"Such sentiments exemplified the long-standing impasse in Cubans' and Americans' understanding of their shared history.  And the two interpretations could not have been more at odds.  What Americans saw as an act of selfless benevolence, Cubans saw as an act of colonial imposition.  That antagonism mattered now more than ever, for it was precisely the colonial relationship between the United States and Cuba that the revolution was beginning to challenge.  Unable to perceive that relationship as a colonial one, Americans were at a loss to understand what was happening in Cuba and quick to perceive all of it as naive ingratitude, at best, and outright communism, at worst."