English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 1 December 2016 – Timidly, without much noise or fuss, Havanans are shaking off the national mourning decreed for Cuba, as of last Saturday, for the death of Fidel Castro. Despite cultural activities having been cancelled, the closed theaters and the bars without alcohol, the first Christmas decorations are beginning to … Continue reading “Lights After The Ashes / 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez”
14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Havana 27 November 2016 – Few people were watching official television at that hour. The news of Fidel Castro’s death began to spread through the night on Friday by phone, as information that was vague and imprecise. “Again?” my mother asked when I called her. Born in 1957, this Havanan of nearly … Continue reading “Cuba Survives Fidel Castro / 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez”
14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Generation Y, Havana, 20 November 2016 — Tiredness, in the voice of the friend who calls and asks when they are going to mute the sirens that have been going off since morning. Exhaustion, in the neighbor who couldn’t get home in time after work because traffic was diverted due to military … Continue reading “Enough With the War Games / 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez”
14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 8 November 2016 – On Tuesday a new era opens for the United States and for the rest of the nations on the planet, while for Cuba a period of great opportunities will end, one that the Plaza of the Revolution’s stubbornness did not use to its advantage. The normalization of … Continue reading “End of the Obama Era: Valuable Time Lost / 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez”
14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 24 October 2016 — Several generations of Cubans have grown up watching cartoons based on the adventures of Elpidio Valdés. A Mambí – Cuban freedom fighter – friendly and popular, the character has starred in many popular sayings and some jokes repeated ad nauseam. Willing to annihilate the Spaniards with a slash … Continue reading “The Old Age of Elpidio Valdés / 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez”
14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Panama, 23 October 2016 — If anything deserves to be called “tropical” it is the Darien jungle in the south of Panama. Humidity, mosquitoes and heat makes moving within the dense vegetation of the area a superhuman task. Through the dense jungle extends one of the most dangerous migratory routes of the world. A Mediterranean … Continue reading “Panama’s Darien Gap, a Mediterranean Without Boats or Headlines / 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez”
14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Generation Y, 14 October 2016 – Authoritarians aren’t very given to calm. They need the citizens to feel widespread discomfort to be able to govern them with ease. This scenario of fears has sharpened recently in Cuba, where the government has strengthened or opened new fronts against the opposition, against the self-employed, … Continue reading “Information as Treason / 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez”
14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Guatemala, 12 October 2016 – This will be the story of at least three stages my nation has lived through. Three moments when the young amassed hopes, collected frustrations and used their ingenuity to overcome obstacles along the way. Without this renewing energy and a capacity to defy the established, we would … Continue reading “The Grandchildren Of The Revolution Aspire To A Normal Life With Neither Utopia Nor Frustration / 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez”
14ymedio, Generation Y, Yoani Sanchez, 27 September 2016 – The woman approaches without fear or hesitation. “How can my son apply for one of the scholarships mentioned on television?” she asks me abruptly. It takes me a few seconds to realize what she’s talking about, for the images to come to mind of young Cuban … Continue reading “Scholarships, Fears And Attractions / 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez”
14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 25 September 2016 – They were born at the time when Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose was published, when thousands of Cubans were escaping the island through the Port of Mariel, and when a fan murdered John Lennon in New York. They are the millennials, who became adults with the turn of … Continue reading “Latin America, Land of the ‘Millennials’ / 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez”
14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 6 September 2016 – The word made me smile. I read Kaffeeweißer – coffee whitener – on the tiny envelopes near the coffee machine in a Berlin hotel, that promised to “whiten” that dark beverage that was relieving my jetlag. I had forgotten how direct and powerful the German language can be. … Continue reading “‘Kaputt’: The Dreams of a Goethe Institute in Havana / 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez”
14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez/Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 3 September 2016 — If you are considering sending a text message to a friend to wish him a “happy coexistence” with his family or to suggest that he not give in to “the dictatorship of work,” it is very likely that the phrase will never reach its destination. A filter … Continue reading “Cubacel Censors Texts With The Words “Democracy” Or “Hunger Strike” / 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Reinaldo Escobar”
14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 2 September 2016 – At the dining room table the grandparents are playing with their two granddaughters. They ask them what they would ask the genie for if they happened to stumble on a magic lamp in the corner. “I want a plate full of chicken and French fries,” the littlest one … Continue reading “Thinking With Our Stomachs / 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez”
See also: JetBlue Ends Abusive Prices of Charter Flights to Cuba / 14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar
14ymedio, Generation Y, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 31 August 2016 – In the nineties, this student was one of the most militant in his university classroom, until he managed to get a fellowship in Spain, and today he writes asking me, “Why do you put up with so much and not rebel?” From a rabid militant … Continue reading “Extremist Today, Democrat Tomorrow / 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez”
