Cuba in the shadow of change

by Amelia Rosenberg Weinreb

"Amelia Weinreb takes readers deep inside the everyday life of middle-class Cubans - arguably the majority of citizens on the island. Un-theorized and under-described, it is a group that is portrayed honestly, accurately, and empathetically. The political and economic systems of Cuba in the post-Soviet period pose ongoing challenges to ordinary Cubans as they struggle in the waning years of the Castro regime. Weinreb demonstrates that the major reason they have been ignored in the scholarly literature is because remaining obscure is one of their strategies for coping with these challenges. Weinreb has made repeated visits to the island, frequently living in local communities along with her family. Thus her ethnography of this 'shadow public' is based upon traditional participant-observer methodology. Her experiences - from the clothesline, the back bedroom, the kitchen table, and the living room sofa - allow her an unprecedented opportunity to bring to outside readers the reality of da