Cuban Youth Research Articles

Cuban Youth: Changing Attitudes Towards Sexual and Reproductive Health

Cuba remains one of the few countries still governed by a communist party. Despite its socialist commitments, including to gender equality, these have not been fully achieved and norms concerning gender roles are often at variance with revolutionary values. Focusing on youth and particularly young women, this article draws on primary data collected in Cuba in 2018–19 to explore young people’s sexual and reproductive health decisions. The analysis highlights how despite the family planning services and educational opportunities made available to them, young women’s reproductive and sexual choices are often determined by men and by values that accord primacy to marriage and motherhood, as conservative values are increasingly gaining a foothold.

Personal Exposure to Social Media and Variations by Gender among Cuban Youth.

Personal exposure is a crucial aspect of digital socialization. It pertains to the amount of time spent on social networks, the number of active accounts, interactions on different platforms, the content published on social networks, the purpose for which the content is shared, the degree of personal exposure, and the changes in social life caused by the exposure. Gender plays an important role in predicting online behavior, but previous studies have yielded contradictory results. To characterize personal exposure to social media in young Cubans (networks used, hours of exposure, published content, how much of one's private life is exposed, alterations due to its use). To define the differences in personal exposure based on the gender variable. A survey specifically created for this research was used. The sample was composed of 3345 young Cuban residents between 18 and 35 years old. The young people spent a considerable amount of time per day on WhatsApp, Instagram*, and Facebook/Messenger*. Users shared content related to humor, music/art, and their personal lives. These interactions served as a source of entertainment, a means of communication and socialization, and a platform for expressing opinions on various topics. Personal content was shared frequently. The young people reported experiencing disturbances such as family demands, decreased attention span, difficulty sleeping, and decreased social interactions. There were gender differences in the level of personal exposure, with females reporting higher levels of exposure. There are high levels of personal exposure among Cuban youth. Different qualities are manifested according to gender. Females reflect the highest levels of personal exposure.

Loving idols: K-pop and the limits of neoliberal solidarity in Cuba

In the 2010s, new forms of hand-to-hand digital media piracy displaced state control over media distribution in Cuba and facilitated the influx of global media, including K-Pop, just as Cuban socialism came under renewed pressure through economic reform. In this context, this article contends, Cuban youth turned to K-pop to reimagine the self, sociality, and Cuba’s place in the world. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, this article shows how K-pop appealed to fans by fostering fantasies of becoming enterprising individuals through neoliberal solidarity. These aspirations were reinforced by the industry’s pursuit of immediation, that is, its use of digital media to produce intimate and immediate connections that denied the mediations on which they depended. Ultimately, this article demonstrates how desires for and anxieties about immediacy motivate K-pop fandom and its geo-political imaginaries and how a global capitalist culture industry can appeal to fans by offering relief from the neoliberal capitalism it reproduces.

Operation Pedro Pan and the Exodus of Cuba's Children

Operation Pedro Pan and the Exodus of Cuba's Children

You defend what you feel: ‘Presencing’ nature as ‘experiential knowing’

This article reflects on a youth-led action research process on climate change adaptation carried out in Cuba between 2013 and 2015. The research explored the question: ‘How are Cuban youth engaging with climate change adaptation challenges and what can we learn from it?’. The objectives of the research were to understand young people's attitudes towards climate change and environmental work while connecting a youth network in Cuba and encourage collaboration. This article contributes to PAR with a rich description of a research process in which the group of co-researchers was able to collectively shift their awareness of and personal relationship with nature. Proposing a conversation between Heron and Reason's extended epistemology (1997) and Scharmer's TheoryU (2016, 2018), I argue that experiential knowledge in climate change and environmental work looks like entering an intimate state of co-presencing with the aliveness of the earth. Second of all, the research contributes to the literature on youth participation highlighting that in Cuba there is a gap between the political will and attention towards climate change adaptation, which is remarkable, and young people's ability to meaningfully take leadership in such efforts.

Cuban Youth Promote Healthier Diet through Art.

Art, education, health and nutrition: encouraging healthy eating at an early age is central to the World Food Programme's (WFP) goals. To this end, using art as a learning and communications tool, the program sponsors WFP in Action, a drawing contest open to youngsters 5-18 years old. Cuba has participated in the contest nationally since the 1990s, and since 2002 has sent a selection of drawings annually to the international competition at WFP headquarters in Rome.

Cuban Youth Promote Healthier Diet through Art.

Art, education, health and nutrition: encouraging healthy eating at an early age is central to the World Food Programme’s (WFP) goals. To this end, using art as a learning and communications tool, the program sponsors WFP in Action, a drawing contest open to youngsters 5–18 years old. Cuba has participated in the contest nationally since the 1990s, and since 2002 has sent a selection of drawings annually to the international competition at WFP headquarters in Rome. In the 2018 edition of the contest, international judges received 5 drawings from each of 20 participating countries. Applying criteria of esthetic appeal, originality and artistic quality, they awarded 20 prizes. Four of the five drawings from Cuba were among the international prize winners. The WFP reproduces prize-winning images in calendars, t-shirts, and other materials to promote their programs and raise funds towards ending world hunger and child malnutrition. WFP began its collaboration with Cuba in 1963, providing emergency relief after Hurricane Flora devastated the island’s eastern provinces. Today, WFP programs in Cuba aim to boost food and nutritional security among the country’s most vulnerable populations, strengthen the food supply chain with an emphasis on high-protein beans (a Cuban dietary staple) and consolidate community resiliency and responsiveness in disaster risk management. MEDICC Review is pleased to reproduce this year’s four winning drawings by Cuban children—each of whom hails from a different province.

Acionamentos geopolíticos num show de música pop em Cuba

Resumo Diante de um contexto histórico de tensionamento político e econômico entre Cuba e Estados Unidos, toma-se um espetáculo de música pop ocorrido em março de 2016 na Tribuna Anti-imperialista em Havana e protagonizado pelo grupo de música eletrônica Major Lazer como uma performance em torno da memória cultural nas Américas, conforme postula Diana Taylor (2013). A encenação de disposições performáticas dos músicos e do público remete a rituais que evidenciam contradições em torno da presença de vestígios de produtos da cultura norte-americana em território cubano. Debate-se as rasuras das políticas comunicacionais restritivas do governo cubano e a ostentação de ícones ligados aos Estados Unidos por parte da juventude de Cuba como questionamentos em torno de um projeto de nação.

Adolescent Survival Expectations: Variations by Race, Ethnicity, and Nativity.

Adolescent survival expectations are linked to a range of problem behaviors, poor health, and later socioeconomic disadvantage, yet scholars have not examined how survival expectations are differentially patterned by race, ethnicity, and/or nativity. This is a critical omission given that many risk factors for low survival expectations are themselves stratified by race and ethnicity. Using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, we modeled racial, ethnic, and immigrant group differences in trajectories of adolescent survival expectations and assess whether these differences are accounted for by family, neighborhood, and/or other risk factors (e.g., health care access, substance use, exposure to violence). Findings indicated that most racial, ethnic, and immigrant groups were more pessimistic about their survival than were non-Hispanic whites, with the exception of Cuban youth, who were the most optimistic. Foreign-born Mexican youth had the lowest survival expectations, contrary to expectations from the "healthy-immigrant" hypothesis.

Civic Studies:

Civic Studies:

Cuban Youth and Revolutionary Values: Educating the New Socialist Citizen

Cuban Youth and Revolutionary Values: Educating the New Socialist Citizen

Cuban youth culture and receding futures: hip hop, reggaetón and pedagogías marginal

Cuba finds itself at the centre of various discourses yet again, as publications such as The Economist and others debate the future of Cuban culture and society. While issues of economics, ideology and politics are fertile ground for discussion, they do not encompass the totality of such a conversation. The authors argue that critical to the conceptualisation of the Cuba of tomorrow is an awareness of Cuban youth cultures, the multiplicity and ideations of those cultures and the role that hip hop and reggaetón play in affording an alternative spaces for self-expression, critical dialogue, a fashioning of the what is to come and the receding futures of Cuba's tomorrow.

Parental versus Government Guided Policies: A Comparison of Youth Outcomes in Cuba and the United States

This paper examines the outcomes of youth who live in Cuban and United States societies characterized by two distinct political systems. Although both societies claim to be child-centered, the value placed on health care, especially for children, and education, as well as the percentage of the budget allocated to support children is greater in Cuba than the United States. It also appears that, though the United States is a major world power that leads in technology and medical advance, there are few differences between the two nations in health and educational outcomes. In fact, statistic from numerous sources demonstrate the greater success of Cuban youth in terms of educational attainment, health promotion activities, and avoidance of negative outcomes as a result of risky behaviors.

Acculturation-Related Variables, Sexual Initiation, and Subsequent Sexual Behavior Among Puerto Rican, Mexican, and Cuban Youth.

The relationship among acculturation-related variables, past sexual activity, and subsequent sexual behavior was examined for a sample of Latino youth in the United States over a 12-month period. A subsample from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health database was analyzed by means of a prospective design. History of sexual intercourse predicted subsequent sexual behavior over the ensuing 12 months. The acculturation-related variables were related to whether an adolescent reported being sexually active at Wave 1 but in a complex fashion. Among recent immigrants, youth from English-speaking homes were less likely to be sexually active than those from Spanish-speaking homes. The opposite was observed for youth who were born in the United States or who had resided in the United States most of their lives.

Cuban Youth and Postmodernism

Cuban Youth and Postmodernism

Youth and the Cuban Revolution

For the past 30 years Cuban youth has experienced uninterrupted upward social mobility. This trend is apparent in the increase in the level of schooling with decreasing age: whereas in the 55 to 59 age group the level of technicalprofessional schooling and higher education is 8.06 percent, in the 35 to 39 age group it is 14.89 percent and in the 25 to 29 group it is as high as 17.64 percent (CEE, 1981: 169-170, Table 40). The age group composition of the occupational structure also shows this upward mobility: 42.8 percent of the country's professionals and technicians are between 17 and 29 years of age (CEE, 1985b). Similarly, 62.8 percent of rural youth is incorporated into advanced forms of organization of labor such as production cooperatives (CEE, 1986: 113-114, Table 4). In key branches of the economy such as electronics, the machine tool industry, and mining and metallurgy, young workers make up more than 40 percent of the total workforce (CEE, 1985b). These indicators are the result of a policy, maintained throughout the history of the revolution, of giving priority to mass education and guaranteeing access to it to young people of all social sectors. Within this general framework, a historical approach to the issue allows an appreciation of changes in the role of Cuban youth with regard to society as a whole changes shaped both by the transformations in the country's economic and social situation and by the age group's internal dynamics. During the 1960s and the first half of the 1970s these transformations and internal changes took place with unprecedented speed. The resources obtained through the expropriation first of foreign enterprises and later of the national bourgeoisie, together with aid from the socialist camp, allowed for accelerated growth of investment that generated a significant increase and diversification in employment. The rate of investment rose to more than 30

Structural Changes in the Cuban Economy

During the past century and particularly during the first three decades of this century, the Cuban economy suffered from a major structural deformation. Its model of development, which was based on superspecialization in sugar production, prevented growth in the rest of the economy and led to economic and political dependence on the United States. At the beginning of the 1920s the new generation of Cuban youth understood that the country's economic structure condemned it to stagnation, imbalances, inequalities, defenselessness, and underdevelopment. The pressing need to diversify the economy was obvious to the best members of that generation, and it was for such a cause that they struggled. Many of the revolutionaries who struggled against the dictatorship of Gerardo Machado (1924-1933) and afterwards against that of Fulgencio Batista knew that social change had to be more profound than the simple overthrow of these dictators. The period of growth based on sugar production reached its peak at the beginning of the 1920s, and for almost 40 years thereafter per capita income remained at the same level. The bankruptcy of this model of development was evident. During that period some foreign institutions and individuals were also convinced of the need for change. Any serious analysis of the complex and stagnating reality of the Cuban economy inevitably exposed the necessity of transformation. When the reactionary forces, in league with the U.S. embassy, liquidated the Government of a Hundred Days after the overthrow of Machado, they designated a new puppet government which immediately requested a nonofficial institution of the U.S. government, the Foreign Policy Association, to

Children of the Revolution: A Literary Case Study

Children of the Revolution:A Literary Case Study Rafael Ocasio (bio) and Fiona Dolougham (bio) Along with political change, the Cuban Revolution of 1959 brought profound social changes as well. In an effort to create a national consciousness, the revolutionary leadership set about the task of reorganizing cultural and educational institutions to reflect the ideals of socialist man. The transition from pre- to post-revolutionary Cuba was a difficult one that demanded of its leaders strong direction and good organizational skills. One group of historical importance for the Revolution was the youth of Cuba. It was to this group in particular that the leadership directed its efforts, ensuring the creation and promotion of a literature designed specifically for children, adolescents, and young adults. This interest in children's literature did not simply grow out of the Revolution but goes back to the efforts of Jose Martí, a revolutionary leader of the Spanish War for independence (1895-1898) and a writer and poet, to instill in young Cubans a particular philosophy of life. From exile in New York, he published several issues (July-October 1889) of a magazine for children called "La Edad de Oro" ("The Golden Age"), publication of which was later resumed in Cuba (1904-?) after Martí's death. The kind of moral didacticism practiced by Martí was to become a model for future writers and directors of activities for children. The Cuban Revolution was openly opposed to capitalist values and tried to replace a largely American popular culture with a distinctly revolutionary one. For example, cards featuring American baseball players which had been popular with young Cubans were exchanged for postcards ("postalitas") of revolutionary heroes, and the Christmas celebrations, coming as they did at the peak of the sugar cane harvest, were replaced by the Day of the Child, observed on the third Sunday in July at the end of the school year. These actions correspond to different stages in the creation in Cuba of a socialist state. First, a highly successful campaign against illiteracy was organized. In addition to initiating changes in the educational system, the revolutionary leadership set about organizing [End Page 100] activities aimed at the youth of Cuba. Also, governmental bodies were established to integrate Cuban youth into the ranks of the Revolution. Organizations such as the young pioneers ("Organización de Pioneros José Martí," 1961) and the young communists ("Union de Jovenes Comunistas," 1962) were established. Hand in hand with the establishment of a whole political machinery came intellectual initiatives designed to stimulate activity, particularly among children. The National Library set up a Department of Children's Literature ("Departmento de Literatura y Narraciones Infantiles") which organized, among other activities, achildren's hour ("La Hora del Niño"). This was to lead to the discovery of new talent. Well-known and established writers provided texts for children's readings. For example, the novelist Eliseo Diego translated into Spanish tales by Hans Christian Andersen, the brothers Grimm, Charles Perrault and Madame Leprince de Beaumont. He also wrote poems and short stories for second, third, and fourth grade readers. Other pedagogical activities included the writing of basic readers for grammar school students. For its historical importance we reproduce the following passage: "La tierra": Ya los campesinos sondueños de la tierra.Los campesinos cultivansu tierra.La tierra cubana es rica. ["The land": Now the peasants are ownersof the land.Peasants cultivate the land.Cuban soil is rich.] The efforts of the Cuban government to promote reading and education were effective. By 1966 the first fruits of its labor were already visible. In that year, a monthly review ("El Caimán Barbudo") was founded. It was published as a supplement to the daily "Rebellious Youth" ("Juventud Rebelde") and was addressed to a young audience. In addition, workshops ("talleres") were organized by the Union of Cuban Writers and Artists (UNEAC) to help young writers develop their talent under the guidance of already established literary figures. Prizes were created by the UNEAC and by the worker's brigades ("brigadas") to encourage budding artists in the field of prose, poetry, and theatre. Cuba also began to host meetings [End Page 101] on children's literature and the...