Guantánamo base functions as a self-contained American town

Evidence

From the hilltop you can also faintly see two nearby Cuban towns, but most everywhere else on base it’s easy to forget you’re in Cuba. What base residents call “downtown,” for example, could be almost anywhere in the United States—or at another of the hundreds of U.S. military bases spread around the globe, which often resemble self-contained American towns. The downtown is where you find the commissary and the Navy’s version of the post exchange, or PX—the shopping facility present on U.S. military bases worldwide. Surrounded by plentiful parking, the commissary and exchange feel like a Walmart, full of clothing and consumer electronics, furniture, automotive products, and groceries. At Guantánamo, the base souvenir shop is one of the few reminders of where you really are. There, along with U.S. Naval Station Guantánamo Bay postcards and mugs, you can buy a T-shirt bearing the words DETAINEE OPERATIONS. — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 8

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to ‘Grafting & Growth’ article’s idea of built environments as worldbuilding — bases as transplanted American suburbia.