brave Cuban democrats in their continuing effort to finally break with the last remnants of the Berlin Wall. In this regard it should be emphasized the impact of President Obama ' s visit to Cuba. He delivered an electrifying speech on the opportunities for the Cuban people and held a very productive meeting with several dissidents. One of them, Jose Daniel Ferrer, leader of the Patriotic Union of Cuba( UN- PACU), summarized the historical sequence of events in the testimonial piece " A visit, a Speech, and an Unforgettable Meeting," which we are offering in this edition to the readers. Likewise Jorge Luis Costa describes, in " A Cuba for Obama," how the government mobilized resources and even carried out police operations to momentary keep up appearances with well paved streets, colorfully painted facades, and no homeless at sight. Meanwhile Leonardo Calvo analyzes the racist offense and dangerous demagogy in the saga of despair and rampant concern among the Cuban authorities unleashed by Obama ´ s presence and messages. For Calvo, a racist offense published in a Havanan newspaper was not an isolated incident, since visitors to Cuba will be in danger of facing such offenses until the full implementation of the public debate on racial issues, history, identity, and inequality. That danger will vanish only when Cubans do not tolerated in silence even an injustice against the most unknown or anonymous young African descent, always threatened by street police arbitrariness; when Afrodescendants do recover their civic and public voice to reaffirm their identity and rights:, when legal mechanisms are activated to effectively defend them against any manifestation of discrimination. In this perspective, Yusimí Rodriguez asserts that, " After Obama," the state of affairs remains almost unchanged in Cuba. The government keeps the people as prisoner of the past according to its interested version of history, as patient of the present socioeconomic and sociopolitical ills, and as a deceived believer of the future, with promises on the verge of madness. The latter is evident in Fidel Castro ´ s reflection on " The brother Obama." Its closing statement reads thus: Cuba does not need anything from the United States, because the Cuba people has all the resources needed to develop the country with the own efforts. The author simply contrasts this statement with a question usually heard in the streets: Why have we lived then so many years in precarious situation? This precariousness is seen in all spheres of the social life and Luis Oleidy Machado brings an illustrative example: the government is determined to show the world that Cuba is a cultured country, while actually Cubans do not have access to many cultural manifestations." In " Cultural Opening in Cuba: An Outstanding Issue," the author emphasizes that the Communist Party is hostile to— even and does not understand— the issues of freedom of expression, assembly and association. Cuba must be culturally open to the world, but it should be without anyone the others what to do or say. An independent cultural movement is described by Iris Ruiz on the basis of the work done by Arte Estudio in the suburb of Alamar, east of Havana, where the lack of state attention increases the risk factors among adolescents. To mitigate the risk, Arte Estudio made a research on the needs and interests of education and training in the community and took the initiative of a workshop of creative drawing with teenagers, focused on such themes like respect in interpersonal relationships, violence, and discrimination because of gender and race, as well as on the better ways to resolve conflicts. Thus the art opened a promissory space to bring parents and children together around educational contents and healthy recreation. In contrast,
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