In January 1997, if I was astonished to discover the pervasiveness (and popularity) of cockfighting on the island, I was even more stunned by the prestige that Cubans who raise these birds for that purpose enjoyed in rural communities. Engaging in cockfighting had been illegal from the earliest years of the Cuban Revolution. Then Fidel Castro’s adoption of communism required the elimination of all “capitalist vices”. This was because gambling, whether in a casino once operated by the mob, or in the shabbily built “arenas” of Cuba’s rural villages allegedly “distorted” citizens’ consciousness and encouraged the values of laziness and egoism. Despite their uncertain future in the blood sport of cockfighting, these gallos finos [fancy roosters] were often beloved by their keepers. Some doted on them, as one unabashed breeder told me, “como si fueran niños [as if they were children].” (January 1997)