September 21, 2006

Those Damned Cubans Are Everywhere

Marc has an exceptional editorial up at Uncommon Sense - Another Cuban in Florida - that you simply all must read.

Every year, my family celebrates “la noche buena” on Christmas Eve, and I love Cuban food, and the music. But what I have discovered within myself, as I researched and wrote about Cuba, was something much deeper and stronger. It’s as if what is happening to my companeros on the island, especially the journalists, is happening to me.

Their freedom has become my cause.

I am first and foremost an American, and proudly so, but I almost am Cuban, and just as proud.

Earlier this week, in a post and subsequent comments, Val described his Cubanidad, and the fact that his is the most popular Cuba blog on the Internet, as almost a burden. For Val, who I consider a friend, being a Cuban with a blog means having to answer the idiots out there who excuse the Castro regime’s bad behavior and to explain and defend why the focus of his blog is so narrow.

I share his pain. But rather than shirk from it, I, like Val, embrace it.

For me, spending hours almost every day working on this blog is not a burden but a responsibility I embrace proudly. As a journalist, as an American and as a Cuban, I have been guided by an invisible hand, from within and from above, to tell the stories of Cuba as best I can and to do my small part, I hope, to help free a nation.

I'd just like to say that I never meant to imply that the blog is a burden, it's not. Babalu, and every other blog on that Cubiches blogroll, is a labor of love. It is just as Marc describes it, a responsibility that we all embrace proudly and wholeheartedly and with the only goal being that someday we'll have made a difference.

Posted by Val Prieto at September 21, 2006 03:11 PM



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Comments

Val,

“There is happiness in duty, although it may not seem so.”
Jose Marti

Posted by: Firefly [TypeKey Profile Page] at September 21, 2006 04:08 PM

What, Val, Marc, and others do for the cause, cannot even be measured in dollars. It is truly a labor of love (and Cubanidad).

Posted by: Piruli [TypeKey Profile Page] at September 21, 2006 04:33 PM

This makes me want to say "I Love You Guys" big 'ol Cuban Family up in here. Marc, siento lo mismo lo que sientes, hermano. Llevamos la sangre Cubano en nuestra venas, y hablamos con el mismo sabor Cubano, sentimo el sufrimiento de la isla que vio nuestro padres crecer. Y estamos unidos en la misma causa de tratando a liberar a Cuba pa que un dia todos de nosoros puedemos vivir en La Cuba de nuestro viejos, de Marti y Maceo, y de la libertad. Viva Cuba Libre.

Felix Lazaro Ricardo
Miami-born, Cuban

Posted by: Felix Ricardo [TypeKey Profile Page] at September 21, 2006 09:13 PM

Speaking of damned Cubans, Herald reporter Oscar Corral has just joined this category. His recent controversial article has not only raised the ire of the majority of the Cuban exile community, but now even his own father will not speak to him for dragging the family name thru the mud. Sucks to be him.

Posted by: delacova [TypeKey Profile Page] at September 21, 2006 10:56 PM

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