All posts by Casa de las Americas

Casa de las Américas (Casa) is a New York-based organization of Cuban emigrants who support the revolution. Beginning in 1955, the July 26 Committee was established in NY for the purpose of supporting the armed struggle that was taking place in Cuba against the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. Shortly after the triumph of the revolution in 1959, the Committee was renamed Casa Cuba, which later became Casa de las Américas.
Cuban Culture

US Prize Awarded to Cuban Poet Nancy Morejon

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By Prensa Latina

Cuban writer and poet Nancy Morejon said she was surprised for the work/life award granted to her recently in San Francisco, California, by the Latin American Studies Association (LASA).

“It took me by surprise; I did not expect it,” the author of “Piedra Pulida” (Polished Stone) told Prensa Latina.

She said it is not a book or an essay; it is an important award that recognizes an author’s career.

Born on August 7, 1944, Morejon is one of the most prestigious writers and poets in the Island, and has devoted part of her career to study Caribbean literature and the work by Nicolas Guillen.

She is a full member of the Cuban Academy of Language since 1999, and was awarded the National Literature Prize in 2001.

She also is bestowed with the Officer of the National Order of Merit of France.

Considered the largest association around the world, LASA groups figures and institutions devoted to Latin American studies. Its main mission is promoting intellectual debate, research and teaching about the region.

 

US Prize Awarded to Cuban Poet Nancy Morejon

Cuba - Social, Mariela Castro

Contemporary LGBT rights in Cuba with Mariela CASTRO‏

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Tuesday, May 29, 2012, 7 – 8:30 p.m.
PROGRAM LOCATIONS:
Stephen A. Schwarzman Building
Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street
New York, NY 10018-2788

Fully accessible to wheelchairs
First come, first served – Seating is limited and will be first come first served.
Initial funding of the LGBT Initiative provided by Time Warner Inc.

Mariela Castro¡Saludos! Greetings!

The program with Mariela Castro and Rea Carey on May 29 is ‘Sold Out!’ . . . and with all the negative publicity by the right it is important that those of us who did not get to register come out to show our support/solidarity with this important event.

Say ¡Presente! on May 29th! Bring your solidarity, flags, posters, etc. as we gather in front of the NYC Public Library.

Abrazos Solidarios,

Frank Velgara

 

In 2010 the Cuban government began providing sex reassignment surgery free of charge as part of their universal healthcare. This was the result of several years of work by the Cuban National Center for Sex Education under the leadership of Mariela Castro Espín, niece of Fidel Castro and daughter of current Cuban president Raúl Castro. The current developments in LGBT rights in Cuba are remarkable given the discrimination suffered by gays, lesbians, and transgender people in Cuba in the 20th century, as well as comparison with current LGBT movements in the U.S. and abroad.

Please join us on Tuesday May 29th at 7pm in the Trustees Room of the New York Public Library’s Stephen A. Schwarzman Building as Mariela Castro Espín and Rea Carey, Director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, discuss the current international context of LGBT rights, including issues of sexual identity and orientation in contemporary Cuba.

Mariela Castro Espín is the director of the Cuban National Center for Sex Education (CENESEX). She was President of the Cuban Society for the Multidisciplinary Study of Sexuality (SOCUMES) from 2000 to 2010. She is president of the Cuban Multidisciplinary Centre for the Study of Sexuality, president of the National Commission for Treatment of Disturbances of Gender Identity, member of the Direct Action Group for Preventing, Confronting, and Combatting AIDS, and an executive member of the World Association for Sexual Health (WAS). She is also the director of the journal Sexología y Sociedad, a magazine of Sexology edited by her own National Center for Sex Education (CENESEX). She is the author of 9 books, published in Cuba and abroad, among them Transexuality in Cuba (Havana, CENESEX Publishing House, 2008). In 2009 she was awarded with the Public Service Award from the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality (SSSS), and in 2012 she received the Eureka Award for Academic Excellence, given by the World Council of University Academy (COMAU).She is married with 3 children.

Rea Carey, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, is one of the most prominent leaders in the U.S. lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights movement. Carey, who came to the Task Force in 2004 as deputy executive director, has served as executive director since 2008.  Through her leadership, Carey has advanced a vision of fairness and justice for LGBT people and their families that is broad, inclusive and unabashedly progressive. Prior to her work with the Task Force, Carey worked extensively in HIV/AIDS prevention and in the LGBT community as one of the co-founders of Gay Men and Lesbians Opposing Violence and the founding executive director of the National Youth Advocacy Coalition. She has also served as an advisor to major donors and foundations, and has served on the advisory boards for such wide-ranging publications as Teen People magazine and the Georgetown University Journal of Gender and the Law. She serves on the Advisory Board of theLGBTQ Policy Journal, of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government

Contemporary LGBT rights in Cuba with Mariela CASTRO‏

Cuba - Social

Spain Calls for End of US Embargo against Cuba

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By EFE

Spain considers it “necessary to end the trade, economic and financial blockade imposed on Cuba by the United States” since it “violates the basic rules of international trade,” the Spanish government said in response to a question posed in Parliament. Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s government was responding to a question posed last week in Parliament by United Left, or IU, spokesman Jose Luis Centella.The government’s written response noted that the U.S. embargo against Cuba “has been condemned on different occasions by the United Nations General Assembly.”

IU included the government’s written response in a statement.

Rajoy’s government also noted that Spain has “unequivocally” supported condemnations of the embargo at the U.N. and other forums.

Centella said he was satisfied with the government’s clear “and forceful” response, adding that he expected “greater activity” at the European Union and United Nations to end the embargo on the basis of “the international legality broken by the blockade.”

The Cuban Five

Cuban official talks about Alan Gross

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httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPzQP4YiF0k

Josefina Vidal of Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, clarifies issues regarding Alan Gross, and the Cuban Five
CNN Interview of Thursday, May 10
on “The Situation Room”

Dear Friends of the Cuban Five:

The U.S. government and media have distorted the facts surrounding the case of Alan Gross, who was arrested in Cuba in December 2009 while carrying out destabilization efforts inside Cuba, as an employee of the CIA-front organization U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Gross is serving a 15-year sentence.

After Wolf Blitzer of CNN conducted a May 9 telephone interview with Alan Gross, in which false claims were made against Cuba, Cuba’s ambassador to the United States in Washington DC, Jorge Bolaños, issued a letter calling for an opportunity for Cuba to state its position, as well as Cuba’s willingness to dialogue on all issues with the U.S. government.

On Thursday, May 10, Josefina Vidal, director of the North American department of Cuba’s Foreign Ministry, was interviewed on CNN’s Situation Room, by Wolf Blitzer. Vidal’s answers to Blitzer’s questions on various themes related to U.S.-Cuba relations, are enlightening and informative.

Written by National Committee To Free The Cuban Five