Beyond Relief: Understanding the Cuban Diaspora’s Remittance-Sending Behavior

This chapter utilizes survey and interview data to understand the reasons why Cuban Americans send remittances, how much they send, how they send it, and the shared meaning behind it. Economic circuits, a concept developed by Viviana Zelizer, constitute the socially dependent mechanism through which remittances flow. While policy changes affect remittance flows, circuits remain resilient because they are socially embedded and share features (such as monitoring and sanctioning mechanisms) with the self-governing, polycentric systems identified by Elinor Ostrom. The US and Cuban governments should reduce remittance restrictions in order to allow these circuits, and the Cuban people who rely on them, to flourish.