A few years ago I had the opportunity to get to know several Iranians who were receiving training at my same research center. I was impressed by the fresh vision of the world that many of them had – so contrary to how we imagined the views of Muslims.
Read MoreYesterday my father went to a store to buy a towel. The saleswoman looked at him and declared, “Here we charge in hard currency” and then turned her back. To her it appeared that he was incapable of possessing the other Cuban money (CUC). To her my father looked like somebody unworthy of her attention.
Read MoreI’ve been traveling around various towns and talking with people over the past several days. What I’ve found is that although a few months have passed since the expulsions from key government posts of two relatively young leaders, Carlos Lage and Felipe Perez Roque, this is an issue that remains alive in people’s consciousness.
Read MoreI began to make excuses, knowing full well that these two Argentine ladies were absolutely right. They told me that they understood my reasoning, but that they had walked through the entire area and that it was all flooded with garbage.
Read MoreAt the beginning of the year, I warned of an eminent conservative shift as well as the gradual decline of progressive experiences, born out of the coordination of social protest and institutional reform that has typified the past decade in Latin America.
Read MoreLuis Perez Hernandez is a babalawo priest of the Afro-Cuban Santeria religion who was arrested last August in his suburban home in Westchester (outside of New York City) for cruelty to animals. This is not an atypical case, but another act of harassment that babalawo priests have suffered in the USA.
Read MoreThe Isle of Youth doesn’t make its inhabitants younger, or those who visit it. It owes its name to the camps of hard-working youth that lived there in the 1960s and 70s; they came there from all points of the country to urbanize the island.
Read MoreAbout 50 years ago, Pons was little more than a poor village situated where two roads crossed. With the Revolution, the town received a sawmill and several manufacturing industries, which brought some life and electricity to a land of hacienda owners and campesinos well adapted to their environment.
Read MoreThe wait for the turtles became unbearable. A jittery mood took hold of us when a hurricane approached on the horizon. Pinar del Río is a Cuban province with a special magnet for hurricanes and other harsh weather conditions.
Read MoreI am from Cuba. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be Jamaican, Dutch, or South African. Why? Right now, while you read my thoughts, more than half of you have already begun to judge me. Why? Because for too many people, being Cuban is a moral, or even more so, a political matter.
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