Life Under El Bloqueo: Cuban Public Opinion of US Policy

Abstract

The United States embargo on Cuba—or el bloqueo, as it is called on the island—has been in place ever since 1963, constituting the longest-standing economic sanctions ever imposed. The US government has consistently defended the US embargo by emphasizing the need to support the “oppressed” Cuban people. Meanwhile, the Cuban government perpetually portrays the Cuban people as the victims of US sanctions. Despite clearly being at the center of an exceptional policy debate, little effort has been dedicated to understanding Cuban public opinion on US-Cuba relations.

This thesis demonstrates that Cuban public opinion is much more nuanced than previously conceived by scholarship. I argue that everyday life under el bloqueo is conceptualized in divergent ways among the Cuban population in Havana. This thesis puts forth two distinct camps of opinion about the US embargo: 1) the majority believe that a wide range of daily struggles are exacerbated by the embargo, while 2) a significant minority consider the Cuban government at fault for these same issues, pointing to the embargo as the regime’s convenient scapegoat.

This thesis employs three original sources of data that I collected over four periods in Havana—in-person interviews, Cuban newspapers and government documents. I narrate the findings from my original set of 115 interviews with randomly selected Cubans conducted between March 2017 and January 2019. I focus on the widely discussed impacts of shortage in medical and consumer goods, restricted travel and low wages. I then discuss a fairly common oppositional opinion, which I term the “internal bloqueo”. I offer several variables that shape a person’s beliefs about US policy: age, employment and aspirations of immigration. I then examine Cuban newspapers and government documents in order to gauge how the Cuban government portrays the embargo in the media and diplomatic affairs. I utilize newspapers dated between 1962 and 1997, which I accessed from Havana’s Biblioteca Nacional José Martí. I also gathered primary sources written by the Cuban government in the 1990s through the Ministry of Foreign Relations (MINREX) Archive.

I ultimately theorize that the “internal bloqueo” belief is growing and consider the implications this may have on Cuban society and US-Cuba relations. This thesis concludes by employing a framework of empathy to envision a future in which Cuban opinions are actively contemplated in public and scholarly discourse.