Nuevo Vedado is an upper middle class neighborhood. Professionals, teachers, doctors, lawyers, etc.(Cuba has no real upper class, though as a friend said, "Some of those generals live pretty well.") After the revolution, if you stayed you kept your house and belongings; some of the Nuevo Vedado houses are occupied by the children or grandchildren of the original owners. If you left the country, the government seized your property and redistributed it. Sometimes owners left their servants in charge of the property, thinking they'd be back within the year, after the revolution had failed. The government, in many of those cases, gave the house to the servants, who moved their families in. In other cases the government gave the houses to soldiers or other people for "service to the revolution."
For a long time the only way you could sell a property was back to the state, though there was a widespread but clumsy and illegal practice of trading houses. Now the law's changed and Cubans can own property on a limited basis. So some of these houses have been bought by middle class Cubans from the original or post-revolution owners.
(In older parts of Havana, large mansions were divided among a number of poor families, or turned into government offices. The villa across the street from Monty's apartment building is the Bureau of Cultural Affairs.)
I have always had a romance for Cuba but have never gone. I thoroughly enjoyed Monty’s article, your photos, and post, SJ. I hope “change” doesn’t bring cultural ruin along with it. I’m wondering why it seems to take so long to repatriate the boxes of bones?
Sadly, most of these boxes will never get home. It's a cold question of money. Someone has to pay for the shipping and the record-keeping, and then, in China, for the distribution of the boxes. With most of the Chinese gone now, it probably won't happen. This is true in Chinese communities around the world, including here in the US, where the over the years Chinese cemeteries have been established near each Chinatown.
Beautiful essay.
A very insightful one
I hope you mean Monty's. My Substack is really just a travelogue.
Who lives in the beautiful houses?
Nuevo Vedado is an upper middle class neighborhood. Professionals, teachers, doctors, lawyers, etc.(Cuba has no real upper class, though as a friend said, "Some of those generals live pretty well.") After the revolution, if you stayed you kept your house and belongings; some of the Nuevo Vedado houses are occupied by the children or grandchildren of the original owners. If you left the country, the government seized your property and redistributed it. Sometimes owners left their servants in charge of the property, thinking they'd be back within the year, after the revolution had failed. The government, in many of those cases, gave the house to the servants, who moved their families in. In other cases the government gave the houses to soldiers or other people for "service to the revolution."
For a long time the only way you could sell a property was back to the state, though there was a widespread but clumsy and illegal practice of trading houses. Now the law's changed and Cubans can own property on a limited basis. So some of these houses have been bought by middle class Cubans from the original or post-revolution owners.
(In older parts of Havana, large mansions were divided among a number of poor families, or turned into government offices. The villa across the street from Monty's apartment building is the Bureau of Cultural Affairs.)
I have always had a romance for Cuba but have never gone. I thoroughly enjoyed Monty’s article, your photos, and post, SJ. I hope “change” doesn’t bring cultural ruin along with it. I’m wondering why it seems to take so long to repatriate the boxes of bones?
Sadly, most of these boxes will never get home. It's a cold question of money. Someone has to pay for the shipping and the record-keeping, and then, in China, for the distribution of the boxes. With most of the Chinese gone now, it probably won't happen. This is true in Chinese communities around the world, including here in the US, where the over the years Chinese cemeteries have been established near each Chinatown.
So very interesting, especially about the Chinese bones.