English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
Jeovany Jimenez Vega, 29 November 2016 — The dictator Fidel Castro died last Friday at the age of 90. The extensive news coverage was to be expected. After all, he was both the object of the most romantic, idealized love and the most scathing, caustic hatred. Gone was the man who, over the last six decades, … Continue reading “Fidel Castro: The Tyrant Exits but the Damage Remains / Jeovany Jimenez Vega”
14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 7 November 2016 – The appearance of unusual proposals such as ostrich farming, the production of quail eggs, or the tanning of exotic hides, along with the timid introduction of a banking sector, are some of the most significant novelties in the Portfolio of Opportunities for Foreign Investment launched during the … Continue reading “The Portfolio Of The Arrogant Beggar / 14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar”
Ivan Garcia, 12 September 2016 — In the best of times, when there were two ration books, sixty-year-old retiree Juan Alberto was happy. One was for food, which allotted you half a pound of beef every fifteen days, and one was for “manufactured goods,” which allowed you to buy a pair of domestically produced shoes … Continue reading “Under Cuban Socialism Something Was Always Missing / Iván García”
Dimas Castellanos, 1 August 2016 — On 29 December, 2015 the Cuban president announced before the National Assembly of the People’s Power that “despite the impact of the international economic crisis, exacerbated in our case by the effects of the US blockade, maintained unchanged, and the external financial constraints, which have worsened during the second half of … Continue reading “The Cuban Economy Goes Into A Tailspin / Dimas Castellano”
Cubanet, Miriam Celaya, Havana, 15 July 2016 — Some claim that “nothing ever happens in Cuba.” However, the signals we have been receiving of late indicate otherwise. The price increases at the produce markets since the last quarter of 2015, accompanied by periodic (and frequent) cycles of shortages of food and other basic items in … Continue reading “Cuba in Crisis: the Pressure is Building / Cubanet, Miriam Celaya”
Dimas Castellano, 15 April 2016 — Economic and social stagnation in Cuba are related to the lack of a middle class. To defend this thesis and promote debate, I submit the arguments below. According to Karl Marx, social classes are structured around the ownership of the means of production, while Max Weber saw it from … Continue reading “The Need for a Cuban Middle Class / Dimas Castellano”
Cubanet.org, Luis Cino Alvarez, Havana, 30 May 2016 – The survival of the Castro regime increasingly appears to be in the hands of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR). And not only because of the generals who run some of the most important ministries but also because of the general-businessmen of the Enterprise Administration Group (GAESA). … Continue reading “Soldiers in Business: Bad Deal / Cubanet, Luis Cino Alvarez”
In the 1960s, close to 30,000 young men were detained in forced-labor camps. The mistreatments that took place in these camps, known as Military Units to Aid Production UMAP, in the name of “social hygiene,” testify to the homophobic component of the Cuban Revolution. Abel Sierra Madero, From Letras Libras, January 2016 — Between 1965 … Continue reading “Academies To Produce Macho-Men In Cuba / Abel Sierra Madero”
14ymedio, Lilianne Ruiz, Havana, 23 January 2016 — A cake in the shape of a camera, figures of the newlyweds modeled in sugar, or the Real Madrid team emblem are some of the offerings of a private company that arranges weddings and birthday parties. The company enjoys a growing number of customers in a society … Continue reading “Social Status is in the Cake / 14ymedio, Lilianne Ruiz”
14ymedio, Pedro Acosta, Jovellanos, Cuba, 19 January 2015 – “People here live in the former Gravi factory that is now called Jovel,” says the driver of a bicitaxi (bike-taxi) during a tour of Jovellanos. The industry that made the town famous for its excellent toothpaste now belongs to the joint venture company Suchel, with products … Continue reading “Jovellanos, a Cuban Town That Lives on Nostalgia / 14ymedio, Pedro Acosta”
Iván García, 28 July 2015 — Juliana, a seventy-three-year-old housewife, devotes much of her time to tasks related to feeding her family. “I spend eight hours cleaning rice, picking through beans, which are very dirty, buying bread, scouring produce markets, butcher shops and corner stores to see what is available and making lunch and dinner,” she … Continue reading “Cuba: Living to Eat / Ivan Garcia”
Regina Coyula, from BBC Mundo, 4 June 2015 — One of the most attractive promises of the 1959 Cuban Revolution for a Third World thirsty for paradigms, was, undoubtedly, the prospect of a generous, industrious, learned and well-mannered human being. This New Man would be the result of the new schools that as the cradles … Continue reading “Why Cuba could not build the New Man promised by Che Guevara / Regina Coyula”
See here for background information on this series of posts. Your message to Desiderio has motivated me to add some ideas to this debate, which, to my taste, has left us with an excess of words in the middle of a desert of actions. Compared with the richness of ideas and reflections that have been … Continue reading “Message From Juan Antonio García Borrero / Polemica, The 2007 Intellectual Debate”
14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, 6 April 2015 — Fernando Garcia del Rio was a correspondent in Cuba for the Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia (Barcelona), from 2007 until his expulsion from Cuba in 2011. He has just published a book,“The Island of the Mills,” where he relates the “adventures and misfortunes of a correspondent in Havana in the final … Continue reading “Adventures and misfortunes of a correspondent in Cuba / 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez”
MIAMI, Florida. — In the North Cemetery of Woodlawn Park, in Miami, lie the remains of the former Cuban president Gerardo Machado y Morales (1871-1939), who was the politician who constructed the most works during the Republic, and also was the first who opposed the international influence of communism. To Machado, the new writing of … Continue reading “Gerardo Machado: Was He Really an Ass with Claws? / David Canela Pina”
