#SOSCuba Panel With Leading Cuban Entertainers | LatiNation

Cuba has been in the news, and on the minds of many this summer as protests erupted on the island for the first time in over three decades. Shortages with food supply and vaccines set off a furious response from the Cuban people, who took to the streets chanting “Libertad.” The soundtrack of the protests was laid down a few months prior when Afro-Cuban music legends Yotuel Romero (of Orishas) and Gente De Zona, Maykel Osorbo, and El Funky released “Patria y Vida.”

Now, for us Cuban-Americans, this moment has meant almost as much as it does for the Cubans fighting for freedom in Cuba. All too often, folks outside of our community attempt to lecture us on our own history as if they know it better than we do. Some even take it farther and use Cuban history as a pawn to promote their political ideology. Sorry (not sorry) but if you’re learning Cuban history from a non-Cuban activist or university poli-sci professor, you’re probably getting a few of the facts intertwined with distorted ideological nonsense.

So, we felt it was right to have a real talk between Cuban-Americans, to let us dissect how we feel about it. On the panel, we have diverse (racial and political) backgrounds and different points of views on things like the U.S. embargo, which has made it illegal for Americans to do any trade with Cuban state owned business for close to 60 years. Many U.S. born Cubans do not support the embargo as it is today (including myself, the author of this article and producer/host of the panel), and we feel much more progress can be made and good can be done if access to the island was available. Other Cubans and Cuban-Americans feel differently – that it is needed to strain the Cuban regime into compliance with United Nations human rights accords. But, we all agree that regardless of the embargo, Cubans need their civil liberties and basic human rights restored, and it is they who need to decide on and shape Cuba’s future.

So here it is, unedited and uncensored – an honest talk about Cuba between a group of Cuban-American children of exiles: