Identidades in English No 4, December 2014 | Page 13

spaces, the ethnic economy institutionalizes the
reproduction of poverty via the political decisions
of the elite.
Yet, an ethnic economy can be created from
within the ethnic market: those involved in this
market were the one who created the goods that
afforded the elites and the State their wealth and
power. The sugarcane that sustained the fortunes
of grand families belonging to Cuba’s sugar elite
is also what provided the raw material for the production of by-products like panela. This panela
made possible an exchange with Afro-descendants, and of Afro-descendants with free tenant
farmers who began to enjoy dishes of ethnic
origin. This is how the ineptly titled ‘black market’ came into being; it is nothing more than an
ethnic market on the periphery of the global market.
The ethnic market is peripheral and limited. It
does not allow for accumulation nor does it generate enough savings potential for anyone to invest in better methods for producing panela at a
more or less industrial level, which would allow
the producers to participate in the market. There
is a market for panela, but there is no panela market. An essential characteristic of the ethnic market in Cuba is its marginality and lack of technical
capacity.
The economic situation of Afro-descendants in
Cuba is as follows: they live between the ethnic
subsistence economy and the ethnic market of
marginality. Striving within the market’s structure, Afro-descendants traditionally ricochet off
of an insurmountable, two-faceted obstacle: they
first reproduce their own strength to produce the
surplus that supports the State or elites, and then
they try to thrive in the market’s cracks by generating earnings (but no profit), in order to be able
to imitate - but not become part of - the elites and
their lifestyle.
The ethnic economy or market in Cuba is a reflection of the extractive model’s shortcomings when
it comes to promoting development. If the ethnic
market is always marginal regarding trends in the

market economy, this is not necessarily synonymous with social or technological underdevelopment, or of levels of general wellbeing either.
In Cuba, it is by design that the ethnic economy
and market do sustain underdevelopment in all its
dimensions— in growth, the creation of wellbeing, technological progress and innovation, market growth, modernization and urbanization. As
such, the survival of the elites has always depended on the reproduction of its extractive
model.
In an incomplete transition, we went from a focus
on the extractive model of the rich landowners to
an inclusive model involving cities divided into
spaces—upper class, middle class and working
class neighborhoods whose spaces had their own
aesthetic design and architecture.
The structure of the Carlos III markets, the famous Único Market, the Marianao Market, Sears,
and the famous “Ten Cents” dime stores evince
and comprise an open, inclusive and participatory
market design in which everyone can make purchases and even have access to according to individual purchasing power, regardless of origin.
Money and equality of access have a leveling effect on the citizens in these markets; even if birthright determines fortunes and poverty is a harsh
modern fact, ethnic traits do not decide people’s
access to the market’s economic redistribution.
Most important is the fact that local markets, disconnected and fragmented as they are, begin to be
replaced. It was they who breathed life into and
created spaces for a particular and entirely ethnic
market and other corresponding ones.
In his short and fundamental text titled Freedom,
Polish-British sociologist Zygmunt Bauman describes very well this phenomenon, one that took
hold and became popular in early, 1950s Cuba. It
was a time and model that allowed citizens to attain equality, freedom and identity according to
their ability to make choices in the consumer market.
Given this reality, the possibility of exploiting
ethnic differences begins to disappear. The

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