Contrasting the Republic of Cuba's

Abstract

The Republic of Cuba’s “Códiga de las Familias,” passed in 2022, marked a watershed moment in the country’s history, both in the mass involvement in the Code’s creation and in the Code’s enshrinement of rights for the island’s gay, disabled, women, elderly, and youth populations. Most prescient are the “alimentos,” or “nourishments” in this context, that citizens owe one another. This recent triumph is ripe for comparison with the country approximately 90 miles to Cuba’s north: the United States of America. Case law and material conditions for analogous populations in the United States are troubling. Jurisprudence in the United States rests upon a common notion of individual rights being asserted, a “bundle of sticks” from which one may exclude others rather than a series of duties one owes to their fellow countrymen. The scope of this paper is to argue that the Cuban Family Code and Cuba’s institutions provide greater exercise in the democratic process for its citizens than the United States through mass organizations, leading to better outcomes for Cuba’s LGBTQI+, elderly, youth, and disabled populations. A conclusion will follow and discuss prospects for how to improve both procedural and substantive outcomes for these marginalized groups in the United States.