In his book Contesting Castro: The United States and the Triumph of the Cuban, Thomas G. Patterson explores Cuban relationships with the United States during the Batista and Castro regimes. In the 1950s, when Fulgencio Batista was in power, the United States had an almost imperialistic dominance over Cuba. Patterson uses the word Hegemony to describe this dominance. He defines hegemony as the dominance or preponderant influence that permitted U.S. decisions to condition Cubas politics, economy, culture, society, and military. U.S. hegemony empowered North Americans to set and maintain most of the rules by which Cubans lived and by which the Cuban American relationship was governed (7). At this time, the U.S. was imposing it self on Cuba without really understanding the people or the culture. The U.S. viewed Cubans as an emotional, romantic, and childish people suffering from excessive pride (6). There was obviously little respect for Cubans from the U.S. Moreover, Cubans felt that the strong, multifaceted U.S. influence was causing Cuba to loose its independent identity (8). Economically, Cubans enjoyed one of the one of the highest standards of living in Latin America (34). This is predominately due to the fact that Cuba exported half its sugar and two-thirds of it total exports into the U.S., and imported three-fourths of their total imports from the U.S. Although the U.S. (35). Although the U.S. boosted the Cuban economy, Cubans resented that they were still living at an economic level lower than Americans. The average Cuban income was one- third the average of Mississippi, the poorest state in the U.S. in the 1950s. This is because Batistas corrupt government was poorly handling the economy, so that there were not enough employment opportunities for professionals (35-41). Frustrated with U.S. influence, Cubans exhibited strong nationalism. The nationalists fell into two groups. First, there were the moderates tha...
