The Cuban people's resilience is both a strength and a trap

WHEN I heard President Trump boast early this month that Cuba, without the aid of a decapitated Venezuela, appears "ready to fall," I immediately thought of Joseito, a Cuban man in his mid-30s I got to know a few years ago while doing research for a book.

- ANTHONY DEPALMA GUEST CONTRIBUTOR

ISMAEL FRANCISCO Associated Press

CUBANS have been sacrificing and struggling for decades and won't be changed by more hardship.

He lived in Havana with his wife and two young daughters in the rooms adjacent to his mother, Lili, a die-hard communist. Joseito doesn’t share his mother’s loyalty to the revolution, but with two small children, he can’t just leave.

Joseito wrestled a living out of repairing furniture. His biggest challenge, he told me many times, was simply procuring the materials he needed. So, as I’ve seen many Cubans do, he adapted to the shortages inherent in the centrally controlled Cuban economy by improvising. He carefully removed nails and screws and reused them. He scavenged crates and pallets for linear lumber to repair chairs and sofas. And astonishingly, he searched around Havana for discarded tires that he ingeniously converted into straps to form a replacement web for sagging sofa seats and chairs.