Growing up in Miami in the sixties and seventies, the stories of the impending fall of the dictatorship in Cuba were many. “Any day now,” my family, their friends, and acquaintances would say. By the time I reached adulthood, I had already realized that the day of freedom for Cuba was not as close or imminent as they had hoped for.
Nevertheless, our Cuban culture—the ability to not only endure but to move forward in trying times—has kept this hope alive even though many others would have considered the cause, lost. Perhaps I am getting old and beginning to think like my parents did thirty years ago, but I sincerely believe that today, our time is really near.
It is not because fidel is lying in some hospital room with tubes and wires keeping his putrid corpse barely alive, and it is not because raul has promised reforms. All of us know that reform without the elimination of tyranny is nothing more than a shallow attempt to maintain the regime’s grip on power.
It has to do with a simple little silicon bracelet with a straightforward one-word message.
It is inevitable, it is unstoppable, and now, it is too far advanced for anyone, or anything, to slow it down.