Cuban Color In Tourism La Lucha Summary

In the novel “Cuban Color in Tourism and La Lucha” the author and anthropologist L. Kaifa Roland describes her journey in Cuba and the different people she encounter with that describe to her the life of a citizen in Cuba. Throughout her stay in Cuba, Roland describes the different situations people go through in Cuba economically and gender wise. She also mainly describes “La Lucha” which in the book is identified as the struggle people face and go through every day in order to get by in Cuba economically. However, the thing that caught my attention the most in the book was how women get mistreated and seen by people differently. Through my paper I am going to be discussing how women in Cuba get discriminated not just by their color or where

Since many women in Cuba are dark skin and dress similarly, women that may not be considered Cuban get treated unequally as well. For example, Roland the author of “Cuban Color in Tourism and La Lucha” describes a moment in her book that due to her skin color she was considered a jinitera; as described previously as a female hustler or prostituted. She claimed that “people who did not immediately recognize me as a foreigner assumed that I was around foreigners because I was jinitera” (L. Kaifa, 2011, p. 54). Tourists who are not from Cuba, but are dark skin get the shorter end of the stick. According to the article “Jineteras Love, Marriage and Divorce” seeing white people with Afro Cuban people is a bad thing and can sometimes lead to serious consequences. For example, as described in Havana Guide, once a white man and a twenty year old Cuban woman were walking and according to the article,”Jiniteras Love, Marriage and Divorce” “The police stopped them for an identity check, because they suspected the young Cuban woman of being a jinetera” (“Jineteras Love, Marriage and

In fact, most of the women don’t last too long being jiniteras. In some cases, most women marry tourist who come from different countries just so they can get out of Cuba and away from all the suffering economically. In the article “Jiniteras Love, Marriage and Divorce” they state that most Cubans are considered to be “nice and attractive people” and most of them will act like everybody’s friend to get money out of tourists along with the possibility of marrying them. In the web article “Jiniteras Love, Marriage and Divorce”, they claim that “youngsters want to leave the country and try to escape poverty and better their family’s economic situation by marrying a tourist. Many of these romances are fake and only for the money, and this can be very frustrating” (“Jiniteras Love, Marriage and Divorce”). The article also describes how Cuban women can be very nice and attractive at first, but can later start demanding gifts, money, or trips and that’s where tourist need to be cautious because there has been a various situations where turorists have fall in love with Cuban