A fragile economy, medicine shortages and blackouts.
It’s Cuba today. But it’s also the Cuba of the '90s, a time known as the “Special Period.”
On Cincinnati Edition, local father and son photojournalists and a local writer in Havana.
How today’s blockade echoes what they saw decades ago.
Guests:
- Jon Hughes, emeritus professor of English and journalism, University of Cincinnati
- Sean Hughes, professor of journalism, University of Cincinnati
- Jeff Hilliard, professor emeritus of English, Mount St. Joseph University
A transcription of our conversation with Jon and Sean Hughes is below.
Beginning at noon, call 513-419-7100 or email talk@wvxu.org to have your voice heard on this topic. You can catch a recorded replay at 8 p.m.
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This episode was transcribed using a combination of AI speech recognition and human editors and has been lightly edited for clarity. It may contain errors. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print.
People in Cuba are enduring blackouts and hunger as an oil blockade continues, and the possibility of U.S. military action looms. Local father and son photojournalists saw the beginnings of the island nation's economic hardship on their trips to Cuba during a time known as the Special Period. This is Cincinnati Edition on WVXU. I'm Lucy May. Joining me now to talk about how today's blockade echoes what they saw decades ago are University of Cincinnati professor emeritus of English and journalism, Jon Hughes. Thanks for being here, John. And interim head of UC Journalism Department, Sean Hughes. Welcome to the program, Sean.
Jon, you first visited Cuba in 1985. Explain why you went and your preconceptions about the place.
Jon: Well, Cuba was very much a part of my high school years. When I was a freshman, that's when the revolution took place. When I was a junior, it was the Bay of Pigs, and the missile crisis was in 62 which was part of my senior year, so I was very familiar, as much as you could be, from news headlines at that time, and it always intrigued me, not only what I knew of what was going on during that time, but also what predated those, the Wonderland of Havana, and the exciting night life and life in Cuba. So I was always intrigued, and one day in the College Inn, which is a bar at the corner of Clifton and Ludlow, I was sitting with my colleague and good friend, Dallas Wiebe, and we decided that we should go to Cuba, and it intrigued us because we couldn't go, so I set about trying to figure out how to, how to get the permissions, how to make the trip. We got a group together and we went.
Yeah, and what did you expect to find once you got there? And what did you actually find once you, once you got there?
Jon: I don't know what my expectations were. Probably only that of what I had read or heard. I didn't know whether to expect a military compound. I didn't know what to expect in the way of what life would be like there at that time, but I was surprised in some ways and not in others. When I got there, there were not many tourists. The Soviet Union was still involved in supporting the Cuban economy by buying inflated rated sugar cane, and that's what sustained the economy, so there was the Russian presence. There was also a lack of any kind of interest in tourists. The one tourist hotel that I stayed in, I think we have made our group may have been the only Americans, and there were military surrounding the hotel on each corner that intersected that that block there was a police move in AK 47 and that was to keep Cubans from contacting us. There was concern about Americans bringing in dollars and dollars getting into the hands of Cubans, and they didn't want that to happen. There was a dual economy at the time, and there always has been in these kinds of regimes. So, the peso was for the people, dollars for the was for the people who were in power and who had access to other goods that the common people did not.
Well, I know you went back in 1993 Cuba had changed dramatically by that point. This was during the special period. Can you explain what the special period was and why it was called that?
Jon: Yeah, the Special Period dealt politically and economically with the with the situation at that time. Politically, it meant that the Soviet Union had pulled out that undercut the entire economy to figure out some way to bring monies into the country. It was decided that tourism would be encouraged, so the goods that had been provided to the people of Cuba at that time were channeled now to the tourists, so there was a lack of food that was available to the general population. That food was being provided to the tourists, tourists who came in. An example of that was Cubans, very much like pizza, and the pizza parlors were closed and. But the pizza makings were then provided to the tourists in the tourist hotel, so there became a separation. It was tourist apartheid, and it generally dramatically affected the population at that time. We started to see open prostitution, which we had not seen before, crime, those things that happen when people can't eat.
Well, Sean, you went to Cuba with your dad in 1993. Why did you want to go, and what were you expecting to see there?
Sean: Well, I was in grad school at the time, and I had got my undergrad in sociology, which I was fascinated with, but I found myself initially avoiding the thing that my dad does, because it's right, yeah, and then later on realizing late in my undergrad career that I really wanted, I really wanted to focus on journalism, specifically visual journalism design and photography, and this was a great opportunity that could be on assignment, and I could have a great master's thesis project that would eclipse most of the ordinary boring ideas that I had. So, from a self-serving standpoint, that was that was great. Also, I have to admit, the idea of being able to go somewhere that I'm being told not to go to, you know, that I can't go to, was pretty exciting, classic journalist reaction. And then just the natural curiosity that I had, and growing up, seeing, you know, seeing and reading those, mainly seeing later on, reading those Hemingway books, and just, just all the stories about growing up more with the Cold War and Reagan being more my memories, and I had a different experience with it, but it was still this idea of the Cold War and the Russian involvement. So I was just fascinated from a little bit from a political standpoint, but really just pure curiosity.
Yeah. Well, and Sean, you said you were in graduate school. How old were you at the time? Did you end up talking to a lot of Cubans who are about your age.
Sean: Well, I was 23 I believe. I might have even had a birthday there, so I may have been 23 and 24 So, yeah, pretty young. And we, you know, in these trips, especially those early days, they very much want to control your experience. They want you to meet certain people, certain organizations, certain groups, writers' groups, you know, unions, journalists, etc. So, these organic meetings were uncommon, and there was one night in the lobby that some students had gotten when that we were there. I'm not exactly sure how that connection happened, since that was many decades ago, but so they show up at the lobby, and those conversations with those students of my age experiencing wildly different conditions was fascinating to me, and I continued to pursue that for several years after that.
Talk about those wildly different conditions.
Sean: Well, I do remember in it wasn't until 95 when I went back in 95 and actually went to the dorms, for instance, and you know it's found out that a lot of the students that would come in study abroad students from from Europe would stay in the middle floors of a 13, 14 floor high rise for the dorms, I'm like, what, why, what's what's advantageous, what's what's special about these floors? I said, well, with the water pressure, the bottom floors flood, the top floors get no water, and I'm like, I'm thinking I'm worried about, like, what they're serving in the food hall that day or something. And here they are, just concerned about, you know, water pressure. They're rolling blackouts and brownouts. So I remember coming into one room and seeing a bucket on the ground with wires in the bucket and some towels for insulation stuck into the outlet in the wall, and that's that was how they would boil water, and again, I'm just like, it's this, it was very grounding, it gave a lot of perspective, and that has nothing to do with being a student or anything, I just has to be with a human in my conditions, you know, and realizing things, you know, things could be worse, things could be better.
Jon, I want to go back to the 1993 trip for just a moment, because you wrote about that trip that quote what Cubans did not have was becoming more important than what they had. What did you mean by that? Can you talk more about that impression? I mean, I don't expect you to remember exactly what you were thinking in 1993 but ...
Jon: I'm not sure the context of that.
It seemed like you were saying that when you first went in 1985 there was a kind of pride that you sensed that that that the they had there was guaranteed housing, there was guaranteed education, there was guaranteed food. People wouldn't go hungry. There was a guaranteed paycheck, but in 93 some of that had had shifted because of the special period and the difficulties people were facing.
Jon: Absolutely, and it's it had a dramatic, dramatic effect on the population. And you could, you could sense it, there wasn't, wasn't quite that joy, believe it or not, they, these are these are vibrant, wonderful people, and and they live hard and they play hard and they survive under circumstances that we can't imagine, and some of that robust feeling and behavior just wasn't there, and, and I think that's, you can explain that, and what they have lost in that period of time, a short period of time, and I'm not there, and it has been rejuvenated once or twice since then until today, when it's worse than we could ever imagine.
We're talking with local photo journalists about their trips to Cuba, and how today's blockade echoes what they saw decades ago. John, do you remember seeing more kind of hustling on the streets when you went and visited in the 1990s than you had during that first trip, because when you first went in 1985 wasn't that when Cuba was still in kind of a Golden Period.
Jon: Yes, that's correct, and yes, much more aggressive. It was, it was tragic in 93 to see mothers out on the street hustling for as prostitutes, the obvious unavailability, unavailability of food and nourishment, it was, it was difficult, transportation was always a problem as well as blackouts and brownouts in the city transportation was always a serious problem and that had been a little resolved somewhat resolved beginning to be resolved by the importation of Chinese bicycles so when I was there in 83 you hardly saw any private automobiles, other than those automobiles from the American automobiles from the 50s that had been redone and diesel engines put in them. You saw those, and you saw some Russian automobiles, automobiles, but there weren't any others. And then that there were motorcycles, there were Russian motorcycles that were there also, but now you didn't, that didn't work, and wasn't sufficient enough to get people around to any kind of employment, and going to work and going to school was an incredibly difficult process for the Cubans, and always has been, while we were there, because there's great distance that they have to travel in very bad circumstances, and then after 95 and later you style more automobiles that were coming back, so it's a cycle that they were going through, and not a pleasant one. They're trying to figure out their economy, they're trying to figure out how to live, and also you have a government that is not responsive to change, and that complicated the living conditions for everyone.
You're listening to Cincinnati Edition on WVXU. I'm Lucy May. We're back with our conversation about the conditions in Cuba and how today's blockade echoes what people there were experiencing decades ago. My guests are University of Cincinnati Professor Emeritus of English and Journalism Jon Hughes, and Interim Head of UC Journalism Department Sean Hughes. Sean, you and your father are both journalists. You're always been a visual journalist, photojournalist. Talk about how you went about documenting life in Cuba, what you were trying to capture through those photographs?
Sean: Yeah, I think we had to identify, I mean, first, obviously, we get our bearings, we get, you know, we kind of go through the process of the meetings and everything that's expected of us, and then we start to develop those contacts, and so coming back in 95 I already had a wealth of, you know, connections there that I wanted to explore, and in 95 we did come back as a more formal group, a bigger group, but then I came back later in 95 and 96 with just two of us, and were able to really develop those stories and spend a lot of time, and again I think, like a lot of journalists, we sometimes gravitate towards things that connect with us personally, things that we know, things that we've experienced ourselves, you know, because again, a lot of stories we are the masters of very little, we are experts at very little, we tell stories of other from other people's experiences and have to get that information and learn a lot, and so that's that's why I spent a lot of time with the dorms, a lot of time with the students, particularly a poet, Israel, and then another student, Renee, and I let them guide the journey. I remember at one point I didn't know about the freakies, this group of basically metal punk kids that later on were led by a guy named Papa. Well, he was an influential person, and these are the kids that ended up self-injecting themselves with HIV because the conditions were so bad, and they wanted this escape where they could be in these health facilities where they actually got food. They actually.. and there are many stories about this, so I'm glossing over this. This is in the 90s.
HIV was not a condition you could live with easily at that time.
Sean: Yeah, and very unaware of that. I think it was the, you know, as it was explained in the documentaries that I've watched, and the stories that I was told personally, you know, there's this, you're not aware of that at the time, you're just, you're just thinking about the now, so they took me to the Karl Marx Theater, of all places, and got to watch some heavy metal shows with these freakies, and spend time with them afterwards, and you know, these are things that I personally never would have been able to just come up with on my own. It was that, it was that adventure that was guided by the people that trusted me and wanted to share their stories, and it's the trust that really makes it makes it possible,
Jon, you also wrote about government stores and the black market in Cuba. How men on the street, especially when you went back in the 90s, offered to sell you Cuban cigars at deep discounts. Can you tell us about that? You talked about how in Cuba they're trying to figure out the economy. It sounds like there are several different economies that the people there live with or try to live with.
Jon: Well, we have to keep in context that all businesses are state run, with the exception of the repair of the old automobiles, so there's a lot of hustle that goes on, people looking for ways that they can make a living, and so your approach constantly, or were particularly after 85 for someone wanting to sell you this or that, or make you have contact with someone, and it was just part of what was there. Now it wasn't overly aggressive, but it existed. And then just set up a demonstrated what that dual economy was. They wanted dollars, and that was the point of selling you something that they had, and so that they. Could get access to food and other materials and electronics, for one thing, that they ordinarily couldn't get at one of the state stores. There were there were coupons that the people could use. These were pesos, and they could go into the state stores, and they could get plenty of rice, and there were ...
Rations, essentially rations.
Jon: Yes, coffee was rationed. Everything was rationed. So, the idea of having dollars in your possession was was worth the effort that many people made to find ways to obtain them.
Sean, you talked about the number of times you visited in the 90s, going back to really develop these relationships, tell these stories. You also went back to Cuba in 2017 right?
Sean: 2000, 2004, 2013. I didn't provide too much information. There were a lot of trips for different reasons. 2000 we both went, but more as advisors for people working on a travel piece for the travel channel. 2004 with Kathy Y Wilson. That was a magical adventure. Yeah, we had a great time. There was 2017. I was gonna say 2017 is the most recent. The last time I went, and I'd hoped to go a few years after that, but we all know what happened in the world.
Tell me about the timing of that trip. Why did you want to go back then in 2017 What did you see and document during that trip?
Sean: Well, really, I mean, that was those were all use, those were all UC focus trips, so those were taking students at that point, either journalism students or a combination of journalism students and other students, like in the honors program, but that had started in 2013 and I saw things that I'd never seen before in Cuba. 2013 I thought, oh, I gotta keep going, I got, I have to experience this firsthand. And so, in 2015, 16, 2017 those three years, there was more change, there was more hope. There's American flags and Cuban flags flying on people's porches. That you'd never had seen before. And there was this, these conversations that were very open that I just had never experienced prior to that.
How do you attribute that big difference?
Sean: Well, I mean, a lot of it was obviously they were very bad at the tourist economy in 93. They started, they figured that out over the decades, and obviously between the initial work that was being done under the Obama administration to open up Cuba, I mean, that's that's most of it, right there. It was basically trying to normalize relations, that was huge.
Jon, the US has had an economic embargo on Cuba for 64 years now. What have you heard over the years from Cubans about that embargo?
Jon: They are much more informed than we often give them credit, because they're able to to get information from the states electronically. You would see, you would see aluminum foil, what do you call them on buildings, and so they're pretty well informed on it. I mean, it was just something that they had to accept. I mean, it was, and it was cruel. It was just darn right cruel. What was being done? I always contended, if the United States wanted to take over Cuba, take over the.. and I don't mean militarily take over if they wanted to open them up to democracy, they should open up all the doors, let Americans in there, let Cubans see what we're like, and bring their dollars with them. It would make an incredible difference in their economy. Send a boatload of realtors over there, that would really open them up, because it is, it is a beautiful country.
Sean, you talked about what you saw in, you know, 2017 and how different it had become. Do you have any thoughts about what you would find if you went back now compared to what you saw in 2017?
Sean: Everything I've seen, everything I've read, it sounds like 93 over all over again, maybe worse. Yeah, there's there's the hope that I'll be able to go back down, but it's not for good reasons, unfortunately. You know, but I do feel like there's this legacy, there's this life I've spent down there, you know that I feel like is not complete yet, and but this is not why I want to go. These are not the circumstances around which I want. I want to go, but I feel there's some urgency, and especially with some friends that are still there that I'd like to reconnect with.
Yeah, people you've kept in touch with for all these years.
Sean: Yeah, but it's been a while.
In your travels, and it may have varied over time, what did you two hear about from Cuban people about their thoughts about their own government?
Jon: I have a very close friend who I met in 93 Roberta Salas, who was a magnificent photographer, and I was fortunate enough to meet him and keep in touch with him over a period of time, even take him paper for his images, and he was at one time, he and his father were the personal photographers for Castro, and, and we're this, we're the same age, so we had a lot in common, and I got to know him quite well, and he was very reserved, what he would say, very cautious. He was considered one of the most important people of the revolution, and he would, he would comment occasionally, but never in any great depth or contrary to what Castro's positions were.