Articles

Villa America Today

Villa America, known as the most elegant of all the inns built in the vicinity of the Coney Island Amusement Park before the triumph of the Revolution, is located only a few meters from the Fifth Avenue, very close to the Playa roundabout. Up until the beginning of the 1990’s, its comfortable rooms used to […] Read more

Street Blocked by a Family

Not long ago, a Havana family decided to block a street with their belongings in a protest against the government’s failure to help them in need, despite many claims and efforts made by them. The reason? The good old housing problems: their lives and the lives of other residents of the building they were living […] Read more

Victims of Hurricanes Still Waiting for Help

“Everything is a lie. The State doesn’t protect the victims,” says Reina Ester de la Cruz Ramos, an eighty-something-year-old resident of the municipality of Santa Fe located in the northwest of Havana. In front of her house, the old woman shows us a small room full of junk with some sacks of sand and cement, […] Read more

Successes in the Fight Against Bureaucracy?

Williams, a warehouse keeper in a brewery, is holding his labour record in his hand. He boasts it triumphantly as it took him five agonizing months before he finally got what he wanted – five months of paying regular visits to the Human Resources department of the company, leaving empty-handed. “Getting the labour record was […] Read more

Seeking the Spirit of Fidel

The world goes on after Fidel Castro’s death, his ashes preserved for future generations as if they were relics or mummies of the Pharaohs. Yet, it seems that a spiritual universe spread over the Cuban territory during the funeral services, offering all kinds of signs. During these days of grief and mourning I interviewed several […] Read more

Two Very Similar Historical Eras

The book entitled Cuban Press and the Machado Era written by Edel Lima Sarmiento, a pro-regime Cuban journalist, was published in 2014 by the Ciencias Sociales publishing house in Havana. Yet, taking into account the current situation of freedom of the press on the island, the title of the book should perhaps read Cuban Press and the Castro […] Read more