Stunned and shaken by island-wide street protests Sunday, Cuba’s communist regime sought on Monday to deflect responsibility for the causes of political “dissatisfaction” while Cuban-Americans …
Stunned and shaken by island-wide street protests Sunday, Cuba’s communist regime sought on Monday to deflect responsibility for the causes of political “dissatisfaction” while Cuban-Americans hoped this round of unrest will lead to long-desired change in government. “Let’s hope this is finally the moment so many of us have been waiting for,” said Luis Obregon of Royal Palm Beach. “I’m optimistic.” Obregon said he drove from his home to Miami’s Little Havana on Sunday to rally in support of demonstrators in Cuba. “You can only step on people for so long before they defend themselves,” said Obregon, who came to the United States in 1985. “People had nothing to eat, no way to lead a better life when I was there and nothing has changed. It’s time for a change. Been time.” That was a common sentiment expressed across Cuba — and Florida — Sunday as thousands of people took to the streets in the Caribbean nation to demand change. The spark was a weekend of bad news in Cuba’s failing battle against COVID-19 — which included record numbers of infections and deaths. In addition, the island nation’s 11 million people have been suffering through daily, prolonged power outages amid a summer heatwave. And long-standing shortages for everything from food to medications. Across Cuba, protesters chanted “Libertad”, Spanish for “freedom,” and “Patria y vida” — a play on “Patria o muerte,” “Fatherland or death” — the closing exclamatory for the late Cuban dictator Fidel Castro’s speeches. The “Patria y vida” chant has become the battle cry for many younger Cubans demanding change on the island. It was popularized in a protest song recorded by a group of popular musicians in Cuba led by Orishas band rapper Yotuel Romero. See video of Orishas protest song here The song’s lyrics condemn a history of repression on the island: “We are artists; we are sensitivity, the true story, not the badly told one. We are the dignity of a people trampled at gunpoint and by words that still mean nothing.” Those themes were megaphoned in solidarity rallies across Florida on Sunday. In West Palm Beach on Sunday, Cuban exiles gathered for a solidarity demonstration on the corner of Military Trail and Forest Hill Boulevard. They waved Cuban flags before the passing traffic and hoisted signs that read “Cubans are dying!” At Tropical Bakery, a West Palm Beach Cuban institution for nearly 32 years, server Lauren Camacho,23, said Monday she was monitoring the protests on the island with particular anxiety.
