A blessed Holy Week and a Happy Easter to all of you

Excerpt from Lights Out

I had an unforgettable experience the day that I saw the statue of Saint Teresa of Avila in the back bedroom of Teresita's house. Fidel's laws prohibited religious practice outside of a church building, so the statue was hidden in a corner behind an armoire.

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Dania Rosa Nasca
March 29, 2018

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To read more about the Catholic Church in Cuba before and after Fidel, check out Lights Out.

Bello

Venezuela’s crisis spills over

Latin America wakes up to its biggest headache

Langosta in reply to Kenneth711 May 13th 2017, 13:00

It seems that Kennedy had been told by the CIA that as soon as the Cuban exiles landed, that Cubans would rise up on all parts of the island. They did not, for the reasons you mentioned, and because Castro was at that moment executing former members of Batista's government. He had already made it clear that people who opposed his regime would be killed. So, the people could not rebel against Castro en masse until they knew the invasion would succeed.
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The Bay of Bigs "invasion" also failed for many tactical reasons, not least of which is that Castro's government had infiltrated the exiles and knew it was coming. That is why the USA should have had some follow-on divisions to "help" it succeed. A few years later we invaded the Dominican Republic and overthrew its Communism regime in 48 hours.
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It should be noted that it took Castro about 5 years to secure control over the entire island. An anti-Communist guerrilla war was waged against Castro in the mountains (the same mountains that Castro had used to foment his Communist coup) until the mid 60's. It did not take long for a certain element of Cuba's population (primarily the educated middle class) to realize that Castro was evil. If the Bay of Pigs Invasion had been followed by U.S. divisions Castro would not have lasted long.
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A couple weeks ago another commenter (I can't remember who) recommended the following book LIGHTS OUT: A CUBAN MEMOIR OF BETRAYAL AND SURVIVAL by Dania Rosa Nasca. She was born in 1958 and grew up during the Cuban Revolution before migrating with her family to the USA in 1970. Her book enlightened me as to how malevolent Castro's revolution had been. Like many Americans, I had thought it to be an improvement over Batista's mal-governance of the island:
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https://www.amazon.com/Lights-Out-Memoir-Betrayal-Survival/dp/153703605X/
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The book is an educational and very sad story of what happened aftr Castro took over. It was definitely not an improvement, not even by Batista's evil and corrupt standards.

From The Economist

As a child....

As a child growing up in Castro’s Cuba, I quickly realized not to give in to the darkness. I think knowing there was light at the end of the tunnel in the form of a seat on the Freedom Flights helped. Of course, I had no way of knowing the challenges that lay ahead.

I hope you will read more about the Cuban experience on Lights Out.