An American-Cuban perspective on identity, history, and the forces shaping Cuba’s future. Written for clarity, not rhetoric.
The United States is quietly discontinuing the penny while Cuba stares down an economic unraveling of a different order. Two currency stories, one hemisphere — and a surprising line connecting them.
“Cuba deserves to be understood in full context.
If it even can be.”
CubanVote publishes analysis, essays, and dispatches across the political, economic, and cultural forces shaping Cuba’s path. No slogans. No easy narratives. Just careful looking.
How power is held, transferred, and contested inside Cuba — and why the next decade looks different from the last sixty.
Sanctions, openings, migration, and the long shadow of the embargo: what Washington does, and what it means in Havana.
Dual currencies, remittances, tourism, and the quiet private sector — reading the ledger of a country in slow realignment.
Russia, China, Venezuela, Latin America. Cuba is small; the interests around it are not.
History carried in kitchens, flags, and first names — the inheritance of those who left, and those who stayed.
Music, language, protest, and symbolism — the Cuban story told through the things people refuse to forget.
CubanVote was created to examine Cuba through the lens of history, governance, and identity. For many Americans, Cuba is a headline or a political talking point. For many in the diaspora, it is something more complicated — history, memory, family, and identity wrapped together with geopolitics, forged in struggle and resilience by fire.
My family left Cuba believing deeply in the promise of the American dream. Like many immigrant families, they wanted their children to become fully American. Spanish was not emphasized. The goal was assimilation and opportunity. Yet identity does not disappear simply because it is set aside.
Growing up, Cuba remained present through stories, history, and symbolism. The flag was not simply a national emblem — it was a reminder of where we came from and the history that shaped us. CubanVote exists to take that inheritance seriously, and to look honestly at what the Cuban people and our families will determine to be our path, and our definition of acceptable struggle.
A rolling list of what’s being written, reported, and read. Subscribe to receive each piece as it’s published.
The U.S. is retiring its smallest coin as Cuba contends with a currency crisis of another kind. What the two stories share.
What the embargo actually does in 2026 — and the quieter levers Washington has stopped pulling.
What changes when a Cuban story is inherited rather than lived. Notes on language, flag, and memory.