Translating Cuba

I offer my open hands to a friend from childhood, a friend I knew when the fair only offered pale convulsed dreams. It was around this time that my friend insisted on weaving hopes against the prevailing winds that announced storms gathering at the end of the street, the wind that in his rise seemed dotted with vivid chaotic colors, beautiful shades that fled the rotting trash coming to live in the plaza. In my dreams — I distinctly remember — my friend rose to an immense height and there, higher than the pigeons fly, recorded his remote signs in the heavens. Then the plaza was flooded with that smell of new dreams.

Today I confide to his warm hands what tenderness, from the low pressure system, my hands saved; my hands sore and tired from the stories my friend told me. He did not say, in those days — forgetting that a child believes everything he hears — that the light, like the truth, has dangers if you take it by force, and this boy was in pursuit of the light and now, for wanting to touch the sun both hands are burned.

But although the wounds put an end to innocence, not to guilt. In face that boy still wonders if he would scare the butterflies, if those paper boats would capsize, if those kites that flew so high would sink under the torrential downpours; although he knows well that today they would bathe in the light of sunsets very different and disparate, and therefore, more human and sublime.

When the evening comes I go to clean the plaza and throw a tricolor line that divides it into two perfect halves. The surprise upsets the pigeons and the rest of the creatures and I note to my dear friend that, in addition to pigeons, the plaza is home to and shelters sparrows, turtledoves, canaries, mockingbirds, hummingbirds, swallows and goldfinches, delicate creations, all from God, who having been born in the same village have the same right to fly, the space and the sun and what they most ask for a little more light, some little corner of peace to ease their life, which is so ethereal and fleeting like the dreams.

I hope my friend understands that this is the most beautiful flock of birds that nest on this infinite island: that with freedom they have enough.

Jeovany Jimenez Vega

January 17 2013

 

From the posters placed around the city urging people to protect themselves from cholera through a set of preventive measures, the increase is visits to doctors and nurses asking about acute diarrheal symptoms, the prohibition of offering smoothies, natural drinks and even water, if they are not industrially canned or bottled, in coffee shops and other establishments, hand washing with chlorinated water at the entrance to some shops, and the disclosure statement that appeared in the press yesterday, it appears that the Cholera has reached Havana.

Cholera had been eradicated in Cuba by the end of the colonial era. Its reappearance is due mainly to two reasons: the inefficiency of the health authorities and social indiscipline. In Havana, with its disastrous health and hygiene situation, it will be somewhat difficult to eradicate: there is garbage everywhere, the streets are dirty and destroyed, neither swept nor scrubbed, landslides and debris accumulated in vacant lots, sewage pours day and night, water leaks from the pipes and, thus, contamination, collecting tanks without lids are exposed to the weather, all these are just some of the manifestations, the reasons.

It is incomprehensible that a government that prides itself on attending international forums dealing with of medical and health in dozens of countries around the world, sometimes from humanitarian impulses and other times from economic and political interest, is unable to provide safe sanitation to its citizens.

It is not enough to have hospitals, polyclinics, doctors’ offices and thousands of health professionals, if the quality of the services offered is low, and many of the installations face major problems in hygiene, sanitation and construction, in addition to the habitual lack of medicines.

Now that cholera has arrived, the most important thing its to confront it: the sanitation authorities efficiently and responsibly doing their duty, and the citizens taking the measures indicated to protect themselves and to help to reestablish social discipline.

Although the press release said that “it is in the process of being eradicated,” we hope that this wasn’t a part of the habitual triumphalism, and that cholera won’t follow the example of what happened to us with dengue fever, which never existed in Cuba and which they repeatedly announce is eradicated, but which in fact had become endemic.

January 16 2013

Although the boy forgot to put a note under the bed for the Three Kings, the father wrote: I don’t want any more governments that rob children of their innocence. It’s a few minutes before 2:00 when I walk into Neptune Street, towards the home of the late Laura Pollan, made God put here in the place of glory she deserves and that, she was not given here in Cuba, in her country, by the government, the dictatorship and the people from their cowardice.

A purulent stink massacres the afternoon with the patchwork of sun hidden behind grey clouds. It’s not cold, hot, or windy, and people seem to have taken the miserable landscape by assault. At the corner of Hospital Street the taxes that pre-date the Revolution are a symbol of the stopped development.

Some uniformed cops practically drag a man with his hands cuffed behind his back to a patrol car parked on the left. It’s the usual operation, almost a tradition with the Castro-Communist power around the block when there’s any activity in the house of the fallen leader of the Ladies in White, to block access to those interested.

So I put the car between two taxis, looking confused but trying to go unnoticed. The gentle little voices of the three girls in the back seat touch my soul to think that they stop us, they’re trying to block us from reaching for the celebration of Three Kings Day, that Fidel and the Revolution buried in the mire of his evil imperial chauvinism after taking power by means of arms.

Traffic continues and I cross near the police car taking a sideline at the face of of the man arrested feeling that it could be an opponent I know, but I couldn’t tell. I was wrong, I say again after having passed through the danger zone. Danger Zone! and again I say: I was wrong, a danger zone for those who think differently from Castro Communism is different from any place within the island. I stop the car in front of the door, the schoolteacher’s humble little house is full of children and mothers.

I take the camera and start shooting bullets of happiness for the children leads and deadly for the dictatorial power. A picture is worth a thousand words, say the sages of the photographs but today does not fulfill the adage because I can not translate the pain of the past in them. The soul flies and falls like a wounded bird on the crumbling reef of the Revolution.

First it was this: the toys were disappearing from the shops,the last ones were taken for a robber’s ransom by the revolutionaries. Then they appeared in the ration books followed by anxious days of waiting for the truck transporting them. Later moms and dads ran in disarray to the doors of the shops to form terrible lines of several-day of insomnia.

After some brainy revolutionary came up with the idea of changing the queue for the assault to the counter, then when the doors opened, if before that the push of the mob the shop windows didn’t shatter, the crowd threw itself on the counters that often were detached and mobbed the place. People went mad and fought until police intervened who were still respected because they hadn’t entered into the corruption of this.

The more educated and decent, not because of their grades befor for having a deeper training in respect, remained to the end and took the simplest toy for their children. They were usually the peasants, Christians, along with “people of rank” as the middle class is called in a derogatory manner by the Communist populace. As the years passed respect was forgotten and those who didn’t leave, banished into exile, were added to this rabble that accumulated in front of stores when the day of the Magi approached. Of course, the real magi — the wizards — were the parents and what they had to do to give their children a toy.

They have brought a clown with a tangerine for a nose. Children are crushed together, sitting on the floor, I think of the powers-that-be, the vandalism of the acts of repudiation, the beatings, handcuffing the Ladies in White and not letting their admirers pass, they close the street to traffic with uniformed officers and plainclothes officers at the corners, with the brazen and shameful statement that they are providing “protection”. Today they forgot the “protection” for children, infants whose parents do not share the ideas of the powers-that-be do not need “protection”.

Laurita is dressed in white and standing in front of the little ones to say in a few words about the reasons for the celebration. Mentioning the sensitive teacher, her mother, who for many years gave her heart and soul to the education of children, had her believed people and then the only alternative left to her by the ruthless Castro-power was to launch herself into the street with other wives and mothers asking freedom of their husbands and children sentenced to decades in prison for the sole crime of exercising their rights pertaining to the human condition and despite all that tragedy, the day of the Three Kings is not forgotten for the children tormented by the powers-that-be.

On mentioning the Ladies in White the Clown, scared, exclaims: “Oh, this has to do with the Ladies in White”. Listening to I smile with the joke and he says: didn’t you know?

I think of saying, “You’re at the center of things, you ended the antics, you’ll lose the tangerine nose”, but it seems he is really scared and if he gets more scared he could run out and forget about the children, he too; then there doesn’t seem anything left to do for the clown and I don’t know if it would work.

The funny man exclaims: “Well, I’m a Christian I have nothing to do with politics.” The justification of fear of power with Christianity: a magnificent and widespread way to avoid responsibility with social justice.

“Me too,” I tell him. I’m an Adventist.”

“You’re in trouble if they know. It’s Saturday,” he exclaims.

“’Suffer the little children to come unto me, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,’ says the verse,” I say. The clown is unresponsive and is pondering his situation or perhaps in anticipation of possible future problems to continuing with his work. Will this Christian practice Christianity? I wonder. He doesn’t know that for God nothing is hidden and that the Christian works for God first and then for men. I remember the lesson of December 13 of the book Growing in Christ which says: Render therefore to all their dues…    (Rom13:1-7).

“The Christian puts God first in all things, and evaluates every action and accountability from this perspective. So he opposes discrimination in any form, even if it is officially sanctioned. While Christians pay taxes, participate in civic duties, respect traffic laws and regulations on  property and cooperate with civil authorities to control crime and violence.”How many times at the door of this house violence been committed protected by or exercised by the authorities? I wonder.

I remember it like it was yesterday: my mother one day, after many sleepless nights in front of one of the shops the managed the heroic triumph of bringing a blonde doll my sister. It came in a pink box and outside it said: “Lily”. A great feat by my mother working for the State in a pizzeria, sometimes days and others at night. More than 10 hours a day to receive a miserable salary at the end of the month.

Since children were forgetting the tender little notes left under the bed on the eve of Epiphany. Now the naive childish illusion of the coveted toy and the conformity that, the day after it was received, was absorbed by the Communist cannibalism. The imperial ideal Fidel Castro was accumulating in the dustbin of history the most naive traditions of a people.

The clown seems to have forgotten his shock and pulls out a puppet that makes children laugh. He puts on a big mouse head and makes fun competitions rewarded with toys, by a Santa Claus who has appeared at the time. He dances, jumps for joy and more laughter again swallows all the noise of the ruined city of zombies and the restless. The timid clown ends carefully and takes the children out to the sidewalk to take a picture.

I’m afraid that a Communist mob of security agents and university students will appear, as officialdom alleges and that all will end in tragedy. Adults are placed in front of children to prevent one of the cars that drive more than 30km/hr from running over anyone. We get the photo and return inside. It’s time for the presents. The Kings banished into exile by the dictatorship and other people of good will have provided a gift for each child, and they do not have to shout a political slogan, put a pioneer scarf around their necks, reciting a combat poem or express hatred toward the U.S. The little blond haired boy, son of the opponent who disappeared in suspicious circumstances is rolling a beautiful truck down the sidewalk in the company of another toddler.

“It’s the first toy he’s received since he was born,” says his mother.

The memories continue to flow, as the process was advancing today Communism the Day of the three Kings and the toys were disappearing from the tradition and the stores. At some point there were replaced by an emerging clandestine artisan world after the State was reluctant to acknowledge the need.

It is not for the common good of the children but to raise taxes before the inability of the State to control the theft of raw materials. So some children could play with rustic toys, while others, children of honorable uncorrupted parents looked on with desire and sadness.

Berta Soler and Laurita finish handing out the the gifts and a kiss to each child. Now the photos speak, but not more than a thousand words because not as many little Cuban children cry without a toy because their parents are not corrupt, or mixed with the indignity to the denigration of their humanity; for whom a rag doll, horse and wooden machete, yoke of oxen made from Coke bottles and cart made from an empty sardine can, of a day gone by when for  rich and poor there was for a day of kings.

The sun is setting and by the gray the yellow swallows the white and the shadows of the architectural blog of the revolutionary feud have been dragging and deforming to form grotesque figures, too rancid to assimilate without reluctance. The children ended the raffle and the pinata spilled from its belly candy and dolls that  disappeared in the desperation of cries and little arms that extended until they touched their lost dreams.

Later, when the sun is almost buried in the horizon, the cake that was hiding in cardboard boxes and jam was enjoyed by everyone and eaten with great relish. The clown sitting in a secluded little place remained undaunted as if in a state a nostalgic ecstasy he had drunk, or a court had sentenced him to one hundred years of solitude. Then I saw him pick up his head and his puppet mouse and head down on the sidewalk while I followed him with my eyes to the corner praying to God so he would not lose his tangerine nose the the hands of state security and could continue to make Cuban children laugh.

Agustin Lopez

January 7 2013

El Sexto has said he will paint a graffiti on my suitcase; a neighbor gave me an amulet for the journey, and a certain friend noted his shoe size so I can bring him a pair. They said goodbye to me although I still haven’t left. I don’t even have a flight date. But something has changed for me since January 14 when the Migratory Reform announced last October went into effect. After waiting 24 hours outside the Department of Immigration and Aliens (DIE) I knew that finally they would issue me a new passport. With twenty “white cards” – the former exit permit – denied in five years, I confess I was more skeptical than hopeful. Even now, I will only believe I made it when I watch the plane lift off from inside.

It has been a long battle fought by many. A very long road of demanding that entering and leaving our country is an inalienable right, not a gift to be given. Although the flexibilizations in Decree-Law 302 are insufficient, not even these would have been achieved if we’d stood around with our arms crossed. They are not the fruit of a magnanimous gesture, but the result of systematic denunciations made against the absurdities of travel and immigration.

Hence my intention to continue “pushing the limits” of reform, to experience first hand how far the willingness to change really goes. To transcend national frontiers I will make no concessions. If the Yoani Sánchez that I am cannot travel, I am not going to metamorphose myself into someone else to do it. Nor, once abroad, will I disguise my opinions so they will let me “leave again” or to please certain ears, nor will I take refuge in silence about that for which they can refuse to let me return. I will say what I think of my country and of the absence of freedoms we Cubans suffer. No passport will function as a gag for me, no trip as bait.

These particulars clarified, I am preparing the itinerary for my stay outside of Cuba. I hope to be able to participate in numerous events that will help me grow professionally and civically, to answer questions, to clarify details of the smear campaigns that have been launched against me… and in my absence. I will visit those places that once invited me, when the will of a few wouldn’t let me come; I will navigate the Internet like one obsessed, and once again climb mountains I haven’t seen for nearly ten years. But what I am most passionate about is that I am going to meet many of you, my readers. I have the first symptoms of this anxiety; the butterflies in my stomach provoked by the proximity of the unknown, and the waking up in the middle of the night asking myself, what will you look like, sound like? And me? Will I be as you imagine me?

17 January 2013

“I won!” a euphoric young woman said as she left the Department of Immigration and Alienslocatedon10th of October brandishing her passport in her right hand and a clear plastic with papers in the other. She was so happy about the news that she waved her travel pass like someone who brandishes a sword. She hugged the people who were waiting outside and who seemed to be friends or relatives and one of them pronounced with joy: “I told you that this was your year,” like someone who might announce good fortune. Another pointed out, “Now you can begin a new life,” as if they had freed her after many years in jail.

The people near the group laughed because one of them pointed out that “beginning a new life” was a redundancy. A member of that group, visibly excited, just gave strong and repeated hugs. If there is something this repressive system will pass into history for– among the many injustices that have been established and exacerbated — it will be for having converted Cuba into a big prison for more than five decades.

All this took place on the occasion of there forms that they made to the historic, discriminatory and intransigent former migratory law, in place of another issued on October 16 of last year, which came into effect this January 14 of 2013.

Nevertheless, the new decree continues violating the right of Cubans who think differently than the political line and one-party state, which, in spite of the unprecedented semblance of openness in 54 years of totalitarianism in Cuba, makes it a more discriminatory law. Either way, if there is something positive we can point to, it is that many of our fellow citizens will be able to enter and leave their country more freely, as is their right recognized and established in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaimed by the United Nations in 1948.

The municipal immigration department of 10th of October, which is located on Vista Alegre, corner of Juan Delgado, historically has remained — like all of them — packed with people who dream of traveling somewhere where there is not a rarefied atmosphere of control, prohibitions, surveillance, denouncements and totalitarianism.

It has always made me sad to see my countrymen sleeping outside those places in order to have one of the first turns the next day and to settle their negotiation early. Many of them leave never to return. The repeated abuse for so many years by the government against its citizens, has been noticed for a while in this nation, which has a diaspora of around two million in a country of eleven million. The dictatorial Cuban regime always wanted its workers and citizens, through blackmail, to enter obediently through the lane of the authorities in compensatory expectation that “the state would let them travel.”

It is the fate of many third world countries, with their long dictatorships and helplessness, which makes populations of their countries leave in routs of hopelessness from “a regime without end” for any corner of the world. So it is common to hear some on the street say that “they are going to Rwanda and Burundi.” I mean they do not care as long as their destination is out of Cuba.

Optimistic hope for the dawn in which the process is reversed, when they dictate the law to complement the existing, which favors Cubans returning to their homeland because the conditions are created and all the guarantees of citizens are established.

That will be the dawn that will lift the checkered flag of the rights and freedoms because we will have taken a step closer to the goal of democracy. It will also be the day my countrymen finally stop comparing a trip abroad to wining the jackpot in a lottery.

January 15 2013

The Cuban health authorities have admitted the existence of a cholera outbreak that so far has affected fifty people in Havana. Ten days after being detected by clinical epidemiological surveillance system and with rumors already circulating through the city, the newspaper Granma published on Tuesday’s front page an “Informative Note to the Population” where they “announced” the existence of the disease in the Cuban capital, while advising that the transmission of the disease is declining as a result of the measures taken.

Several independent journalists had already warned about the disease and the death of at least one person, which the Ministry of Public Health has not yet acknowledged. Also some foreign correspondents broadcast the news in recent days, leaving the national press little chance of continuing to hide the situation.

Before the official media confirmed the outbreak, sanitary measures were already visible in public places, especially those where great numbers of people gather. In the bus and railway terminals, and in polyclinics, schools and taxi stations extraordinary hygiene measures were established, including placing containers on the floor with disinfectants and bactericides to clean the soles of shoes. Also in workplaces and schools they have recommended having chlorinated water for washing hands.

According to reports in the official media, the transmission originated from a food distributor who carried the disease, caught during earlier outbreaks in the eastern provinces.

Since early last week we have seen unusual purchases of bottles of mineral water and liquid antibacterial products, available only in the stores that operate in hard currency, while the pharmacies ran out of the sodium hypochlorite used to disinfect drinking water. In the crowded Cerro municipality they ordered the temporary closure of food expeditor establishments, both those administered by the state as well those newly emerged since the expansion of self-employment.

Protective measures proposed on TV are being taken very seriously and include the recommendation to avoid eating in the street. Families who until recently have been drinking directly from the tap, have begun to boil their water to avoid infection. The deteriorated state of the water network has made the complete eradication of cholera more difficult.

Special irritation has been caused by the media blackout on the existence of the outbreak, which  impeded the massive expansion of measures of protection. Many note that the delay in providing information was influenced by the intention to not affect international tourism, one of the locomotives of the Cuban economy. Another reason for so much secrecy might be to avoid the stigma of the appearance of a disease that tends to show up in very poor countries or those with poor healthcare systems.

Yoani Sanchez

16 January 2013

I have read, with a vast amount of resistance, the student-worker-politician biographies of each one of the “candidates of the people” in the forthcoming elections for the National Assembly of People’s Power, published in the official press. As they repeated to the point of monotony the same indicators, they all look alike, regardless of whether they come from education, work, or political centers.

It’s obvious that everyone, without exception, is actively integrated into the Cuban “model,” having been prepared, trained, selected and promoted to work in schools, colleges, universities, industrial, agricultural farms, cooperatives, government, trade unions, political and mass, religious groups and other areas, mainly because of their political and ideological loyalty.

It does not appear, anywhere, that there is anyone who thinks differently or has a proposal different from the official to solve the great economic, political and social challenges facing the country.

Avoided, and are not represented, are the nearly two million citizens eligible to vote in the last simulation of an election, who in one form or another — not going to the polls, canceling their ballot, or leaving it blank — showed their rejection; or those who, voting, did it more out of fear of losing their eduction, employment or certain positions than out of conviction; it is well known in every neighborhood that these latter have not the slightest qualms of saying so to family and friends. For the authorities, the first do not form a part of the people: they belong to the category of non-persons.

The electoral straitjacket guarantees that there are no black sheep in the fold, calling into question the historical unanimity of the National Assembly. Some names are replaced by others who will act identically to those replaced: the method ensures that nothing will change. Different opinions, respect for differences, diversity, tolerance, criticism, etc., are good for speeches, but are not to be applied in reality.

This means that in 2013, unless a miracle occurs, we will continue to have more of the same, because they have touched nor will touch the existing economic, political and social structure, the main cause of our failures and prolonged national crisis.

Until we have a National Assembly that represents all sectors of society, with their differences, complexities and problems, an Assembly to replace the current one, with its default percentages of whites, mestizos, men, women, old, young, workers, peasants, intellectuals, religious, etc., there will never be a challenge, not one vote against anything, not a single abstention from what the Government proposes. The unanimity will continue insured by the authorities who are unable to govern without it.

Fernando Damaso

Translated from Diario de Cuba

15 January 2013

For the first time ever since I can remember, I am seeing butcher shop employees wearing gloves and caps. The ones who don’t have gloves use plastic bags. The same is true at bakeries, where employees routinely handled bread with their bare hands, though a few minutes before they might have been smoking, scratching the dandruff on their heads or picking their noses. This healthy practice in networks of retailers “subsidized” by the ration card is simply a rare novelty.

Meanwhile, in the foreign currency network markets, precautions are also being taken. Until recently, the same hands that handled bills at the register were the ones that unceremoniously dispatched the “bareback” food that we ate. Now, gloves or plastic bags are carefully put on so hands don’t come in direct contact with food.

Garbage receptacles, usually overflowing, are being picked up more than once a day; TV commercials insist on the importance of good hand washing and boiling drinking water, and inspectors of privately-owned cafes and kiosks which have not been shut down are warned about food that should not be offered for sale these days: soft drinks, smoothies and juices, rolls with homemade mayonnaise, merengue or other sweets that are made with raw eggs.

These signs are an indication to us that something serious is going on, and that cholera is more widespread than we think. Violations of even the most basic standards of hygiene have been so common among us that the implementation of any sanitary measure jumps out by contrast, and it screams what authorities keep silent about… Of course, cholera is not appropriate in a medical superpower and even less in a tourist destination.

In the city, people talk about nothing else. It is not a fearful whisper or a secret between best friends, but an increasing alarm that neighbors talk about from window to window, friends, wherever they meet, taxicab drivers, street and fruit sellers on any corner: there are a lot of cholera cases in the capital and an undetermined number of fatalities, including a child. Several schools and kindergartens have closed, as well as numerous cafes.

Not only do foci of the disease exist in populations in the periphery, such as Regla or San Miguel del Padrón, but it has spread to municipalities as populous as Cerro, Diez de Octubre and Centro Habana. We all know that Hospital Salvador Allende (Covadonga), in El Cerro municipality, is at capacity between patients of dengue fever and cholera. An epidemic like this may have been just the thing we needed to return to XIX century conditions.

However, although cholera arrived on the capital many weeks ago, the final 2012 reports stood out in their flag-waiving when referring to health standards. The president of the World Health Organization also had words of praise for the Cuban medical system and its fabulous advances. Above all, fans of the Cuban government insist on praise for programs “that guarantee medical care for Cubans and other peoples of the world.” On a more spiritual level, ecclesiastical authorities and babalawos*, who have been so concerned about the health of the Venezuelan President, do not seem very motivated to invoke the protection of God or of the Orishas** for our people. We obviously have nowhere to turn.

For the time being, the media have not reported the presence of cholera in Cuba, or the magnitude of the epidemic. Apparently, they don’t feel any pressure from international health organizations of which Cuba is a member. While food vendors close their establishments or put on gloves on their hands, the Cuban government –literally- washes theirs.

Miriam Celaya

Translator’s notes:
*Father or master of mysticism’ in the Yoruba language
**Spirit or deity that reflects one of the manifestations of Olodumare (God) in the Yoruba spiritual or religious system

January 14 2013

The day of implementing the travel and immigration reform has arrived. Some, with their bags packed, are now lined up at the immigration offices to get their passport “enabled.” At the embassies, the same thing. Now, getting the visas will be the mess.

The government should ask itself once again how it didn’t think before about the gain surrounding the promulgation of such a law: the illusion that “you, too, can have a Buick” (if you’re too young to remember ask your granny); the income in convertible currency with the mindset of Ochín — the little Japanese who earning more earned less — decompress, and above all… above all… pressure the enemy.

I thought they would have thought about all this, those who were given the task of returning this tiny little parcel of violated rights to the citizens. I thought they would have thought it, but not said it. A difference from other countries where governments can ask forgiveness for the blunders of their predecessors that they had nothing to do with; here for more than half a century the government remains the same, and to ask forgiveness is asking too much.

The newspaper Granma has published articles somewhat amnesic articles lately, blaming the U.S. government for the politicization of the issue and the failure of the migration agreements.

But I was astonished on Saturday while watching the TV program The Law — which specializes in legal themes — address the famous migratory reform, responding to questions from the public.

Before a case “raised” and later after an allusive dramatization of the case, they declared to the “viewer” that, in effect, with the new extension of the time a Cuban could remain abroad from 11 months to 24, someone could remain in the United States for the time required to establish themselves under the Cuban Adjustment Act, and then, with their American residence, return to Cuba without losing their rights as a Cuban citizen. As we know, in our journalism, they don’t improvise.

January 14 2013