Romanticizing a nation

A number of articles that paint a rosy (and touristy) picture of Cuba have cropped up in various U.S. cities in recent weeks. Because each piece makes a largely emotional and romantic presentation of the island, they likely attract a good number of U.S. readers seeking to reaffirm the Cuba of their imaginations.

Cuba enchants the U.S. public, especially as a place that is in many ways out of reach, a small island anomaly in a hemisphere of democracies, and a country about which so little is really known because of the lack of information flow in and out. These articles report what estadounidenses want to hear, and although they leave out much, they may ultimately contribute to the lifting of the travel ban, if they can successfully pull at the heartstrings of a quorum of readers.

• Richmond (VA), Times Dispatch, “Sketches from Cuba“: These sketches are the author’s quick snapshots of life in Cuba, and include an old guitar player, a baseball game, an immigrant working to build a better home for his family, and a Cuban bartender with dreams of traveling.
• Southern California’s Daily Breeze, “Cuba almost killed me, but let’s go“: The author writes, “I could see myself in dark glasses and a guayabera shirt living the ring-a-ding-ding life over rum and Coke, under the fragrant pall of a Partagas Serie D No. 4 cigar and a savage sun… I want to see Cuba. I want to be on a Cuba Travel Services 737 to Habana.”
• Houston (TX), The Houston Chronicle, “Searching for Cuba’s next big revolution“: After calling Havana roiling and spicy, this author goes on about the “authenticity” of Havana, the beauty of the beaches, and the richness of the history of the revolution. This article is in the Travel section, to be sure, but serves the same function as the others: why put an article about forbidden Cuba in the Travel section of a U.S. newspaper if not to encourage Americans’ desire to travel to the place?