English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
14ymedio, Havana, 1 May 2018 — Unlike previous years, the May Day parade in Havana’s Plaza of the Revolution was held without the crowds brought from the rest of the country. Only the capital city’s inhabitants participated while the heads of the other provinces organized their own events. The lack of resources and, perhaps, the premiere … Continue reading “May Day With a New President, Fewer Resources and Reggaeton”
14ymedio, 23 January 2018 — It’s two o’clock in the morning and on San Carlos Street in Cienfuegos all you can hear are the crickets. For Jesús, it’s a late night like any other. He retired from his job as a bus driver almost a decade ago, and at 75 he has enough energy to take … Continue reading “"I’ll Die As I Lived: Standing in Line"”
Juan Juan Almeida, 30 August 2017 — He was born on April 20, 1960. Miguel Mario Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, a former university professor and first vice-president of the Council of State and Council of Ministers of the Republic of Cuba, is an “architect” of limited inventiveness and little ingenuity, a simple leader fashioned by political necessity. … Continue reading “Miguel Diaz-Canel, Vice-President on Paper / Juan Juan Almeida”
Cubanet, 4 April 2017, Havana, Luis Cino Álvarez — A friend was telling me, horrified, that last Friday at the Hard Rock Café in Hollywood Beach, Florida, Cuban reggaetoneros [musicians who perform the musical genre of Reggaeton]–from the Island and from ‘over there’, no way to tell anymore what with all the going and coming–put … Continue reading “Castro Conquers Miami With Cannon Blasts / Luis Cino Alvarez”
Juan Juan Almeida, 17February 2017 — After two years and eight months of prolonged struggle, the inconclastic Santiago de Cuba rapper Henry Laso Martinez, known as “El Encuyé,” won the first round in a battle against corrupt officials in charge of the country’s most powerful musical organization, the Cuban Institute of Music. In the summer of … Continue reading “A Cuban Rapper Rebels against a Corrupt Bureaucracy and Wins / Juan Juan Almeida”
Ernesto Hernández Busto, Penultimos Días, 13 September 2016 — It seems that in Cuba one can now talk about UMAP, the notorious Military Units to Aid Production (in Spanish: Unidades Militares de Ayuda a la Producción), internment and forced labor camps where the Cuban government imprisoned homosexuals, the religious, intellectuals, dissidents and any other “suspicious … Continue reading “UMAP: Selective Memory”
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”
Somos+, Pedro Lago Segura, 8 October 2015 — If you believe you can change me from your position of power, you don’t know where the real power lies. And if you think that with that sabre-rattling you prevent my voice from being heard by others or me from hearing others’ voices, you are not free in spirit … Continue reading “A Message From my Faith to the State Security Authority / Somos+”
I’m going to start gathering my posts from other sites here, because I’m writing very little these days and have half-abandoned my blog. In addition to this concert, I attended the one by Fito Paez and enjoyed it even more than this one. However, Fito came (to Cuba) two years ago, while Pancho had stopped … Continue reading “The Long Tour of Pancho Cespedes / Regina Coyula”
When it comes to Gabriel García José de la Concordia Márquez (Aracataca, Colombia, 1927) myth and reality merge. The first time he heard the name Fidel Castro, Gabo believed, was in the Latin Quarter in Paris, in 1955.
PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION How did it occur to us to go to a concert by Pablo Milanes to ask for the liberation of Gorki? That is something that has the trademark of the spontaneous and the haste of that which can not be postponed or thought better of. Ciro, Claudia and I talked about … Continue reading “Brief chronology of a victory (Freeing Gorki “Last Time”) / Yoani Sanchez”
Ask any Cuban child the question: “What are the names of the Three Kings?” I still don’t even know them myself. I always forget one of them. Or pronounce their names badly. Of course, ignorance is far preferable to insanity. Or rather, to the audacity with which I’ve heard more than one young kid (and … Continue reading “Three Kings Day in Revolutionary Cuba / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo”
For Josefina, a 71 year-old housewife and south-of-Havana local, first comes Jesus Christ then Mandela. She’d been cooking supper when the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize winner’s death broke through on the radio. “Among books set by my bedside, I have a biography of Mandela which I’ve read three times. Jesus Christ, Mandela and Martí are … Continue reading “All Pay Homage to Mandela in Cuba / Ivan Garcia”
Photo: Luis Felipe Rojas This is the question many are asking after the events at the “Protestdrome,” where the Cuban musician Roberto Carcassés let loose with good things. The first thing that happens in these cases is a silence that is scary … the repressed and repressor (for different reasons). Although they haven’t taken physical … Continue reading “Where is Robertico? / Luis Felipe Rojas”
Poster from http://www.juventudrebelde.cu/ The annual carrying on over the victory of Playa Giron (Bay of Pigs) happened this fourth month, with the national media playing it down. The elections in Venezuela were the priority of the Cuban government after the physical death of Hugo Chavez and it seems that a matter of so much preoccupation … Continue reading “Giron (Bay of Pigs), Sara and Forgetting / Rosa Maria Rodriguez”
