HispanicHeritageEssayBH

So, why do we keep or Spanish heritage alive? We stick to what our heritage wants us to do and we live it so we must keep it alive right? For example Cubans love to keep their heritage alive, it is super important to them, let me tell you about them. Cuba is the largest island in Caribbean. Over 11 million people live in Cuba. They speak mostly Spanish and their native west African language called Yoruba. when Cubans speak Spanish they may talk to fast and not pronounce every word, this is why it is hard to learn Spanish and to speak it. Christopher Columbus was the first to find the Cubans but the original Cuban name was Tiano. The word Cuba came from the Tiano language. In case you wanted to know, their current president is Raul Castro. The capital of Cuba is Havana where most of the Cubans live. Cubans are very formal, eye contact is important to Cubans, if you don't give them eye contact they will get mad and probaly say curse words in Spanish. Very little homes were built in Cuba and now people are trying to rebuild them. Cuba was the last Spanish speaking country to gain independence. Cuba was the second highest number for imprisoned people in 2008(China had the most). Cubans also eat formally since they are formal people, some Cubans eat black beans, yellow rice, plantians, fried yuca, steak, pork, spices, any type of leaf, etc. Some of the Cubans favorite food is potato ball, its a fried potato in the shape of a ball stuffed with any kind of meat usualy beef or lamb. Cubans love to play football/soccer but they also play volleyball, cricket, and baseball. Cubans don't enjoy their climate that much in January it's -21*C(69.8*F) and in July 27*C(80.6*F). One faith that has always been practiced in Cuba is called Santería (the way of the saints). It is a mixture of Catholic and African Yoruba traditions. The Yoruba religion originated in Nigeria and Benin. When Africans arrived in Cuba, they were taught a few basic prayers and were baptized by the Catholic Church. They found similarities between Catholicism and their traditional religion. The largest organized religion in Cuba is the Roman Catholic Church. Cuba is a multiracial society with a population of mainly Spanish and African origins. The largest organized religion is the Roman Catholic Church, but evangelical protestant denominations continue to grow rapidly. Afro-Cuban religions, a blend of native African religions and Roman Catholicism, are widely practiced in Cuba. Officially, Cuba has been an atheist state for most of the Castro era. (Cuba Facts And Culture)

Let me talk about some early events in Cuba, for example some religion early events,this is very important...kind of. Twenty-two denominations, including Presbyterians, Episcopalians, and Methodists, are members of the Cuban Council of Churches (CCC). Most CCC members are officially recognized by the State, though several, including the Evangelical Lutheran Church, are not registered and are recognized only through their membership in the CCC. Another thirty one officially recognized denominations, including Jehovah's Witnesses and the small Jewish community, do not belong to the CCC. The government does not favor any one particular religion or church, the government appears to be most of those churches that maintain close relations to the State through the CCC. Now that you know about CCC here's a little more good to know information about Cuban information.Unregistered religious groups experience degrees of official interference, harassment, and repression. The Ministry of Interior engages in active efforts to control and monitor the country's religious institutions, including through surveillance, infiltration and harassment of religious professionals. The most independent religious organizations including the Catholic Church, the largest independent institution in Cuba today continue to operate under significant restrictions and pressure imposed on them by the Cuban regime. The Cuban Government continues to refuse to allow the church to have independent printing press able full access to the media to train enough priests for its needs or allow numbers of foreign priests to work in the country; or to establish socially useful institutions, including schools and universities, hospitals and clinics, and nursing homes. All registered denominations must report to the Ministry of Interior's Office of Religious Affairs. Lots of things has happened in Cuba for example,In June 2005, 2000 more licenses were revoked from self-employed workers as a means to reassert government control over the economy and to stem growing inequalities associated with self-employment. (Cuba)

Now let me talk more about Cuba's early history, its very important it really shows how the Cubans kept their heritage alive in the early age, when they did. The Cuban Government, is today reversing the economic liberalization of the 90s and re-centralizing its economy. Evidence of this is found in the decline in the number of firms participating in the Perfeccionamiento empresarial, or entrepreneurial improvement (EI), program, which is based on capitalist management techniques. EI was instituted in the 1980s as a military pilot project, and in 1998, the Cuban Government extended it from military to civilian "parastatals," to foster capitalist. At first, the government highlighted participating companies' achievements in cutting costs and boosting profitability and quality and suggested that the increased autonomy of state managers under EI was producing an efficient form of socialism with a strong link between pay and performance. Many in the Communist Party, even Castro himself, resisted EI. Many of the original participants have since left the program and participating firms have seen little growth in revenue. The EI program has fallen far short of expectations and the Cuban Government no longer heralds its successes or its future prospects. In 2003 the Cuban Government also tightened foreign exchange controls, requiring that state companies hold money in convertible pesos and obtain special authorization from the central bank before making hard currency transactions. Practically speaking, this restricted companies from using the dollar for internal trade. Following this, in 2004 the government announced that all state entities must stop charging in U.S. dollars and charge only in pesos for any products and services not considered a part of a company’s "fundamental social objective." (Most Support Stronger U. S. Ties With Cuba)

The U.S had many relationships with Cuba for example, On May 20, 2002, President Bush announced the (Initiative for a New Cuba) that called on the Cuban Government to undertake political and economic reforms and conduct free and fair elections for the National Assembly. The challenged the Cuban Government to open its economy, allow independent trade unions, and end discriminatory practices against Cuban workers. President Bush made clear that his response to such concrete reforms would be to work with the U.S. Congress to ease the restrictions on trade and travel between the United States and Cuba. The Cuban Government did not enact any such reforms. Instead, elections for the National Assembly were held in January 2003, with 609 government-approved candidates running for 609 seats.(Country and profiles)

So we need to keep our Spanish heritage alive so we can live it, love it, and share it. Always keep it alive so we can live to survive almost anything, if you chose to not keep it alive i cant help you with that you'll just make your culture worse and that culture will end and you'll need to move on to another culture maybe. I hoped this whole essay answered your question. The answer to why do we keep it alive can be yes or no in your choice of opinion, in my opinion we do need to keep it alive because it is really important to our cultures. And also support the Cuban culture for government reasons.

"Country and profiles." //Cuba //. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Apr. 2015. [|]. "Cuba." //Wikipedia //. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 23 Apr. 2015. [|]. "Cuba Facts and Culture." //Cuba Facts, Culture, Recipes, Language, Government, Eating, Geography, Maps, History, Weather, News, Economy, Family, Fashion, Events //. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Apr. 2015. [|]. "Most Support Stronger U.S. Ties With Cuba." //Pew Research Center for the People and the Press RSS //. N.p., 16 Jan. 2015. Web. 29 Apr. 2015. [|Got lots of information on this website but not as much as wikipedia.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Open Sans','Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Told me everything i need to know about Cuba.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Open Sans','Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">This gives little facts about culture, food, language, government, geography, maps, history, weather, news, family, fashion, and events.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Open Sans','Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Great website for researching anything about countries.