Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Good reading

A week or so ago I added the Spanish-language blog Generación Y to the list at the right. Written in Havana by the thirty-something Yoani Sanchez, its vantage point is that of the generation marked by “schools in the countryside, little Russian dolls, illegal departures, and frustration.”

Its perspective is critical and irreverent. And if you get tired of my focus on Miami and Washington and politics, its frame of reference is refreshing – we Americans are not at the center of Yoani’s world.

In “Vine y me quedé,” she tells what it was like to return to Cuba – to live, not for a visit – after living in Switzerland. Apparently, as she writes, she is not the only one to make this decision, and there’s a procedure for undoing the salida definitiva. In “¿Y mi vaso de leche?” Yoani tells how the reference to providing milk for everyone was removed from the versions of Raul Castro’s July 26 speech that were printed in Cuban newspapers and replayed on television. In “Nuevo símbolo de status” she describes the difference between shopping at the market where private farmers sell their goods (lots of variety, higher prices) and the one where produce from state farms is sold.

Well worth checking out.

4 comments:

leftside said...

Thanks for that link. I had stumbled upon Yoani's husband's progressive, independent and certainly oppositional digital magazine Concensus once before, but lost the link. They are affiliated with the 'Progressive Arc' group in Cuba. The magazine and editor/husband is Reinaldo Escobar and their first issue in 2004 featured a foreign interview with Raul Rivero. Unlike Rivero, Concensus have not has not taken any money that originated in the US State Dept or CANF... and therefore remains in business.

Mambi_Watch said...

Thanks for the info Left and Phil.

Mambi_Watch said...

Also, Phil you might want to review your blog list too. For example, Cuban Colada hasn't posted since June.

I myself have decided to remove Miami's Cuban Connection from my list. Might add Generacion Y.

Karamchand said...

Ah, ya lo leí, eso no es noticia, algunos cubanos regresan nuevamente. Lo que no vi es el motivo, lo releeré nuevamente a si lo encuentro. Lo otro que ya a estas alturas no es noticia, es que la mayoría no regresa, que hay una emigración constante y no es mayor or las restricciones a los cubanos para viajar, precisamente porque muchos tienen intenciones de no regresar. Ver para creer.