The Cubans who voted for Mamdani: ‘The word ‘socialism’ is no longer so scary’

During the last days of Zohran Mamdani’s campaign, Carlos Calzadilla-Palacio, a 28-year-old Cuban-American, said that he did not expect New York’s youngest mayoral candidate to force them to watch Soviet cartoons; nor would he lock up all his political opponents, as the Havana regime does with dissidents. Calzadilla-Palacio tried to explain that, within a community wary of the words “socialism” and “communism,” there exists a significant cohort that is not afraid of the proposals of a candidate demonized for being young, Muslim, and socialist.

“Growing up in a Cuban family, communism and socialism is something that is talked about a lot, because of the trauma caused by the Castros and their government, because of the elimination of basic freedoms of expression and democracy,” says Calzadilla-Palacio. “That’s why I always had strong feelings about social justice, but for some people anything that sounds like social justice is equated with socialism or communism.”

Calzadilla-Palacio recently visited Holguin, the city in eastern Cuba where his parents were born. He wanted to meet up with his grandmother and other relatives. Once there, he found that many Cubans were desperate to leave the country. He learned what it is like to live with four or five blackouts a day and sensed a sadness in people, probably for the same reasons that in 1992, during the so-called Special Period from 1991-2000, his parents emigrated to Spain, where he was born. When he was six months old, the family left Spain for Florida and Calzadilla-Palacio grew up in Miami, learning of the pain of exile firsthand, as well as the incalculable damage suffered by a community hammered by radical politics.

At the age of 17, Calzadilla-Palacio wanted to play professional soccer and had little interest in politics. He in fact did play soccer in Europe, but during his senior year of high school, he heard a senator express a conviction that stuck with him: “No one who works 40 hours a week should live in poverty.” It was the Democratic Senator for Vermont, Bernie Sanders. Calzadilla-Palacio returned to the United States, quit the sport, became a volunteer for a progressive congressional candidate in southern Florida, and finally, began his university studies in New York.

More than a decade later, as a New Yorker and president of the Brooklyn Young Democrats, Calzadilla-Palacio was part of Mamdani’s historic campaign. On more than one occasion, he was pictured next to the mayoral candidate. He knocked on doors for the 34-year-old socialist and created content for social networks, contributing to Mamdani’s election with at least 10 million views.

When New Yorkers swept Mamdani to victory on November 4, part of the Cuban community in the United States viewed his success with cynicism. Messages began to circulate warning New York voters that they had made a mistake, that they had dug their own grave by electing a socialist, and that the cradle of Wall Street would in a matter of time be an unlivable communist stronghold. Just as with Fidel Castro’s revolution, egalitarianism was going to lead them directly into misery, they warned.

To back these theories, they flagged up a photograph in which Mamdani appears, smiling, alongside Havana officials at the United Nations last year. Cubans are also alarmed when Mamdani quotes socialist Eugene V. Debs or Martin Luther King Jr., from whom he has borrowed a phrase from a 1961 speech: “Call it democracy, or call it democratic socialism, but there must be a better distribution of wealth within this country for all God’s children.”

Isabel Anreus, the daughter of a Cuban immigrant who came to the U.S. in 1970 and now lives in Brooklyn and works as a teacher, disagrees with those who see Mamdani as a totalitarian communist. “It is not radical to want to live in an affordable city,” she insists. “Mamdani is leading New Yorkers into a 21st century full of dignity and transparency, toward a future we can finally believe in.”

Anreus featured in a video of ‘Latinos for Zohran,’ in a city where around 1.7 million of the approximately 3.2 million Latinos have the right to vote. A poll by the Hispanic Federation revealed days before the election that 48% of registered Latinos would vote for Mamdani, compared to 24% who would vote for Andrew Cuomo and 14% for Curtis Sliwa.

Among their biggest concerns were the cost of living, access to housing, and security. Add to this the fear of Donald Trump’s immigration policies. Mamdani addressed these fears in Spanish, telling the community that the city will not be ushering in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Socialism, the concept hijacked by Castro

During a campaign focused on New York politics, Mamdani was forced to talk about issues beyond the city. For example, he was pressed into giving an opinion on the regimes of Cuba and Venezuela, countries that have nothing to do with his mandate. On the podcast The Moment, Jorge Ramos and his daughter Paola asked Mamdani to give his opinion on Cuban president Miguel Díaz-Canel and Nicolás Maduro, despite it being clear he knew little about either. “I haven’t thought much about Miguel Díaz, to be honest with you,” he replied. “I think primarily about these five boroughs and how we can really offer affordability to New Yorkers.”

What else would he have said? Having once captured the world’s collective imagination, Cuba’s revolution appears to have failed spectacularly. It appropriated the concept of socialism, adapted it to what it saw as its needs and ended up turning it into a black hole that few seem to want to look into.

The island that Castro first declared socialist, and then communist, is today experiencing a deep crisis defined by food shortages, blackouts, and other shortfalls affecting basic needs. Michael Bustamante, a professor at the University of Miami and author of the book Cuban Memory Wars, says that Cuban-American politicians in the Republican Party, and Republicans in general, “have become experts in weaponizing the word ‘socialist,’ using it to attack any proposal that emanates from the Democratic Party, and not even from its most progressive wing.”

“Many things can be criticized about Mamdani, such as his lack of experience and the cost of his proposals, which will not help new housing to be built, which is what is really needed to lower the cost of rents. The movement in favor of democratic socialism in the United States can also be criticized for having wrong or simplistic positions on the reality in Cuba today, but Mamdani has never proposed that the state take control of almost all modes of production of the city’s economy, as happened with socialism in Cuba,” says Bustamante. Or eliminate multiparty elections, for that matter. “To insinuate that his election as mayor will inevitably lead to a drift towards communism is, to say the least, naïve, and in many cases, deliberate manipulation.”

Alejandro Almaguer García, a 35-year-old Cuban, knocked on more than 200 doors for Mamdani’s campaign, especially in Harlem (Manhattan) and Jackson Heights (Queens). Born in Cuba, Almaguer García understands that the word “socialism” produces rejection in a lot of people “because they associate it with an authoritarian and dysfunctional model of government.” However, he says, “the socialism proposed by Mamdani does not imply that the state controls everything; it refers to a government approach aimed at guaranteeing basic rights, improving the material conditions of the population, and being truly representative of the interests of the people, not just of an economic elite.”

Still, Almaguer García points out that most New Yorkers didn’t vote for Mamdani because he was a socialist, “but because of his constant focus on the cost of living and his ability to communicate how his proposals could alleviate it… His victory also shows that the word ‘socialism’ is no longer so scary. In fact, we see how Trump avoids using it and prefers to say ‘communist,’ because ‘socialist’ has lost impact as an insult.”

A new generation of Cuban-Americans?

Carlos Calzadilla-Palacio, meanwhile, says that he is not afraid of the word socialism, but rather of the word dictatorship. “Many people associate communism or socialism with dictatorship, but no one talks about fascism,” he says. “The lack of democracy is the problem, and under the Trump administration, we are experiencing something much more similar to what Cubans experienced in Cuba.”

Several Cuban-Americans told EL PAÍS that the loss of fear of a socialist seems to be generational. Danny Valdés, co-chair of the Cuba Solidarity Working Group of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) in New York, believes that “Cuban-American political identity is changing… For many years, the predominant voices in our community were those who left Cuba during the first and most painful periods of the revolution. Their experiences are real and continue to influence the understanding that many have of Cuba. But they are no longer the only story.”

Most Cubans are grateful to live in the United States, want to see a “free Cuba,” and do not consider Washington’s economic embargo to be the solution to the problems that the Havana government has created for decades. They reject the status quo, however, and, given a system like the one they live in, which has a stranglehold on Cubans economically with a daily dose of humiliation thrown in, they seek an alternative.

“For many young people, socialism is not an abstract idea. It is simply a term that encompasses policies that guarantee basic dignity: housing, health, public energy and a fair economy,” says Valdés. “Young Cubans who supported Mamdani respond to the material reality in which they live. But this change is not limited to Cuban-Americans. It’s pervasive among young Americans trying to build their lives on a system that constantly pushes them into precarious situations. It is not so much about adopting a new ideology, but rather about choosing the politics that will fight for ordinary people. The Socialists have offered that, and the voters have responded.”

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