IN SEARCH OF YOUR PASSIONS

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

It may happen in a single night, or it may take much longer. But the ending does not change. The curtain will rise, the drama will unfold, and history will make its decision. — YNOT! Wars are funny things. Everyone spends years talking about how they begin, and almost nobody spends enough time thinking about what happens the morning after. History teaches us something simple: governments do not collapse in slow motion. They often appear strong right until the moment they break. Then suddenly, the impossible becomes inevitable. If Cuba ever reaches the point of a foreign intervention or … Continue readingThe Day After Díaz-Canel

  There are nations that fall because they run out of money. There are nations that fall because they run out of food. There are nations that fall because the lights go out, the factories stop, the roads break, and the people finally understand that the promises were never promises at all. They were bait. But Cuba is different. Cuba has been hungry before. Cuba has been dark before. Cuba has watched its children leave, its hospitals decay, its farms collapse, and its old people stand in lines for bread like prisoners waiting for mercy. And still the regime survived. Why? … Continue readingThe G2: The Hidden Machine That Keeps Cuba in Chains

“Cuba was not born for chains. It was born through blood, poetry, sacrifice, and rebellion — and every tyrant who tried to own her only proved why her people must be free.” — YNOT! Birthing a country is a painful thing. It does not always begin clean. It does not always end well. And it almost never happens without blood, betrayal, sacrifice, and men arguing over the bones of the future. Cuba was no different. Before Castro. Before communism. Before the firing squads, the exile, the ration books, the political prisons, and the ruined promises. There was another Cuba. A … Continue readingCuba Before Castro: The Long Road from Spain’s Chains to a Wounded Republic

Cuba does not need new masters. Cuba needs the old Mambí spirit — the courage to say that no dictator, no party, and no army owns the Cuban people. –YNOT! Before Castro. Before communism. Before the lies, the slogans, the ration books, the political prisons, and the exile of millions. There were the Mambises. The Mambises were the Cuban patriots who fought against Spanish colonial rule in the 19th century. They were the men and women who gave their blood, their land, their families, and their lives so that Cuba could be free. They fought in the Ten Years’ … Continue readingThe Mambises: Cuba’s Original Freedom Fighters