Gusano (slur)

[7][8] The term supposedly originated in a 1961 speech that Castro gave where he discussed "shaking the rotten tree, and the gusanos will drop out",[9] in reference to the counter-revolutionaries.

[11] To a lesser extent, many Cubans who stayed in the country, but were against the revolution, adopted the label as a badge of honor (or a symbol of oppression),[12] referring to themselves as gusano or gusana to state their dissatisfaction with the Castro regime.

[18] Throughout the years of Cuban exile, many alleged raids and attacks by defectors from Cuba, according to the AP, were utilized by Castro in propaganda to further strengthen their position as an enemy of the current Government.

Their wives would frequent the establishment in hopes to see their husbands and sons, and due to the large amount of anti-revolutionary women loitering around, the prison became colloquially known as La Gusaneria.

In September or October 1961, over the course of a week, 12 deceased bodies were discovered over Havana with notes attached to them that said "gusanos with pro-revolutionary [ideologies], CIA agents, who tried to escape to the United States.

[28] In a 1961 speech in Santiago de Cuba, Raúl Castro said, "Our motherland will be attacked again by those gusanos allied with [American] imperialism, who will try to bring back all the bad things that the revolution is dominating.

[36] According to British reporter Michael Frayn of the London Observer, in 1969, there were as many as 200,000 laborers working in the agricultural camps at any given point, and that only a quarter could expect to be granted leave by the end of the year.

[37] In 2021 Cubans who attended an anti-government protest in Matanzas in response to the government's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, energy shortages and the economy, were detained and interrogated in a local facility called "Técnico" run by Cuba's state security services.

In November 1961, Pedro Arias Hernandez, who was stationed at Guanabacoa's Nico Lopez Refinery, was killed when 3 people attacked the state-run business.

"[45] Evidence of usage of the word towards the religious was shown in the same year, when Hispanic Chicago street gang, The Young Lords, referred to the First Spanish United Methodist Church congregation as being a gusano establishment.

[46] In a piece called Intolerancia, Miami Herald writer Roberto Luque Escalona describes his frustration with the term, with it being prevalent among supporters of Castro and often targeted at Cuban entrepreneurs in Florida.

Escalona showed an example of the caricature of la gusanera de Miami, with a stigma being attached to Cubans who moved to Florida and make their own livings under private enterprises, compared to the government-run economy of Cuba.

[47][citation needed] In 1962, the Chilean state-run press accused "Cuban gusanos in Miami" of having planned an attempt on the life of then-president Jorge Alessandri during his stopover in Washington, D.C. on December 10.