Identidades in English No 4, December 2014 | Page 26

“official” (government controlled) social science
researchers are reluctant to explore them.
Origins of the tragedy
Since the day it took power, the revolutionary
government has demonstrated its particular interest in distorting the socioeconomic composition
of Havana’s inhabitants. It seemed clear that residents of the capital, who lived slightly more
comfortably and better informed than the rest of
Cubans, might find it difficult adapting to the
conditions of extreme poverty and complete totalitarian control that would soon ensue, as initial
enthusiasm of the triumph began to wear off.
The incipient government faced an immediate
need to avoid obviously foreseeable risks. Officials had neither the time nor patience to wait for
capital residents to emigrate abroad spontaneously and on their own volition (as would eventually happen). Nor could they transfer Havana
residents to the country’s interior, although they
attempted to do so. The solution was to impose
change in the socioeconomic structure and, of
course, on the way people thought. For this to be
possible, the city’s class demographic must itself
be altered. Thus began the surges from Cuba’s
east.
First came the members of the Rebel Army (the
Revolutionary Army). Then hundreds of thousands of students, whose arrival in Havana was
understandable at first, given the scarcity of postsecondary schools and vocational training programs in the interior; as time went on, the migrating students were actually military recruits. And
after them, contingents of laborers by the dozens
for widely varying projects, especially in construction. Then came police, new teachers and social workers. In every instance, it was assumed
that the newcomers would not only take up perman V