The Cuban Association Paradox
Miami is home to one of the most organized Cuban-American communities in the world. Dozens of civic associations, professional groups, veterans organizations, and cultural clubs have operated continuously for 60+ years — some founded by the very exiles who arrived after 1959.
These organizations are serious. They have bylaws. They hold board elections. They collect dues. They run events. By any measure, they are functioning civic institutions.
And yet, when you talk to their presidents and board members, you hear the same story over and over.
The Election Problem
"We had 40 members at the meeting. We needed 51% to ratify the board. But three members said they never received the ballot. Two more said their votes weren't counted. The outgoing president refused to hand over the accounts until the dispute was resolved. We spent six months fighting over an election that should have taken two hours."
This is not an anomaly. It's the standard.
Cuban-American associations in Miami face a specific governance crisis that differs from what most governance technology addresses. It's not a problem of disengagement or apathy — the members care deeply. It's a problem of process fragility: too much depends on informal trust, verbal agreements, and paper systems that create infinite surface area for disputes.
Three Structural Vulnerabilities
1. The eligibility gap. Who is a "member in good standing"? Most bylaws define this in terms of dues payment, but the actual membership list is maintained in a spreadsheet (or someone's head). When elections happen, there's no reliable way to verify who's eligible to vote. Every disputed election starts here.
2. The quorum problem. Cuban associations take quorum seriously — it's in the bylaws. But when meetings are held in person at a community center in Hialeah, the count is always contested. Did you count the people who arrived late? What about the proxy votes? The person counting is often the same person with a stake in the outcome.
3. The handoff gap. When a new board takes over, there's always a period where it's unclear who controls what: the bank account, the membership list, the email address, the social media accounts. This transition period is when most conflicts escalate.
Why This Matters Now
The 1.3 million Cuban-Americans in the United States are one of the most politically and civically active diaspora communities in the world. These organizations coordinate advocacy, cultural events, professional networks, and community support.
But their internal infrastructure hasn't evolved. The email chain is the meeting. The WhatsApp group is the deliberation. The show of hands is the vote. And the person who controls the Gmail account is, in practice, the most powerful member of the organization.
This creates brittleness. When leadership transitions happen — and they always do — the organization is at its most vulnerable. Years of institutional memory can evaporate. Conflicts that were managed informally suddenly have no resolution mechanism.
What the Solution Looks Like
It's not complicated. The organizations that handle this well have three things in common:
These aren't technology problems. They're governance design problems. Technology just makes the solution more reliable and less dependent on the goodwill of a single person.
That's what Eroica is being built to address — starting with the organizations that need it most.
*If you lead or are involved in a Cuban-American association in Miami and want to share your experience with governance challenges, we'd like to hear from you. We're conducting interviews as part of our validation process.*
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