Day 3
Another night of tossing and turning. Regularly feeling completely overwhelmed and anxious and wonder if doing this makes any sense at all! But also is leading me to some important conversations and understandings about Miami and Cuba and immigration. Decided to move from the campground to a hotel in Little Havanna, to be more where the action is.
I went to the Bayside tourist place and poked around, measured the size of Boards in case I was able to put one up. Then I drove out to meet with the director (who asked to remain anonymous) at a community center in Little Haiti. The area seemed even poorer than Little Havana, but there was clearly a lot going on in the center. With different groups meeting and people dropping in, and articles and projects adorning the walls. I had a great meeting with G who started the center 9 years ago. He explained that the Cuba issue was the third rail in Miami for progressive organizations – touch it and you die. He said they had enough battles to fight on other fronts and worked primarily in the African American and Haitian communities. He responded well to the project. He said he thought they could openly get behind it, and thought there would be people interested in going, if I got a groundswell, enough momentum to provide them cover. He also said it would be more likely to get their support if I could get some hurricane Katrina survivors involved. I asked if I could video tape him and he said no. I asked if I could blog about what he said and he said he would rather not be identified publicly at this point. He pointed to some local important figures.
1) Jack Lieberman – important figure in Cuban Solidarity
2) Talk show host Rudy Alarcon who has had 3 assassination attempts.
He also told me about a demo in little Havana in support of Luis Posada Carriles, ( who was convicted of blowing up a Cuban civilian airliner, killing all 73 people) where counter demonstrators were attacked and beaten.
He also said that there was beginning to be a split in the Cuban community between those who thought it would be better to get rid of Fidel by lifting the embargo, and those who wanted to maintain it.
I asked him about places to stay and he thought Little Havanna was a good idea. Drove up and down the street for hours trying to find something - all that really exists is a couple of very sleazy places that rent by the hour, so I chose one , called El Nido, where they had a parking lot and I could pull my car in. The place has one window with a one way mirror pointing in, so that people from the outside can look in and there was porno playing on the TV when I walked into the room and it smelled of stale smoke. I was totally creeped out, and went back and forth for some time but I didn’t know where else to go, so I decided to roll with it. There’s no air circulation, and I woke up at 4 am unable to sleep. I switched places the next night.
I went to the Bayside tourist place and poked around, measured the size of Boards in case I was able to put one up. Then I drove out to meet with the director (who asked to remain anonymous) at a community center in Little Haiti. The area seemed even poorer than Little Havana, but there was clearly a lot going on in the center. With different groups meeting and people dropping in, and articles and projects adorning the walls. I had a great meeting with G who started the center 9 years ago. He explained that the Cuba issue was the third rail in Miami for progressive organizations – touch it and you die. He said they had enough battles to fight on other fronts and worked primarily in the African American and Haitian communities. He responded well to the project. He said he thought they could openly get behind it, and thought there would be people interested in going, if I got a groundswell, enough momentum to provide them cover. He also said it would be more likely to get their support if I could get some hurricane Katrina survivors involved. I asked if I could video tape him and he said no. I asked if I could blog about what he said and he said he would rather not be identified publicly at this point. He pointed to some local important figures.
1) Jack Lieberman – important figure in Cuban Solidarity
2) Talk show host Rudy Alarcon who has had 3 assassination attempts.
He also told me about a demo in little Havana in support of Luis Posada Carriles, ( who was convicted of blowing up a Cuban civilian airliner, killing all 73 people) where counter demonstrators were attacked and beaten.
He also said that there was beginning to be a split in the Cuban community between those who thought it would be better to get rid of Fidel by lifting the embargo, and those who wanted to maintain it.
I asked him about places to stay and he thought Little Havanna was a good idea. Drove up and down the street for hours trying to find something - all that really exists is a couple of very sleazy places that rent by the hour, so I chose one , called El Nido, where they had a parking lot and I could pull my car in. The place has one window with a one way mirror pointing in, so that people from the outside can look in and there was porno playing on the TV when I walked into the room and it smelled of stale smoke. I was totally creeped out, and went back and forth for some time but I didn’t know where else to go, so I decided to roll with it. There’s no air circulation, and I woke up at 4 am unable to sleep. I switched places the next night.
posted by John Ewing at 9:22 PM
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