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Karla Flores, Assig. 11

In the article, “Between love and money”, Cabezas discusses the topic of sex tourism in the countries of Cuba and the Dominican Republic. The levels of poverty in both countries pushes people to want to search for new ways to get a little bit more money than minimum wage. In both countries minimum wage does not support a family financially which makes people go for what some might consider ‘easy’ work. The political structures in both countries differs from each other, but in both they put their own people down and welcome tourist into the country to the point where the country relies mostly on tourism to make a profit. With the governments encouraging tourism to both countries, people see the opportunities to get some benefits from these tourist too. People move to these tourist areas in hopes to get some sort to benefits from these tourist, it could be directly or indirectly with sex. Everyone knows that these tourist go in the search for some companionship which sometimes do not include sex favors in returns. Groups of people in both countries who go for these foreigners in search of some financial benefit are referred to as Jinetero/a or as Sanky panky, wich are the general terms for these workers. But it all comes down to their appearance and job and gender. As long as these people have a ‘stable’ job on the side, as long as they are light-skin, and are females or males around certain areas they are considered to be normal, but when you are somebody of dark complexion and with no job, you are just considered to be a prostitute. People have seem obligated to try to fool the tourist and make them think that they are  not doing it for money only, that they are having sex with them because they feel some sort of love for this person. But sometimes they also hide their interest for money by not discussing money with them directly and accepting other types of gifts, which could eventually lead to opportunities that would get them out of their financial citations in their countries.