{"id":2330,"date":"2024-01-31T04:15:18","date_gmt":"2024-01-31T04:15:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gpnj.org\/gpnjwp\/?p=2330"},"modified":"2024-01-31T04:16:13","modified_gmt":"2024-01-31T04:16:13","slug":"why-visit-cuba-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gpnj.org\/gpnjwp\/uncategorized\/why-visit-cuba-today\/","title":{"rendered":"Why visit Cuba today?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo by\u00a0Greg Rosenke<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0Unsplash<\/a><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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My recent trip to Cuba opened up a heated debate and taught me so much!\n\n\n\t \n\n<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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MADELYN HOFFMAN\u00a0\u00a0<\/a><\/p><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/td><\/tr>

January, 2024<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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On January 9th, I had just returned to Colombia from Cuba. My memories of Cuba and my time spent there are still vivid and keep pulling me back. I have memories of political discussions, places that recalled the revolution, and places where the revolutionaries and their supporters resisted an invasion by anti-Castro soldiers, backed by the US.<\/strong><\/p>

I have memories of classic American cars – some used as taxis and some used as private vehicles. There were bicitaxis \u2014 powered by men and women pedaling their customers. There was artwork, dance and music. Oh, was there music! There were sunsets over the Malecon and sunsets over the rooftops.<\/strong><\/p>

And experiments in socialism, reforestation projects, long processes for producing pure Cuban cigars and jokes about Vitamin R \u2014 yes, that ever present liquid produced in Cuba \u2014 rum.<\/strong><\/p>

And yes, there were shortages, shortages of eggs, water, milk and so much more \u2014 with people struggling to survive. No matter what your political vision was for Cuba, everyone agreed on several things. The 65 year old blockade imposed by the US on Cuba needed to be lifted. Free education through university needed to be preserved. And health care needed to remain accessible to all.<\/strong><\/p>

Yes, I want to go back to Cuba, despite some discomfort with the political and economic situation in La Habana and elsewhere throughout the country. This wasn\u2019t the first time I\u2019d gone somewhere amidst controversy. My participation in a US Peace Council delegation to Venezuela in 2014, Syria in 2016 and my visit to the West Bank of Occupied Palestine in 2013 were not universally well-received either.<\/strong><\/p>

But my purpose in going to all those places was to see with my own eyes what was happening to these countries, rather than to be at the mercy of a heavily propagandized US media.<\/strong><\/p>

I will write a series of articles about what I learned in Cuba \u2014 starting with my arrival in Cuba on New Year\u2019s Eve and continuing throughout 9 days of exploration.<\/strong><\/p>

I arrived in La Habana, Cuba on New Year\u2019s Eve 2023. The following day was January 1, 2024, the 65th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution. My friend and I went to the National Theater to see the ballet. What we saw was the Cuban National Ballet\u2019s production of \u201cThe Nutcracker,\u201d a ballet my late mother danced in with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. Years later, my mother helped choreograph a nearly annual production of \u201cThe Nutcracker\u201d with a local ballet school in New Jersey.<\/strong><\/p>

I don\u2019t know how many times I have seen \u201cThe Nutcracker\u201d performed live, but it was probably some 15 – 20 times. With all due respect to my mother who worked with a cast mainly comprised of ballet school students and a few professionals hired specifically for the occasion, and to the New Jersey Ballet\u2019s fine production, the production of Cascaneuces (The Nutcracker) by the Cuban National Ballet was the best I had ever seen!<\/strong><\/p>

It was quite a welcome to the country that sparked controversy before I began my journey.<\/strong><\/p>

In fact, Cuba has been the subject of much debate and discussion for almost as long as I have been alive \u2014 with the Cuban revolution that succeeded on January 1, 1959.<\/strong><\/p>

Before the ballet, there was a commemoration of the 65 years since that day. After the ballet, we walked to Revolution Plaza, with a statue of Jose Marti and illuminated images of Camilo Cienfuegos and Che Guevara on buildings in the plaza, formerly known as Civic Square.<\/strong><\/p>

I will return to this theme shortly, but for now will publish this piece. If I waited to post until I completed my story, I think the piece would be far too long to read at one sitting. Please stay tuned.<\/strong><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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If you would like to subscribe to Madelyn Hoffman on Substack, please use the following link:<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Photo by\u00a0Greg Rosenke\u00a0on\u00a0Unsplash My recent trip to Cuba opened up a heated debate and taught me so much! MADELYN HOFFMAN\u00a0\u00a0 January, 2024 On January 9th, I had just returned to Colombia from Cuba. My memories of Cuba and my time spent there are still vivid and keep pulling me back. I have memories of political […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2330","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"czr-hentry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gpnj.org\/gpnjwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gpnj.org\/gpnjwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gpnj.org\/gpnjwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gpnj.org\/gpnjwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gpnj.org\/gpnjwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2330"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.gpnj.org\/gpnjwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2330\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2333,"href":"https:\/\/www.gpnj.org\/gpnjwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2330\/revisions\/2333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gpnj.org\/gpnjwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gpnj.org\/gpnjwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gpnj.org\/gpnjwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}