HAVANA — The diplomatic thaw between the United States and Cuba has been accompanied by an unexpected outburst of flag-waving here — of the American flag.

The Stars and Stripes has been spotted on apartment buildings and bicycle taxis. It splays across T-shirts and bandannas. On tight spandex pants, its pattern swirls around many a leg. Even a few car air fresheners bear its likeness (with a vanilla scent).

"I am seeing things in Cuba I thought I would never see," said one middle-age man, ogling a young woman's nearly painted-on flag pants.

The woman, who declined to give her name, wary of talking about the symbol of a nation still at odds with Cuba on many issues, said the pants were a gift from a friend who knew how much she enjoyed American pop culture.

"It's just fashion," she said, rushing to make something clear in a country where any overt opposition to the government can bring scrutiny, or worse: "It isn't a statement."

Of course, there is one place the flag is not yet popping up: in front of the American diplomatic outpost here, known as the "interests section," which used to be the embassy until relations between the countries broke in 1961.

After announcing in December that they intended to move toward restoring diplomatic ties, Washington and Havana are still talking about when and how to reopen embassies.

At a regional summit meeting last weekend in Panama, President Obama and President Raúl Castro held the first sit-down meeting between leaders of the countries since the Cuban Revolution. (The meeting happened without the presence of their flags.)

Diplomats on both sides have said that when the time comes, they expect to fly their flags at their diplomatic missions. Workers in recent weeks have refurbished the American flagpole outside the interests section, on the main seafront boulevard, in anticipation of Old Glory's waving there for the first time in more than five decades.

Yet no matter what the diplomats are doing, the fact that so many people are wearing their feelings literally on their sleeves shows how Cubans never lost their love for Americana, despite a contentious trade embargo and years of political hostility.