Portraits of sorrow and joy: Faces of Cuba in new reader photo gallery

The people are often the best part of Cuba, Alice Short, an assistant managing editor for the Los Angeles Times, said of recent her trip to the island nation.

Short and veteran travel writer Catherine Watson described their encounters in a series of videos and stories. President Obama earlier this year eased travel restrictions to the island nation, and in late May, Cuba was removed from a list of state sponsors of international terror.

Times Travel readers have shown no hesitation about traveling to Cuba, both before and after the sanctions were eased, as evidenced by the hundreds of photos they submitted.

Some ran with the package of stories on their journeys, but we were overwhelmed with submissions so we continue to post them.

Our latest additions to the gallery focus on the faces of Cuba--street sweepers, cashiers, tobacco farmers, young and old, captured with one click of the camera button.

Many of our readers found Cubans’ positive attitudes and enthusiasm in the face of scarcity and hardship admirable and humbling.

Take a look at these faces; they make the country what it is--a vibrant, amazing, difficult, sorrowful, joyful place, and each tells a story. As Shakespeare wrote in “Macbeth,” “Your face...is as a book where men may read strange matters.”

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