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its own, public participation in the struggle for
justice and equality for all Cuban, without distinction.
The young, civic-cultural institution’s leaders and
movers, who are based in the United States, have
a tremendous amount of accumulated experience
in academia and civic activism on behalf of emancipation and integration. They have formed alliances with a number of educational, civic and cultural institutions and organization in Cuba and the
U.S., and other places where there are Cuban exiles.
Between March and April 2014, the PIC organized an academic-cultural series of events
against racism and for equality and integration. It
did this in close coordination with Miami-Dade
College (MDC), Florida International University
(FIU), the Cuban Soul Foundation (CSF), the Citizens’ Observatory Against Discrimination
(OCD), EmpoderCuba and Conciencia Cívica.
These included various academic and artistic
presentations, all offering very specific views of
Cuba’s social reality.
On the afternoon and evening of March 14th, Miami Dade College’s Wolfson Campus hosted the
event “Discriminación Racial e Intolerancia: Desafíos del presente y el futuro de Cuba” [Racial
Discrimination and Intolerance: Challenges Now
and for the Future of Cuba]. A number of presentations described and, above all, thoroughly analyzed diverse aspects of the nation’s complex reality. Professor Juan Antonio Blanco (MDC) and
Dr. Juan Antonio Alvarado, the PIC’s President,
introduced the event. It was then officially opened
with words from Progressive Arc Party leader,
historian and anthropologist Manuel Cuesta
Morúa—via telephone, from Havana—because
he was at that very moment prevented freedom of
movement due to an arbitrary political accusation.

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Cuesta Morúa expressed satisfaction with being
able to see the possibility of sharing with U.S.,
academic spaces the independent voices of those
on the island that are trying to establish a foundation for a new consciousness for Cuba. He reiterated the importance of delving further into the key
causes and concepts regarding the lengthy, national tragedy, to make it possible to confidently
move forward on the difficult but necessary road
to reconstructing the moral, material and institutional fiber of a nation that is the home and legacy
of all its children, without distinction.
The presenters on the Conceptual Readings panel
included Dr. Jorge Duany, Director of the Cuban
Research Institute (CRI) at the Florida International University, who analyzed key historical
and sociological details about interracial relationships in Cuba. Professor Kenya C. Dworkin, from
Carnegie Mellon University, offered an exhaustive socio-psychological and aesthetic study of
photography about Cuba’s reality.
The Readings from Everyday Reality panel included presentations by activists from the island
who offered a panorama of testimonies and evaluations of our national reality. Psychologist
Raudel Collazo, head of the Escuadrón Patriota
hip-hop project, and MDC student, presented a
moving and profound assessment of Cuba’s traumas and insufficiencies. A young information
specialist, Sánder A. Álvarez, who is also a CIR
member offered his analysis of the Cuban government’s monopoly of technology and the need for
an opening up so Cubans can take advantage of
the potential new spaces and horizons for real development and freedom that technology offers,
something that is to this day extremely controlled.
Guillermo Ordóñez Lizama, OCD Executive Secretary, presented testimony and observations concerning the socio-structural limitations and backwardness that the Cuban people face every day,