Miami: Where the Night Stops

Alfredo Fernandez

HAVANA TIMES — Ever since I learned of the existence of the Miami program “La noche se mueve” (The Night Moves), directed by the ineffable Cuban radio host Edmundo Garcia, I haven’t stopped asking questions.

What does Edmundo lend to such a style of journalism? Who is he trying to convince in Miami with his stale position of praising Havana while demonizing Miami from that very city? Why does Edmundo Garcia remain in Miami if he hates the Cuban community there so much?

To confirm the validity of my questions, all one needs to do is read some of his articles that were previously themes on his program and that today are reproduced in Cuba in editions 46 and 47 of the officialist monthly (so officialist that these are published by the Ministry of the Armed Forces itself) La Calle del Medio (The Street in the Middle), edited by the equally ineffable Enrique Ubieta.

In edition 46, Edmundo Garcia speaks to us about Cuban artists who went to Miami pursuing dreams that turned into disappointment, pointing to leading Cuban actor Reinaldo Miravalles “having even been a night watchman in supermarkets” as well as the superb Cuban actress Susana Perez being forced away from the theater and television — where she always sparkled in Cuba — to today finding herself giving beauty tips to aging housewives in Miami.

In edition 47, Edmund throws himself into an even more difficult venture: trying to make us believe that Cuban baseball players who desert do something that’s wrong. To make his point, he talks about “rudimentary barracks in the Dominican Republic where young athletes live whenever they immigrate.”

If there is an unforgivable omission made by Edmundo it’s that perhaps not all of these people left because they were specifically running after some gilded dream, but because they wanted a life that was better than what they would have in Cuba today.

But what happens to the thousands of Cubans who annually leave the country who are not artists or baseball players, but mere mortals who crave more opportunities now than what are offered by the Raul Castro government?

Therefore Edmundo Garcia should do more than call into question the decision of these people to rebuild their lives outside of Cuba, as he asserts both in “Night Paralysis” in Miami, as well as in his two articles in the Havanan “La calle periferica” (The Street on the Outskirts).

He should advocate a system of rights for all Cubans where we could, whenever we want, try our luck elsewhere, and if something goes wrong or even turns out well for us (as has occurred with the baseball players El Duque and Jose Ariel Contreras, actors and musicians Alexis Valdes, William Levy, Albita Rodriguez and Pancho Cepsedes), we could return at any time to our country as citizens with all of our rights.