Yoani Sanchez, Award Winning Cuban Blogger, In Jeopardy
Tonight the world is watching to see what will happen to one of the bravest Latin Americans. While for most of us writing a blog is something we do comfortably and without concern for our safety, for one person, it may mean imprisonment or worse. Yoani Sanchez has been a messenger of the true Cuba for some time to the free world.
The young woman born in Havana in 1975 and a student of philosophy has been writing a blog about conditions in Cuba. She mails her writings to outside sources. Her work has earned the Ortega y Gasset Journalism Award in Spain (she was not allowed to attend). Her blog, Generacion Y, had its last entry on November 30, 2008 where she was critical of the government sponsored marches of two years ago having ended. Ms. Sanchez had just received another award given by Deutsche Welle called the BOB for writing one of the most acclaimed blogs in the world. Access to Generacion Y has been blocked in Cuba since at least March 2008.
Today Ms. Sanchez was summoned to report the Cuban National Police for no apparent reason and has not been heard from since her likely appearance this morning. She is married to an independent journalist, Reinaldo Escobar, but it is not known if he is in trouble as well. After the meeting with police she was going to contact the blog, Sunrise in Havana, that day but now 24 hours later no communication has yet been identified on their website.
Below is a copy of the profile she wrote about herself in her blog:
“I studied for two years in the Instituto Pedagógico with a major in Spanish Literature. In 1995, I transferred to the Faculty of Arts and Letters – and had my son in August of that year – and finished after five years with a major in Hispanic Philology. My speciality was contemporary Latin American literature and I argued an incendiary thesis titled, “Words under pressure. A study of the literature of dictatorship in Latin America.” By the end of my university studies I understood two things: the first, that the world of intellectualism and high culture disgusted me and the saddest, that I no longer wanted to be a philologist.
In September 2000 I went to work in a dark office for Editorial Gente Nueva* while arriving at the conviction – along with the majority of Cubans – that with a salary earned legally I could not support my family. So, without concluding my social service, I asked to be let go and dedicated myself to the better-paid labor of a freelance Spanish instructor for various German tourists visiting Havana. It was a time (continuing to today) when engineers preferred to drive taxis, teachers worked as hotel desk clerks and store counters were tended by neurosurgeons or nuclear physicists. In 2002, the disillusionment and economic suffocation led me to emigrate to Switzerland, from where I returned – for family reasons and against the advice of friends and acquaintances – in the summer of 2004.
In these years I discovered the profession that I continue today: information technology. I realized that binary code was more transparent than carefully researched intellectualism, and if I never felt that great about Latin, at least I could string together long chains of HTML language. In 2004 I founded, together with a group of Cubans – all based on the Island – a magazine of reflection and debate, Consenso [Consensus]. Three years later, I continue working as web master, contributor and editor of the portal Desde Cuba [From Cuba].
In April 2007, I got entangled in this adventure to have a Blog called “Generation Y” that I have defined as “an exercise in cowardice” because it allows me to say, in this space, what is forbidden to me in my civic action.
I live in Havana with the journalist Reinaldo Escobar with whom I have shared my life for fifteen years. I have committed to stay, and every day I am more of a computer expert and less of a philologist.”
Tonight we pray for the safety of Yoani Sanchez, her children, and husband. We ask anyone reading this to pass this information on to your friends and politicians.
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Tony Magaña grew up in McAllen Texas, attended Texas A&M University, served as an officer in Army Reserve, and holds a doctorate from Harvard University. The co-founder of Contempo Magazine has participated in Valley business for over 20 years.He is a member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.
