A friend told me about her over three months ago. “She was the first black model in Cuba,” she explained, and over that entire period I kept pestering her to help me get in touch with the woman. She was referring to Luz Maria Collazo Reyes, and after the first five minutes of talking with her, I realized that her achievements went a great deal further than having been the first black woman of our runways. (19 photos)
Read MoreMany of us on the island have gotten used to seeing only the thorny side of our society: woefully inadequate pay, the critical situation of transportation, which puts all of us in a bad mood; the need to be a magician to keep food on the table, as well as other problems that exist in any society on the planet.
For one reason or another, things we don’t recognize are admired in a special way by many foreigners who visit us every year. They see beyond the difficult economic situation in which most of us Cubans live.
Read MoreWriting for medicc.org, Conner Gorry brings us part one of an interview with Haitian physician Patrick Dely from Port-of-Prince. The doctor tells of how he came to study medicine on a scholarship in Cuba and how four days after the devastating January 12th earthquake he was back in his home country helping with the relief effort.
Read MoreDuring a previous course, while I was getting signatures from my students for their exams, something unexpected occurred: When signing her form a coed added three dots, which is what identifies those who are Freemasons. I was thinking this was no more than the student’s bad sense of humor, but when I asked her about it she responded, “But prof, I’m a Mason.”
Read MoreI’m the son of a man who spent more than half of his life in jail, and not exactly for political or altruistic reasons. My mother ended up divorcing him. Then she married my stepfather, who to me is like a true father.
During that time, some Jehovah’s Witnesses used to come to the house to preach to my mother. Both she and my stepfather were learning from the lectures they received from the visitors. A while later they got baptized as Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Read MoreThis past December, the Cuban Ministry of Culture censored the Poesía sin Fin arts festival; though this event had taken place annually since 1999 in Havana’s outlying Alamar projects. The organization sponsoring the celebration was OMNI-ZONA FRANCA, and its coordinator Amaury Pacheco agreed to an interview with Havana Times.
Read MoreWhat forces hip hop underground are not the issues dealt with in the songs or whether it fuses with other types of music, but the fact that it’s not marketed. Rappers can’t live off their art. All hip hop in Cuba is underground because no record company will record a hip hop CD.
Read MoreThe socialist system is relatively new, in contrast to capitalism which has some 300 years of development behind it. Human beings are not perfect, and neither is the revolution. It is not exempt from human errors, apart from the question of whether socialism is or is not a better system.
Read More“Whites came here of their own will, as settlers, with life goals that were often realized. Blacks were brought here by force and turned into slaves. These are different points of departure that cannot be forgotten, nor can they be avoided, and their weight is still felt today… What affects us politically from the point of view of our international and national image is to have a discourse that doesn’t correspond to reality, because until very recently we said there were no racial problems in Cuba.”
Read MoreWith more than a decade of experience working in the community, Zulema Hidalgo thinks that citizens in Cuba are vitally concerned about violence. Physical aggression is the type most noticed and suffered by people. However, Cuba has a major problem with psychological violence. Zulema believes that actions to counteract it must include the promotion of lifestyle changes.
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