IDENTIDADES 1 ENGLISH IDENTIDADES 9 ENGLISH | Page 15

discrimination. Thusly, blacks and
mestizos usually preferred to stay in the
country waiting for the many-timesannounced better future. Nowadays, the
situation has changed.
Blacks and mestizos are joining the
incessant barrage of Cuban emigrants,
already convinced of the regime’s
failures and frauds, but the emigration is
83.5% white, 12% mestizo, and only
4% black. Hence we have another
circumstance not endorsed by the
garrulous PhD in Social Sciences
employed by the regime. The avalanche
of young emigrants was followed by the
elderly, especially to Miami and the rest
of the United States. For its
extraordinary size and inherent rarity,
the rate of mass emigration by Cuban
elderly add another chapter of horror to
the Cuban revolution.
It goes without saying that it’s the great
stampede of white elderly. They are the
senior relatives of those young people
who were emigrating since decades ago.
Because of these new courses, no one
should be surprised that blacks and
mestizos are the majority among the
battalions of ragged elderly roaming the
streets.
The aggravating circumstances —their
retirement is not even enough for a
daily meal and many of them have
neither own homes nor family shelter
nor
relatives
abroad
sending
remittances, as in the case of the white
elderly— come together with the dire
shortcomings and deficiencies in the
system of social care managed by the
government.
There are 222 semi-boarding Houses of
Grandparents and 145 Nursing Homes
that neither cover the demand nor
provide services beyond the poorest
standards of housing and care. The

Catholic Church runs around twenty
nursing homes, but to be admitted the
elder should prove he or she is a
practicing Catholic worshiper willing to
transfer a property, which apparently
would serve as a guarantee to ascend to
heaven.
The so-called System of Family Care
(Spanish acronym: SAF) is a great
demagogic apparatus with precious
substance. It aligns a few, very few,
cheap canteens for low-income people.
In fact, it causes embarrassment with its
dark, dirty and poorly serviced
facilities. The star menu could be a bit
of rice with peas water and a thin
croquette, or a little bit of minced meat
that nobody knows where it comes
from. There are 1437 units to serve
more than 76 thousand people,
including
retirees,
physically
handicapped and other social cases.
Hundreds of thousands old Cubans have
not wanted to enroll in SAF, perhaps
because
of
distrust
or
cruel
disappointment, but also because those
with any relative, even if the latter does
not care, are not eligible.
From the same crucial way in which
Cuba depended on the black labor force
to be fully incorporated as nation into
the concert of the modern world, after
having found in the blacks its definitive
identity and in the same crucial way in
which the blacks were essential on the
battleground to shake off the Spanish
colonial yoke, the Castroite revolution
counted on the strong support and
participation of the descendants of
slaves as an imperative to stand on its
feet. And the regime has rewarded such
an unconditional support —that has
passed all the tests— with an insensible
abandonment and an egotistical
ingratitude.

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