For as long as most Cubans have been alive, they have both hoarded and hated a flimsy little booklet of cheap paper that reminds them daily how much they owe their government.

Known as la libreta, or little book, its 20-or-so pages dictate how Cubans can buy limited amounts of basic foods such as rice, beans and chicken at subsidized prices. Resembling wartime rations, the system has been in place since Fidel Castro laid it out on Cuban television on March 26, 1962, little more than a month after President Kennedy announced the complete economic embargo of Cuba that remains in place today.

Read the full Op-Ed, by Anthony DePalma, a journalist who has covered Latin America for close to three decades, in the LA Times here.