Cuba is a small island nation that occupies a large, perhaps even outsized, place in the American imagination. Cut off by embargo from the United States since 1961, Cuba is as much a memory and an idea to Americans as it is a concrete place. Cubans are aware of this. They know that in many ways the peculiarities and hardships of their lives are, in the eyes of outsiders, scenery. And what scenes in particular do Cubans think we see? We asked Cuban photographer Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo to answer the question visually. The result was a remarkable slideshow of eighteen photographs that we present in our Glimpses series today.

*Photos by Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo.