ABSTRACT
The new world order has put Cuba’s socialist model of development to a dauntingtest. Cuban responses include economic reforms that are restructuring ownership, production, and exchange, though official policy discourse steadfastly defends socialist democracy and the revolution’s vision of social justice.1 The 1997 CEPAL study of the Cuban economy recognizes social gains: “It is beyond question that social policy constitutes the terrain where Cuba has most distinguished itself historically, in terms of guaranteeing distributive equity and the well-being of the population, as well as the formation of human capital” (CEPAL 1997: 360).2 The transformative policies of the Cuban revolution eliminated poverty, malnutrition, high mortality rates, undereducation, child labor, and a host of other symptoms of the prerevolutionary state’s neglect of children’s basic needs and rights. In assuming new responsibilities for social welfare and Cuba’s “human capital,” the state in many ways promoted and protected the nuclear family. It also relied upon extended family arrangements and substituted itself in limited cases. In 1997, there were 32 state homes for children without amparo filial (family protection) in Cuba. A closer look at the state’s role in the care and schooling of these children offers insight into the realities of childhood, family life, and protective policies in a still-socialist Cuba.
