{"id":912351,"date":"2026-10-01T14:54:23","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T14:54:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/912351\/"},"modified":"2026-10-01T14:54:23","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T14:54:23","slug":"a-photographers-view-of-cuba-at-a-crossroads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/912351\/","title":{"rendered":"A photographer’s view of Cuba at a crossroads"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

For months, the United States has been waging what it describes as a \u201cmaximum pressure campaign\u201d against Cuba, blocking oil imports<\/a> to the island, levying criminal charges<\/a> against a former leader and squeezing the already fragile economy with new sanctions. <\/p>\n

The Trump administration has made no secret of its end goal: the collapse of Cuba\u2019s Communist government and the dawn of a new era of political and economic liberalization.<\/p>\n

About This Story<\/p>\n

This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s failing like never before,\u201d President Trump said of Cuba in a speech to the United Nations General Assembly last week. \u201cIt will fall.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

Roendris Delfino, 24, picks a guava near his home in Baracoa.<\/p>\n

And yet, despite a crisis<\/a> of power outages, severe fuel shortages and dramatic price spikes, life in Cuba goes on.<\/p>\n

Photographer Lisette Poole Gonz\u00e1lez recently set out on a road trip across the island to document this consequential moment.<\/p>\n

Over two weeks, she traveled between Havana in the west and Baracoa, a city on the eastern edge of the island. She toured remote provinces rarely visited by international journalists in recent years thanks to government restrictions and the difficulty of procuring fuel.<\/p>\n

1 <\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

2 <\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

3 <\/p>\n

\"An <\/p>\n

1. The longest bridge in Cuba is mostly void of traffic. Fuel shortages mean fewer cars on the road. 2. A horse pulling a carriage passes a church in Baracoa, on Cuba\u2019s eastern tip. 3. An altar in the home of a practitioner of an African diasporic religion. <\/p>\n

She encountered beaches typically teeming with tourists that were spookily empty, and fishermen unable to work because they lacked gasoline to go to sea.<\/p>\n

Public transportation has largely ground to a halt, and the repeated collapse of the national power grid plunges the entire island into darkness for days at a time. Even on a good day, most Cubans receive just a few hours of electricity. Water shortages are common. <\/p>\n

Poole Gonz\u00e1lez captured resilience in the face of hardship: A man showering outside in a rainstorm. Horses pulling people in carriages. Teenagers pushing children on a carousel that stopped turning long ago.<\/p>\n

\"Four <\/p>\n

Four men fix a net to catch fish for the day in Baracoa, a coastal city about 540 miles east of the capital of Havana. <\/p>\n

1 <\/p>\n

\"women <\/p>\n

2 <\/p>\n

\"a <\/p>\n

3 <\/p>\n

\"a <\/p>\n

4 <\/p>\n

\"Children <\/p>\n

1. In Baracoa, people gather outside to take advantage of natural light amid near-constant power outages. Yislena Cobas Mart\u00ednez, 19, and Mari Duran, 26, were among them. 2. Yugala Labanino Morales, 52, makes an offering to the ocean goddess Yemaya in Baracoa. 3. Fisherman Ibrahin Borges, 60, says he hasn\u2019t worked in two months due to fuel shortages. 4. Kids play at a park in Sagua la Grande, a city in central Cuba, although many rides are in disrepair. <\/p>\n

But she also showed people engaged in more typical activities: Working out. Attending church. Releasing Yoruba offerings into the gentle waves of the Caribbean sea.<\/p>\n

She often trained her lens on youth \u2014 members of a generation born decades after Fidel Castro toppled Cuba\u2019s right-wing dictatorship in 1959, turning the island into a global symbol of leftist resistance and beginning one of the world\u2019s longest enduring experiments in state-run socialism. <\/p>\n

1 <\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

2 <\/p>\n

\"Fidel <\/p>\n

1. The childhood home of Fidel Castro in Bir\u00e1n, a rural village in an eastern Cuba, is now a historic site and museum. 2. At Fidel Castro\u2019s childhood home, a local historian shows a family photo with the bearded Castro in attendance at his sister\u2019s wedding. <\/p>\n

These young people have come of age at a time of heightened government repression and the prolonged economic stagnation caused by U.S. sanctions and mismanagement by Cuba\u2019s leaders. Access to the internet has widened their perspective, and many told Poole Gonz\u00e1lez that they dream of joining the exodus of more than 1 million Cubans who have left the island in recent years. <\/p>\n

The trip prompted personal reflections for Poole Gonz\u00e1lez, who was born in the U.S. to a mother who departed Cuba with her family a decade after the revolution. Homes that her grandfather constructed in the city of Matanzas still stand. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think often about my family and what life would have been for us if they had never left,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

\"Dayan <\/p>\n

Dayan Ernesto Rojas, 23, trains for mixed martial arts at the Loma de la Cruz, a panoramic vista point and historic landmark in Holgu\u00edn. <\/p>\n

In rural Holgu\u00edn province, about 420 miles east of Havana, she visited Castro\u2019s childhood home, a rambling wooden farmhouse that is now a national monument and museum. There were no visitors. <\/p>\n

Nearly seven decades after Castro\u2019s revolution, the legacy of his ambitious project hangs in the balance. Among Cubans, there is a sense \u2014 and a hope \u2014 that some kind of change is on the horizon. But what it will mean for them remains to be seen.<\/p>\n

1 <\/p>\n

\"People <\/p>\n

2 <\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

3 <\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

1. People sing at a youth event at the R\u00edos de Agua Viva Christian church in Baracoa. 2. Choreographer Yovanys Galano Dom\u00ednguez mends a dress for a dancer for a performance to honor the anniversary of a revolutionary battle. 3. Elyann Gonzalez Rodr\u00edguez, 20, center, waits for a bus in Isabela de Sagua, for a visit to the doctor\u2019s office. <\/p>\n

1 <\/p>\n

\"Elianet <\/p>\n

2 <\/p>\n

\"Laundry <\/p>\n

3 <\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

1. Elianet Cabrera Ramirez, 21, waits for a collective taxi in Holgu\u00edn, with her son, Alan Manuel, 2, and Marlon Antonio Jara, 23. 2. Laundry dries outside of a home along the northern highway in Cuba. 3. A truck passes this Soviet-style building in Moa, an industrial city on Cuba\u2019s northeast coast. <\/p>\n

\"Overlooking <\/p>\n

Overlooking the town of El Cobre in southeastern Cuba. People come to a cathedral located on this hill to honor Our Lady of Charity, the patron saint of Cuba.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For months, the United States has been waging what it describes as a \u201cmaximum pressure campaign\u201d against Cuba,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":912352,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[449,458,459,64,63,39868,13226,1545,12874,460,134,316430,254689,17358,8280,480116,1861,480115,480117,42828,61895,6618],"class_list":["post-912351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-collapse","tag-cuba","tag-day","tag-decade","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-fidel-castro","tag-former-leader","tag-island","tag-life","tag-most-cubans","tag-people","tag-photographer-lisette-poole-gonzalez","tag-recent-year-thank","tag-revolution","tag-road-trip","tag-time"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/912351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=912351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/912351\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/912352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=912351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=912351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=912351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}