The Call To Free Cuba, What does this Really Mean ?

​The Miami exile community’s relentless cry for a "Free Cuba" is often wrapped in the noble language of democracy, but look closely at the nostalgia, and a much grittier picture emerges. When they talk about "the good old days," they aren't talking about the Cuba that exists today—the one that boasts one of the highest literacy rates in the Western Hemisphere and exports world-class medical doctors to every corner of the globe.
​No, the "Free Cuba" they pine for looks a lot more like a grainy, black-and-white noir film, where the air is thick with cigar smoke, cheap perfume, and the heavy hand of the American Mafia.
​The "Pearl" of the Mob
​Before 1959, Havana wasn't a sovereign nation so much as it was a mid-Atlantic subsidiary of the Syndicate. Under the watchful, paid-off eye of the dictator Fulgencio Batista, the island was handed over to Meyer Lansky and Lucky Luciano on a silver platter.
​The "freedom" the exiles seem to miss was the freedom to run an economy built on the "three pillars" of 1950s Havana:
​The Syndicate’s Casino: Where the American Mob laundered millions while the local population (Afro-Cubans) lived in tin-roofed shacks just miles away.
​Unchecked Prostitution: A "tourist industry" that essentially commodified the Cuban people for the amusement of visiting American businessmen.
​A Pipeline of Drugs: Serving as the primary transit point for the Mob's narcotics trade, long before Medellín or Cali were names on a map.
​The Reality They Ignore
​The exile narrative conveniently glosses over what has been achieved since the "glory days" of gambling ended. Today’s Cuba—despite the crushing weight of a decades-long embargo—has achieved a 99.7% literacy rate. Their education system is a model for the developing world, and their doctors are consistently on the front lines of global health crises, from Ebola in Africa to COVID-19 in Italy.
​Furthermore, the "Free Cuba" of the 1950s was a playground for the white elite. It is no coincidence that Afro-Cubans, who were largely excluded from the swanky casinos and private clubs of the Batista era, have largely embraced a system that, for all its flaws, offered them dignity and social mobility that the "Latin Las Vegas" never could.
​A Yearning for a Gilded Cage
​When the exile community demands a return to the pre-Castro era, they are essentially asking to tear down the schools and clinics to make room for more baccarat tables. They want the neon back, but they forget that the neon only lit up the faces of the tourists and the mobsters.
​The dream of a "Free Cuba" in Miami isn't about progress; it’s a desperate, condescending longing for a time when Cuba was "fun"—at least for the people who held the chips.