English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
At the intersection of Acosta Avenue and Calzada 10th of October, around 11 pm, a police van detained a group of people who carried bookbags or handbags. Inside the vehicle there were seven young black men who were detained and handcuffed. With blank stares, they clearly questioned the motives for their detentions. Lieutenant Delfin Carneado … Continue reading “Being Black in Cuba”
It was an ordeal to go from La Vibora, my neighborhood, to Miramar, where Ricardo González Alfonso lived. There were only two options: catch Route 69, which could take two or three hours. Or the 100, with more buses, but with many more passengers, for its extensive run. The 69 stops near Ricardo’s house. But … Continue reading “Ricardo’s Smile”
It is not known with certainty the number of Cubans that have been held in prison during all these years of a revolution that was made for “the good of all”. Many harrowing stories have yet to be told. For Alberto Díaz (let’s call him) his incarceration was a real torment. A nightmare that he will never … Continue reading “An Inmate Tells His Story”
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”
For Yamil Domínguez Ramos, 37 years old, October 13, 2007 was an unlucky day. Yamil, a Cuban man who emigrated in 2000 to the United States and who has been a U.S. citizen since 2003, is serving a sentence of 10 years in a maximum security prison in Cuba, the Combinado del Este, accused of … Continue reading “No Man’s Land”
Ladies in White leaving Laura’s house on March 25, 2010. I arrived just after 4 o’clock in the afternoon at the house of Laura Pollán Toledo, right in the middle of Cuba’s capital at 963 Neptuno Street. Pollán, is the wife of the prisoner of conscience Héctor Maseda, one of the 75 peaceful dissidents jailed … Continue reading “Three Hours with the Ladies in White”
I have good friends who completely support Castro’s revolution. I respect their opinions, as they respect mine. And there’s no problem. We have shared interests. We like soccer and baseball, white rum, and we love our children. We were born in Havana, which we love. And each of us, from where we stand, want the … Continue reading “The Ladies In White Are Not The Real Enemy”
On February 11th, they left a comment in the blog: Sorry for the bother. I am a Spanish professor at a French school and in our classes we our studying the subject of free press in Latin America and, more specifically, in Cuba. We have studied an article about the Cuban bloggers, taken from the … Continue reading “The Students of Delphine”
There are some deaths that could avoided. Orlando Zapata Tamayo’s death, for instance, was one of these. It leaves a bad taste in the mouth of the Cuban government. The fact that in the 21st century a man has died as a result of an extensive hunger strike whose sole purpose was to demand a … Continue reading “There are Deaths that End up Being Very Expensive.”
