Prepárense, Here comes Orlando! aka @OLPL

What follows is the bio of Cuban photographer, writer, magazine editor, and blogger Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo.  A close associate of Yoani Sánchez, Orlando will be arriving in the U.S. later this week New York City this afternoon! and visiting universities all across the eastern seaboard.  He will also participate at the New School/NYU symposium on digital culture and the public sphere in Cuba "The Revolution Recodified" from March 15-17 in NYC.

You can read an interview that Claudia Cadelo did with him a few years ago here, and watch a three-part video interview that the journalist Tracey Eaton did with him here (same videos with English subtitles here).

Let me know if you want him to blow your student's minds (or hire him to do a photo shoot or recite his bilingual updated version of Allen Ginsburg's Howl)!

Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo was born in Havana, Cuba, in December 1971. He resides in Cuba. He is a self-taught photographer, writer, and social/cyber activist.

He graduated in Biochemistry from the School of Biology, University of Havana, in 1994 and worked as a molecular biologist in DNA-recombinant techniques in the Human Vaccines Division, Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB), Havana, from 1994 to 1999. (That's no lie!)

He was the editor of the cultural magazine EXTRAMUROS, for the Book and Literature Center (CPLLCH), Havana (2001-2005). He has also edited several independent Cuban digital magazines including Cacharro(s) (2003-2005), The Revolution Evening Post (2006-2008), and Voces (2010- ). 

He blogs at LUNES DE POST-REVOLUCIÓN, an opinion webpage, and on the photoblog BORING HOME UTOPICS. He also organized PAÍS DE PÍXELES, the first free-lance photodocumentary contest in Cuba in 2011 and 2012.

In Cuba he has won several national literary prizes including the Pinos Nuevos Prize 2000, the Luis Felipe Rodríguez Prize (2004), the Calendario Prize (2005), and La Gaceta de Cuba Prize (2005). 

He is the author of 5 short-story collections: COLLAGE KARAOKE (Letras Cubanas, La Habana 2001); EMPEZAR DE CERO (Extramuros, La Habana 2001); IPATRÍAS (Unicornio, La Habana 2005); MI NOMBRE ES WILLIAM SAROYAN (Abril, La Habana 2006); and BORING HOME (Garamond, Praga 2009).

As a fiction writer and columnist he has collaborated on multiple editorial projects including PENÚLTIMOS DÍAS (2008 - ongoing); CUBAENCUENTRO (2009); REVISTA ENCUENTRO DE LA CULTURA CUBANA (2008-2010); IN THESE TIMES; ALL VOICES (2009-2010); DIARIO DE CUBA (2010-ongoing ); AMERICAS SOCIETY REVIEW 82/2010; SAMPSONIA WAY (2012-ongoing); CRONOPIO (2011).

His photographs have appeared in many national and international media: ESQUIFE (Cuba); EL CAIMÁN BARBUDO (Cuba); LETRAS LIBRES; articles and blog posts of Yoani Sánchez (ongoing) and of José Manuel Prieto (2011); THE ROOT (and here) in a dossier about racism in Cuba by Achy Obejas (2010); COURRIER INTERNATIONAL; and VEJA (Brasil, 2010).

¿De dónde salió Yoani Sánchez?

Given all the international attention that the global trek of Cuban blogger Yoani Sánchez has been generating over the past few weeks and is likely to continue to generate as she makes her way back and forth across the Atlantic and north and south traversing the Western Hemisphere with stops planed in Argentina, Peru, Mexico, the United States, and Canada, I thought I'd share with my readers the following essay (PDF in English or in Spanish) that I wrote in 2010 trying to answer the question:

¿De dónde salió Yoani Sánchez?

It is an effort to search for the origins of the emergent Cuban blogosphere, focusing specifically on the backstory and birth of Sánchez's blog, Generación Y, and its development and growth over time.

This paragraph, extracted from the second page of the long essay (53 pp. in the English version and 42 in the Spanish) summarizes its main argument:

This essay will chronicle of the origins and ongoing development of Sanchez’s blog, Generación Y, focusing on these two important transformations that have grown out of its evolution: A gradual change from a limited project of individual exorcism to one of growing citizen solidarity, together with an increasingly audacious effort to convert virtual spaces for dialogue and debate so far restricted to e-mail and blogs into real, public spaces - be they in Cuba’s conference rooms, movie houses, and art galleries, or in its cafés, calles, and solares.

The essay was first published under the title, "En busca de la 'Generación Y': Yoani Sánchez, la blogósfera emergente y el periodismo ciudadano de la Cuba de hoy," in the book Buena Vista Social Blog: Internet y libertad de expresión in Cuba, edited by Beatriz Calvo Peña.  You can consult the entire table of contents here and order your own copy of the book for  €18.90 here. (I don't get a cut).

Their Ángel becomes their devil, or Saturn devours another of its children

Who is Ángel Santiesteban & why is he going to prison today? 

Ángel Santiesteban Prats is an award-winning Cuban writer and member of the official Cuban Writer's Union (UNEAC) who has become increasingly critical in his writings and on his blog, ‘The Children Nobody Wanted’ (‘Los Hijos que Nadie Quiso’) over the past decade, focusing on the lack of fundamental freedoms in Cuba.

He was convicted late last year on trumped up charges based on coerced testimonies of "trespassing" and "injury." In fact, he is being targeted with a five-year prison sentence because the Cuban government wants to use his case to send a chilling message to his artist and intellectual peers:

The Revolution does not forgive or forget its "children" - especially those whom it has praised and prized - who turn their backs on "all that" and begin to think for themselves. 

To add your name to the Change.org petition demanding his release, GO HERE.

Yesterday, there were just over 200 signatures, today there are 788!  Let's send Ángel a strong message of support and let the Cuban government know that we are watching!

The important facts of his case - all corroborated below - are these:

• He was variously charged or accused of having run over a child. When no child -- dead or alive -- could be found, they had to drop that charge. 
• He was charged with raping his ex-wife. She later retracted saying State Security threatened her and made her accuse him. 
• He was charged with beating his ex-wife; she and the neighbor who supposedly saw her after she was beaten both recanted, the neighbor on video to which there's a link below. 
• He was told what his sentence was going to be by a State Security agent while assaulting him, before the trial (a photo of his bloodied shirt after the beating is below). 
• Charges carrying 54 (or 154, accounts vary) years were largely dropped and he was ultimately convicted of "trespassing" and "injury" and sentenced to 5 years, which he is to begin serving today. 
• In what has become a hashtag phrase, evidence against him at the trial included his handwriting -- "oddly slanted" and "too big". 

People ask why would the government single him out? Why do they hate him so much to do this to him? The answer is simple: Turncoats are hated most of all. He's won nearly every important national literature prize, at least one twice. He's won prizes abroad. He's been sent to conferences abroad. He was "their" writer, a favorite son on their side against the world. And he turned on them. They hate him and those ungrateful children like him with a special revolutionary hatred.

To add your name to the Change.org petition demanding his release, GO HERE.

* * *

Yoa, O, & Bo

El huracán Yoani arrastra Brasil

Below is a passage (in Spanish) quoting Yoani Sánchez from the blog Vida y Estilo, by the Colombian woman Sarah Castro Lizarazo, who lives in Sao Paulo. 

But before you read any further, I URGE you watch this 5-minute video clip from Terra (one of many available at their site) where Yoani explains her position on the embargo, Guantánamo, and "The Five" with a bit more incisiveness and clarity than she did when speaking before the Brazilian congress (especially in relation to the last issue).

Yoani visitó un par de ciudades de Bahía y este jueves, ya en Sao Paulo, asisitó a un evento organizado por el diario Estadão del que quedaron varias 'frases para el recuerdo'.  Éstas son las que más llamaron la atención:

"No creo que en Cuba haya un socialismo ni que estemos cerca del comunismo (…) Yo creo que en Cuba vivimos bajo un capitalismo de Estado, un capitalismo de clan familiar donde el patrón no es el rico, el terrateniente, ni el burgués sino el Gobierno". 

"El gobierno de Raúl Castro tiene un pecado original y es que no ha sido electo: heredó el gobierno por vía sanguínea -como un reino-. El gobierno de mi país se traslada de uno al otro a través del árbol genealógico y en pleno Siglo XXI me parece algo soprendentemente absurdo". 

"Yo soy una persona bastante crítica con el embargo. En primer lugar porque pienso que no ha funcionado (…) No explotó en las calles, ni en una rebeldía de cambio sino en la emigración. Además, me parece que se ha convertido en el gran argumento que tiene el Gobierno para explicarlo todo. Entonces si no podemos emitir una opinión, es porque el imperio está cerca y nos ataca; si no hay tomate, es por culpa del imperio; si las papas de esta temporada se malograron, es por culpa del imperio. Quisiera ver cómo va a funcionar mi Gobierno sin ese argumento, ver a qué le van a echar la culpa". 

"Recuerdo muy bien los documentos de Wikileaks en los que se menciona mi nombre y no hay ninguno ne el que diga 'Yoani Sánchez es de la CIA'. Eso es totalmente falso, eso no existe. No podría existir porque no soy de la CIA". 

"Las manifestaciones son el precio de la opinión, el precio del silencio es el que no me gusta. Necesitamos aprender a discutir sin odiarnos, la democracia es aprender a reconocer opiniones diferentes".

The Revolution Recodified: Digital Culture & the Public Sphere in Cuba

Go here for tickets and the full program.

Keynote address by Yoani Sánchez,

Friday, March 15, 4:30 p.m.

La bloguera cubana Yoani Sánchez prepara visita a Nueva York

La bloguera Cubana Yoani Sánchez estará muy pronto en los Estados Unidos. Celia Mendoza de la VOA habló desde la Gran Manzana con Ted Henken quien esta trabajando con ella en la planeación de este viaje.

Around the World in 80 Days (& 140 characters)

A tryptic of a citizen victory

A tryptic of a single day, 

the culmination of a citizen victory,

long fought for and well deserved.

(Adalberto Roque, AFP)

 (Desmond Boylan, Reuters)

(Adalberto Roque, AFP)

with a little help from Instagram!

(Adalberto Roque, AFP)

(Adalberto Roque, AFP)

(Edmar Melo, EFE)

All of the above photos - save one - were taken in the José Martí International Airport by the intrepid AFP photographer Adalberto Roque.  The final final one of Yoani Sánchez arriving in Recife, Brazil, was taken by Edmar Melo, EFE.

@YoaniSanchez & @OLPL in NYC & DC

(Photo borrowed from CafeFuerte).

If all goes according to plan (and it rarely does), a little over a month from now, the intrepid and long-denied Cuban bloggers Yoani Sánchez and Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo (see his blogs here and here) will arrive in New York City and also travel to Washington, DC for a whirlwind week of symposia, press conferences, interviews, and presentations.  I'm sure there will also be many laughs, hugs, and lots of tears of joy and disbelief.

They come -in the words of Yoani-, "to learn and return."  Let's hope they do (and are allowed to do) just that!

Café Fuerte just published a detailed description of their itinerary in Spanish.

They are coming to NYC participate in a symposium organized by the Cuban-American performance artist and New School professor Coco Fusco along with many friends (including Chris Stover, Ariana Hernández, Ana Dopico, Odette Cisneros, Pablo Menéndez, Nitin Sawhney, Tom Werner, John Kelly, and your humble servant).  The event is set for March 15-17 and is entitled:

"The Revolution Recodified: 

Digital Culture and the Public Sphere In Cuba"

It is being co-sponsored by NYU and kicked off at its King Juan Carlos Center at 4:00 p.m., Friday afternoon, March 15.  Go here to get your FREE tickets and to view the full program.

Over the course of the better part of a week (March 15-21), I will have the distinct pleasure of helping to host and interpret for Yoani and Orlando both at the NY symposium and at a number of other events they have planned throughout the city and in the nation's capital.  

Tentative events in NYC are planed for Monday, March 18 at Yeshiva University's Cardozo Law School (they recently visited Antonio Rodiles, Yoani, and friends in Havana), the HQ of HuffPo Live, and CUNY's City College.

Other events will take place in Washington, D.C., on March 19 and 20, including panels at Georgetown University and the Cato Institute, among other venues TBA.

Of course, you can follow @YoaniSanchez on Twitter to be sure that she is indeed allowed to get on that plane to Brazil on February 17.  Follow me @ElYuma or check my blog to get updates on her and Orlando Luis' itinerary as it unfolds.

Yoani will head on to Amsterdam at the end of her heady week on the East Coast, while Orlando will remain in NYC for a few weeks before beginning his own sold out 36-city tour of the lower 48!