The Cuban Revolution

Prida and her family are members of a particular group of Spanish-speaking immigrants and their descendants in the United States—Cuban Americans. Many of these Cubans came to the United States when Prida's family did, in the late 1950s and early 1960s. They came in the wake of Fidel Castro's takeover of Cuba in 1959. In 2005, Castro was still Cuba's leader, but he was ailing and not expected to rule for very much longer.

The situation that led to Castro's success in Cuba in the late 1950s was one that plagued not only many Central and South American nations, but also parts of the United States as well as other countries around the world. A small group of people controlled most of the nation's wealth, with a vast impoverished underclass wondering when its turn to earn would arrive. When would leaders create the conditions for the...