English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
Orlando Zapata Tamayo Luis Felipe Rojas — I published this post a few days after that needless death. Now I again denounce the death and express the same ideas about it. It’s my homage to my brother, Orlando Zapata Tamayo. I am still experiencing the pain caused by that avoidable death, and I feel impotent … Continue reading “Seven Steps to Kill Orlando Zapata Tamayo / Luis Felipe Rojas”
Iván García, 4 February 2015 — For the prolific and noteworthy Cuban composer, Jorge Luis Piloto Alsar, born in the winter of 1955 in Cárdenas in the town of Matanzas, some 145 kilometers north of Havana, not in his wildest dreams could he have imagined that his songs would achieve international fame. Let’s get into … Continue reading “Seven Hours with Jorge Luis Piloto in Miami / Ivan Garcia”
14ymedio, Orlando Palma, Havana, 9 February 2014 – “The flour trail is easy to follow,” says a retired baker whose hands, for more than five years now, haven’t mixed ingredients nor added leavening to a dough. “I left it all behind, because the administrator of the bakery where I worked changed every six months and … Continue reading “Follow the Trail of Flour / 14ymedio, Orlando Palma”
The photographer’s work was the pretext that Havana used to suspend negotiations with the European Union 14ymedio, Ernesto Hernandez, Miami, 23 January 2015 — Marius Jovaiša is a Lithuanian photographer, 41, who has spent much of the last five years taking photos of Cuba from a perspective never before seen: from above. He started the … Continue reading ““This is your country, and no regime can take it from you” / 14ymedio”
Warning: The regime in Havana has prepared a new legal trap for Ángel. As is already public knowledge, Ángel Santiesteban has been held in a military border patrol base in Jaimanitas since August 13. He was placed there after several days of detention in the Acosta Police Station, following his surrender after having taken 5 of the … Continue reading “If it were up to them, they’d shoot me / Angel Santiesteban”
14ymedio, Orlando Palma, Havana, 8 January 2015 – The seizure in 2014 of close to 40 tons of drugs in Cuban ports and airports belies the old official line that for decades presented narco-trafficking as a foreign phenomenon, a characteristic of the “corrupt capitalist world.” The official press boasted that the Island was not used … Continue reading “Drug Consumption Increases in Cuba / 14ymedio, ORLANDO PALMA”
I understand the discontent of an important sector of Cubans in exile and within the internal dissidence. On 17 November, just one month before the momentous diplomatic turn of events between Cuba and the United States, I was charring in Brickell, Miami, with a gentleman who explained to me his reasons for hating the Castro … Continue reading “Obama’s new policy toward Cuba could mark the end of the olive-green autocracy / Ivan Garcia”
14ymedio, Havana, 5 January 2015 — According to its monthly report, during the month of December the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and reconciliation (CCDHRN) registered at least 489 arbitrary arrests for political reasons, closing out 2014 with at least 8,899 arrests for the year.
14ymedio, Havana, 5 January 2014 – This Monday, the Cuban artist Tania Bruguera returned the National Culture Award (Distinción por la Cultura Nacional) she received in 2002, and decided to renounce her membership in the National Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC). “I can not receive recognition from, nor be part of, an … Continue reading “Tania Bruguera leaves UNEAC and returns her National Culture Award / 14ymedio”
THE COPY-PASTE OF REVOLUTIOPHRENIA Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo Before Facebook, I met Eliécer Jiménez only once, in an alternative cultural debate in Camagüey, three years ago. He was somewhat shy, but resolute in his urge to be creative in cinematographic terms. No money, no contacts, no political pedigree. A dreamer in a province that looked … Continue reading “Entropy of Eliecer Jimenez at Brown University / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo”
Granting Visas to those younger than 18 years old during the School Year By Lic Dora Mesa Crespo* and Lic. Odalina Guerrero Lara* (Mesa Crespo is the Coordinator of the Cuban Association for the Development of Child Education (CADCE), an NGO.) (Guerrero Lara is an attorney with the NGO Cuban Legal Association) The obligation to … Continue reading “Granting the Cuban Child the Ability to Travel / Dora Leonor Mesa”
Leaders of the opposition call Obama’s reconciliation with the Cuban government a “betrayal” during a press conference in Havana Cubanet, Ernesto García Díaz, Havana, 18 December 2014 — From the headquarters of the Estado de SATS project in Miramar, on Wednesday afternoon (12/17/14), Cuban opposition leaders held a press conference for national and international media, … Continue reading “We Shall Fight to the End for the Liberty of Cuba / Cubanet, Ernesto Garcia Diaz”
The urban centers have been submitted to systematic closure since 1973, although the worse period has been under the Government of Raul Castro. In 2012, in the Las Tunas town of Majibacoa, the People’s Power delegate Sirley Avila Leon put a face on a grave national problem: the constant reduction of schools on the part … Continue reading “In Cuba There are Fewer Rural Schools Than in 1958 / Dora Leonor Mesa”
If someone told you would receive a monthly salary of 350 pesos, the equivalent of $15, for a job as a nighttime security guard at a dilapidated school in a country where credit does not exist and that you would need hard currency — currency in which the state does not pay you — to … Continue reading “How Cubans Make Ends Meet: What New York Times Editorials Miss* / Ivan Garcia”
It is a paradox that on Friday, November 7, the 151st anniversary of the death of a singer of innocence and virtue, the Matanzas poet Jose Jacinto Milanes, at the People’s Court of Cardenas in the same province of Matanzas on the same day two Cuban citizens are awaiting sentencing — Rolando Cruz (age 46) … Continue reading “Cuba: Access to WiFi or When Ingenuity is Penalized / Juan Juan Almeida”