What’s it like to live suspended between communism and capitalism in Cuba?

Capitalism, God and a Good Cigar describes what collapse of the Soviet Union has meant for ordinary Cubans. These changes have been documented in “Capitalism, God and a Good Cigar,” edited by Lydia Chavez, associate professor at the Graduate School of Journalism, with photography by Lecturer Mimi Chakarova.

When the Soviet Union dissolved, so did the easy credit, cheap oil, and subsidies it had provided to Cuba. The bottom fell out of the Cuban economy, and many expected that Castro’s revolution — the one that had inspired the left throughout Latin America and elsewhere — would soon be gone as well. More than a decade later, the revolution lives on, albeit in a modified form. Following the collapse of Soviet communism, Castro legalized the dollar, opened the island to tourism, and allowed foreign investment, small-scale private enterprise, and remittances from exiles in Miami.

“Capitalism, God and a Good Cigar” describes changes since the early 1990s for ordinary Cubans: hotel workers, teachers, priests, factory workers, rappers, writers, homemakers and others.