Voices from the island

The current issue of the magazine In These Times has a collection of articles about Cuba compiled by author and journalist Achy Obejas. The contents are here, although not all the articles are on-line yet. From her introduction:

The most crucial lesson I’ve learned going back and forth – I still do it, at least once or twice a year – is that we have to listen to each other, really listen. For me that has meant acknowledging that my parents were, in fact, right about many things. It has also meant an understanding that what Cubans in Cuba think is paramount. So when In These Times approached me to put together a special issue marking the revolution’s 50th anniversary, the very first thing I asked was that it be an issue by Cubans on the island…I have a disposition for seeing things through a cultural prism. But I also think culture, frankly, is a better indicator of the future than almost anything else. Anyone familiar with the Cuban culture of sacrifice and inventiveness would have known that, the rational logic of economics aside, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989 would bring deep changes but that Cuba, and its revolution, would survive.