The survival of historical wreckage from Cuba’s past all around the island can sometimes make for startling experiences, especially when their irony is difficult to convey in words. Walking down a Havana street in the fall of 2012, I encountered a sign on the sidewalk that had once announced the office of a pre-Communist era newspaper, part of the Republic’s once flourishing daily independent press. The office itself had been taken over by families who had repurposed it into a home years earlier. As can be seen from the shutter-style window and mismatched wooden planks that create an exterior wall, at least one family still lives there. Yet the newspaper’s name, Cuba Libre, speaks loudly and clearly from its resilient spot on the floor. Havana, March 2013.
