English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
Whether the glass looks half full or half empty is the best way of describing the consumption of drugs in Cuba. Let’s make a trip through different neighborhoods of Havana in which marijuana, psychotropics and different kinds of cocaine are sold and consumed. Emilio has been smoking marijuana since age 13. “My father told me, if … Continue reading “Drugs in Cuba: They Exist / Ivan Garcia”
Let’s take a look at government predictions. According to state technocrats, Cuba’s GDP will grow 3.7% in 2013. Spokesmen for General Raul Castro claim that, in spite of an economic crisis affecting half the world, social services will remain at 2012 levels. The “good news” keeps on coming from the Palace of the Revolution. The … Continue reading “Cuba 2013; A Cautious Forecast / Ivan Garcia #Cuba”
A white-skinned off-duty law enforcement officer, having a drink, justifies the Cuban police force’s racist archetype that turns a black or mixed-raced person into a presumed criminal with the old refrain he learned from his mother, “All blacks are not thieves but all thieves are black.” The guy is not a bad person. He’s a … Continue reading “Being Black in Cuba / Iván García”
The First National Conference of the Communist Party of Cuba, recently held on January 28th and 29th, left a permanent bittersweet taste. First Secretary Raul Castro said that one of its objectives was to, “promote greater democracy in our society, starting with an example within the ranks of the Party.” In this light, any person … Continue reading “The Ex-Militant Requests the Floor / Jeovany Jimenez Vega”
Foreign and domestic news pours forth in Cuba with extensive coverage of the international and national press; academic, intellectual, social, and cultural events, contests, speeches and appearances: all manipulated, at the convenience of the powers-that-be with a huge media coverage. Almost simultaneously the authorities unleash a wave of repression that stirs concern and solidarity. So … Continue reading “The Long Arm of Zorro”
A new and beautiful restaurant in Nuevo Vedado, located on 35th street between La Torre and 24th Street. One Day, its owner, a native of India, like the Genoan Admiral, discovered this little island and stayed, enchanted by her, came from over there to meet and fall in love with a beautiful creole woman. Once married, … Continue reading “A History of the Bollywood Restaurant / Rebeca Monzo”
Nobody can deny the foundational importance of October 10, 1868 for the Cuban nation. Though twenty years before Narciso Lopez had, for the first time, unfurled the national flag calling for combat against the oppressor, though his voice was not listened to then, the opposite occurred in Yara, when Cubans, conscious of their nationhood, responded … Continue reading “Another Look at the Grito de Yara* / Fernando Dámaso”
On September 28, 1960, while homemade bombs and firecrackers were being detonated by his political opponents, an angry Fidel Castro created the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR). From the balcony of the north wing of the Presidential Palace, the guerrilla commander, recently returned from a tour of New York, argued the need … Continue reading “CDR, Castro’s Popular Weapon / Iván García”
“Twenty dollars, Sir,” he answered me, in fractured English. A diaphanous but nervous smile softened his facial features. More than black his skin was almost purple, and he was of an indeterminate age: he could have been fifty, or all of a hundred. I accepted his price, got in with him, and asked him to … Continue reading “Memory Among the Rubble / Ernesto Morales Licea”
Last July 31st, Raul Castro completed his first five years in charge of Cuba’s destiny. Unlike Fidel, he speaks little and isn’t too inclined to self-adulation. He knows the Cuban economic model is a fiasco and bets on a miracle. The old conspirator, now president of the Republic, has drawn his master plan. It relies … Continue reading “Raul Castro: Five Years in Power / Iván García”
MY POST FOR 2025… Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo The future is so distant. Such a lie that we are going to live it. Such a panic. Such a coward. That. It’s better to inhabit it a bit in writing just now, when no one can see or hear us at the level of the Cuban … Continue reading “#TWITTHELP / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo”
I. A Happy World China, North Korea and Cuba, in that order, are the three happiest nations on the planet. In the “Top Five” they are followed by Iran in the 4th position, and Venezuela, number 5. The most agonizingly unhappy of all countries is the United States, which scored just three points out of … Continue reading “Global Bestiary / Ernesto Morales Licea”
Havana is a sort of forbidden city for people from deep inside Cuba. By Decree 217, effective April 22, 1997, residing in the country’s capital is a complicated pattern of bureaucratic procedures and hours of queues at central administration. You have to meet a lot of requirements to be approved to move to the city. … Continue reading “Illegal Cubans in Havana / Iván García”
My mother just closed the business that fed the better part of my family in Cuba over the last decade. The reason: the country’s new plan of economic recovery. A little over ten years ago, someone who shares my blood and who had an immense business vision, became a pioneer in a particular business: Renting … Continue reading “Investors’ Incentives… Cuban Style / Ernesto Morales Licea”
In every self-respecting city there is a Chinatown. Havana is one of those. The Chinese are the largest population on the planet. If to the 1.3 billion people living in mainland China we added those scattered around half the world, the figure may exceed 1.5 billion. They arrived in Cuba in the mid 19th century, fleeing … Continue reading “The Chinatown of Havana / Iván García”
