPER, TRANSLATOR

REPORTER

VIDEOGRAPHER

VEASEY CONWAY ’17

BRIDGETTE CYR ’17

KIRA DALMAN ’17

VIDEOGRAPHER

VIDEOGRAPHER

VIDEOGRAPHER

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VIVIANE FELDMAN ’17

ROBERT GOURLEY ’17

ALLY LEVINE ’17

VIDEOGRAPHER

VIDEOGRAPHER

LEAD DESIGNER, TRANSLATOR

DELANEY MCGUIRE ’17

BLAKE RICHARDSON ’17

NATALIE ROUSH ’17

REPORTER

REPORTER, TRANSLATOR

VIDEOGRAPHER

DANIELLE WALLACE ’17

ALMA WASHINGTON ’17

DARIAN WOEHR ’17

REPORTER, TRANSLATOR

DEVELOPER

VIDEOGRAPHER

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EMILY YUE ’17

ECHO ZHOU ’17

PAUL CUADROS

VIDEOGRAPHER

DESIGNER

COACH, TRANSLATOR

ANNA CLARE SPELMAN

CRISTINA M. FLETES

KELLY CREEDON

COACH

COACH

COACH

AND SPECIAL THANKS TO

TAMARA RICE

PAT DAVISON

DESIGN/DEV COACH

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER/COACH

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• Marla Recio, On-the-ground Support in Havana • Cuba Educational Travel • Michael Penny, Director of Global, Immersive and Professional Programs for the MJ-school • Kammy Liu, Developer • Melissa Hudgens, MJ-school Adjunct Instructor • Andy Bechtel, MJ-school Associate Professor • Copy Editors: Luke Bollinger, Elise Clouser, Paige Connelly, Bridget Dye, Alison Krug, Sam Miner, Sarah Muzzillo, Danny Nett, Sara Salinas, Hannah Smoot, Molly Weybright, Jordan Wilkie, Avery Williams, Ryan Wilusz, Matt Wotus •

The Real Queens

Two rappers challenge stereotypes through their beats written by KIANA COLE

photos and video by BRIDGETTE CYR KIRA DALMAN

graphics by KATE BOYD MARY CLAIRE BROGDEN

A sharp stench is snaking its way out of a small pot on an old Cuban stove.

Reyna Hernandez Sandoval is in the other room trying to fit her long, braided hair into a knot on the top of her head. The rice charcoaling on the stove is the least of her concerns — she’s busy getting ready to go out. She’s a rapper, a part of a duo with her best friend Yadira Pintado Lazcano, though they’re known around Havana by their stage names: La Reyna y La Real.

The rice on the stove that she has been neglecting isn’t totally neglected, though — lately, it’s been her and Yadira’s inspiration. Who cares if dinner is scorched? Why should they be the ones who have to watch it cook? Someone else can do it. It’s what they named one of their recent songs: “Que se queme el arroz,” — Let the rice burn. It’s a statement. It’s a protest.

A GENRE OF PROTEST Though rap is an emerging musical genre in Cuba, Alberto Faya, a professor of Cuban culture at the University of Havana, says music has always been integral to the country’s cultural development, specifically the process of transculturation: when different cultures meld over long periods of time to help form a national identity. It is transculturation that produced son, the fusion of percussion from African slaves mixed with the stringed instruments introduced by the Spanish. Cuban music, Faya says, is reliant on the incorporation and adaptation of other sounds to continue evolving.

This is why Faya, 73, and many Cubans his age don’t favor rap — instead of drawing on the different cultures Cuba combines to create one unified sound, it feels more like an imitation of what the United States is doing than an original Cuban creation, he says. Hip-hop gained traction in Cuba during the Special Period, when the Soviet Union — a nation Cuba heavily relied on — collapsed, leaving Cuba in extreme economic strife. It was during this period, the 1990s, that young Cubans began to rap about their grievances with the government.

“Rap is a genre of protest,” Reyna says.

But in a communist country, how loud can the voice of protest be?

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In 2002, the Cuban government created the Agencia Cubana de Rap — the Cuban Rap Agency.

The agency, though helpful in securing publicity, is how the government keeps tabs on what Cuba’s rap artists are doing. Being a part of the agency isn’t mandatory — it’s competitive, and though they are in it now, Reyna and Yadira didn’t make it when they first auditioned — but attempting to be a successful rapper without the press and benefits the agency secures isn’t ideal.

Reyna and Yadira, both 31, say they have never felt the agency influence them to change their lyrics or alter their style, but the agency has been scrutinized for its suppressive functions regarding what artists can and cannot say, along with the style of music that is produced.

As Geoff Baker argues in his book, “‘La Habana Que No Conoces’: Cuban Rap and the Social Construction of Urban Space,” the agency has created a sort of divergence between rap artists in Cuba. There’s a contrast between the “‘underground’ rappers who choose to ‘follow their line’ despite its lack of commercial viability,” versus “‘commercial’ rappers who have changed tack in order to profit from the reggaetón boom.”

“IF I CAN DO IT, THEY CAN DO IT” Reyna and Yadira didn’t always dream they’d be rappers. Yadira worked as a social worker for a few years, and Reyna was on her way to becoming a chemical engineer when a baby interrupted her plans — a son, Michel, who is now nine and wants to be a rapper, too. A few years after becoming a mom, she decided to pursue music.

It was Moises Whittaker Alvarez who helped unite them in 2012, now the only manager they’ve ever worked with.

He knew them as individual performers, but something about their styles — the way they can so fiercely perform their “protest music,” but also fill whatever room they’re in with instantaneous laughter and light — told him that, even though they didn’t know each other, they needed each other.

They have an understood optimism that drives their music; it’s a genre of protest, yes, but it’s a protest against the pessimism that sometimes feels it’s flooding Cubans’ perspectives. Too many Cubans blame their country’s years of strife for whatever hardships they experience, Moises said, and that creates nothing but complacency. Rap is about moving forward boldly, not looking at the past to diagnose the present but working hard to ensure a fulfilling future.

“We’re trying to make other people know that if I can do it, they can do it,” Moises said. “It doesn’t matter how things happen to you — you turn all those bad things into good things.”

Reyna and Yadira rap about real life: Their struggles, their triumphs, their relationships, everything. But they do so while staying optimistic and empowering other women, too. They

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THE QUEENS OF CUBAN MUSIC While non-traditional genres of music are emerging in Cuba, it is important to never forget the roots.

The five women below have helped pave the way for current female artists in Cuba.

OMARA PORTUONDO (1930-PRESENT)

ROSITA FORNES (1923-PRESENT)

LUPE RAYMOND (1936-1992)

CELIA CRUZ (1925-2003)

GLORIA ESTEFAN (1957-PRESENT)

Born and raised in Havana, she started her career performing in Havana Clubs with her sister Haydee.

She later formed the group Cuarteto las d’Aida, which toured in the United States and Europe. She later performed on the popular album Buena Vista Social Club (1997).

She made her stage debut after winning a Cuban talent show in 1938. Rosita appeared in two Cuban films and starred in several films during the Golden Age of Mexican Cinema. In the ‘50s she toured in Latin America, Europe and the United States.

“La Lupe” was the first Latin singer to perform at Carnegie Hall and Madison Square Garden in New York. Her success was the result of her performance style: scandalous, theatrical and eccentric.

Today La Lupe is regarded as the “Queen of Latin Soul.”

Her father wanted her to take the traditional female job of teaching.

After dropping out of college she became the head of La Sonora Matancera. She won several Grammy awards, recorded over 75 albums and earned a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame.

Estefan and her family fled from Havana when Fidel Castro rose to power. She started to gain attention after joining her future husband’s band known as “Miami Sound Machine.” Estefan quickly rose as the star attraction and developed her own personality as a pop sensation.

acknowledge a disparity about women in rap that they hope to change — of the 34 artists currently working at the rap agency, six are female.

Cuba’s sound is continuing to develop — maybe transculturation never stops. But Reyna and Yadira don’t want to forget the traditions of Cuba’s past; instead, they’re learning how to bring the best parts of Cuban history into the future, equipping other women with empowerment to let their voices be heard.

Yes, they’re still cooking rice for dinner, maybe in arroz con pollo or arroz a la cubana, the traditional Cuban dishes they grew up eating. But these days, it’s okay to let it burn. It tastes better that way.

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Reyna Mercedes Hernadez Sandoval (La Reyna) shows off her tattoo in front of her house which bears the same emblem, a chess queen. Reyna is not only a musician but a visual artist having painted the piece on the front her home as a symbol of strength.

Michel, Reyna’s son, shows his friends a video on his phone. Michel plays drums and is encouraged by his mother to express himself in a positive way through music.

Reyna works out several times a week, often with Yadira.

Staying in shape is important to her as it helps her prepare for performances.

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Cutting Edge

Entrepreneurial brothers break boundaries in communist Cuba

written by DANIELLE WALLACE

photos and video by BEN AIJIAN DARIAN WOEHR EMILY YUE

graphics by NICOLE BASILE LINDSAY CARBONELL

Dorian Carbonell opens his scissors and peers between the two blades at the neon-yellow dyed hair of the eager young man in his barber chair. Dorian’s right eyebrow — coincidentally dyed the same bright hue — highlights his deep set, coffee brown eyes, which carefully ponder his next course of action. His eyebrows furrow and a flicker in his eye is just visible before, in an instant, the scissors close, tresses fall to the floor — and electricity surges through the room. Dorian is shaping his next masterpiece.

Across the salon stands the other Carbonell brother sporting a far less eccentric style. Cleanshaven and tanned from the Havana sun, Damian Carbonell studies the screen of his phone instead of his brother’s chromatic creations. He leans over, boasting about the salon’s updated website accessible through Wi-Fi in the salon, a rare arrangement in Cuba where internet access usually requires a prepaid government card that can only be used in certain hotspots.

The duo founded Salon Donde Dorian eight years ago — remodeling their parent’s home into a high-end bar, barber shop and beauty parlor all in one. Dorian is the artist; Damian is the administrator. Together they entered into a family business which they said aims to reshape the idea of masculine style and beauty in Cuba. Dorian has a reputation for using his hairstyling expertise to help the images of Cuba’s top recording artists come alive, and, as a result, Havana’s youth flock to his salon so that they, too, can rock a Donde Dorian original ‘do. But before Dorian could transform the looks of his clients, he said he needed to undergo a transformation of his own.

A self-proclaimed club rat, Dorian said he was very much like any typical Cuban guy in his 20s enjoying the party scene. In the 1990s, Cuba dealt with shortages after the country lost its main trade partner with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Dorian lived his life in ignorant bliss as a young model who secretly attended barber school classes at night as a hobby. His most prized possession was his German 1980s model MZ motorcycle that he rode through the streets of Havana’s hottest Vedado neighborhood.

Dorian and Damian founded a private business out of their parents’ home in 2009. Two years later, the Cuban government enacted a new policy called Los Lineamientos para la Política Económica y Social that lists 313 guidelines for allowing small and medium-sized businesses in Cuba to be privately operated.

As a result, some state-owned barber shops were allowed to be privately run by staff, giving them more agency to make managerial decisions. Dorian and Damian were granted a license to operate

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Salon Donde Dorian out of their private residence, but now that their business is trying to expand, they face new challenges in a country that still very much limits entrepreneurship and internet access. As the Cuban government loosens its hold, allowing its citizens to go into business for themselves, pursuing a Cuban Dream still proves difficult in a nation that limits opportunity and prides itself on the equal distribution of wealth.

OVERCOMING CREATIVE OBSTACLES High above the bustling city streets crowded with classic American built cars from the 1950s and ‘60s, Dorian and a group of young models gather in a cluster on the rooftop of an apartment complex. Instead of breathing in the exhaust that circulates on the seaside motorway called El Malecón below them, these young people cough through a similar cloud of smoke coming from cans of hairspray. Dorian is feverishly adding finishing touches to the designs he so deliberately molded at the salon as photographers set up their equipment to begin the big photoshoot.

A young man with fluorescent pink strands cut into a punk rock chop smolders in front of reflective disks that cast the light right across his jawline. The goal? To capture a shot that brings young people clamoring to Donde Dorian’s door. In Cuba, the government bans public advertising.

INTERNET DISCONNECTED For most countries, the internet expands communication possibilities — but in Cuba, regular internet connectivity is not a reality. This affects not only a business’ ability to reach their customers, but a citizen’s ability to access information networks. The graphic below shows the number of people out of 100 who have access to internet at home. In the United States, about 75 out of 100 people have access to the internet at home. In Cuba, only about 31 do.

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Because restrictions prevent private businesses from running ads in the newspaper or renting billboard space, Donde Dorian has chosen to create new collections that can be posted to social media as a part of their strategy to bring in new customers.

Damian stands like a wall flower glued to the perimeter of the rooftop snapping shots on his phone camera, some of the photo shoot and some of the sprawling city below. He checks his phone again but this time for missed calls from different fashion designers Donde Dorian is collaborating with on their new social media campaign. Donde Dorian partners with other businesses facing limits on expansion. Their latest collection launched on March 25.

“As part of our work policy, we proposed to do three or four collection launches a year to set the style,” Damian said. “This collection generally is preceded by a photo shoot, with a runway, then it is solidified with public demand, and our stylist ready to propose to the clients, one style over another.”

These photo shoots are meant to showcase the salon and its new collection which will set the tone for masculine style in the city. Since the implementation of the new economic policy in 2011, many entrepreneurs have been entering the private sector and competing against each other in true capitalistic fashion. Despite this resurgence of competition, the streets of Havana contain no trace of advertisements. Instead, billboards sport images of Che Guevara in his austere manner saying “Hasta La Victoria Siempre” or other messages of support for the government such as “Fidel Es El Pueblo.”

Though restrictions on private business are slowly dissolving, the government controls publications and limits ads as a way to preserve the cultural values of communism within Cuba.

Private businesses, therefore, produce videos that are then distributed online to advertise and promote their own company values.

Dorian said limited access to the internet in Cuba has restricted his creativity in the past, but he’s working with his brother to overcome the challenges it presents in advertising and developing their business.

“The Cuban style comes from us creating from what we do have,” Dorian said.

Cuba’s communist economy limits business operations and opportunity as well. Damian said because Cuban banks are not recognized in the global market, private citizens and their businesses do not have credit cards, and all transactions have to be done with cash. As a result, the company cannot easily purchase materials for the salon online, so at times they have to rely on their own innovation to make what they need.

One of the most obvious examples of their lack of supplies can be seen through a large window

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on the side of the salon, where a client sits with a chemical treatment on her hair in a makeshift outdoor booth attached to the side of the building, peering below as Dorian blows out the hair of another client inside. He explained they created the obscure structure because they aren’t able to find a ventilation unit for the chemical hair treatments.

SELF-STARTING SPIRIT Damian sips his cafecito while thumbing through a small and slightly tattered photo album in the front bar at the salon. Just above his head, Dorian appears with one of the music artists he styles in a video being played from the television screen hanging on the wall above the bar for all incoming customers to view. Damian speaks about the past captured in the photos of the album and about his hopes for the future as his brother gains more views online. He’s particularly proud of one old photograph of his great-grandfather and his grandfather standing in front of their family-owned cafeteria in pre-revolutionary Cuba.

“We were born in a humble house, in a humble neighborhood,” Damian said. “But before the Revolution, the ‘50s, our family were owners of a type of business called ‘de Barrio.’ It was a cafeteria named El Buen Gusto.”

The family lost their business after the Revolution triumphed and privately owned businesses were nationalized. But Damian said his family has always had an entrepreneurial spirit, something he’s determined to keep alive with the expansion of Donde Dorian.

“My mom and my grandma who are alive, luckily, happily, have that spirit of entrepreneurship that nobody can take from them, that will be buried with them — and the same with us.”

The two brothers want to use Salon Donde Dorian as more than place to get a haircut. They also have a social mission to reawaken this entrepreneurial spirit in Cuban youth and enable young people to develop a pride in their unique style. As the salon is planning an expansion to a new location, the brothers are also planning to transform the original salon in their parents’ home into a school to train up-and-coming hairdressers in Cuba according to Donde Dorian’s practices and principles.

“I’m going to try to make a welcoming place, a place where they cut your hair well and they guide you and they know what they’re doing,” said Dorian. “It’s to have the freedom to tell them, ‘cut my hair how you think it’ll look good on me.’ That didn’t exist in Cuba.

In Cuba, the barber would say, ‘what do you want to do?’ And then like that the client had to guide the barber.”

Dorian reminisces about his days attending barber school and said his line is also meant to start new conversations within the Cuban culture about masculinity.

When he first became a hairdresser, Dorian was ashamed because it wasn’t something men did, but haircutting and fashion always caught his attention when he attended university. And reimagining style for men in Cuba was a challenge because barber shops had always been state-owned. Before competition allowed for high-end salons to enter the market, Dorian said he remembers a lot of push back when he wanted to charge more than the state-set prices.

People would tell him, “You’re being crazy, Dorian! How are you going to charge that?”

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“But that is what happened, and I needed to feel good about what I did, I needed a change and I needed to better the products I was using and to make it fun and that was what was happening in that moment,” said Dorian.

PA’ALANTE The sun casts a shadow through the rod iron gate as sunset approaches, and the door squeaks closed as Damian locks up the construction site. The fresh layer of concrete from the salon’s entryway contrasts abruptly with the pavement from the neighbor’s weathered sidewalk. He parts ways with a woman, a banker who came to inspect the property, with the customary kiss to the cheek and strategically steps over the broken cement into the passenger side of Dorian’s Peugeot.

Donde Dorian has managed to grow a clientele despite its comparatively high prices for a haircut, and the bank has noticed. Because the salon has demonstrated a consistent cash flow, Damian said the bank has let the business operate on credit to buy construction material for the new location. The business is dipping into its savings to rent the property, a home in a residential neighborhood just a few blocks away from the original salon, and has worked out an agreement with the owner. Even though Damian and Dorian own the business, the owner of the home had to apply for the license to operate a private business out of his home. It takes some finessing of the rules in Cuba to expand entrepreneurial ventures.

On the way over to Damian’s apartment, the car passes a barber shop still operated by the state, and Damian mentions how he plans to work with the government to help managers develop more skills to drive in profit.

The two brothers eventually retire from a long day of work on the balcony with a Cohiba cigar and rum on the rocks and talk about their dreams for the salon. The Cuban dream differs from the American dream, its traditionally capitalist counterpart, because it takes coaxing to convince the communist government to loosens the reigns.

And it takes even more coaxing to draw in clients who’ve been raised in a society that hammers complacency rather than individualistic pursuits.

Dorian said he wants to develop his new salon and styling school to help contribute to a culture in which men can take pride in how they look and inspire the new generation with a new sense of self.

When he thinks of the future of Cuba, he has his three-year-old son in mind.

“He’s my inspiration to keep fighting for a tomorrow so that when he grows up and reasons a little more, he’ll say, ‘my dad is big’ and feel proud of me,” said Dorian.

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Models pose on a rooftop overlooking the Malecón during a photoshoot to publicize the Donde Dorian spring style collection.

Havana’s streets are full of ‘50s era cars that have been converted into taxis that both tourists and locals use to get around the city.

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Across the Harbor One commute bridges two worlds written by KIANA COLE

photos and video by VEASEY CONWAY ROB GOURLEY

graphics by PEYTON CHANCE

It’s 11:37 p.m. — did he read that right? Orlando Ochoa Méndez is exhausted, hunched over his friends in the middle of the dance floor, but his tired brown eyes flicker to life when he realizes how late it is. He says frantic goodbyes, quick kisses on both cheeks flying through the air as he bolts out of Fábrica de Arte Cubano, a warehouse now transformed into one of Havana’s most wellknown nightclubs. He scans the street for a taxi, his dark skin no longer livened by blankets of blue and green light from inside the club — everything feels dim now that he’s competing with the clock.

Orlando chooses a classic Cuban ride, a baby blue Chevy born in 1956, somehow finding the driver who’s an old friend — or maybe they’re meeting for the first time, with Orlando you’re never quite sure. “Llevame a la lanchita de Regla,” he tells the driver.

He has to get to the Regla ferry by midnight.

He’s rattling off directions to his driver in Spanish — the Cuban kind, which sounds more like a song than a sentence. The taxi roars with every accelerating lunge, a symptom of the vehicle’s age, as it winds around the edges of ocean waves that confront the city’s border.

This rush is for Regla, a neighborhood where Orlando lives with his parents. While still technically a part of the greater Havana area, Regla feels far more removed than a five-minute ferry ride. The star that pinpoints Havana as the country’s capital on any given map of Cuba stamps right over the harbor that divides these two areas. But these regions cannot be so simply merged — the star extinguishes Regla’s individuality, its smokestacks that hint at its industrial past, its streets blemished with missing chunks of cement and its homes stained with soot. There’s less urgency on this side of the harbor; in Regla, time is a suggestion of sorts. Orlando knows that while the final ferry home is always scheduled to leave Havana’s port at 12:15 a.m., the ferry driver often decides to leave at whatever time will get him home fastest, even if it’s the wrong one.

He’s used to this hustle. The 28-year-old tour coordinator has spent the last 15 hours on his feet, carting visitors — recently, more Americans — around his island country. Enduring endless “Hola’s” with a little too much “H,” hailing convertible cabs so visitors can fully feel that Cuban breeze, reserving restaurants, reserving new restaurants when visitors decide they actually wanted something different — this is an hour of Orlando’s day at work.

But on the other side of the harbor, it’s different. And when Orlando says goodnight to Havana every evening as he retreats into Regla, he says goodnight to a part of himself he won’t see again until morning.

When Orlando reaches Regla, there’s something about him that feels out of place, a part of him

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that his job in Havana has altered. Maybe it’s the collared shirts — he buys all his clothes in America, he says — or his enigmatic energy that feels foreign in Regla’s sleepy streets, or the fact that, unlike some of his neighbors, Orlando could afford to take a taxi around the harbor back home if he were to miss the boat.

“I have a feeling that people know who I am in my neighborhood, and that’s kind of weird,” he says. “But I don’t always know their name.”

Since December 2014, the doors that have kept Americans from traveling to Cuba for over 50 years have begun to crack open, ushering in an era of tourism that Cubans have never known. These jobs are changing families, introducing new household dynamics as children are making more money than their parents ever thought plausible. It’s forcing this generation of young workers to reconcile the hardships of their youth — the Special Period of economic collapse in Cuba during the 1990s — with a now-tangible notion of hope that lives in Havana.

Beyond lessened airfare prices, old cars, rum and cigars, beyond the ways travel will impact the Cuban economy, this growing tourism industry is changing the lives of the Cubans that run it, the ones that live just across the harbor.

A NOTION OF NORMALCY On December 17, 2014, fifteen words altered the relationship between two countries that had been estranged for 53 years.

“Today, the United States of America is changing its relationship with the people of Cuba.”

Though former President Obama didn’t detail the logistics of how this relationship would change in his address, both countries knew that, for the first time many of them could remember, there would be a notion of normalcy between the two nations. Now, Orlando’s job is entirely dependent on the success of an industry in Havana that seems to be broadening with each passing day as a result of those fifteen words: Tourism.

Tourism existed while the U.S. and Cuba were estranged — Canadians, Spaniards and Italians are some of the main visitors — but now, it’s an industry that is rapidly changing as airlines shuttle in more Americans. In 2015, the Cuban government reported 145,000 Americans traveled to Cuba — a 79 percent increase from the year before. Tourism from visitors all over the world has been on the rise, too — over two million travelers visited Cuba during the first half of 2016, an 11.7 percent increase from 2015, according to the National Office of Statistics and Information.

Though the door allowing Americans into Cuba continues to widen, it hasn’t completely opened — in order to enter the country, U.S. citizens must be going for one of 12 specific reasons issued by

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the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), an office of the U.S. Department of Treasury that enforces economic and trade sanctions. These reasons include family visits, journalistic activity, educational activity and humanitarian projects, but according to the treasury department, a traveler is not allowed to visit Cuba for the pure purpose of tourism.

But this doesn’t keep Americans from frequenting typical Cuban tourist attractions once their approved reasons have gotten them in the country, like visiting museums, dining at restaurants and enjoying taxi rides along the Malecón. It’s for this reason — the fact that tourism isn’t something that can be so explicitly controlled — that Orlando’s industry is continuing to excel, though its effects are mainly noticed in a specific concentration of the country: Old Havana.

“It’s the most attractive part of the city,” Orlando says. “So everything has been developed around there — so obviously all the opportunities will be happening there. Right?”

And maybe that’s why Regla has become Old Havana’s bedroom, the quiet borough Cubans retire to at the end of the day after working in Cuba’s capital. Places like Regla have little to show, he says, or at least that’s what people think. It’s why Cubans cock their heads and furrow their brows when they see Americans ferrying themselves away from Old Havana and across the harbor — why would they want to go there?

“Regla is less crowded than Havana, a lot quieter than Havana — less gentrified,” Orlando says.

Though he thinks visitors will soon realize Regla for its charms, that’s not what’s happening now.

“There’s no tourism there,” he says, “Not yet.”

This disparity is two sided; visitors aren’t coming in to Regla, but they aren’t going out, either.

Orlando is their resident roamer, a sojourner that crosses into Havana every day and gathers relics of the rest of the world to share with his community. What’s Santiago like? How about Los Angeles?

The United States? The questions come mostly from older people, ones who feel worlds apart from the Facebook fanatics now flocking to their country. They’re happy asking Orlando their questions, and he’s happy being their window to the rest of the world.

THE $1,000 GLISTEN If you had one shot…

“If you had one shot,” Orlando repeats to his audience of one: The reflection in his bedroom mirror. …or one opportunity, to seize everything you ever wanted in one moment…

“Opp-or-tune-ih-tee,” — five syllables. That’s a hard one.

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…would you capture it or just let it slip?

He looks away from the mirror, his chest sinking with a heavy sigh. His audience isn’t impressed — he tries again, rewinding Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” back to the beginning. He’s been into American rap for a while, though lately his friends have been making fun of his taste in music. “You’re listening to this white American rapper — you don’t even know what he’s talking about,” they tease. And they’re right. It’s seems strange to meticulously rehearse lyrics you don’t understand.

So why not just learn English?

Music was — is — his Bible, he says. It’s how he learned a language almost no one else around him can comprehensively understand; it’s what fueled him through his two mandatory years of military service in the Cuban army. American hip-hop was an escape throughout his tough upbringing, but it was also a way to expand his mind, to grasp at a country just 90 miles away that sometimes felt like another world.

That was nearly a decade ago. Orlando has been fluent in English for a while now, even taking his love of hip-hop to the next level by performing around Havana, though he’s too busy working to do that these days. English is an asset that, while necessary for his job, is one of the factors that muddles his Cuban identity. That annoying thing that happens when you’re clearly a tourist walking the streets of Havana, when people pester you to buy their cigars or ride in their taxis — they do it to Orlando, too. He says people don’t even recognize him, “They think I’m from somewhere else,” he says. He likes to turn it into a game, talking with waiters in the most American accent possible to see if they believe him. They always do.

But sometimes, it can be sad. Sure, it’s fun when he gets to go through customs quickly because his English is so good, he says, but it’s hard explaining himself all the time. It’s hard not fitting in very well.

Orlando doesn’t spend too much time worrying about how people perceive him, though — he’s too busy, and it shows. He’s always yawning, even in the middle of the day, with watery eyes that blink in slow motion. Even before he accepted the offer as a full-time tour coordinator, Orlando knew it would be more work than he’d ever done before. He starts most mornings before the sun, and he ends most nights squirming his way through his apartment so he won’t wake his parents, feeling his way around in the dark after another double-digit-hour workday.

Much like their son, the Méndez’s front door stands out. It’s still wrapped up in protective cellophane, shielding a new coat of dark cherry paint that lusters amidst the weathered wooden doors surrounding it. Because of Orlando’s income, his family can afford renovations like this.

Orlando’s dad, Orlando Sr., darts around the apartment like a kid on Christmas when he shows off the new tile floors he helped put down in his bedroom. They might as well be made of gold — they’re valued at over 1,000 dollars.

Orlando Sr. wanted no part of such a massive expenditure at first. “He was like ‘We cannot pay for that,’” Orlando remembers. “And I was like ‘Dad, that’s okay. I have the money.’ I think this is when he understood that, economically, I was the alpha of the family.”

It’s not like Orlando always dreamed of being the financial frontrunner — he didn’t know he’d one

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day be working in a burgeoning tourism industry; he didn’t know he’d be making 200 times the salary of his father. Private businesses like Orlando’s employer often pay their employees in the Cuban convertible peso, which is worth 25 times a traditional peso, the currency Orlando Sr.’s government job paid him in.

“I think his life is going to be a lot more prosperous than mine,” Orlando Sr. says about his son. “I don’t think he’ll have to go through the same challenges.”

Orlando doesn’t like talking about the money he’s making, he doesn’t like showing off. His mom thinks it’s great — Orlando says she jokes that she wants a flat screen television — but sometimes his dad seems sad about the situation. Orlando reminds them it’s not his money, it’s the family’s money. That’s why he puts it toward little luxuries like new floors and a gleaming new door — they’re practical renovations, yes, but they put a glisten back into his dad’s eyes that comes with having a purpose, something Orlando fears his dad is missing since retiring. For Orlando, that 1,000-dollar glisten doesn’t seem overpriced.

“BECAUSE WE’RE CREATIVE” It’s only eight hours later, but Orlando is back on the ferry. His arm bends in a perfect “L” as he grips the railing above him, mouthing the words to a Kendrick Lamar song streaming through his earbuds.

His morning ferry proves it has also been the pumpkin for countless other Cinderellas, with white and blue paint chipping from the walls and worn green floors. It’s the size of a living room — fitting, since it seems like this is where Orlando does a lot of his living — with characters of every age hunched over the rail, their eyes locked on the nearing Havana harbor as the boat courses through the water.

Orlando is on his way to pick up a group of Americans visiting for the week. He says a lot of the visitors he meets have predetermined conceptions of what Cuba is like before they arrive — the old cars, the limited access to the outside world — and decide the country must be stuck in the past.

They’re wrong.

“How do you think [the cars] are still running?” he asks. “Because we’re creative.”

This creativity is embedded into young people now — it’s as much of a genetic trait as their physical ones. It’s what inspired a kid without much money to learn English just for fun, to get a job that could provide his family with security in a country that hasn’t always felt so secure. In the same way that Orlando’s neighbors seem to know who he is just by watching him, the rest of the world has its eyes on Cuba — how it will grow, how America’s access will influence the island, how it will change.

How Cuba’s tumultuous past will influence its future.

Orlando doesn’t know how his two worlds will merge in the upcoming years. But for now, that’s okay. There’s a ferry that can bridge them for him.

In 1954, The New Yorker released an article featuring the following poem (page 22) by Philip Murray, which invokes vivid illustrations of the Regla of the past. While economic and racial diversity has increased in Regla in the last sixty years, echoes of Murray’s Regla resonate with the modern day municipality.

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REGLA, CUBA a poem by Philip Murray In Regla, just across the bay by launch, The tiny church has a Negress Virgin, Although the child is white, for legend says She once appeared here so -- and there are Certain feast days when the air is black With Negroes come to worship at Her shrine, And here the carnival Havana lights Are hung along the shore and thread the sea at night While in the old distillery Destroyed by fire, the moonlight on the stones Transforms the floor to marble, and the rows Of crossbeams make a multiple cucifixion Where hanged men tread their first macabre dance And love commits idolatry in the dark.

By daylight, tame bulls loll in the torpid heat Dogs and sailors sleep on the shady side Of fishing boats -- but nearby in the freight yards Swarthy workmen, wet with sweat, unload The heavy sugar sacks. From rotten wharves Small boys crab, or play at throwing rocks And here it is the mad sadistic sun Will nail your shadow to an anchor Staked in the ground by pirates in their prime Whose treasure now lies buried with their bones.

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Viva la Familia

Diego and his grandmother find common ground in a changing Cuba

written by BLAKE RICHARDSON

photos and video by EMMA CARL NATALIE ROUSH

graphics by ECHO ZHOU

Click.

Diego Delgado is a whisper away from his grandmother’s shoulder, his left eye buried into the viewfinder, but Coralia Ortiz doesn’t hear his camera. The 25-year-old photographer doesn’t have the best lighting to work with as he steps silently around Coralia, but he’s inspired. There’s something about that intense look on her face, the way the thin lines of her brown eyebrows subtly arch upward and her lower lip hangs open in contemplation. She creates all kinds of crafts, but her favorite is the brujita, a little witch that hangs from a string. She burrows her eyes into each stitch — the kind of finesse that only comes from years of practice. Coralia’s diabetes and other health issues force her to spend her time inside, but in these moments, she falls into a trance. Diego can’t help but capture it.

But pictures? Of her sewing? Coralia doesn’t believe it. Surely she’d be able to hear her grandson pacing around her, brushing his legs against the lace bedspread she sewed. You can hear the street bustling outside, but Coralia’s room is about as quiet as you’ll find in Havana — too quiet for the shutter of a camera to go unnoticed.

That’s what fascinates Diego. Tall and lean with long eyelashes that frame his deep brown eyes, he exudes energy. Between taking pictures for the animal magazine El Arca, freelancing photography, playing soccer and caring for Coralia, Diego can’t spend too much time on one task. Besides, he loves action; he craves it. So he admires that Coralia can be still for hours, consumed by her craft, that apartment walls and ailing health cannot confine her creative spirit — that her passion is so captivating, she doesn’t realize her rapture has become the focus of her grandson’s art.

Diego has lived permanently with Coralia in the three-room apartment in Havana’s Plaza municipality for five years, but he spent chunks of his childhood with her as well — six months to two years at a time — as work forced Diego’s mother, Adriana, to live further outside the city.

Coralia practically raised him, he says. But now, because of Coralia’s diabetes, Diego must take care of her.

As the aging population in Cuba continues to increase, more and more young people will need to care for the older generation. But look closer. Fidel Castro’s death on Nov. 25 might have marked a handoff in leadership from the older generation to the younger generation. Or maybe it didn’t. Maybe it signaled something else — a relationship that’s changing. Something less about who is leading and more about where they’re going, side by side, fingers and fates intertwined.

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CUBA’S AGING POPULATION This chart shows the percentage of Cuba’s population that is over the retirement age in Cuba from 1985 to 2015. The retirement age for women was 55 and for men was 60. The retirement age officially changed in 2017 to 60 for women and 65 for men.

CAREGIVER AND PLAYMAKER This isn’t Diego’s position.

He is the cornerstone of his soccer team’s back line. Of the five players that take to the futsal court, he’s the one who’s supposed to hug the goalie’s side.

But it’s too late to think about that now. He’s already sprinting down the court toward the offensive end after stealing the ball. His eyes scan the court, searching for the assist, but nobody’s open. He keeps it, then fires the ball at the net; it pings off the turquoise wall for a goal, and the celebration ensues. Diego smacks high fives like he’s slapping the surface of a lake, and cries of delight bounce off the white stadium ceiling. The defender has become the playmaker.

Scorer and defender, competitor and captain, energizer and caregiver — Diego is used to juggling.

He doesn’t have a normal day. He gave up routine for the sake of chasing moments with his lens.

Diego tried stability. After finishing secondary school at 15, the lifelong animal lover started studying to become a veterinarian while taking photography classes and working in a restaurant. But the lifestyle didn’t satiate his spirit.

“I was going to spend my whole life working in a kitchen,” Diego said, “and I didn’t want that for myself.”

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Diego was 4 when he took his first picture, and the passion was a natural fit. While his friends took notice of his talent, they discouraged him from turning to photography for a career — too unpredictable, they said.

Not his family. Diego’s father and grandfather both enjoyed the art as a hobby, so Diego started photographing professionally when he was 21. He’s since accumulated an abundance of frozen scenes; some animate the walls of his room. But perhaps the most telling decor is not something Diego captured, but the blue and yellow sign wedged by the door that seems to capture him: A philosophy that passes his gaze every time he leaves his room.

Pénsate que lo habías visto todo en cuestión de recuerdo? Adelante.

CAVE CREATIONS Sometimes, Coralia wears her age. Or maybe age wears her. She’ll shuffle around the apartment — “my little cave,” she says — gripping the countertop or a nearby chair for support. There’s a box of medicines on the counter for her diabetes and a pitcher of juice in the fridge. Her aching joints leave her tethered to the apartment.

But now? She is air.

The dark fabric of her skirt swishes as Coralia sways to the beat of music that faintly pulses through the television. Her round, friendly face radiates a smile, her feet tapping back and forth as she slides her arms and loosely clenched fists to the rhythm.

Salsa is just one of Coralia’s interests. She devours anything artistic, anything with a story.

Unlike Diego, Coralia fought her family to pursue her passions. Her father wanted her to be an accountant, but Coralia’s soul didn’t fit that mold. She started university studying philosophy and literature but took three years off after her first year, because the university closed during the

LIFE IN THE BIG PICTURE How Coralia and Diego’s lives align with Cuban history

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revolution. When the university reopened, Coralia got a scholarship to spend a year in the United States studying at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Coralia started teaching literature in 1963 and didn’t stop until retirement 35 years later. A year after meeting her husband at an architecture conference, she got married and had two daughters.

She keeps the box of pictures in Diego’s room.

After placing her treasure on the table, she lifts the lid with fraying brown and white patches to reveal the main relic — a tan scrapbook with yellow pages and words written in pencil to describe the memories. Sets of fabric eyes study her as she reminisces: two dangling brujitas, smiling red-headed oven mitts, a purple hanging owl and a green swordfish, built to hold bread and fashioned after the behemoth in Ernest Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea.” The story lover dwells with characters born by her imagination.

THE ROLES REVERSE Diego’s quads are burning.

The sun beats down on his brow while the hill he’s ascending pounds his legs. The longer Diego is outside, pedaling his bike down the streets of Havana, the more he can feel the heat burrowing into his skin.

It’s the end of the month, which means he needs to refill Coralia’s medicine, a collection of different-sized pills she takes three times a day. It’s far, though — too far for Coralia to make the trip.

So Diego plans ahead, scheduling work around the hours-long errand.

But Diego shrugs off the trek. Biking isn’t so bad, he says; waiting in line is the worst part. Twenty minutes with nothing to do but stare at the ceiling, his toes and his black watch, the second hand revolving ceaselessly.

Diego’s youthful restlessness is growing more unique in Cuba. With a median age of 41.1 years old, 25.9 percent of the population is over 55, and an estimated 36 percent will be over 60 by 2050.

The Plaza municipality — where Diego and Coralia live — is the oldest region of Havana.

Cuba raised its retirement age to 65 for men and 60 for women in 2009, but with an average life expectancy of 78.7 years, a sizable portion of the population lies outside the workforce. A shortage of retirement homes means more responsibility falls on younger family members.

But part of that ties to housing. Homes are expensive, and as young people struggle to find a job that aligns with their education level, staying in the family home is easier in Havana. Still,

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Coralia’s situation is atypical.

“There are very few grandparents who live alone,” Coralia said. “There are even fewer who have a grandchild that lives alone with their grandparent.”

When Diego was 20, Coralia’s doctor said she needed someone to live with her. But Adriana had just bought a house in another town, and Diego’s brother was only 12; someone had to raise him. Adriana presented Diego with a choice. Care for Coralia, or his brother? It was a no-brainer. A growing boy was too much responsibility, and there was something about Coralia — a connection they shared from all the time spent together when Diego was a kid. It’s a different relationship now. He’s still the grandson, but not quite the boy who stopped on the sidewalk to listen to his grandmother’s lectures on architecture. Diego does the intensive house cleaning. He runs errands, monitors Coralia’s medical visits and watches over her.

“He helps me a lot with things at home because I can’t,” Coralia said. “He’s my right hand.”

A REDEFINED RELIANCE “Look,” Coralia says, “I will show you how to make a witch.”

She sifts through a collection of wires and settles on a white one — hard enough to stay in place when bent but soft enough to cut. One piece for the arms, one for the legs. She slides both inside black shoelaces and ties them together. Once she adds the head — a piece of a tan stocking stuffed with cotton, she gives the brujita a name.

“Luna,” she says. “Moon.”

When Coralia is through, Luna needs a hat, a broom and a face, but the witch must wait. Diego will return from the gym soon, and he’ll need dinner. “He’s always hungry,” she says. A collection of pots sits on the stove in preparation — inside one is homemade bread pudding.

Coralia picks a few bites off the knife, but that’s all she’ll eat.

Diabetes bars her from enjoying her treats, but she still makes them for Diego. How could she not? You don’t need to eat her dessert to know it’s one of Havana’s finest. Just watch the corners of Diego’s eyes crinkle when he mentions Coralia’s dulces.

That smile stretches across Diego’s face now, as he sits at the kitchen table and tells how he seeks Coralia’s opinion on clothing before leaving the house. “She always tells me that it’s cold,” he says, “that I need a jacket.” He stares at one of Coralia’s dangling brujitas before turning back and continuing. If he’s sending an important email, he seeks input from his grandmother, the grammar aficionado. When he wants perspective outside the photography sphere, he consults Coralia. Daily tasks don’t slip through the cracks with his on-the-move lifestyle, because Coralia will bring the clothes on the line inside if it rains, and she’ll take a message on the phone.

Cuban society is changing with Diego’s generation at the helm. When Diego goes on a date, the woman doesn’t need a parent to chaperone and sit between the pair in the movie theater. Female university students don’t worry like Coralia did about finding an escort to evening classes. The

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changes are so stark that Coralia considers then and now as separate worlds.

Her home has evolved, and so has her role. Diego doesn’t need to be raised anymore, but he still leans on her — not as his caregiver.

As his confidant.

MOVING FORWARD TOGETHER As the mass of bodies started clamoring onto the bus, Diego spotted an older man struggling.

Without hesitation, Diego fell back from his friends to wrap his hand around the man’s forearm and bear some of the weight.

He’s doing it again. Same grab, different forearm. This time, he’s assisting Coralia as she eases off the curb outside their apartment, a yellow Superman logo emblazoned onto his backwards baseball hat.

Together they drift down the neighborhood streets to buy food at the nearby market.

Occasionally, the pair bumps into an older neighbor and stops to exchange kisses. Coralia selects the food from produce stands and uses the money from her purse to pay. But when they leave, Diego carries the white plastic bag in his right hand. Later, Coralia will transform that into a meal.

Cuba’s youthful and aging generations forge into the future surrounded by uncertainty. How the country will cope with the demands of a growing retired population, how it will foster opportunity for the youth amidst housing and employment deficits, how it will adapt to the changing global landscape. For Cubans, old and young, the destination is a mystery, but one thing is clear in this journey of generations: They move as equals.

That’s true for Diego and Coralia, as they glide under the sun and take each other in. Diego with his long, anxious limbs looks like he could take off any minute, while Coralia, her bag draped on her walker, is deliberate with every step. But look closer. They aren’t so different. The bookworm who religiously spins her thumbs in circles and the soccer star who can’t sit still.

Two artists, bound by blood and matching house keys, pressing onward under the open sky.

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Revolution on Wheels Cuba’s youth refuse to be curbed by tradition written by DELANEY MCGUIRE

photos and video by VIVIANE FELDMAN CLAIRE HANNAH COLLINS

graphics by ALLY LEVINE ALMA WASHINGTON

On a Sunday afternoon El Prado, the smooth, stone promenade that divides Old and Central Havana, is full of life. Painters line the walkway, dipping brushes into the bright yellows and blues that make their art Cuban in the eyes of tourists. Other craftsmen have set up tables and chairs in the middle of the promenade, where they carve small wooden statues. Parents and strangers crowd around as a 10-year-old boy lifts and twirls his dance partner – a small girl wearing flat ballet shoes, her hair in a tight bun. The air carries the timba beat – trombones, conga drums and the clap, clap, clap of the clave – along with the smell of the ocean toward the heart of the city.

A teenager on roller blades maneuvers through the dance performance, stopping at a bench crowded with tattooed teens sharing a cigarette. In Cuba, tattooing is illegal, but it’s not uncommon to see older teens with tattoos they got from a makeshift parlor hidden in a dilapidated Havana apartment.

At their feet, skateboards scatter the ground. The sound of silicone wheels slapping the marble surface overwhelms the place as skaters land ollies and kickflips and toss their boards onto the hard floor. An 8-yearold boy skates up to a group of guys in their early 20’s and daps them up like old friends. Age doesn’t seem to be a discriminating factor here, and neither does style. Skaters in black share the street with those in Hawaiian shirts and gym shorts. Here, punk and rock and Rasta are all familia. They’ve come to El Prado for a competition, many with twisted ankles or broken boards, happy just to be there witnessing the action.

The noise gradually fades and the street clears but for two lone skaters: a tall one with dyed blonde curls peeking out from under a black snapback, and a small 12-year-old rolling behind him.

All the commotion has stopped, and a still quiet sets in. Skaters sit along the walls conversing in

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hushed voices as two men wearing stiff, gray uniforms and old-fashioned berets stroll through El Prado. They walk with purpose, examining the throng of skaters with suspicion, pausing only to speak to the two rebels who continued skating. Finally, they walk away, the two young skaters trailing leisurely behind in a cooperative, but unenthusiastic manner. They’re gone. And, just like that, everything goes back to normal. The skaters pile back onto the street. The loud bangs and chatter and laughter fill the air once more. None of the skaters mention the disappearance of their friends or seem concerned about their welfare. When two more are taken away 30 minutes later, the reaction is equally indifferent.

“When you see police, you sit,” said Junnior Gilberto Terré, 20, who’s perched on a concrete bench rolling a skateboard back and forth with his bandaged leg. Junnior has come to El Prado to visit friends, chain smoke cigarettes and maybe try out a few tricks now that his knee is healing. It’s been more than a year since he injured it landing a faulty jump and he’s eager to get back in the air.

Junnior’s face becomes pensive, his reddish brows scrunch together and his pale cheeks go hollow as he takes a long drag from his cigarette and thinks about his future. He’s been skating since he was 16 years old. Four years of heelflips and boardslides and elbow scrapes and strained muscles. Four years of falling and getting back up and being arrested and paying fines. Like most skaters his age, he dreams of sponsors, the X Games and prize money. But for skaters in his country, it’s likely to remain just that: a dream. In Cuba, you can make a living as a professional boxer, baseball player or ballerina. But, for an untraditional sport like skating, there’s no money to be made.

Skaters here are going against the grain. The act of skating itself is an expression of freedom. It demonstrates this generation’s ability to break free of the strict traditions found in Cuba. However, despite everything they have overcome in order to skate, they have a long way to go before their dreams of going pro and having the support of Cuban society can become a reality.

PUSHING THE LIMITS Seventeen-year-old Cristian Alonzo Stewart traded a pullover, a backpack and a pair of shoes for his first skateboard. And it wasn’t a good one. Cuban skaters can’t ride to the skate shop and buy a new pair of Vans when theirs begin to fall apart or replace the deck they broke grinding on a rail. In Cuba there are no skate shops. Equipment is usually donated by organizations from other countries, then bartered for and passed around among skaters.

“You need to work hard,” Cristian said. “Or if you’re lucky, and your parents have money, you can buy different shoes all the time, but many people here don’t have that possibility.”

But even if a skater can get hold of the equipment, learning to skate is another challenge. With just one skate park, El Patinodromo, in all of Havana, it’s not easy to cultivate skate talent. In the United States, if skaters want to learn to slide down a stair railing, they start at the skate park, where they learn to jump onto lower rails and gradually improve until they’re ready for the big one. But here they go straight for the real deal and hope they don’t break a bone or, more importantly, a board.

There are no professional skaters in the country and no other experts to teach skaters the advanced moves. They mostly learn from each other, looking up to the best of their peers, like Fabian Lopez and Alvaro Lores, who are both sponsored by Toda Fuerza, an organization designed specifically to support Havana-based skateboarders. Sponsors supply Cuban skaters with boards and shoes, but don’t pay enough to constitute a full-time job.

El Prado’s flat, polished surface makes it one of the best places to skate in all of Havana. It’s also one of the countless places in this city where skateboarding is prohibited. “The police will ban us one

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day, and then they will be fine with us the next day,” Cristian said. “They don’t get much respect from skateboarders.” Most of the skaters here have been reprimanded, fined and taken to jail numerous times. Yet, they keep skating.

“If you like something, you do it because you love it,” said Stephanie Borrero, who learned to skate about a year ago when her younger half-brother, Alvaro Lores, proved to be one of the best skaters in Cuba. “No matter what happens, what they’re going to do to you, the threats they give you, you’re going to do it just the same because you like it.”

For these skaters, the worst punishment is a broken board.

When the police confiscate a skateboard and return it in two pieces, the skater will have to wait months before a foreigner comes to donate another deck or until he or she has enough saved up to barter for a new board.

JUMPING THE BARRIERS Much of time spent in Cuba is a waiting game. Waiting for friends who show up 30 minutes late, waiting for a bus or a taxi that’s heading in the right direction. Skaters wait for foreigners to visit and leave them with a new board and some good tips. They wait in long lines to purchase a Wi-Fi card, type in the 12-digit number and then wait some more until the page finally loads. They use up their limited internet access searching skate tutorials on YouTube.

To avoid the issue of slow internet connection, others turn to El Paquete, or The Package. This compilation of over 1 terabyte of content – including international music, television series, soccer games, celebrity gossip, phone apps and YouTube videos of skating tricks – has been uploaded to various hard drives and circulated through Cuba. At a tent-like stand along a busy street, a salesman sits with his computer, ready to pass off a movie or an album to any local with a USB drive and a few moneda nacional, the local currency that’s worth roughly 25 to the U.S. dollar. Cubans can find skateboarding videos downloaded from YouTube in a digital folder labeled “Special Interests,” but most of them can’t spare the money (less than $3 USD for the entire terabyte of content). Instead, they circulate videos among themselves that have already been purchased or shared by foreign skaters visiting the area.

Like many in the United States, the skaters of Havana are constantly recording. They’ll tell you they’re photographers or videographers, but the subject of their work is the same: skateboarders.

Using phone cameras they film each other jumping over walls or doing 180 ollies and backside heelflips, then edit the footage together on mobile apps.

“To get the boards most of the time we film videos, take photos and upload them to the internet,” Stephanie said. “Many people come from other countries to help us. They’re interested in why so many Cubans skate if they don’t have a place to get the equipment. So they bring them to us. They give them as gifts.”

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THE ORIGINAL REVOLUTIONARIES & THE NEW REBELS Although skateboarding seeped into Cuban society back in the 1980s, it’s just now emerging as a mainstream trend for Havana’s youth. Cubans as a whole seem to feel a nationalistic pride for traditional sports, like boxing and baseball. However, the younger generation’s interest in modern sports, like skating, is met with unease. Members of the older generation, who were once young revolutionaries themselves, have trouble relating to their grandchildren’s rebellious desires to dream outside of Cuba.

Cristian lives with his grandmother and great-grandmother, who have strong opinions about his obsession with skateboarding. “The best future I could hope for him is that he studies and becomes an older, educated man,” said Mayra Rodriguez, Cristian’s grandmother. “He’s under age – under 18 – and he still doesn’t have a job.

That’s why he entertains himself with skateboarding.”

His great-grandmother chimes in, “A skater, that’s all he does. He doesn’t think of studying or going to school.”

While Mayra said she doesn’t mind Cristian skating from time to time, she doesn’t want it to consume his life and sees no future for him in the sport. However, she does support one of Cristian’s more “Cuban” hobbies: painting.

She said she wishes he would become a professional painter and even suggested that he paint skateboards as a sort of compromise. Like most Cubans her age, Mayra sees skating as a game.

She can’t imagine it as a refined art or skillful sport that deserves to be taken seriously and has the potential to be a fame-launching career.

ROLLING FORWARD With or without his family’s approval, Cristian will spend his days riding through Havana and admiring professional skateboarders in other parts of the world. What he has is raw passion. It’s something that can’t be stopped by a grandmother’s reprimands or a slap on the wrist and few hefty fines. A lack of space and supplies and mentors may slow a skater down, but it also drives ingenuity.

Cristian and his fellow skaters will always find a way to skate. And, maybe, one day they’ll find a way to do it professionally.

A bearded man wearing dark sunglasses sits by El Prado, pulling wheels and metal skateboard parts from a backpack. Local skaters swarm around the foreigner, like a flock of gulls plunging toward a piece of bread left on the sand. They take what they can get and ration the gear among themselves before rolling back down the promenade to attach the new parts or practice a trick. They migrate toward Cristian and the other skaters whose boards are still intact, and the group zigzags toward the center of the city.

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