The Nostalgia of Empire: Time Travel In Cuba

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.13169/intejcubastud.10.1.0008
• Published date: 01 April 2018
• Date: 01 April 2018
• Pages: 8-29
• Author: Louis A. Pérez Jr.
• Subject Matter: nostalgia,classic cars,travel,travel writing,blogging

InternatIonal Journal of Cuban StudIeS 10.1 SprIng 2018

ACADEMIC ARTICLE

THE NOSTALGIA OF EMPIRE:

TIME TRAVEL IN CUBA

Louis A. Pérez Jr.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA

Abstract

This article examines the representation of present day Cuba in North American popular

culture. It interprets documentary sources including blogs, travel guides, television

documentaries, newspapers and travel company websites and brochures to establish

that Cuba has become primarily a site of nostalgia for North American travellers. It

argues that the phenomenon of American wistfulness for Cuba is best understood as a

condition associated with the original eighteenth-century explanation of nostalgia: as

a pathology, an affective-cognitive experience in the form of an inconsolable yearning

for a distant past and a vanished place. In fact, it is not Cuba that is ‘stuck in time’ but

rather American knowledge of Cuba that is ‘frozen in a by-gone era’: a historically

conditioned cultural memory borne of prevailing mid-twentieth-century tropes of

empire. As a consequence, the article concludes with a warning that the appeal of this

nostalgia-driven time travel will cease to ‘work’ as a marketing device, whereupon the

need to fulfil the expectations created by nostalgia for a dark time in Cuban history may

well have unforeseen and unwelcome consequences.

Keywords: nostalgia, classic cars, travel, travel writing, blogging

Part of Cuba’s charm is the throwback atmosphere – A cross between 1950s

Hollywood and Woody Allen’s Bananas.

– USA Today, 21 March 2016

Now that Americans have access to Cuba, it will be possible to take a quick,

fleeting trip back into the 50s.

– Ronan McGrath, ‘The Classic Cars of Cuba’

THE NOSTALGIA OF EMPIRE: TIME TRAVEL IN CUBA 9

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Now that tourism is opening up there, I wanted to make sure I got to see (and

photograph) the authentic Cuba before it changes. I wanted to see the classic

cars.

– Scott Poupis, ‘Interview’, 29 December 2016

‘Cuba’. What comes to mind? For me, cars. Classic cars. And when I booked my trip

to (legally) visit the Caribbean island, it’s the first thing I thought of.

‘The Cars of Cuba’, Flocking Somewhere. Experience. Travel. Blog

How utterly implausible. How does it come to pass that American automobiles

from the 1940s and 1950s have been resurrected from the dustbin of planned

obsolescence to serve as the dominant iconographic representation of Cuba? ‘If

you think of Cuba, you think of old cars,’ pronounced one commentator. ‘The

image just appears in your head’ (Qbanews 2016). Photographer Edin Chavez

(n.d.) drew a similar association: ‘You immediately think of old cars when you

think of Cuba,’ he offered. The consensus is striking: Cuba ‘has become synony-

mous with its classic cars’(Adigun n.d.); ‘when people around the world think of

Cuba, they romantically picture a 50’s car’(Cubapop n.d.); ‘cars are Cuba’s

brand’ (Quartoknows n.d.).

Implausible indeed. Old American cars as the reason to travel to Cuba: Cuba

as the destination, the old cars as the attraction – ‘at the top of people’s list of

Havana highlights’, one traveller pronounced (Two For The World 2017). ‘The

cars are among my most favourite aspects and memory of Cuban culture!!!’

blogged Anna Williams (n.d.). ‘The most fun I had was riding in the back seat of

a 1956 pink and white Ford Fairlane convertible,’ Marjorie Arons-Barron (2015)

recounted the highlight of her visit to Cuba. Other travellers wrote of riding in a

pink 1953 Ford convertible as ‘hands down our favorite thing to do in Cuba’

(Bertaut and Alexis 2017). ‘We took hundreds of pictures and had so much fun,’

Maria blogged of her experience in a 1951 Chevrolet:

I think the driver thought we were crazy or something, because we didn’t want to

see any of the sights he wanted to stop by … We only wanted him to take pictures

of us and the car, and we were laughing so much and having such a great time.

(Maria’s Adventure 2015)

Photographer Scott Kelby (2014) was eager to photograph a 1953 Chevrolet

Bel Air:

When we drove by this building I asked our driver if he would park it right there. I

jumped out and started framing up the shot from across the street, but it looked