Identidades in English No 3, September 2014 | Page 15

Interviewee: My name is Miguel Zúñiga García;
I am head of family.
Interviewer: Where are we?
MZG: We are in the Casablanca settlement.
These children you see here live in very poor and
precarious conditions-everyday. Look at how
dangerous it is here with the electric wire.
Interviewer: The children were born here?
MZG: They were all born here, at the Naval Hospital or Maternity Hospital in Havana.

Interviewer: What are living conditions like here
in these settlements?
MZG: Whatever conditions we have we have to
create ourselves, with our own possibilities and
resources, which are not regular. We have no
right to anything here, because we no longer have
the official address of where we lived years ago.
Interviewer: So you folks are illegals?
MZG: My children are illegal here; they have no
right to live here, because they have no official
address. Their birth certificates say they’re from
here, but their official ID cards are registered under their mother’s official address, which is in
Matanzas Province.
Interviewer: So, they’re considered illegal?
MZG: They’ve always been. They have no right
to even regular medical attention.

The mother: I have their papers here in my hand;
I have the proof of all the paperwork I did when
Ledisbé was born. Fifteen days after she was
born, my breasts dried up due to malnutrition, because of my bad lifestyle here. I did everything I
could in terms of paperwork, and went to the Consumer Registry, they told me that this baby girl
did not exist for them or for the Revolution because I was living in an illegal neighborhood.
MZG: Not only that. We took the case to the Interior Commerce Ministry.
The Minister was Barbara Castillo. Her secretary
told me that my children did not count for this
Revolution. I have a witness, my neighbor who
went with us. They didn’t count for this Revolution because they didn’t have an official change
of address, even though they were born in Havana, in a hospital in the heart of the city.
Interviewer: What about the local or provincial
governmental authorities?
MZG: They will not see or help us. We have responsibilities to fulfill with the police, but we
have no rights as human beings. No kind of rights.
We have the obligation to be repressed, but we
have no right to try to resolve so natural an economic problem, as Cuban citizens. We have no
rights.
Interviewer: What are the sanitary-hygienic conditions like here, the situation with the construction, the building?
MZG: Terrible. You’re looking at them. Many of
the problems are small and easy to fix, and neighbors have offered to help us so we could do it ourselves.
But the head of the local citizens’ committee
(CDR-neighborhood, governmental, watchdog
committee) told us: “I have no authority to tell
them anything nor to ask for any solutions here.
That’s the government’s problem. We are no one
here and cannot offer any solution to the sanitary
conditions here.”
The mother: Many of the electric wires around
here touch the ground. Many of the light posts are
made out of metal, and discharge shocks.
When it is wet or humid, all the grass at the base
of these tubes burns.
This is a serious danger. Without knowing it, or
that they are in danger, children can touch the