Author: ynot

To understand the Cuban Revolution, we must first stop lying about the Cuba that existed before it. On the eve of Fidel Castro’s victory in January 1959, Cuba was not the tropical paradise sometimes remembered by nostalgic exiles. But neither was it the miserable, backward “brothel of the Western Hemisphere” portrayed by defenders of the Revolution. Both versions distort the truth. Pre-Castro Cuba was one of the most modern, prosperous, and socially advanced countries in Latin America. It was also a nation divided by corruption, racial discrimination, rural poverty, political violence, and enormous differences between Havana and the countryside. … Continue reading1959 – Cuba Before Castro

The Reality Behind Your All-Inclusive Cuban Vacation Let me ask you an uncomfortable question—one that may upset tourists, travel agencies, hotel companies, and everyone who prefers the postcard version of Cuba. While you are lying on a lounge chair in Varadero, sipping a mojito beside the pool, did you know that the Cuban serving your drink may have returned home the night before to a house without electricity? While you walk through an all-inclusive buffet filled with chicken, rice, bread, fruit, seafood, desserts, and imported drinks, Cuban families living only a few kilometers away may be rationing food, searching … Continue readingHow Tourism Works in Cuba

The Prisoners Who Survived the War—Only to Be Killed After It History often remembers the men who die in battle. It is less comfortable remembering the men who survive the battle, surrender, spend years in prison, and are then taken into the darkness to be machine-gunned by the government holding them. That is the story of the Manacas–Iznaga massacre of 1963. It is a story buried beneath disputed dates, incomplete records, exile testimony, revolutionary propaganda, and the silence of a government that controlled the courts, the press, the prisons, and the place where the bodies fell. The central facts, … Continue readingThe Manacas–Iznaga Massacre — July 13th, 1963

Forty-One Cubans Died Trying to Escape—Including Ten Children. More Than Three Decades Later, No One Has Been Held Accountable.   On , approximately seven miles north of Havana, the Caribbean Sea became the grave of 41 Cuban men, women, and children. They were not soldiers. They were not terrorists. They were not armed insurgents attempting to overthrow the government. They were ordinary Cuban families trying to escape the island aboard an aging, state-owned tugboat named the 13 de Marzo. Before sunrise, the vessel was pursued by other government-owned tugboats, struck repeatedly, flooded with high-pressure water cannons, and sent beneath the … Continue readingThe Tugboat Massacre: 13 de Marzo — July 13, 1994

Throughout this series, I will try to approach Cuba’s history as honestly and fairly as possible. Some records are incomplete, and some events are still debated, so the goal is not to repeat propaganda from either side, but to look at the facts as clearly as we can. The Platt Amendment is often presented as one of the reasons Fidel Castro and later Cuban revolutionaries became so hostile toward the United States. There is some truth to that argument, because the amendment became a symbol of American control over Cuba. But it is also important to remember that the … Continue readingThe Platt Amendment: Cuba’s Independence Came With Fine Print

The Story of José Hernández My name is José Hernández, and I survived Cuban socialism. I do not use the word survived lightly. I was not rescued from a battlefield. I was not pulled from the ruins of a collapsed building. I survived something slower—a political system that enters the classroom, the workplace, the neighborhood, the family, and eventually the private thoughts of every person living beneath it. In Cuba, fear does not always announce itself. It does not always arrive wearing a military uniform or carrying a rifle. Sometimes it lives in a conversation that suddenly becomes quiet … Continue readingI Survived Cuban Socialism

The Revolution Before the Revolution Before Cuba became a republic, before Castro, before Batista, before the slogans and speeches of the twentieth century, there was another revolution. The original Cuban revolution was not one man standing at a podium. It was not one army marching into Havana. It was not one single battle, one single date, or one clean victory wrapped in a flag. It was a long, painful, unfinished struggle that stretched across generations. It began with conspiracies, slave rebellions, exile movements, failed expeditions, and men who dreamed of breaking Cuba away from Spain long before the island … Continue readingCuba’s Long Road to Freedom – The First Time

They fought for a freedom they were promised, then came home to a country still deciding whether that freedom included them. I could say that for Afro-Cuban veterans of 1912 or Tuskegee Airmen, Cuba was ahead by 30 years. — YNOT! There are some wounds in a nation’s history that do not bleed in public anymore, but they never fully close. Cuba remembers Spain. Cuba remembers independence. Cuba remembers Martí, Maceo, Máximo Gómez, the machete charges, the jungle camps, the hunger, the sacrifice, and the dream of a free republic. But not every Cuban sacrifice was honored equally after the flag … Continue readingLa Guerra de 1912 – The Forgotten War

Cuba’s Revolving Door of Presidents – How a Nation Won Its Independence but Never Secured Its Democracy Cuba did not suffer from a shortage of presidents. It suffered from a shortage of institutions strong enough to restrain them. Between the founding of the Cuban Republic in 1902 and the triumph of the Revolution in 1959, Cuba passed through elected presidents, provisional presidents, military strongmen, temporary caretakers, revolutionary councils and men who occupied the presidential palace for such a brief time that they barely had a chance to sit behind the desk. Some arrived through elections. Some arrived through military coups. … Continue readingCuba’s Revolving Door of Presidents