Yuma
A foreigner — originally an American; with a capital and an article, "la Yuma" is the United States itself.
Related lesson: Cuban Spanish: A Survival Guide.
Hear it in context
Ese yuma lleva tres semanas en La Habana.
That foreigner has been in Havana three weeks.
Mi hermana se fue pa la Yuma en el noventa y cuatro.
My sister left for the States in ninety-four.
Con los yumas se cobra en fula.
With foreigners you charge in hard currency.
What It Actually Means
A yuma is a foreigner, and la Yuma is the United States. The word covers both a person and a place, and the person it covers has widened over time: for most of the twentieth century a yuma was specifically an American, and today it is any visibly foreign visitor — Canadian, Spanish, German — with the Americans still the prototype. As an adjective it means imported and therefore good: un jean yuma.
Where It Comes From
The account every Cuban gives is the 1957 western 3:10 to Yuma, released on the island as El tren de las 3:10 a Yuma and popular enough that the town’s name became shorthand for the whole country. The timeline fits and no better candidate exists, but it cannot be documented, so it is a good story rather than a proven etymology. Occasional alternatives derive it from a slurred pronunciation of “United States”; they are less repeated and no better evidenced.
How Natives Use It
Neutrally, in the third person, and constantly in any part of the island where tourism reaches. Note how the meaning tracked the economy: before 1990 a yuma was a rarity and a political awkwardness; after the Special Period opened the country to tourism and hard currency, the word became commercial — a yuma is a person who pays in fula, and irse pa la Yuma became the standard phrase for emigrating. The same fifteen years turned yuma from a nationality into a category of customer.
Common Pitfall
Being called a yuma is not an insult, but do not mistake it for an endearment either: it marks you as a source of currency, and the prices attached to you may follow. Do not use it of yourself in the hope of blending in — a foreigner announcing soy yuma is doing the linguistic equivalent of wearing the hat. And keep it inside Cuba: elsewhere in the Caribbean it means nothing at all, while in the United States Yuma is simply a town in Arizona.