State of Cuba in the 21st Century

I picture the Cuba of today being a weird cross between Nevada and Hawaii. The Hawaii part if obvious; tourists coming for the sun and all that (well, maybe mix modern Florida too, with all the old folks moving their to run out their clocks). You'd have beaches and all that.

The Nevada part comes from Cuba being a playground earlier in the 20th Century. As a State, I don't think the mob would have as much pull as their did in an independent Cuba (but they could still buy State officials), and they wouldn't be safe from the Feds there either, but I can see mob-owned casinos and the like still appearing. Like Lost Wages, it might turn more family-friendly over the decades (Vegas might just stay a small city too, since they'd be little incentive to flee there without the Reds taking over Cuba). I don't think it'd be as outlandish as Vegas since the island has its own nature beauty.

In short: Havana = Honolulu + Las Vegas?
 
So the best place to love. What would the land property rates be? Would native Cubans be able to afford their own property? It could lead to a larger Cuban diaspora like Puerto Rico I. oTL.
 
Why is he being pessimistic for acknowledging that things will not be so great for the locals in Cuba under US administration?

I disagree.

American rule of Cuba (whether as basically an American client-state like the pre-revolution era or as an actual US state) will likely be fine and dandy for the Cuban elites who get all the benefits of investment from American businesses looking to get a slice of the Cuban sugar and tobacco industries along with a contingent of Marines to help them keep power if things ever get a little too restless in the countryside.

That said, direct integration as a US state would result in drastic changes from OTL, I don't believe in the idea of "progressive" late 19th/early 20th century American values being all that great of a thing for a society that is pretty much the opposite of the United States with regards to views on race (plenty of racial intermixture and intermarriage in Cuba relative to the highly-distinguished hierarchy of the United States). It's not as if Cubans in this era are exactly all that racially enlightened themselves (as someone else on the thread said, there's plenty of racial divides in Cuba, it just isn't as strictly defined as the United States, more the idea of people not making as big a deal of strictly-defined racial groups but where the society is still very much one in which whites have all the positions of power and prestige).

That said, an American Cuba would likely be one in which American racial ideals come into play (albeit likely in a rather indirect manner). Sure Cuba will on paper have its own state legislature and governance modeled off the American system, but it's almost inevitable that the system will be dominated by the rich and powerful (and white) plantation owners and their assorted cronies. I don't really see a way in any scenario of a US Cuba (say after being annexed sometime in the 19th century) where the situations for Afro-Cubans does not get significantly worse. The Americans and their proxies (read: rich landowners) will view and treat black Cubans with outright disdain, and with American backing, it's likely that the cycle of exploitation and deprivation of Cuba's poor (and particularly Cuba's blacks) will only increase. Not to mention the very likely friction that will develop between a Protestant USA and a mainly Catholic Cuba, with Santeria likely to face a good deal of official and unofficial discrimination as being paganism or somesuch. So yeah, massive racial discrimination and economic exploitation with a side of anti-Catholic sentiment.

The Americans are going to favor the people most inclined to allowing full exploitation of Cuba's resources by American economic interests, and that's going to generally be the landowners and the de-facto aristocracy. And nobody is really going to bat an eye when a system of massive, crushing exploitation is developed in order to maximize the profit potential of Cuban sugar and tobacco plantations.
 
So the best place to love. What would the land property rates be? Would native Cubans be able to afford their own property? It could lead to a larger Cuban diaspora like Puerto Rico I. oTL.

Native Cuban would not be much of a term, not after being a State for a hundred plus years. But yeah, the costs will be high. I don't think quite Hawaii or Puerto Rico high given that the island has more land. It'd probably be worst in Havana and other popular destinations. The countryside, where sugar, tobacco and whatever else is grown might not be so bad.
 
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