Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I had always wanted to include images in a novel, and with my first book, 'Telex From Cuba,' I made an elaborate website that is basically all images.
There is one source of injustice in Cuba: The Castro regime. It is not United States policies and it is not the United States embargo.
I won't perform in Cuba until there's no more Castro and there's a free Cuba. To me, Cuba's the biggest prison in the world, and I would be very hypocritical were I to perform there.
With President Obama restoring diplomatic relations with Cuba, the immigration preferential treatment given to Cubans... no longer makes sense.
The Cuban people still live in constant fear of a brutal totalitarian regime that has demonstrated time and again its utter disregard for basic human dignity. The fight for a free Cuba has gone on for far too long.
I was vaguely aware that people used to hijack planes to Cuba. But I didn't know much about how often it happened and what the motives were. I started looking into what was going on back then, and I was blown away by how common hijacking once was.
People who live in hermit states like North Korea, Burma, and Cuba already suffer from global isolation. Fed on a diet of propaganda, they don't know what's happening inside their borders or outside of them. By increasing their seclusion, sanctions make it easier for dictators to blame external enemies for a country's suffering.
I wouldn't like to see Cuba change in other ways. And the trouble is when Fidel [Castro] does go - I am sure he will at some stage. He will probably be replaced by some sort of Western capitalism, ultimately.
The embargo doesn't affect the United States, not even minimally; all of Cuba's economy is smaller than that of Miami-Dade County, and the ones who suffer the most are Cubans. If you talk to them in the street, they're the ones most interested in the opening of a free market in their country.
The CIA's official history of the Bay of Pigs operation is filled with dramatic and harrowing details that not only lay bare the strategic, logistical, and political problems that doomed the invasion, but also how the still-green President John F. Kennedy scrambled to keep the U.S. from entering into a full conflict with Cuba.
Let me give you really bad news, and I'm sure people will demonize me for saying this: the rich are always gonna be with us. They will always be with us. There are rich people in Cuba. There are rich people in Venezuela. You pick the policies, and the rich are gonna figure it out. They're always gonna be rich.
If Beyonce and Jay-Z had been born and raised in Cuba, they would have merely survived, with no opportunity to realize their aspirations. Only in a land that treasures liberty and the pursuit of happiness can such dreams become a reality.
My grandfather left Cuba when Castro came into power and literally left everything. He had two suitcases and two kids and showed up in New Jersey and waited for my uncle to meet up with him. Imagine - there were no cell phones back then!
That's what I considered Cuba to be... the most loving place I've ever been in my life. And the fact that there's no crime. You walk in the street at any time, and you feel like nothing is going to happen.
She is Cuba. If you want to love her, you have to be with her, but you can't be with her in her current state. It's the point of view of all exiles - you have to leave the thing you cherish most.
Forty-two years ago, I came to America from communist Cuba so I might have a better way of life, a freer way of life - a more democratic way of life. I wanted to live the American Dream where if you worked hard and put your mind to the task, anything was possible.
I wanted a name I could shape the music towards. I was going to Miami quite a lot at the time, speaking a lot of Spanish with my friends from Cuba - 'Lana Del Rey' reminded us of the glamour of the seaside. It sounded gorgeous coming off the tip of the tongue.
Think about it: Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, Vietnam, North Korea, the former Soviet Union - they all start with the intention of leveling the playing field - or making things better for the little guy - and instead, they created misery, poverty, destruction and a permanent ruling class of bureaucrats.
I was a first-generation college student as well as the first in our family to be born in America - my parents were born in Cuba - and we didn't yet know that families were supposed to leave pretty much right after they unloaded your stuff from the car.
Sending $300 to your grandma in Cuba doesn't change the dynamic with Castro.
In Cuba, I would start the first two months hitting around .260 with three or four home runs. After the first half of the season, I would get hot, and that's when I would have my best results.
In Cuba we have one party, but in the U.S. there is very little difference. Both parties are an expression of the ruling class.
Let's be honest: The trade embargo with Cuba hasn't secured our interests or helped the Cuban people. Because the way to promote positive change and better human rights in Cuba is through engagement, not isolation.
I've always said that I'm open to changes in the relations between Cuba and the U.S., but that Cuba must make changes also.
My fantasy of Cuba was that everybody was going to be going around looking like Fidel, with green uniforms - and it was very different from my vision of how Cuba was going to be.
Cuba has the cleanest and most-educated prostitutes in the world.
Exploring Castro's pawns in Cuba and exposing anything negative also makes you a pawn to all his enemies 90 miles away. Both sides don't have much of a track record for nuance of opinion.
Cuba is only 90 miles from Florida, but for a long time, the distance between our two countries seemed a lot greater.
Clearly America businesses are interested in opening up new markets not just in Cuba, but all over the world.
I don't want to be the crazy woman who does it for years and years and years, and tries and fails and tries and fails and tries and fails, but I can swim from Cuba to Florida, and I will swim from Cuba to Florida.
In Cuba you get a quarter of a chicken per month. They give you one bread per person a day. So, it makes your life really tough.
I would love to go back and help rebuild that country and help - you know, kind of like what's going on with Iraq right now. You know, they've got a new government in place. They're trying to rebuild the country. I would love for that to happen in Cuba also.
It is a dictatorship. They did have a good health - do have a decent health care system and a decent educational system. A lot of people have left Cuba for better dreams, to fulfill their aspirations.
Cuba forces in Angola gave a real shot in the arm to the liberation movements, and it also was a lesson to the white South Africans that the end is coming. They can't just hope to subdue the continent on racist grounds.
Cuba has not accepted the domain and imposition of an empire that has wanted to dominate us for over half a century [America].
We sold sugar with the specific conditions established by American buyers, which in turn dominated the internal market and production in Cuba. Now if we would sell sugar to the U.S., it would be the Cuban Government the one who would sell it, and it would be a complete profit for our people.
There was a time when emigration from Cuba was a definitive separation. There were no visits. In the '80s, '90s, it was incredibly difficult. I'm not the only one interested in this as a filmmaker - other Cuban filmmakers have dealt with it, too, because it's such a part of our reality.
The goods of the world market are available for Cuba to purchase, but all the foreign exchange is monopolized by the regime, which uses it for its own power and pleasure.
You're going to tell me that things aren't right in Cuba, and so we shouldn't engage. It's lunacy. Look outside your door and see the inhumanity of Americans... that we perpetrate on a daily basis in our lives... and then tell me that you're going to isolate Cuba as an example. I'm sorry; that's unacceptable.
This business - the auditions, the anxiety - it's all so, aaah, crazy! But I can always call my mom in Cuba to be reminded of what real life is.
It's no secret that Cuba is a typical Latin American culture in that it has a fair amount of homophobia. Homosexuals have been notoriously persecuted under Fidel's government.
My mother made the courageous decision to flee a tyrannized Cuba in the 1950s and bring her children to the United States, where I was born.
What I really like about Cuba is that you can go into a local bar in a provincial town and you'll get jazz played at the highest standard - played often a cappella, or certainly with no amplification or whatever. Even if you are not knowledgeable about music, and I am not, you can find yourself really enjoying it.
Part of me believes that Beyonce and Jay-Z were naive when they chose to celebrate their five-year wedding anniversary in Cuba. However, as the daughter of a former political prisoner in Cuba, I would argue that they should have known better than to travel to the island and support its repressive regime.
I want to say almost 100% Cubans who get mad at you are Cubans who live in Miami. And they all live comfortably in Miami. They can all go online and tell you what happened to your grandfather. In Cuba, it's a totally different thing. They can't wait for you to come. They're energized. They love your music. They want to see something new.
My grandfather was a very elegant individual. My father also. He was a lawyer and farmer in Cuba. In Miami, he had to go to work wherever he could. But whenever it was time to go out, you saw how they cared for how they looked.
Visionless status quo policy towards Latin-America, particularly towards Cuba, has turned off a lot of people, and I think it's created an opening.
Despite the situation in Cuba, I had a chance to play on the national team; and compared to other baseball players and other people in Cuba, I had the opportunity to live at a level that was not very high class but in the middle.
I was not chosen to be president to restore capitalism to Cuba. I was elected to defend, maintain and continue to perfect socialism, not destroy it.
Both of my parents were born into poor families on the island of Cuba. They came to America because it was the only place where people like them could have a chance.