Identidades in English No 3, September 2014 | Page 13

“la caliente” for 20 years: it is a housing settlement. Yet, three buildings for the police were
built near my home. I left the settlement and decided to build my own shack. I think I will die
here. I work in Communal Services, in Centro
Habana. In my spare time I go dancing at the
Plaza Vieja, to make the tourists happy. I make a
few bucks doing that. My dream is to buy myself
a television.”
He goes on to say: “We are tired of so much poverty. Our lives are squeezed by unhappiness.

Many of us have paid a very high price, with our
own lives. We are tired of heroic crusades.”
Thanks to racism, black Cubans have not ceased
doing the hardest and most violent jobs; they are
stuck between disdain and silence. They have not
stopped being undocumented sojourners in our
own history. Their lives are still a forced march.
In the meanwhile, the nation is still at permanent
odds with its inner diversity.
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