English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
What Jimmy Carter can’t change in Cuba Thirty years after he left the White House and nine years since his only previous visit to Cuba, Jimmy Carter arrived in Havana last week, wearing the white guayabera that would serve as his uniform during a three-day visit to our island. Watching on television, I recalled how … Continue reading “Yoani’s Op-Ed in the Washington Post / Yoani Sánchez”
Former President Jimmy Carter has just completed a new visit to Havana and an air of expectation lingers among some alternative sectors of society. Carter is tied, without a doubt to several processes of movement of the official strategic policies that have had repercussions on the Island. In the late 70’s, during his presidency, Carter … Continue reading “Jimmy Carter in Havana / Miriam Celaya”
The first time I heard Jimmy Carter was in 2002. My memories are hazy but one moment sticks in my mind from his speech at the University of Havana’s Great Hall. It still makes me laugh to remember Hassan Perez — who at the time hadn’t yet been ousted and was still heading up the … Continue reading “My Meeting With Jimmy Carter / Claudia Cadelo”
On the night of March 17th, 2003, my mind was somewhere else. I did not have a single cent in my pocket and I had to buy vitamin enriched milk formula (which at the time cost 4 dollars) for my daughter Melany, who was only a mere one and a half months old. The excessive … Continue reading “One Spring I’ll Never Forget / Iván García”
In recent months, when the economic crisis and the crisis in values dramatically coincide in their most profound moment, people — coalescing around an idea that is not a political movement, nor one of parties or opposition political organizations — are preparing documents with alternative or complementary options to ease the crisis, without discarding the … Continue reading “Contributions to the Battle of Ideas / Regina Coyula”
There is no doubt the dissidence on the island is looking for a space. The document: A Future for Cuba. Issued on December 2, it is counter-proposals to the government’s measures — a balanced document that fits this time in Cuba — from a group of ten people, among them the economist Martha Beatriz Roque … Continue reading “The Time of the Cuban Opposition / Iván García”
It had already been leaked to Cuban dissidents that the journalist and psychologist Guillermo Fariñas enjoyed a big lead in the voting for the 2010 Sakharov Prize. Among the local opposition the distinction has received more applause than criticism. Still, ‘Coco’ — as we call him — was surprised and the phone in his house … Continue reading “Expected Prize / Iván García”
Mariela Castro Espin, 48, Director of the National Center for Sex Education and one of the four children president Raul Castro had with the engineer Vilma Espin, is probably better known overseas than in Cuba. Her conferences and interviews usually receive good press coverage in the nations she visits. When the island launched a campaign … Continue reading “Cuba: Homophobia is Not Eliminated With Laws / Laritza Diversent”
Placetas, July 19th 2010. When, in April 2007, I was released after 17 very long and difficult years of captivity, I did not know that I was to face a much more difficult battle than the one I was in before. Assimilating into civil protest would mean dealing with numerous different personalities, temperaments, points of … Continue reading “The Same People as Always and With Identical Methods”
Click image to be taken to video on Youtube On July 20th, political prisoner of conscience Dr. Oscar Elías Biscet González will turn 49 years of age. On that day we wanted to publish a text remembering him. Because Biscet and his wife Elsa Morejon also lived in the Lawton neighbrohood, one of the highest … Continue reading “Oscar Elías Biscet, Resident of Lawton”
The evening of March 17 my mind was elsewhere. I didn’t have a cent in my pocket and I had to buy a vitamin-filled milk complex, which at the time cost 4 dollars, for my daughter Melany, who was barely a month and a half old. The baby’s voracious appetite forced the pediatrician to order the vitamin-filled … Continue reading “How I Survived The Black Spring”
14ymedio, Madrid, 29 March 2023 — The 123 Cuban teachers who will train teachers in Honduras will cost that country approximately 406 dollars a month, according to the Honduran newspaper El Heraldo on Wednesday in an article in which several analysts describe the investment on the part of one of the poorest countries on the … Continue reading “‘It’s Not for Solidarity That Cuba Sells Its Expensive Teacher Program to Honduras’”
14ymedio, Havana, 8 March 2023 — Cuban singer and songwriter Leoni Torres released on his digital platforms the video clip Corazón roto [Broken Heart], one of the songs that will be part of his next mini album, which will be premiered at the end of April. The singer collaborated with Raúl del Sol, Ángel Pututi, … Continue reading “Cuban Singer Leoni Torres Releases ‘Corazon Roto’, Salsa With an ‘Urban Touch’”
EFE (via 14ymedio), Miami, 2 June 2022 — Cuba registered 185 public protests in May, 108 less than in the previous month, according to the report of the Cuban Observatory of Conflicts (OCC) released this Wednesday. The report ties this “decrease” with the entry into force of the Island’s new Penal Code, with its “greater … Continue reading “Decrease of Protests in Cuba Coincides with Approval of the New Penal Code”
14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, November 2, 2021 — The dictatorship’s most frequently recurring formula to impede or interfere with changes that do not align with their interests has been to incarcerate. They’ve raised the bar in two ways: first, by presenting as apocalyptic the results of anything they consider a “return to the past,” and … Continue reading “A Brief Chronology of Disregard and Intolerance in Cuba”
