Blunt talk from Cuba’s first daughter

It didn’t take Mariela Castro long to make news in the United States. The Associated Press reports that she “had some blunt words Wednesday for Cuban-Americans who support economic and travel restrictions between the U.S. and her country, saying ‘a Cuban Mafia’ made up of émigrés ‘who have no scruples’ are holding the American people hostage.”

Castro is in San Francisco where she will attend the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) conference to be held this weekend. She was speaking at San Francisco General Hospital about transgender health care in Cuba when she blasted the ‘Cuban American mafioso.’

As reported by the AP, and speaking on gay and transgender issues, Castro, who is director of Cuba’s National Center for Sex Education, or CENESEX, stated, “If we don’t change our patriarchal and homophobic culture…we cannot advance as a new society, and that’s what we want, the power of emancipation through socialism. … We will establish relationships on the basis of social justice and social equality…It seems like a Utopia, but we can change it.”

“The Revolution has grown in Cuba, and it’s been more than 50 years now. … The Cuban people have been the victims of state terrorists, of the economic blockade against Cuba, campaigns to…misinform the world’s population about the power of a revolution,” said Castro.

Mariela’s visit has sparked controversy, especially in Florida, where politicians from both parties, led by Cuban American legislators, have complained to the State Department for issuing Cuba’s first daughter a visa. Ten prominent Cuban academics have been denied visas to participate in LASA.

Alvaro F. Fernandez