Christopher Hunt

After 1990, the Cuban economy generally was unable to provide most Cubans with the luxuries of life. Sometimes it could not provide them with the basic necessities. This situation caused much disillusionment and discontent with Castro and socialism among Cubans too young to remember life before the revolution. Older people, however, had a better awareness of the sweeping changes that Castro had brought to Cuba, and many were grateful to him for implementing those changes.

Christopher Hunt is an American journalist who went to Cuba in 1995 in the hope of meeting Castro. While there, he traveled the length of the island and spoke with dozens of ordinary Cubans. In this excerpt, he relates his conversations with several older people in the town square of Santiago de Cuba, the island's second largest city. They tell him that, although things...