MPW.68 / 2016 Cuba's Next Generation by Timothy Tai
Photographer
Timothy Tai St. Louis, Mo.

Team Chapnick

Story Summary

For teenagers in a town the size of Cuba, finding a cure for boredom requires some improvisation. Late nights hanging out in their trucks, fast food runs and off-roading misadventures have made 16-year-old J.C. McGinnis’s crew of friends into a second family of sorts. Soon, J.C. will have to decide whether to leave Cuba for college or the military, or find other work, despite having little interest in the family mill, which his great-grandfather founded. For now, though, J.C. is just a typical teenager — the next generation of Cuba, where life “could be better but I like it how it is,” he said.