Identidades in English No 1, February 2014 | Page 6

IDENTIDADES is publishing its first issue during a period of unstoppable growth in Cuban civil society and its incessant struggle in facing the great
backwardness and numerous shortcomings that afflict
the country. After a number of years of concerted
work with Cuba’s Afro-descendant movement and
other alternative groups—which are subjected to marginalization and discrimination, and are deprived of
their most basic civil rights—the difficulties they face
in attempting to address their civil concerns are clearly
evident.

Given these circumstances, our publication comes
into being to offer a space in which people can dialogue about the problem from their many different positions and tendencies. The goal? To offer a platform
for this discussion and analysis for all those who are
interested to express their needs and aspirations, as
well as their proposals and actions towards achieving
complete integration in Cuba and a real democratic
coexistence. In addition, it is a means for facilitating
the space that Cubans need to be able to exchange
ideas and promote their empowerment as citizens. It is
our hope it becomes a tool for surmounting obstacles
to communication on the island; the government
fiercely controls all media and communication. In this
way, independent leaders can publish and make
known the terrible problems of Cuba’s reality, and fill
the informational void in which they exist.

To this purpose, we will publish articles dealing with
a broad range of topics involving race, class and gender, whether historical, political, social or cultural in
nature, and that specifically emphasize the challenges
and difficulties faced in Cuba today, as well as their
economic, sociocultural and political context.
The twenty-first century struggle for civil rights and
need to create mechanisms for exchange on a global
scale conditions the fact that our publication is open
to any interested party—civil activists, professionals,
academics and independent writers—not only from
Cuba, but from around the world. With this focus, we
hope to facilitate the sharing and exchange of experiences, so that they might contribute to the confrontation of this essential topic in countries that received
the African diaspora, or where other groups that are
discriminated by those in power reside. Furthermore,
so that the journal’s impact is international, it is