Es Cuba: Life and Love on an Illegal Island
By Lea Aschkenas ’95
Seal Press, 2006 • 340 pages • $15.95

As Lea Aschkenas ’95 takes readers on a travel memoir of an illegal island, she comes to understand the true meaning of “Es Cuba.”

It’s just the way life is in Cuba, an island filled with contrasts, caught between communism and capitalism, where the American dollar is referred to by the same word that means stupid—fula—yet is the currency of choice bringing privileges the peso could never buy. Tourism, the country’s No. 1 industry, subsidizes the cost of free healthcare and education, giving tourists access to luxuries not available to residents.

The first new word Aschkenas learned was sobornar—to bribe, a key to her existence during her 10-month stay. (She returned home once and also left the island to spend a day in Cancun so she could extend her visa.) There is always another way in Cuba, something she didn’t learn via her U.S.-Cuban exchange program but rather from unofficial sources on the streets.

Aschkenas escaped from Hotel El Bosque, where she was lectured on life in Cuba and taken on guided tours of Havana, and rented a Flying Pigeon bicycle off the black market and discovered the capital city on her own—with the help of her Cuban lover, Alfredo, whom she met her first week there. She rented an illegal room in a casa particular, where Alfredo could visit her since Cubans weren’t allowed into the tourist hotels as guests.

She takes readers on a journey of sights and adventures while weaving in the history of the embargo, Bay of Pigs invasion, Cuban missile crisis, Fidel’s reign, the revolution, the collapse of the USSR and other events that shape the country’s way of life. From “romantic traveler to realist resident,” Aschkenas discovers “real life” in Cuba and true love with one of its compañeros, who after coming to the States on a fiancé visa becomes her husband.

If all readers know about Cuba is the national drink—mojito—and the U.S.-told version of its history, then Es Cuba will provide rights of passage. Aschkenas gets to know the country’s people and comes to see it through their eyes. “Es Cuba” is their way of dealing with the contradictions. They love their country even if they don’t agree with all the politics. It’s how they survive.