Cuba

Virtual Reality Takes You To Cuban Raves

By Spencer Parts • Dec 26, 2016
Courtesy of Joyce Lanxin Zhao

Fifer Garbesi is creating a virtual Cuban rave.

She’s making a virtual reality film about the Cuban electronic music scene which so impressed her when she studied filmmaking on the island in the Spring of 2015, because she thinks there’s something special about electronic music concerts in Cuba.

 

The Florida Roundup: A Look Back At 2016

By • Dec 23, 2016
JOE RAEDLE / GETTY IMAGES

This week on The Florida Roundup...

2016 was a big year. It played host to a long contentious and historic election with Donald Trump winning the presidency--with a big hand from Florida. 

Why Cuba's First Indie Video Game Is Finding Its Crowdfunding 'Saviors'

By • Dec 12, 2016
YouTube/Empty Head Games

HAVANA – At a relative’s house in Miami's Coconut Grove, Cuban artist Josuhe Pagliery is showing me something on his laptop that looks what he calls "super cool." (That's the English translation. I can't print the Spanish expression.)

Sunshine Economy: Changing Cuba

By • Dec 12, 2016
Associated Press

What started with a phone call two years ago may end in a tweet early next year.

The changes in the relationship between the U-S and Cuba have been dramatic and quiet, slow and significant since Dec. 17, 2014 when President Barack Obama began a new strategy of engagement with Cuba.

Trump Risks Snuffing Out Cuba's Glimmer Of Non-Communist Independence

By • Dec 7, 2016
Alan Diaz / AP via Miami Herald

COMMENTARY

In June I moderated a Miami panel on renewed U.S.-Cuba relations. The panelists, all  Cuban-Americans, represented the pro- and anti-normalization sides. But the normalization team had the momentum.

Washington-Havana détente “is the new normal,” one pro-engagement panelist assured the audience. “There’s no going back,” he insisted.

Except there is.

PolitiFact FL Looks At 'Liberal' Obamacare; Cuban Repression

By • Dec 7, 2016

Is Obamacare really a creation of the "liberal elite?"  And have things gotten worse in Cuba for dissidents since Fidel Castro stepped down from office? WUSF's Steve Newborn digs into those claims with Allison Graves of PolitiFact Florida.

Caught Between Trump's Rise And Fidel's Demise, Younger Cubans Voice Anxiety

By • Dec 6, 2016
Tim Padgett / WLRN.org

HAVANA – In a eulogy last week in Havana for his brother Fidel Castro, Cuban President Raúl Castro often saluted los jóvenes – young people. But it couldn’t hide the fact that communist Cuba is still run by much older people. Like Raúl, who’s 85.

Cuban Military Fires 21-Gun Salute As Fidel Castro's Ashes Are Interred

By • Dec 4, 2016

The ashes of Fidel Castro, the iconic revolutionary leader who died late last month, were interred in a private ceremony Sunday bringing an end to nine days of mourning in Cuba for a man who was the political face of the island nation for nearly half a century.

The ceremony took place at the Santa Ifigenia cemetery, located in the eastern city of Santiago de Cuba, known as the site that launched the Cuban Revolution. Castro's remains join those of other prominent Cuban figures.

Will Grant of the BBC tells NPR's Newscast:

The Florida Roundup: The Death Of Fidel Castro

By • Dec 2, 2016
Katie Lepri / WLRN

This week on The Florida Roundup...

News of the death of Fidel Castro set in motion celebrations in the streets on Miami, but it also gave rise to complex emotions across generations for Cuban-Americans and others in South Florida. We look at the reactions, as well as how South Florida media prepared for years to cover this story. 

As his ashes make his way from Havana to Santiago, we speak with WLRN's Americas correspondent Tim Padgett about reactions to Fidel's death in the island. 

Castro Caravan: Along The Route, Hearing Cubans' Complicated Feelings

By • Dec 1, 2016
Associated Press

MATANZAS – A caravan carrying Fidel Castro’s ashes is moving across Cuba from Havana to Santiago on the island’s eastern tip – marking a funereal return to where the Cuban Revolution was born.

Orlando's First Commercial Flight to Cuba

By Renata Sago • Nov 30, 2016

The first commercial flight from Orlando to Havana Cuba took off Tuesday morning carrying 150 passengers. Many had traveled from places like New York and California to realize a longtime dream of visiting the island.

Dancing, Music, Emotion Fill The Streets of Little Havana Days after Castro's Death

By Rowan Moore Gerety & • Nov 30, 2016
Katie Lepri / WLRN

The crowd filled two city blocks near a memorial dedicated to soldiers who died in the Bay of Pigs Invasion in 1961.

They danced to a Celia Cruz cover of “I will survive” and chanted "libertad, libertad, libertad." 

For many in Miami's Cuban-American exile community, the pain of Fidel Castro's rule, and the joy of his death, are deeply personal. Less than a week after the reviled and revered Cuban revolutionary passed, Little Havana continued to celebrate life after Fidel with a rally on Calle Ocho. 

Miami Reflects On Castro's Death With Markers On A Wynwood Wall

By • Nov 30, 2016

At the Give Good Works Thrift Store in Wynwood, a wall facing North Miami Avenue turned for two days into a canvas for people to write or paint their thoughts about Fidel Castro.

Large black letters read, “Fidel, may you rot in hell.”

In a sign posted outside, the store encouraged passers-by to stop and write on the wall. "Ask for a marker inside," it said. 

Someone wrote, "Viva Cuba Libre," and another "Praying for a free Cuba."

Castro Capitalists: Why Some Cuban Biz Owners Mourn The Communist's Death

By • Nov 29, 2016
Tim Padgett / WLRN.org

HAVANA - Hundreds of thousands of Cubans filled Havana’s Revolution Square Tuesday night to bid farewell to Fidel Castro, who died Friday. We can’t know how many of them will actually miss the communist leader. But some of the mourners are not who you’d expect.

Cuba's most controversial artist sketches the island's post-Fidel future

By Joyce Hackel • Nov 29, 2016

You can count on Cuban artist Tania Bruguera to stir things up when she heads back to Cuba in the coming weeks. 

Bruguera is imagining a new future, even as her homeland officially mourns the death of revolutionary icon Fidel Castro.

"We need somebody in power that is able to create an image of the country that attracts the people who've thought (Cuba) was a failed project," she says. "Right now, though, I think the most important thing is that everybody has the right to feel what they feel, and the lesson is to know how to accept everybody's feelings without judging."

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