Cuban cultural icons get US visas

Source: BBC News

Two of Cuba's biggest stars have been granted visas to visit the United States next month.

It will be the first time in decades that the folk singer Silvio Rodriguez and the prima ballerina Alicia Alonso have been allowed to perform in the US.

Both have been staunch supporters of Cuba's communist system.

President Obama has been encouraging people-to-people contacts with Cuba, while maintaining a decades-long trade embargo.

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8681635.stm

Prior to the W admin, cubans used to come to visit their families in Miami (or wherever), go shopping at Sawgrass Mills, and then climb back onto a flight out of Miami back to their home in Cuba.

All of that ended after W.


:hi:

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it's time to lift the embargo.

let them wait on line like everyone else

The vast majority of Cuban immigrants have come to the US using a legal US immigration visa.

To get one, they must pass a prerequisite US performed background check - for felony/criminal records, back child support, etc.

Some don't pass.

That's what the go-fast boat smuggling operations are for. Its a huge industry in S Florida.

Here's why.....

The US's Wet Foot/ Dry Foot policy allows these people (Cubans only) who have failed a background check to get to the US by illegal means and be granted instant entry, along with instant access to many other US socialist perks, such as instant access to Social Security, instant access to a green card, instant access to medicare, instant access to medicaid, instant access to food stamps, instant access to Section 8 subsidized housing (with a $41,000 income exemption), instant access to low interest loans, and a wide range of programs designed for Cubans only.

Plus these entrants (legal or not) are granted their FULL US constitutional rights -while the rest of us have our rights abrogated- in that Cubans can travel to Cuba unfettered by the US government while the rest of us are relegated to 2nd class citizens - still travel banned.

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given that there appear to be no problems with Cubans visiting Europe. For the UK they need either need a visa or a tourist card for a 30 day stay. Cost of a visa is £15.

I think the way the USA treats Cuba is despicable.

:hi:

There is a Cuban painter who will be present at a showing of his work at a gallery in Boston that specializes in contemporary Cuban art.

The way the US treats Chinese is also nothing to be proud of. I met my future(now present) wife while on business in China in 2005. The only way she could come here was on a "fiance visa," which took a year to go through. Upon reaching the US she either had to marry within 3 months or go back. There was no way for her to come to the US to visit and see if she wanted to move here. And once here if she decided to marry, which she did :>), she could not leave and return to the US for a year-until she had her Green Card, WHICH meant that in order just to come here she had to give up her job, her apartment,etc.. What a load of crap. What a hellish way to treat someone and why? Because it is a Communist country.

similar situations apply when a US citizen marries someone English here in the UK and I think the same applies vice versa.

She's, um, 89. Not so old for a pianist...but a ballerina?
Just asking.

I recall he complained about the lack of change in Cuba, and said something about taking the R out of Revolution, turning it into evolution

http://www.sacbee.com/2010/05/10/2740440/silvio-rodriguez-wonders-if-cuba.html

I recall he complained about the lack of change in Cuba, and said something about taking the R out of Revolution, turning it into evolution

http://www.sacbee.com/2010/05/10/2740440/silvio-rodriguez-wonders-if-cuba.html

From an article posted at D.U. earlier, Google translation of this article posted here last week:

Silvio Rodriguez said Cuba "cries out for revision"
Friday March 26, 2010 19:33 AM ET

LA HABANA (Reuters) - The singer Silvio Rodriguez said Cuba "cries out for revision" on Friday presenting his new album, which he dedicated to a half century of the revolution led by Fidel Castro.
Rodriguez, considered the voice of the Cuban revolution, said the idea of "reinventing" the island's socialist system is not new, but "has not always been achieved."

"I think this is a time that yes, the revolution, the national life, the country is crying out for a review of lots of things (...) from concept to institutions," said the musician of 63 years during a conference press in Havana to present his album "Second Date."

Rodriguez is the author of popular songs like "Cause and Chance", "Blue Unicorn" and "hope" was one of the leaders of the Nueva Trova movement in the 1960s.

His music deeply identified with the revolution also has contained social criticism.

"There are many things that should be reviewed in Cuba and I've heard, unofficially always and never of course unfortunately in our press, that these things are being discussed," Rodriguez said.

"God wills it so!" He added, drawing applause of hundreds of people gathered at the Casa de las Americas in Havana.

President Raul Castro, who took two years to his ailing brother Fidel in power, has embarked on reforms such as allowing small cell phones and decentralizing some decisions in the socialist economy.

Many Cubans hope economic reforms more fundamental.

Asked about international criticism received by Cuba in February after the death of political prisoner Orlando Zapata during a hunger strike, Rodriguez responded that he had a "consensus" against the island.
U.S. President Barack Obama this week condemned the human rights situation in Cuba, which he described as "deeply disturbing."

"I know all that has happened. I still have many more reasons to believe in the revolution, that to believe detractors," Rodriguez said.

From post dated Sunday, April 4, 2010.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=405x33742#33748

It doesn't have to mean demolishing it and setting up crony capitalism.

:kick: :kick: :kick: :kick:

La familia, la propiedad privada y el amor

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UO6mgb_o9k&feature=related

This man is really, really good, isn't he?

Hope he will be able to go visit his old friend, Pete Seeger, since he was invited to his birthday party in the last few months and couldn't attend, due to not getting a visa from the U.S.

Silvio Rodriguez is such a great talent, and has been well known to US American artists, but almost everyone else has never been able to hear him before the internetS.