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On March 20, the Miami gate agent of Invicta Air frowned, then waved me aside as my bag registered 31 pounds, 4 pounds shy of the carry-on limit. “Bag too heavy – Help!” I WhatsApped. “Can you check it?” asked Medea Benjamin. We were initially informed that only carry-on was acceptable but the agent nodded and moments later, having transferred solar chargers and rechargeable headlamps to my backpack, I watched my bag disappear on the belt.
Thirty years earlier, in the face of the U.S. government’s cruel and illegal blockade against Cuba, I was a Queers for Cuba delegate following the release of Fresa y Chocolate, a film exploring the friendship between a gay artist and a straight revolutionary. We visited during the “Special Period,” a time of hunger, economic crisis and reinvention following the collapse of critical trade between the island nation and the Soviet Union. Our group visited Los Cocos HIV/AIDS sanatorium, attended drag shows, met political asylee Assata Shakur and toured organopónicos, innovative urban organic farms.
Now here I was again in José Martí International Airport, rolling an overstuffed bag containing neonatal vitamins, condoms, guitar strings, diving gear, bike tire patch kits, crayons and hacky sacks with the peace group Code Pink. In opposition to the Trump administration’s oil blockade and threats of invasion, we joined Nuestra América Convoy, a global convergence of groups bringing humanitarian aid to Cuba.
People prioritized aid over comfort, opting to cram as many donation items as possible into their luggage. We joined hundreds of activists from all over the world in an act of solidarity, dignity and resistance to the six-decade economic siege by the U.S. designed “to bring about hunger, desperation and the overthrow of [the Cuban] government.”
This time, I was confronted by a Cuba immediately familiar but also alien to me. Classic 1940s and 50s cars were still parked outside crumbling colonial-era buildings, a testament to the country’s tortured history of pre-revolutionary oligarch-level inequality and post-revolutionary punishment. In 1996, I saw no begging or homelessness, but this time adults and even children approached asking for money. Also, in sharp contrast from even the difficult Special Period, there were the piles of garbage on street corners, evidence of the fuel starvation that idled trash trucks. Mosquito-borne diseases had rebounded in the absence of garbage pickup and government-sponsored insect control measures.
As President Diaz-Canel welcomed us, we joined an Italian contingent that thanked Cuba for sending doctors during the COVID-19 outbreak, exemplifying the country’s extraordinary health care system. We met three siblings, all medical students from the U.S., whose subsidized education amounted to $2,500 per year each. Despite accessible medical training and a doctor-to-patient ratio far surpassing that of the U.S., Cuba’s health care system is struggling. Our second night in Havana, from my vantage point in a hotel not on the U.S. State Department’s list of forbidden accommodations, I gazed over the rooftops as a blackout gripped the city, knowing that doctors well-accustomed to hardship were losing patients.
In Cuba, music is everywhere, but I found it disturbing that Havana’s street musicians abandoned whatever they were playing and immediately launched into “Guantanamera,” the patriotic anthem popularized in the U.S. by Pete Seeger, at the first sight of our group. Still, the blockade hadn’t dimmed Cuban friendliness, or sociabilidad, so it was no surprise when Cayo Hueso resident Yasmany greeted my roommate and me on our way to a kids’ party for the distribution of donated art supplies, suggesting we visit Callejon de Hamel, an alleyway dedicated to Yoruba culture, followed by coffee at his house. In Yasmany’s home, guarded by Elegguá, the orisha of pathways, my roommate, author Lea Aschkenas, presented him and his wife, Dule, with her children’s book for their son who we visited at the art party. Days later, our flotilla and Mexican ships brought over 600 tons of aid.
Now that President Trump has renewed threats against Cuba, you might be reading this and wondering about U.S.-Cuba relations, or what you can do for the Cuban people. The U.S. government spends tens of millions of dollars to keep you misinformed about Cuba. So you can read about the blockade, watch Cuba After Castro, visit with Belly of the Beast, the Center for Cuban Studies, or Global Exchange, and advocate and petition for an end to U.S. aggression and a resumption of normalized relations.
The Cuban revolution was an example of what can happen when people fight for their right to live in dignity. You deserve a better life too. Another world is possible.
