Cubans

Cubans (Spanish: cubanos) are the citizens and nationals of the Republic of Cuba, as well as members of the Cuban diaspora who identify culturally or ethnically as Cuban, irrespective of their current citizenship. Cuba's resident population stood at approximately 9.7 million at the end of 2024, according to preliminary figures released by the Oficina Nacional de Estadística e Información (ONEI). According to the ONEI, the country's population has been undergoing a sustained decline driven by the combined effect of significant emigration and a negative rate of natural increase. Independent demographic analyses suggest that the actual resident population may be lower than official figures indicate, owing in part to an underestimation of emigration to destinations other than the United States. Outside the island, the United States hosts by far the largest Cuban community, estimated at 2.9 million people of Cuban origin in 2024, concentrated primarily in Florida—notably in the Miami metropolitan area—as well as in Texas, California, New Jersey, and New York City. Spain constitutes the second-largest Cuban diaspora community, with smaller populations present in Brazil, Italy, and Uruguay.…

Cubans (Spanish: cubanos) are the citizens and nationals of the Republic of Cuba, as well as members of the Cuban diaspora who identify culturally or ethnically as Cuban, irrespective of their current citizenship. Cuba's resident population stood at approximately 9.7 million at the end of 2024, according to preliminary figures released by the Oficina Nacional de Estadística e Información (ONEI). According to the ONEI, the country's population has been undergoing a sustained decline driven by the combined effect of significant emigration and a negative rate of natural increase. Independent demographic analyses suggest that the actual resident population may be lower than official figures indicate, owing in part to an underestimation of emigration to destinations other than the United States. Outside the island, the United States hosts by far the largest Cuban community, estimated at 2.9 million people of Cuban origin in 2024, concentrated primarily in Florida—notably in the Miami metropolitan area—as well as in Texas, California, New Jersey, and New York City. Spain constitutes the second-largest Cuban diaspora community, with smaller populations present in Brazil, Italy, and Uruguay. The population of Cuba descends primarily from three groups: Spanish settlers and immigrants – drawn largely from Andalusia, Galicia, Asturias, and the Canary Islands — sub-Saharan Africans transported to the island through the transatlantic slave trade, and the pre-Columbian indigenous peoples, chiefly the Taíno and Ciboney. A significant, though demographically contested, share of Cubans carries mixed ancestry from all three groups, not as a product of recent admixture but of centuries of intermarriage accumulated across many generations. While Afro-Cubans and Cubans of Spanish descent have endured as distinct ethnocultural units, no equivalent indigenous-descended group survived the catastrophic demographic collapse of the sixteenth century; Taíno ancestry nonetheless persists in the Cuban population at the genetic level, as evidenced by mitochondrial DNA studies. Cuban Spanish, a variety of Spanish, is the native language of virtually all Cubans on the island and remains widely spoken among a large proportion of the diaspora.

Cuisine

Cuban cuisine is the product of a convergence of Spanish, African, Chinese and indigenous traditions. It is marked by simple cooking techniques — frying, braising and slow stewing — by the prominence of animal protein and tropical tubers, and by sofrito, the slow frying of garlic, onion, pepper and tomato, which serves as the aromatic base of most preparations. Seasoning is moderate and the spices used are seldom hot; olive oil has coexisted with lard as a cooking fat since the colonial period. Ropa vieja — shredded beef cooked in tomato sauce with pepper and garlic — is one of the most emblematic dishes of Cuban cooking. Black beans, eaten either as a potaje or as an accompaniment to rice, are a fundamental element both nutritionally and symbolically, and are of African as much as Spanish inheritance. Moros y cristianos — white rice and black beans cooked together — and eastern congrí — rice cooked with red beans, characteristic of Oriente — are ubiquitous side dishes on the Cuban table. Lechón asado — a whole pig roasted over coals or in a caja china roasting box — is the festive preparation par excellence, above all at Christmas Eve celebrations. Yuca con mojo — boiled cassava dressed with garlic fried in oil and bitter orange juice — together with the tostón — slices of green plantain, flattened and fried — mariquitas, or thin plantain crisps, fried ripe plantain, malanga and boniato, round out the repertoire of the most characteristic vegetable accompaniments. Known collectively as viandas, these starches are treated as an indispensable component of an adequate meal, alongside rice, beans and a protein. All of these ingredients have Indigenous American or African roots and came to be fully absorbed into the popular diet. Fernando Ortiz Fernández raised the ajiaco — a stew of assorted tubers with various meats — to the status of a symbol of Cuban cultural synthesis, using it as a metaphor for transculturation: just as the stew fuses ingredients of disparate origin into a new and indivisible whole, so, on his account, did the formation of Cuban identity proceed. Cuban coffee, made from dark-roasted beans and served in small, highly concentrated measures — the cortadito in the cities, café cerrero in the countryside — is a social ritual of the first importance in daily life. Cuban rum, obtained by distilling sugarcane products and ageing the spirit in oak barrels, won worldwide renown through brands such as Bacardi — founded in Santiago de Cuba in 1862¹ by Facundo Bacardí Massó and displaced from Cuba after 1959 — and Havana Club — founded in 1934 and today state-run, with international distribution through Pernod Ricard. The classic cocktails associated with Havana, the mojito and the daiquiri, were popularised by the city's twentieth-century bar culture and are linked respectively to La Bodeguita del Medio and El Floridita, establishments whose international profile was boosted by the presence and the writings of Ernest Hemingway during his long residence in Cuba (1939–1960).

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