Curve Baus, Casinos, and Cuban-Amencan Culture
This chapter explains that though Cubans needed North American-made goods, they did not yearn for the U.S. influence that came with them. According to British Foreign Office diplomats, Cuba “lies almost entirely within the United States zone of influence.” Cubans held conflicting opinions of the United States—torn “between trust and suspicion, between esteem and scorn, between a desire to emulate and a need to repudiate.” There was the U.S. Information Service (USIS) in Cuba that became the primary source of information. This USIS worked to counter negative Cuban opinion about the sordid side of North American culture and to build Cuban respect for free enterprise. In the end, the USIS failed to sustain a positive Cuban endorsement of U.S. institutions and preferences, which was meant to support the Batista regime.
Keywords: U.S. Information Service, Batista regime, Cuban-American culture, Cuban opinion, information
Oxford Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us .