Let me reflect for a moment in general terms on how a nation is invented. Yes, I say 'invented', because a nation doesn't just come into being by some natural process but is created through a deliberate project. This imagined community comes about through participation in a common project. That is why Andre Gunder Frank has renamed the national bourgeoisies of the underdeveloped world 'lumpen bourgeoisies'. They end up playing a comprador role and thus are not able to unite the other classes of society behind a common national project.
Cuban nationalism is a class project.
At different points in its century and a quarter struggle for independence, different classes have projected their own vision of the Cuban nation. Since the early 1960's Cuba's revolutionary leadership has put forth a socialist project based on the class interests of Cuba's working people as the definitive national project. It has won broad support from various sectors of Cuban society for this socialist project as the means to achieve national independence with social justice. Social justice has long been a primary component of the Cuban struggle for independence. Under conditions of neo-colonialism the root of social injustices came to be seen as foreign.