Du skylar blog 7: Sandra Ramos

Sandra Ramos is a Cuban printmaking artist. She was born in Cuba and moved to Miami during the early 2000s. The works she done before moving to Miami focus on the unexpected problems arose with the dollarization in Cuba. With limited resources that could only be purchased with rations, Cuban people managed to get dollars to supplement their necessities by shopping in stores for foreign tourists.
Los Problemas del Peso is a print commenting on the dollarization in Cuba. The little girl, with both of her arms widely open, poses like a scale, weighing the two people setting on both sides. The sad skinny man sitting on the left is a Cuban cartoon character that represent the average Cuban man and the nicely dressed man setting on the right is George Washington, or the figure on dollar bill. The depiction of the Cuban man is weighing heavier than the figure on dollar bill demonstrates the weight that the policy of dollarization has placed on Cuba. Tourism became a major source of dollar for all Cubans to supplement their ration. Females would work as prostitutes while males would drive taxis for tourist and ask for dollars. Even professions like doctors would gave up their careers and drove taxis for tourist since the pay by dollar is much higher than what they earn by peso as doctors. Here in the print, the display of the scale is also commenting on the physical weight of the two currencies: for  the same value, you need 25 peso to exchange for 1 dollar. At the same the time and efforts you spent to make 25 peso is always more than that you spent to make 1 dollar.