IDENTIDADES 1 ENGLISH IDENTIDADES 7 ENGLISH | Page 102

opening in relations with other Cubans
and the neighbors to the North. The new
exchanges favor ties with other, American and Caribbean cultural spaces, a
presence that has always shown itself in
any way, and maintained its relation in
two dimensions: between rejection and
attraction, or magnetism and confrontation. The unburdening of artists achieves
nothing more than to reaffirm the
warmth of the gaze towards another,
new history. It is favored by the security
offered by social consensus, promoted
by the unity of the new imaginaries, actors, and values of Cuban culture: it is
solely one culture in different spaces. La
esquina fría [The Cold Corner] was perhaps the expectation of creating an ice
skating rink in Havana, something unexpected and unusual that caused great
expectations in innocent, childish minds,
as if taken from a fairy tale. Despite the
suffocating heat, it is possible to make
things that seem naturally impossible
happen. Well, in Cuba, even the most
irrational utopias can be made real. That
is exactly how capricious our cultural
geography is. The traditionally conflictive relations between Cuba and the
United States, nurtured as an unsalvageable difference on both sides, has not
allowed for a mutually beneficial rapproch V