My mother and I went to get a Self-Employment License. We’re going to bring together investment and talent, quitting our professions, to make a little money and contribute to the country’s GDP. There are plenty of forms, seals & stuffy offices ahead of us.
To play the album Dial, by Cuban band Buena Fe, I chose my second cell phone, because that particular model could also be used as a radio. Standing before the store window, the clerk had explained to me the technical characteristics of the three models that would work in Cuba.
In the spring of 1990, the world as I knew it was falling to bits. I didn’t exactly know this, even though I was a good, primary school student who read the newspaper Granma and Zunzun and Sputnik magazines. I don’t think even my parents realized that “real socialism” was falling to bits.
“What are you going to do today?” one of RJ’s grandmothers asks him at the breakfast table. “I’m going to the Parque de la Maestranza with my mom,” he answers without looking up from his plate of cereal. I’ve had a pleasant, weekend routine with my son RJ for some months now. (9 photos)
I must confess I did not expect so many people to turn up with a positive attitude: over a hundred! One man dropped off some flyers denouncing us for supporting the “Castro dictatorship” and left. The organizers respectfully left the flyers for anyone wishing to read them, a practice I have noted for future use.
Chavarria argued that governmental homophobia was a political necessity: “At the beginning of the revolution they had to consider the enormous political cost of conceding a role for homosexuals.” He explained that the massive participation of Cuban campesinos and their strong homophobic traditions prevented the recognition of homosexuals; therefore, that part of society was “set apart” – but “never prosecuted.”
As of Wednesday we’re allowed to leave, but in Cuba we’re proceeding with caution in this matter. Where will they accept us? How much is our money and our resourcefulness worth? Nothing is certain or made easy for us, since several consulates have already increased their requirements for issuing a visa.
Miguel Angel Ferrer is a Mexican professor of political economy and an analyst for several publications and radio programs. His blog entries focus on the politics of his nation, though nothing so far has identified him as a HIV/AIDS researcher or activist.
What was unusual was that for the first time there was collaboration between representatives of the Supreme Council of the Abakua Societies of Cuba and the government-sponsored Federation of University Students (FEU). (28 photos)
On Tuesday, July 24, a group of Cuban feminists gathered at the Jose Marti International Journalism Institute and ended up discussing the possibility of coordinating their efforts to form a national political organization.
