Havana Changes Its Accent
By Angry GenXer
HAVANA TIMES – A small human-powered cart passes by, and with an android voice blares from a speaker: “Ice cream sandwich!” An elderly woman, apparently mentally ill, lifts her skirt and defecates right in the middle of the street. A slick young man walks briskly, hawking: “Medicine, medicine…”
I’m in one of the dirtiest, busiest, most central parts of Havana, where shared taxis (called almendrones) depart for far-flung neighborhoods of the capital. The line at my piquera (taxi stand) moves quickly, and in a few minutes I board a Willys jeep from World War II, modified to seat eight passengers.
Everybody Sings
I ask the driver about the fare, and he gives the usual three-digit figure. His features, accent, and intonation clearly mark him as being from the northern part of eastern Cuba. I’ve traveled there—actually, I have family there—so I know how they speak.
The driver skips the once-familiar “Don’t slam the door!” and drives along the highway using a Garmin GPS. Some of the stops requested by passengers have to be checked with others—he clearly doesn’t yet know all the local names that don’t appear on the GPS. Several passengers—I can tell by how they speak—are also from the East.
“He must be new in Havana,” I think. “And the car isn’t his, because he didn’t ask us to be careful with the door.” In the past, drivers who owned their antique cars were hyper-protective, especially about doors—there are few mechanics for them, and repairs are expensive. Nowadays, most cars are driven by employees, most of whom are relatively recent migrants to Havana. Some owners have entire fleets of taxis. I have no idea how Habanero those owners are, or whether they still drive any of their cars themselves.
The Spanish spoken in eastern Cuba differs from that of the west and the center: different words, intonations, and accents. It sounds more like Dominican or Puerto Rican Spanish than Havana’s. In the southern part of eastern Cuba, there’s a noticeable French influence from Haiti—some consonants became “silent.”
Western Cubans say that easterners “sing” when they speak. But really, almost every speaker of every human language “sings,” because all speech has intonation. The thing is, when we’re not used to the intonation of a variant spoken by another group, we hear it as “sung.” And to easterners, Habaneros also “sing”—just differently than they do.
They Used to Call Them “Palestinians”
“Oriente is the cradle of the Revolution… but the child is in Havana,” Habaneros paraphrased early on after 1959, referencing an official slogan about the Cuban Revolution’s birthplace. “Havana started filling up with easterners…” who arrived first as soldiers, students, and government officials, and later in jobs that Habaneros didn’t want—like construction or policing. Not an unusual phenomenon worldwide.
And like elsewhere, there were plenty of xenophobic and racist jokes. “Havana can’t take any more,” sang a popular orchestra. Los muchos (“the many”) referred to extended families illegally packed into one space. Llega-y-pon was the term for makeshift shantytowns popping up around the capital. And by analogy to Arab refugee camp dwellers in the Middle East, the nickname “Palestinians” was widely used for easterners in Havana.
Most of those “Palestinians” took advantage of job opportunities, started families, and stopped being distinguishable (almost) from the people “originally” from the capital.
How Great That They Came!
In the early 2000s, Havana attitudes genuinely began to change.
About 10 years ago, during research, I interviewed a local Poder Popular (People’s Power) delegate from Central Havana. He told me:
“…Before, we were almost scared when someone from Oriente came to the area. Not anymore. Now we know they’re here to live with us, to settle with their families. They’ll probably fix up a house here, maybe even buy others for their relatives… There are more opportunities now—houses can be bought and sold. So they might start a business, or even several. That means more services for the community. They might even create jobs for local people. Because easterners who come to Havana to stay are go-getters, full of spark. So, we say to them: How great that you came!”
Nomadic Architectures
Today, the situation is different. Massive emigration abroad—the largest in the past 400 years—has driven down real estate prices in Havana, turning the capital into the natural hub for outward migration. Embassies and consulates are here, along with money, connections, and the ability to “get things done.”
Many people from the East come to Havana to buy homes or apartments from would-be emigrants, who sell them “fully furnished.” Others settle in makeshift llega-y-pon hamlets on the city’s outskirts; some of these settlements have since become legal (there’s a labor shortage in agriculture and livestock due to the exodus, and some companies allow construction), while others remain informal.
But many of these migrants aren’t here to settle permanently. They come to gather resources and set the stage for their own departure from the country. That explains the increasing neglect of buildings and sidewalks—even in areas where residents have done well economically.
Unlike the ones the Delegate told me about ten years ago, these easterners aren’t coming to stay. Many don’t care about beautifying the city—they’re just passing through. Nor do they bother with building maintenance, as structures—especially older ones near the sea—continue to crumble. Some buildings now exhibit what Cuban engineers and architects sarcastically call “miraculous statics.”
It’s the same mindset shown by the Willys driver and his disregard for the car door.
Jorge Luis Borges once cited “nomadic architecture” as an oxymoron. But these “architectures” now fill Havana—thanks to its role as a transit zone. And it’s not just about buildings, but also—perhaps more importantly—about people’s consciousness and emotions.
Being a migrant often means adopting habits that aren’t always altruistic or well regarded by locals. It’s not just cultural differences; sometimes you need a “tough guy” attitude. In the midst of Cuba’s current collapse, that adds friction and ethical dilemmas. Havana’s shifting population lays the burden of rage, grief, and the prison-like stench of that “miraculous static” called Cuba on both migrants and natives alike.
Public transportation lines are often jumped—by force or bribery. The limited space on buses gets filled by people hauling giant bundles to and from the famous La Cuevita market. Fishermen no longer put corks on their sharp hooks to protect fellow passengers’ eyes and clothes, as they used to. And people complain.
This “I’m just passing through, trying to get out of here” attitude is Season Three of the series: Eastern Cuba in Havana.
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion
I stand by the principle that linguistic diversity (including regional varieties of Spanish and even acknowledging other mother tongues in Cuba) should be respected and recognized as national heritage. Cuba is a deeply Havana-centric country. On national TV, for example, the Havana dialect is almost the only one you’ll hear—even easterners speak as if they were from the West. No one should feel ashamed of how they speak.
Yet in Old Havana today, the most commonly heard accent is the eastern one. It’s a shame that the Habanero accent may disappear—as seems possible. The Cuban capital might end up sounding more like the Dominican Republic or Puerto Rico than what it used to be. But that’s history for you, ever-changing.
When it comes to Cuba’s great theme of migration, every one of us is a little bit Oriente and a little bit Havana.
Havana, which is no longer that tropical Vienna (and which never really was) dreamed up by aristocrats and bourgeoisie at the republic’s founding in 1902, is now an open vein through which Cuba bleeds.
Shortly after I arrived in Havana for the first time 17 years ago, I met a surgical nurse who worked at Calixto Garcia hospital. She was from Moa but was given “permission” to live and work in Havana because of the scarcity of her specialty in Havana. Of course, by her leaving Moa, the scarcity of surgical nurses in Moa was made even worse. Anyway, as a surgical nurse, her ability to “resolver” was almost zero. For nurses, extra money could be made by stealing medicine and medical supplies for resale on the black market. In her job, she only had access to sutures, scalpels, and surgical gloves. Not exactly hot sellers on the street. So, her original plan was to quit her job as a nurse since the basic pay was so awful and try to find employment in a non-government job. But because her legal status to live in Havana was based on her nursing job, she was afraid that if she quit, she would be deported back to Moa. Cubans who were found living in Havana illegally could not return to Havana for 5 or 10 years (I’m not sure how long exactly). She decided to stay on as a nurse and worked on the side cleaning houses. She made more money in one shift cleaning houses than she made in on week as a nurse. I met her because she cleaned the casa particular I rented. Her Moa accent and her obvious intelligence while working as a house cleaner made her standout. She would arrive to clean my house in her hospital scrubs, many times with blood stains from surgeries that day. She eventually met and married a foreigner and managed to emigrate. No small feat because medical professionals were usually blocked from leaving the country. The last I heard from her, she was happily married, a mom and had no immediate plans to return to visit Moa.