As a Cuban, I’m always surprised with the way my fellow citizens refer to hunger as a “thing of the past,” since we felt it sharply back in the 1990s. The fact is, however, that this isn’t always the case.
Read MoreIn solidarity with the anti-capitalist Occupy Wall Street movement that tries to recover this international day of workers struggles for the United States, I declare myself on strike for May Day.
Read MoreIn 2007, at the initiative of Fidel Castro, it was decided to create a program to teach Spanish to Chinese young people who in their homeland were less likely to attend college. This would not only reorient the lives of those foreign students, but would also provide China with the personnel needed for penetrating the Spanish-speaking market in the Americas.
Read MoreAs part of the state exam I’m required to take to complete my degree in art history, I had to review the works of many Cuban documentary photographers who are professionally active in the contemporary world, though the beginnings of this date back to 1980s and ‘90s.
Read MoreBusy and centrally located Heredia Street in Santiago de Cuba contains much of our history – especially that which relates to culture, since still located there is the house of Jose Maria Heredia, the writer of the classic song “Niagara.”
Read MoreThe authorities have proclaimed the deregulation of Cuba’s economy as inevitable, as they quietly accept the consolidation of inequality as well as decreased social spending and the renunciation of full employment as a goal.
Read MoreDuring our recent week long school break I made the decision to travel. I’ve traveled frequently in the past. Even the complicated travel policies of being a student in Cuba are routine to me now. I was only traveling with a backpack, but the entire trip was weighed down by a sense of not belonging outside of Cuba.
Read MoreMay 1 is coming, and the Cuban government is beginning to organize its traditional “March of the Combative People” in the main squares throughout the country. They’re also enlisting old recordings that have historically animated (?) the event, including the workers’ anthem: “The Internationale.”
Read MoreNow I’ve taken to listening to La Lupe. When I’m cooking I listen to her bolerones with their touch of reproach or a woman who knows what she wants. I came across her some time back. It’s an obsession of mine, down memory lane, revisiting Cuban music from the first half of the twentieth century.
Read MoreDuring the crisis of the 1990s, with the shortage of fuel for transporting food from the countryside to the city, the government opted for intensive urban agriculture. Given its delicate nature, this strategy has become a “political” issue, and herein lies the danger since almost no one dares to question it.
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