English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
14ymedio, Havana / Camagüey | 23 February 2019 — Clown performances promoting a Yes vote on the referendum, long lines to buy food and a general apathy about voting on the new constitution shape the scene on Saturday in Cuba, a few hours before the polling places open, where government officials have more at stake than a new … Continue reading “Apathy in the Streets and Unease in the Cuban Government”
14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 11 August 2018 — She is 20 years old and has had four abortions. This young Cuban woman, whom I will call Aimara to avoid revealing her identity, is not an isolated case. The interruption of pregnancy is so frequent among the Island’s women that is difficult to find one that has not … Continue reading “Abortion, an Inflammatory Topic in Latin America”
14ymedio (with information from agencies), Zaragoza, 12 January 2018 – Two women from Spain who traveled to Cuba together and suffered numerous insect bites were diagnosed with Zika, according to an announcement on Thursday from the Aragón Government. Three days after their return from the island, the women, age 36 and 65, went to a … Continue reading “Two Spanish Women Diagnosed With Zika After Trip To Cuba”
14ymedio, Mario Penton, Miami, 7 December 2017 — Ernesto Machado will never forget a cold morning in 1968 at José Martí airport in Havana. A migration officer removed her parents’ gold wedding rings while annulling her passport. “This is the property of the revolutionary government,” the woman dressed as a soldier told her, before she left Cuba to … Continue reading “Cuban Customs Can’t Keep Up With Cuban Ingenuity”
This is the second part of the testimony of a Cuban who has made the dangerous trip from Guatemala to the United State. Part 1 is here 14ymedio, Mario J. Penton Martinez, Guatemala/Mexico Border, 17 November 2015 — The days pass slowly in the vicinity of the border Suchiate River. Guatemala, right now, is mourning the death of … Continue reading “Chronicle of a Cuban “Rafter” on Foot (Part 2 of 3) / 14ymedio, Mario J. Martinez Penton”
14ymedio, Havana, 9 June 2015 – This coming June 28 Havana’s centrally located Prado will again be the scene of the Gay Pride Walk organized each year by the independent LGTBI community. The call has been launched by several independent groups, among them the projects Puertas Abiertas (Open Doors), Shui Tuix, the Foundation for LGBTI rights, … Continue reading “Independent Groups to Hold Gay Pride Walk / 14ymedio”
14ymedio, Havana, 13 February 2015 — A team of researchers from the Catholic University of Leuven (Belgium) and the Pedro Kouri Institute of Tropical Medicine in Havana have discovered a new strain of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) present on the island, according to a study published in the scientific journal scientific EBioMedicine. This variant, native … Continue reading “Scientists Find a More Aggressive Variant of HIV in Cuba / 14ymedio”
In tribute to El Caso de Sandra (The Sandra Case) by Luis Manuel García Méndez 14ymedio, Lilianne Ruiz, Havana, 30 January 2015 — A farmer wakes up before dawn to brand with a burning iron the last cow he has left. It’s a ritual of pain and possession. A tourist brands a young person in … Continue reading “The ‘Sandor Case’ / 14ymedio, Lilianne Ruiz”
Nuria retired last year and this month she traveled to Miami, where her sisters live. On returning to the Island she showed 14ymedio what she brought home in her suitcase. Let’s take a look at what she threw in her bags with brief comments from her about why she chose each product. Two bottle of … Continue reading “What Does a Cuban Bring Home in Her Suitcase? / 14ymedio”
That Cuba is increasingly like Macondo, the mythical village of the novel One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, no one doubts. Nor that our official journalism is a faithful reflection of it. The two major government newspapers echo each other, the same day, each one dedicating a complete page of the eight they … Continue reading “Beyond All Doubt / Fernando Damaso”
In Havana, the good medical specialists always have at hand two kinds of treatment for their patients. “If it is a person with family abroad or of high purchasing power, I propose that he go to the international pharmacy to buy the medications in foreign currency because they are of higher quality and more effective. … Continue reading “Cuba: The Tricks of the Embargo / Ivan Garcia”
Silvia and State Security Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo They arrested her twice, both times violently. All for walking at my side in the streets of a Havana almost at the point of the Cadaver-in-Chief of Fidel Castro. She’s called Silvia. My Silvia. They threw her out of her first job as a dentist, in the … Continue reading “SILVIA CORBELLE BATISTA / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo”
HAVANA, Cuba – Yazmín doesn’t do the street. Nor does she acknowledge exercising the oldest profession in the world. She navigates the Internet for 10 CUC an hour, in some Havana hotel with this service. She visits websites to find a partner: cibercupido.com, mejoramor.com, and,among others, the Cuban website revolico.com, in the Jobs section. The … Continue reading ““No One Treats Me Like a Prostitute” / Lilianne Ruiz”
HAVANA, Cuba, August, www.cubanet.org — Perhaps at the moment the reader reads this, it will have been twenty years since the beginning of the Special Period, the major event to befall Cuban history in the last century. It began in August of 1993 when the former secretary of the Council of Ministers, Carlos Lage, announced … Continue reading “The Ground Soy Generation Remembers / Frank Correa”
According to Wikipedia, the Chinese in Cuba are the most prominent and largest Asian community settled on the island. History records that on June 3, 1847 the Spanish brig “Oquendo” landed the first 200 Chinese laborers from the port of Amoy; although long before the “Oquendo” there were already Chinese in Cuba who had arrived … Continue reading “Chinese with Cuban Identities on the Way to the U.S. / Juan Juan Almeida”
