Embargo is a photography series where I showcase my experience of what it was like living under the Castro regime. As a Cuban American and through this imagery, I narrate the hardships of navigating through the economic hardship in Cuba.
Fidel Castro became president of Cuba on July 26th of 1959, after defeating former president and dictator Fulgencio Batista during the Cuban Revolution. Many of his promises as the new president were to lead the country from subjugation into freedom, from dictatorship into self-determination, and to stand back and let the new country take its shape. Furthermore, he promised free education and healthcare for all. It was not until the Socialist Bloc, however, that everything in Cuba went south in terms of its economy. The country entered an era of economic hardship known as The Special Period in Time of Peace.
These photographs represent the repercussions of the collapse of the Soviet Union in Cuba on a national and personal level. With allegories that allude to poverty, lack of expression, and homophobia. This was a period in my life of economic hardship, where freedom and vital recourses were being challenged by the dictatorial regime.