Audio By Carbonatix
Independent Journalism in Miami Needs You
We need to raise $10,000 by August 9 to support the reporting our community depends on. Reader support keeps us independent and is playing a larger role in funding local journalism and shaping what comes next. If you believe independent local journalism matters, make a contribution today.
David Adams, the St. Petersburg Times‘ Latin American correspondent, writes a fascinating story about Cubans blogging on the island.
Adams writes about Yoani Sanchez, a 32-year-old woman who writes the blog Generacion Y. Here’s a passage:
The name of her blog refers to the popularity early in the Cuban revolution for children’s names starting with “Y” – Yoandri, Yuslady, Yuniesky. These “children of the revolution” were brought up on socialist promises that the state would provide for everyone. Instead, the Soviet Union collapsed, ushering in an era of dire shortages.
In a Jan. 26 post, Sanchez described a futile search for lemons to cure a sore throat. It became an opportunity to question Cuba’s centralized agricultural system:
“Should I keep up hope, or conform and forget the taste of lemons?” she concluded. “When will the land belong to someone who makes it produce, and not a state that under-utilizes it in abandoned large estates?”
Sanchez says her blog is an effort to break the silence of her generation. “I felt I had this internal pressure building up inside me after so many years of silence. I felt a need to express, to vomit it all up – an exorcism.”
