Mora,

Do you have examples or know of any writers that are being denied book deals?

Regarding Restrepo, she has every right to write what she feels. If anyone disagrees, do a critical analysis. Isn't that what a civil society is about? Censorship doesn't solve anything.

Yes.

As for critical analysis, what is the worth of doing a 'critical analysis' of someone who says castro is the best thing that ever happened to the Americas? Does anyone have to waste time on critical analysis with a Holocaust denier or a Hitler lover? I'm gonna argue with you no. Her declaration is that of a pinhead. Someone who cannot be taken seriously. Right there you got your critical analysis. How do YOU propose to critically analyze such mindless drivel?

My post was not about burning her book. It was about the publishing industry that makes her books possible. Go back and reread my post, I didn't say anything about burning her book or not letting her be published.

But I did charge the publishing industry, which claims it is unbiased, with selectively favoring leftists and excluding the broader Cuban American community. I am correct in this charge.

If you're going to publish lies and pinheaded tripe, whether holocaust-denials or castro-worship, and parade it right in the face of people who know better, you've GOT to accept that free speech exists in this country and you will be held up to public criticism. That's just the way it is. Publishers are NOT, repeat, NOT above reproach for the things they do.

Mora, I go to the Book Fair every year. Maybe this year Miami Babalú readers should organize a peaceful protest against this enabler. What do you think, constant readers?

George.
I think that is an excellent idea!!
I am in!!
!YA NO MAS!!

It would probably be educational for her, the castro-worshipper. Maybe she could learn what castro does with books he doesn't like and independent libraries that aren't run by his automatons. Maybe she will wise up.

Mora,

I wasn't directly implying that you were calling for the boycott. The author of the article was commenting that sometimes there are boycotts and protests.

It would be nice if more was known about her, and what she's said or written made more clear so I would know exactly what to protest. She thinks that Fidel is the best thing to happen to the Americas? Lots of good people mistakenly think that. She's an ex-guerrillera, maybe she's slowly changing her ways? What book is she promoting at the fair? Anything to do with Cuba?

I agree with George, if she is in fact a castro lover, I will be there early to protest on behalf of the 11 million oppressed Cubans who can't be there.

Of course she has a right to publish her trash, and that's one of the rights in this country. This is the same thing as people who wear Che t-shirts, visit Castro in Cuba, etc. Try wearing a Hitler, KKK t-shirt, etc. See, these will rile up the people but Castro isn't considered the same. I understand and agree that it's insulting to invite her to come to Miami. What happens if people ignore her instead of walking with signs in front of her booth? Who gives a shit about her?

What exactly are you protesting?

Meyer, If she were a Holocaust denier and someone suggested a protest would you ask what was being protested?

Here's a plug for one good publisher that I know of and they also post stories online. Worth a look.

http://www.pureplaypress.com/english/about.html
also in espanol.

Pureplay Press, based in Los Angeles, was founded in 2001 by writers and editors who felt the need to publish works about Cuba’s history and culture.

I'm just pushing for a clarification. So far there is a protest planned for an author at a bookfair. The author once said that she felt that Castro was the best thing for Latin America. No other info. Nothing about her written work, nothing about what she's promoting at this fair. Just a planned protest because of a past comment she made. People are getting worked up, but nobody can expand on this author?

"Be on watch for this - the publishers are rewarding ONLY Latino leftwingers who love castro while shutting out the real literary talents from Cuba. This is going on and it's accelerating. The publishing industry is trying to censor Cuban American voices while telling all their Park Avenue friends that of course they are 'sensitive' to the 'growing' Hispanic book market."

Mora, you know of some CA writers with finished works that have been censored or shut out from being published?

Meyer: Yes.

Meyer: Do you know how to work Google? Google her. I have learned all I care to by her castro-worship. No decent person says what she thinks. Google her if your want to know more. No matter what you find, you will not find a thing in the world that will justify the vile claim that she made.

if memory serves correct, they had nobel laurete (and castro supporter)rigoberta menchu a couple years back.. FYI: mitch kaplan from books and books used to run the fair, but now that its gotten bigger im not entirely sure how much his involvement is.. i do know they help in lining up the guests and authors.. if you shop at books and books, now would be a good time to A)stop B) stop by and let them know how you feel about it PEACEFULLY and COURTEOUSLY.. i suggest asking mr kaplan if holocaust revisionists will be invited and that will get his attention.. while i think they have every right to invite whoever they want, the freedom of expression goes both ways when done PEACEFULLY and CIVILY ;)

Mora,
Probably a slip up. I am Cuban (born and bred) no longer catholic and not a left winger (way right as a matter of fact). You probably didn't mean to insinuate that , but I thought I'd make you aware based on your statement
"anti-Catholic Cubans". As for the rest of the story good job.

Pototo: Not being a Catholic doesn't make you anti-Catholic, does it? Non-Catholic is not anti-Catholic, it's just a matter of one's conscience. The anti-Catholics are monsters like Hugo Chavez and fidel castro, as well as most of the Hollywood left as I see it.

Mora,

I still don't understand who wants to protest what. It looks like none of her writings are about Cuba. She made a comment once. I disagree with her. So? You said you know all you need to know about her Castro worship. That's it? One comment. You can't expand anymore?

Daniel,

You're pushing for censorship. Maybe you should read the post about Castro's censorship. I'm quite happen about the freedom of expression we have here. You're calling for boycotts of companies because of writers that have been invited to the fair. Isn't that a form of censorship? Why don't you quote these writers and criticize them instead. Isn't that what a free society is about? Voicing opinions without consequences?

"while i think they have every right to invite whoever they want, the freedom of expression goes both ways when done PEACEFULLY and CIVILY" -

Which means what to you? To me this is a form of censorship. You are making people pay for having different opinions. I've debated this topic before, and I don't understand how people don't see this a form of censorship. Maybe not formal censorship, but it is discouraging different viewpoints from being expressed. If anything, as Mora claims there are not enough Cuban American writers being published, you should protest THAT! Ask for MORE diversity, not less.

The Hollywood left is anti-religious period. No God allowed. Except of course Scientology, and whatever the latest New Age Craze is. Almost without exception if a religious character is in the script, they are a caricature.

As a half-Cuban, even if that half is quite Cuban, I agree with that those idiots deserve the shellacking that they are getting here.

I am getting quite sick of the revisionist histories that published by "Cuban History Experts". Histories that omit the well established good things of Cuban history, and then float ephimeral theories of Cuban misdeeds.

I was fascinate with such as a "serious" historian who rejected the possibility that the Spanish Voluntarios may well have blown up the Maine (they had the means the electric mines, the access everything..) yet blame the Mambi with no evidence what so ever that a Mambi went anywhere near the ship, etc etc...

During the American phase of the Spanish Cuban American War, these "historians" forget the Cubans who took the landing zones at Siboney, teh Cubans who where wounded scouting Las Guasimas, they forget the Cuban Mambi who saved the Marines from Spanish fire at Guantanamo, the Cubans who got Vara del Rey, the Cubans who died unmentioned in the assaults and dug trenches underfire, they omit mention of the Cubans who held back the garrisons of Holguin, Baracoa, and Gibara. The Cubans who delayed the Spanish until the reinforcements from Manzanillo were useless. They forget that Cubans made sure no Spanish spy got from Guantanamo to Santiago.

Cubans are accused of all kinds of misdeeds, lack of stability in the 1930s and 1940s when all of Europe was in flame with bloody civil wars and totalitarian takeovers.

They take the War of 1912, and confuse it with the rising of 1906. They talk of Cuban "Blacks" as separate from "Whites," forgetting the Siboney which is far more common than many believe.

You should see a photo of one of my maternal grandmothers Do~na Lica (Manuela Enamorado Cabrera) xe xe "manda abuelita a la cocina que viene visitas."

They think Antonio Maceo was pure Black, they think that Calixto Garcia was pure white (his grandmother Maria de los Angeles Gonzales of Valencia Venezuela was "hija de cacique").

Humbug on all of them

Larry Daley Garcia-I~niguez Enamorado Cabrera (2x) Ramirez....half Cuban and half Crazy.....

Ah yes and plugging my almost complete book "The War Against Batista. Escopeteros" about what really happened in the mountains.....

meyer
ME?!?!? pushing for censorship!?!? haha you got the wrong guy buddy.. where in that post do i advocate censorship!?!? THEY have they right to invite whoever they want.. ANYONE opposed has the right to protest and show displeasure IF and WHEN the portest is done CIVILY WITHOUT VIOLENCE.. i have always always always spoken AGAINST the cuban american community when the protests are done in a fashion that PREVENTS free speech, go back read through the archives or maybe george and val can come to my "defense" here and state that yes, in fact i spoke AGAINST the tactics used at times by SOME in the exile community.. i simply said to VOIce your displeasure, and in fact advocated asking for MORE DIVERSE authors including those who dont beleive the holocaust happened.. how can i be asking for censorship?!?!? please show me where... i said they have the right to invite whoever they want..

MEYER
"while i think they have every right to invite whoever they want, the freedom of expression goes both ways when done PEACEFULLY and CIVILY" -

Which means what to you? To me this is a form of censorship

what it means to me is freedom goes both ways and should be respected by both sides.. ANY store HAS the right to sell che shirts or castro shirts, even a "hitler european tour 1939-1945".. they can sell books by marx, lenin, chomsky, or the turner diaries.. at the same time, anyone opposed can boycott if they wish (that is within their rights isint it?), they can voice their displeasure AS LONG AS they are not violent or impede others from buying or wearing or listening to wha they want.. if i want to buy silvio rodriguez albums i am well within my rights to do so.. if anyone is offended that a store sells those albums they are well within their rights from not shopping there, and informing others who may not be aware of it.. they cannot PREVENT others form shopping there, but have every right to voice displeasure.. i still dont see where you say i advocated censorship..

To all:

It seems that perhaps some of these authors are agents (see below), I will need to check further.

What ever, it is important to use the Amazon.com reader revews. This is one of mine below. Some people here can write far better than I. Here is mine

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0300104111/qid=1125002432/sr=8-3/ref=pd_bbs_3/104-5616957-2168748?v=glance&s=books&n=507846
Here is your review the way it will appear:
Richard Gott Agent of Influence, August 25, 2005
Reviewer: Laurence Daley (Corvallis, OR USA) - See all my reviews

When I picked up this book in a used book store, I read selected sections on matters I knew very well, read the authors passages on these matters and decided that this book was not only biased but deliberately and maliciously so. Pertinent data was omitted and selectively included data distorted.

Thus I did not purchase it. I will buy it here in used form so that the author does not receive any of my money, my purpose of this purchase is to fully document this and other malicious presentations of Cuban history.

At that the time I picked up this volume did not know that letters to London Times had labeled Richard Gott as an "Agent of Influence" e.g.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1376998/posts

or that he had been said to be a former KGB agent

e.g.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/583hqfaw.asp?pg=2

What I did know was from family history in Cuba that the author Richard Gott was re-writing the past. I concentrated in my sampling on the so called "race war of 1912" (it would seem that the author misdates it, and mixes it with the rising of 1906 in which my grand uncle Mambi General Carlos Garcia Velez was deeply involved). In this 1912 horror some of my family's property was burned.

Initially this sad 1912 matter had come to my attention some years ago when I was puzzled why the so called Mambi of the "Independentes de Color" would burn down property of the Mambi of my family.

Soon it became clear through critical readings that what the "Independentes de Color" were attempting to make a separate country, where they could rule despotically. This was apparent to most of the Mambi of that time and place and thus they, what ever pigment shaded their skins, did not take their war skills and courage to this fight.

These Mambi who refused to join the revolt had already used all their influence to try to avoid this clash, and to have some of the future revolt's leadership released from jail for inciting racial murder at the most trivial of excuse.

This lack of participation of the majority of the Mambi doomed the the revolt attempt from the very beginning. Then it was widely perceived, although apparently never quite proven, that this revolt was Haitian in origen and in intent. Some Dominican Republic activists of similar shaded skins, but few Cubans were shown to be involved. It was a racist revolt, where virtue was thought to reside only in those with the very darkest of skin.

As to the Siboney (Cuban Taino, Cuban Island Arawak) involvement much touted on the cover I see very little proof of that in this volume although there were a good number of such, including members of my family, involved in the Cuban wars of Independence. One may note in this reagard that my Mambi ancestor whose property was destroyed was probably part Siboney and certainly his wife (one of my maternal grandmothers) was Taina.

All this does not excuse the bloody actions of former General Monteagudo that followed the repression of this revolt, yet it does make their outraged anger far more understandable. For it was characters of this type and racial background that joining with Spanish General Weyler as "Guerrillas" slaughtered massive numbers of other Cuban in the Cuban Wars of Independence. One may note that butcher Weyler prided himself in choosing these very dark skinned Guerrillas as his bodyguards....

Larry Daley (Garcia-I~niguez Enamorado)

see
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0300104111/qid=1125002432/sr=8-3/ref=pd_bbs_3/104-5616957-2168748?v=glance&s=books&n=507846Check

Richard Gott Agent of Influence, August 25, 2005
Reviewer: Laurence Daley (Corvallis, OR USA) - See all my reviews

When I picked up this book in a used book store, I read selected sections on matters I knew very well, read the authors passages on these matters and decided that this book was not only biased but deliberately and maliciously so. Pertinent data was omitted and selectively included data distorted.

Thus I did not purchase it. I will buy it here in used form so that the author does not receive any of my money, my purpose of this purchase is to fully document this and other malicious presentations of Cuban history.

At that the time I picked up this volume did not know that letters to London Times had labeled Richard Gott as an "Agent of Influence" e.g.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1376998/posts

or that he had been said to be a former KGB agent

e.g.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/583hqfaw.asp?pg=2

What I did know was from family history in Cuba that the author Richard Gott was re-writing the past. I concentrated in my sampling on the so called "race war of 1912" (it would seem that the author misdates it, and mixes it with the rising of 1906 in which my grand uncle Mambi General Carlos Garcia Velez was deeply involved). In this 1912 horror some of my family's property was burned.

Initially this sad 1912 matter had come to my attention some years ago when I was puzzled why the so called Mambi of the "Independentes de Color" would burn down property of the Mambi of my family.

Soon it became clear through critical readings that what the "Independentes de Color" were attempting to make a separate country, where they could rule despotically. This was apparent to most of the Mambi of that time and place and thus they, what ever pigment shaded their skins, did not take their war skills and courage to this fight.

These Mambi who refused to join the revolt had already used all their influence to try to avoid this clash, and to have some of the future revolt's leadership released from jail for inciting racial murder at the most trivial of excuse.

This lack of participation of the majority of the Mambi doomed the the revolt attempt from the very beginning. Then it was widely perceived, although apparently never quite proven, that this revolt was Haitian in origen and in intent. Some Dominican Republic activists of similar shaded skins, but few Cubans were shown to be involved. It was a racist revolt, where virtue was thought to reside only in those with the very darkest of skin.

As to the Siboney (Cuban Taino, Cuban Island Arawak) involvement much touted on the cover I see very little proof of that in this volume although there were a good number of such, including members of my family, involved in the Cuban wars of Independence. One may note in this reagard that my Mambi ancestor whose property was destroyed was probably part Siboney and certainly his wife (one of my maternal grandmothers) was Taina.

All this does not excuse the bloody actions of former General Monteagudo that followed the repression of this revolt, yet it does make their outraged anger far more understandable. For it was characters of this type and racial background that joining with Spanish General Weyler as "Guerrillas" slaughtered massive numbers of other Cuban in the Cuban Wars of Independence. One may note that butcher Weyler prided himself in choosing these very dark skinned Guerrillas as his bodyguards....

Larry Daley (Garcia-I~niguez Enamorado)

Daniel,

"if you shop at books and books, now would be a good time to A)stop B) stop by and let them know how you feel about it PEACEFULLY and COURTEOUSLY.. i suggest asking mr kaplan if holocaust revisionists will be invited and that will get his attention.. while i think they have every right to invite whoever they want, the freedom of expression goes both ways when done PEACEFULLY and CIVILY ;)"

I find these sensitive issues, sometimes difficult to describe. In this case, you are suggesting people stop shopping at Books and Books because Restrepo was invited. To my knowledge her writings are not on Castro (Point me to her work if I'm mistaken).

In a free speech society you should not be punished for opinions like hers, however mistaken. She's not advocating violence or promoting racism. She's badly mistaken on her thoughts (to my knowledge. The authors that were good enough to post this story fail to expand and clarify what work she's promoting). Nothing wrong with protesting, raising awareness, even confronting Restrepo on what she said. But boycotting the fair and boycotting the sponsors is an attempt to make these organizations make financial decisions on what viewpoints are allowed to be expressed. This is everything a free society IS NOT! I know there are some subtleties at work here, but you should never discourage viewpoints. Argue the message, not the messenger. Restrepo has a viewpoint. If you disagree tell her. Don't boycott the fair. What if I want to confront her or Rigoberta about their viewpoints? Isn't it my right to do so? Are you trying to tell me who I can talk to at a Miami book fair? It's not your place. We live in a free society.

meyer, yes we live in a free society, and if YOU wish to shop there you have every right to do so unimpeded.. if pepe gomez or junanita sanchez want to boycott, its thier right to do so.. if jose gomez wishes to protest, it is HIS right to do so, as long as he does so peacefully. civily, and respectfully, without preventing others from excercising their right to attend

Daniel,

It is your right to protest and boycott. But is boycotting the right thing to do? I think protesting is better. Again, I think there is a fine line. Maybe to people on this blog Restrepo is despicable, but she has a right to an opinion. Boycotting the book store is YOU and others trying to tell the store who they can or can't invite to the fair. This is the squelching of dissent. Look what it leads to on this blog. I don't know anything about Restrepo's take on Cuba other than one comment she made (and apparrently the authors of this blog can't expand on it either) , and I don't even know the context or her further thoughts. Boycotts are intended to prevent her from voicing her opinion, and my right to hear it. In a free society, you should be PROMOTING other views, to argue them in a civil and peaceful manner. There is nothing civil about suppressing peoples views. I think it would be great if people went to the fair and talked to her. You don't have to buy her books, but don't try to take my right away to buy them or see her at the fair.

"if you shop at books and books, now would be a good time to A)stop B) stop by and let them know how you feel about it PEACEFULLY and COURTEOUSLY.."

It's not a huge deal, but it is what starts to lead to the suppressing of opinion. You are advocating a boycott to influence Books and Books choice of authors. This isn't free market. Free market is not buying Castro supporters books, hence publishers stop making them. Forcing companies to not publish certain opinions (even though a market may remain) is promoting censorship.

meyer, maybe you havent seen the posts where i criticized certain elements of the miami community when the resorted to violence and intimidation.. and you must have missed the ones where i speak out against FAMILY restrictions on travel and money transfers.. i am one of those "your rights end where my rights begin" kind of guys.. YOU have the right to spend your money where you wish, as do i, as does anyone else.. i have no problems if people wish to take their business elsewhere, thats their right.. they do not have the right to intimidate, or prevent others form accessing any business, but if they want to take their business elsewhere, i see nothing wrong with that.. if you do, oh well, opinions are like... we all habe em and they all stink