Patriots and Traitors in Revolutionary Cuba, 1961-1981

FAIN: FEL-267225-20

Lillian Guerra
University of Florida (Gainesville, FL 32611-0001)

Research and writing leading to a book on youth education programs during the Cuban Revolution between 1961 and 1981.

“These children will be patriots or traitors,” a poster declared in 1965 Cuba, “you decide. Teach them the work of the Revolution.” Yet citizens rarely responded to this call with unconditional support. For this reason, in the 1970s, the state turned to “rehabilitation” of citizens through labor camps, Soviet pedagogy designed to create a “Communist personality in every child” and finally, Fidel’s launch of the Mariel Boatlift in 1980—a policy to rid Cuba of critics accused of lacking “revolutionary genes”. What was it like to grow up in this Cuba? How did leaders go from “teaching the work of the Revolution” to repression and exclusion? Through unused archives and oral history, I delve into the mechanisms through which grassroots support was constructed and challenged. Finding that the burdens of revolutionary citizenship often blurred lines, I illuminate an ironically apolitical nation within the binary of patriot vs. traitor: there, a creative, collective individualism thrived.