Cuba in Real Time

Depicting Everyday Cubans

       The photo above shows the Cuban flag flying high this week -- July 26, 2017 -- right behind a July 26 flag. Each July 26th since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959 Cuba has celebrated that day as its National Day of Rebellion. It refers to July 26 in 1953 when 120 lightly armed rebels, led by a young lawyer named Fidel Castro, mounted an ill-fated attack on Dictator Batista's heavily armed Moncada Army Barracks. It was disaster for the rebels but it marked the start of what turned out to be a popular uprising and revolutionary war that overthrew the U.S.-backed and Mafia-backed Batista dictatorship. Over a half-century later, remarkably, Revolutionary Cuba still survives even though, also remarkably, it has had to withstand constant counter-revolutionary efforts from transplanted Batistianos and Mafiosi in nearby America.

      All across Cuba attentive crowds like this respectfully listened to speakers -- mostly non-government individuals -- touting the Day of Rebellion celebrations.

       This photo taken in Real Time also reflects the rhythms and pulses of today's Cuba. It shows young and talented broadcast journalist Rosy Amaro Perez interviewing a Cuban lady about how she feels about celebrating the National Day of Rebellion on July 26-2017 all these many decades after the 1953 rebellion.

       This photo shows Rosy Amaro Perez back in her television studio while the interviews she had gotten earlier on July 26th were being edited for airtime. Highly educated and well-trained broadcasters like Rosy work for state radio and television outlets and are excellent journalists who fairly report the news on their island. Contrary to what Americans are told, journalist like Rosy are far more inclined to side with everyday Cubans than with the government when disputes or complaints arise. On the other hand, Rosy is typical among the all-important young-adult generation of Cubans who strongly love their island and its hard-earned sovereignty. Thus, like the government itself, Rosy and most of the young-adults in Cuba are quick to sense hints of domestic dissidents supported or encouraged by foreign factions, especially rich and powerful counter-revolutionaries in both Miami and Washington, D. C.

       Despite her ubiquity as a broadcaster and her influence as a leader of Cuba's young-adult generation, Rosy Amaro Perez considers herself an everyday Cuban. She is a happily married wife and mother. The photo above reflects the renowned camaraderie of Cubans, including the well-educated and healthy young-adults who will predicate the island's future. The above meal was prepared by Rosy and her beautiful daughter and shared with two of Rosy's young adult friends. In my opinion, as long as Cubans on the island like Rosy represent the current and future heartbeat of Cuba, the island will survive...come hell or high water... despite Miami extremists.

    Rosy Amaro Perez is emblematic of what makes the island so special, so pugnacious, and so intriguing. In monitoring Rosy to ascertain the rhythms and pulses of today's Cuba, if I detect any hints that her zest for life and for her beloved island is fading, it will, I think, be far more indicative of the Revolution's demise than anything the counter-revolutionaries in Miami and Washington may be up to.

       This photo this week, by the way, is courtesy of Rosy Amaro Perez. It's a nighttime depiction of a safe, peaceful street in beautiful Pinar del Rio on the outskirts of Havana. Note the relatively modern cars parked in front of a popular nightspot.

      Pinar del Rio Province, shown above in red, is located southwest of Havana and just an easy ride from the capital city. Astute tourists know all about Pinar del Rio.

This is Pinar del Rio's Vinales Valley.

     Many tourists consider Vinales Valley in Pinar del Rio Province to be one of the planet's most beautiful, unique and enchanting valleys...and for very good reasons.

The best tobacco is grown in Vinales Valley.

         And by the way, the photo of the modern tobacco field in Vinales Valley reminds me of the very historic AP photo and caption depicted above. Yes, "beginning in January of 1960" precisely one year after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, "CIA planes from Florida" began attacking Cuban sugar cane and tobacco fields "with napalm-type bombs." Such gutless undemocratic viciousness showed zero concern for innocent everyday Cubans working those fields and zero concern for the U. S. democracy. Yet, because of a gutless and unpatriotic generation of Americans -- unlike the Greatest Generation that helped win World War II -- various forms of undemocratic viciousness has continued from January of 1960 till July of 2017 against Revolutionary Cuba. Of course, with Batistianos dictating the Cuban narrative in the U. S., Americans are not supposed to judge or study this historic AP photo-caption.

A Vinales Valley waterfall.

Hotel Islazul in Pinar del Rio.

AND BY THE WAY:

     Americans since 1959 have been relentlessly bombarded with anti-Cuban Revolution propaganda by the likes of Jose Diaz-Balart. He is a powerful counter-revolutionary propagandist and also a high-profile news anchor on the Telemundo, MSNBC, and NBC television networks. His father Rafael was one of the top Ministers in Cuba's Batista dictatorship and then one of the richest and most militant counter-revolutionaries in Florida beginning in 1959. So, to this day Americans are supposed to ignore or mock positive and topical updates on Cubans like Rosy Amaro Perez or Cuban tourist attractions like Vinales Valley in Pinar del Rio while also pretending that historic photos that depict cowardly and terrorist acts against innocents Cubans from U. S. soil in Florida have never happened. But, of course, anything that someone like Jose Diaz-Balart says about Cuba is supposed to be taken as the gospel truth.

     And so...Americans, inundated with anti-Cuban lies from anti-Cuban propagandists, are not supposed to comprehend the propaganda depicted above on national television. On the left is anchor Jose Diaz-Balart interviewing his brother Mario Diaz-Balart. They are the sons of one of the most powerful Ministers in the Batista dictatorship in Cuba and, like their father, they are fiercely rich and powerful counter-revolutionary zealots -- Jose as a high-profile television anchor and Mario as a member of the U. S. Congress from Miami who firmly believes that only counter-revolutionary Cubans like him should dictate America's Cuban policies. So, hey America!! If you missed the above interview by Jose of his brother Mario, you should try to Google it up again so you can get further updated on anti-Cuban propaganda.

Meanwhile:

       Cuba's top broadcast journalist is anchor Cristina Escobar. On both Cuban and American soil and airways she has stated: "Cuban journalists have more freedom to tell the truth about the U. S. than U. S. journalists have to tell the truth about Cuba." and "Cuba's fate is up to Cubans on the island, not Cubans in Miami and Washington." Unpropagandized and patriotic Americans, I believe, need the freedom and the wherewithal to be able to fairly judge whether Cristina Escobar or Jose Diaz-Balart is more truthful and honorable...not for Cuba's sake but for America's safe.

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Cuba To Ignore America

And Emphasize Friends!

Today is July 26, 2017.

       Since 1959 July 26th has been celebrated as Cuba's Day of National Rebellion. On July 26, 1953 a young lawyer named Fidel Castro led an ill-fated attack on Dictator Batista's Moncada Army Barracks. Most of the 120 rebels were killed in the attack or executed later and Fidel spent the next two years in a Batista prison. But throughout the Revolutionary War that finally ousted Batista in 1959, Fidel crowned July 26th as the symbol of the rebellion and the day has been celebrated in Cuba since 1959.

      Throughout the Cuban Revolutionary War, even when Fidel was in prison from July of 1953 till May of 1955, Celia Sanchez -- the incomparable female guerrilla fighter and revolutionary leader -- kept the July 26th symbol alive by wearing arm bands. 

      But this photo is the definitive one in Cuba on July 26, 2017. It may reflect Cuba's decision to no longer take negotiations with the United States seriously and instead the island will henceforth concentrate on dealing with friends -- such as Canada and Spain. Look at the sad expression on Josefina Vida's face. She has been Cuba's ultra-powerful Minister in charge of diplomatic affairs with the United States and in that capacity she negotiated remarkably positive advances in U.S.-Cuban relations with the friendly Obama administration. But the current Trump administration has sliced into those advances by restoring what Vidal calls "the Republican Batistiano rule." Therefore Vidal is quitting her post as Minister of North American Affairs and she will become Cuba's Ambassador to Canada. Her top assistant, Gustavo Machin, will become Ambassador to Spain. "Gus and I agree," Vidal said, "that wasting our time with Trump, Rubio and those who want to hurt us will be time that we should be spending with nations that want to treat us fairly as another sovereign nation."

        If Cuba's two top diplomats who know the United States best -- Josefina Vidal and Gustavo Machin -- believe it is no longer worth their time to deal with the U. S., suffice to say that post-Obama U.S.-Cuban relations are in the process of returning to the Cold War Bay of Pigs-Cuban Missile Crisis dark days of 1961 and 1962. The two skilled Cubans shown above had negotiated with Obama the reopening of embassies in Washington and Havana for the first time since 1961; U. S. commercial flights to Cuba for the first time since 1962; and other major benefits for both countries. But Vidal and Machin have now decided that waiting for another Obama-type administration in Washington is, according to Vidal, "a bridge too far, especially when futility in U. S. relations distracts from fruitful relations with our very best friends."    

      The monumental decision of Josefina Vidal to step down as Cuba's Minister of North American Affairs is a strong signal that the Caribbean island has decided to de-emphasize relations with the United States and re-emphasize relations with more friendly nations. Now as Cuba's Ambassador to Canada, she will not be saddled with the endless enmity from the United States, a realism only briefly interrupted by the bravery and decency of President Obama. The decision was Vidal's and if Cuba's highly respected prime diplomat regarding relations with the U. S. finally gives up even trying to work with the island's main and perhaps only enemy, it heralds a major shift in the U.S.-Cuban conundrum. Vidal: "All I have asked of the United States is for Cuba to be treated as a sovereign nation, not a Mafia-ruled possession. Obama treated us with respect and we reciprocated in kind. But any Republican U. S. president is obliged to let counter-revolutionary elements dictate harsh, even deadly, measures to our people. Since January 20th we have wasted too much time dealing with that."

      During the Obama presidency, America's best diplomat Roberta Jacobson engaged in four important and riveting diplomatic sessions with Cuba's best diplomat Josefina Vidal. But their earnest work can be erased by miscreants.

  The three key U.S.-Cuban diplomats -- Jeffrey DeLaurentis, Roberta Jacobson, and Josefina Vidal -- had great respect for each other and, as above, rejoiced over the historic progress they forged. Jacobson had assured Vidal, "I think the advances we have made will hold because Obama will be replaced by another Democrat who will respect his overtures to Cuba and build on them." But Jacobson and other prognosticators were wrong and thus Cuba has been blind-sided by the Donald Trump phenomenon.

   President Obama's perfect choice to be America's Ambassador to Cuba was Jeffrey DeLaurentis, a seasoned U. S. diplomat with vast knowledge of U.S.-Cuban relations. But three Cuban-American counter-revolutionary U. S. Senators -- Rubio, Cruz and Menendez -- easily and selfishly blocked that appointment and wouldn't let it come up for a vote in the Senate. DeLaurentis had served honorably in many diplomatic capacities, including in Cuba. When Josefina Vidal realized that the treatment of DeLaurentis proved that a handful of viciously anti-Cuban Cuban Americans again, with the advent of Trump, could dictate the U. S. Cuban policy, both Vidal and DeLaurentis agreed it was time to toss in the towel. DeLaurentis earlier this month resigned as head of the U. S. embassy in Havana and last Saturday Vidal informed DeLaurentis, "I understand your enemies, Jeffrey, and I know you will understand my decision to no longer deal with the U. S. You have been the victim of a great democracy that simply can't shed its Mafia designs on Cuba. And Cuba has actually spent too much time dealing with outstanding people like you only to find them overruled by a few rogues, something not expected in what once was a great democracy."

            Born on February 18, 1961, Josefina Vidal has worked all her adult life while "waiting for our superpower northern neighbor to treat Cuba as a sovereign nation, not a punching bag or piggy-bank." She has been posted in capitals very vital to Cuba's existence, including Moscow, Paris and Washington. In addition to Spanish and Russian, she is fluent in English and French, which will serve her well as Cuba's new Ambassador to Canada. While working at the Cuban diplomatic mission, called an Interests Section, in Washington in 2003, the Bush administration -- always aligned with the most extremist Cuban-American counter-revolutionaries -- accused Vidal and her husband of being "spies," creating a tit-for-tat exchange in the Washington-Havana missions. But by then less-biased Americans fully recognized Vidal's brilliant defense of Cuba as well as her extraordinary knowledge of the island's decades-old primary opponents in Miami and in the Bush dynasty. In 2002 Caroline Kennedy hosted a gathering of top U. S. historians at the Kennedy Center in Boston but the speaker who got the loudest and longest ovation was Josefina Vidal. It is believed such recognition inspired Miami-Bush stalwarts to flagrantly try to counteract and demean her reputation by branding her a "spy" in 2003. 

        On September 26, 2013, at Columbia University in New York Josefina Vidal was the featured {and only} speaker at a seminar on U.S.-Cuban relations. It was a long, heart-wrenching speech that is still readily available in its entirety on YouTube. A video of the speech was made available to President Obama and he later referenced it as "a classic persuasion" that expedited his efforts to normalize Cuban relations.

           In 2004, a year when I happened to be in Cuba, Fidel Castro startled Josefina Vidal with this sentence: "If you have a desire to be the future leader of Cuba, you will have my full support." Quite aware of what that support entailed, she was teary-eyed when she explained that being President of Cuba was not her desire and she felt she could "serve you and Cuba best by devoting my time solely to issues with the United States." 2004 was two years before Fidel suffered what turned out to be his long-drawn-out fatal illness at age 90 in 2016 but by 2004 he realized his vibrancy as Cuba's leader was fading, as evidenced by a fainting spell during one long, sun-drenched speech and a fall from the stage following another speech that broke bones in his arm and knee. Before surprising Vidal, he had reminded her that his "loyal brother Raul" didn't savor the job because he preferred being the military leader who "also was home every night for family dinners." During his long life it is believed that Fidel Castro had just one true idol and soulmate -- Celia Sanchez. After she died of cancer in 1980, the one Cuban that reminded him of Celia Sanchez was Josefina Vidal.

           Like Fidel Castro in 2004, there are today a lot of Cubans who believe Josefina Vidal should be the leader of Cuba when 86-year-old Raul Castro steps down in February of 2018. Cubaninsider and other forums have long championed Vidal as a future top leader of Cuba. Some anti-Cuban narratives are already claiming Vidal's new assignment off the island relates to efforts among the Cuban hierarchy to quell talk about her being Raul Castro's successor. But the ambassadorship in Canada is her decision, one she now considers more vital than being Cuba's Minister of North American Affairs when the American portion of that title continues in its endless counter-revolutionary mode. Revolutionary Cuba, which elevated women to new heights on the island, is surely primed for a post-Castro female leader. But Vidal prefers that it would be someone like Johana Tablada, Rosa Miriam Elizalde or Ana Mari Machado. Having concluded that America's Cuban policy will continue to be "tainted" by Cuban-exile extremists, Vidal's diplomatic skills, she believes, need to be focused exclusivity on friendly nations. Canada is a key friendly nation where the current Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his late Prime Minister father Pierre are/were both close friends of Cuba and Fidel Castro. Josefina Vidal's new job as Ambassador to Canada will serve Cuba and Canada well as America's Obama-orchestrated decency towards Cuba fades away into indecency.

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Cuban, American Realities

Intersect With Media Comparisons!!

      A prime example of the current status of the very influential broadcast media in the United States is Megyn Kelly. She was recently lured from Fox News to NBC thanks to a long-time contract that guarantees her about $20-million-a-year from salary alone. Kelly at Fox News was in the right place at the right time when successful presidential candidate Donald Trump demeaned her femininity and her broadcasting credentials with one of his crude narcissistic comments. The resulting outrage elevated Kelly's fame beyond the loyal conservative base at Fox all the way to the even more lucrative deal at the anti-Trump liberal-minded NBC behemoth.

      A prime example of the current status of the very influential broadcasting media in Cuba is Cristina Escobar. Although she might be...and probably is...the best broadcast journalist on either side of the Florida Straits, Escobar does not make $20 million a year. But she is far more popular and far more influential in Cuba than Megyn Kelly or any other broadcaster is in the United States. And that renown has helped Escobar to make history as the only Cuban to participate in and also dominate a White House news conference. She is also the only Cuban broadcaster to make speeches at U. S. universities related to both journalism and to torrid United States-Cuban relations.

      When Cristina Escobar is not on the air broadcasting in Cuba, she herself is in high demand for interviews. In a high-profile video-taped interview conducted in Havana by Tracey Eaton...still readily available on YouTube, the Pulitzer Center website, etc...Escobar, with a strong conviction, said, "Cuba's fate is up to Cubans on the island, not Cubans in Miami and Washington." She has also raised eyebrows in the United States with comments such as: "Journalists in Cuba have more freedom to tell the truth about the U. S. than U. S. journalists have to tell the truth about Cuba."

     The salary and net worth of America's broadcast journalists, such as Megyn Kelly, are usually predicated on such assets as their celebrity, notoriety, beauty, punditry or other ratings-grabbing nuances. And recently broadcast journalism in the U. S. seems obsessed with being either extreme liberal or extreme conservative propaganda outfits...such as currently being strictly anti-Trump or pro-Trump...with not even a pretense of actually covering news events when broadcast monopolies in the hands of a few can fill its sets with in-house and hugely obnoxious propaganda pundits. 

     But to be fair, NBC has at least installed its high-priced anchor Megyn Kelly in the prime 7:00 P.M. Sunday night slot and the multi-billion-dollar network backs her informative hour with superbly researched journalistic reports by outstanding journalists such as Harry Smith. Thus, Kelly had only to read a Teleprompter on July 23rd-2017 to introduce Harry Smith taking renowned baseball manager Joe Madden back to his hometown of Hazeltown, Pennsylvania. Madden explains and shows how the city has changed from his childhood when it was a safe and prosperous American city. Then jobs were lost, many sent to lower-wage nations like Mexico. Not only poverty but crime inundated Hazeltown, fueling vicious Spanish gangs that created racial tensions and, all too often, violence. Madden decided to team with other rich liberals and revive Hazeltown...by lavishing expensive programs and other incentives on the 50% Spanish population. In the report one white lady asked why whites, many of them poorer than the Hispanics, were never included in such incentive-fueled projects. Injecting that question into the Smith-Madden report from Hazeltown made for good journalism, not propaganda. The same July 23rd Megyn Kelly hour also featured a report on a beautiful young actress who amazingly explained that her recent near-fatal bout with breast cancer was "the best thing" that had ever happened to her. Her reasoning was not so amazing: She believed the physical and emotional trauma had awakened her to the even-more-deadly-and-destructive path she had been on. Healthy people tend not to believe such comments but many people with severe physical disabilities believed and understood that young actress, I believe. That includes me. And it includes a dear, severely disabled friend who sincerely says that the reaction of healthy people to her disability is by far her worst problem because she has learned to cope with her disability but not with the reactions of healthy people, including those closest to her. So, when a broadcast entity in the U. S. sheds its role as a propaganda/pundit-laced machine to air programs like Megyn Kelly's new NBC hour, there is hope for America's broadcast industry.

     Meanwhile, Cuba's superstar broadcast journalist Cristina Escobar is not far...if at all...off-base in her succinct comparison of the industry on her island with that in the United States. As in the U. S., on state television in Cuba she is not at all adverse to criticizing the state if she thinks everyday Cubans are not being fairly treated. Also, if the bilingual Escobar's convictions were not genuine she would probably be a high-priced television anchor in Miami or New York. Indeed, NBC's highly respected top Foreign Correspondent, Andrea Mitchell, is one of Escobar's many American admirers. Also, it is known by both American and Cuban insiders that, following her coverage in Washington of the important Vidal-Jacobson diplomatic session, Escobar received...but never considered...lucrative offers from rich broadcasters in Miami. One of her most salient comments on the YouTube-Eaton tape chastised Americans for believing the propaganda they have been told about Cubans on the island, depicting them only as "rum-drinkers hopping into 1950s convertibles." Instead, Escobar described her fellow typical Cubans as extremely intelligent and well-educated free-thinkers who love their island. More than once, in Cuba and in the U. S.  -- including at two universities in Alabama -- Escobar has said: "As a journalist in Cuba I wouldn't dare lie to or mislead the Cuban people about Cuba or the U. S. because I respect journalism and because I respect the intelligence of the Cuban people. That is why I am surprised that U. S. journalists can get away with lying about Cuba both routinely and purposefully."

     When prominent Cuban-Americans, like Hugo Cancio, arrive in Cuba they are often interviewed by Cristina Escobar whether they are for or against her Revolutionary-ruled island. Hugo was born in Cuba in 1964 but since the 1980s has been a high-profile businessman in Miami. In the above interview, Hugo told Cristina, "Most Cuban-Americans even in Miami favor normal relations with Cuba as I do, but we -- even in the majority -- are not represented by the electoral process. And therefore only counter-revolutionary extremists can get elected to the U. S. Congress from Miami."

      If a well-known Cuban-American like Hugo Cancio can make such comments to Cristina Escobar on one of his many travels to Cuba, Cristina has every right to question Miami's democracy and to question why the mainstream United States media is neither democratic enough or, perhaps, brave enough to interview someone like Hugo Cancio. For sure, counter-revolutionary zealots and anti-Cuban propaganda pundits are readily afforded 24-hour airtime to vent vicious attacks about Cuba.

      Most Cuban-Americans even in Miami, as Hugo Cancio told Cristina Escobar in Cuba, favor normal relations with Cuba but they complain that their voices are not heard by the elected politicians nor by the mainstream media in the United States.

       Decade after decade since 1959 the U. S. has allowed only counter-revolutionary zealots like Marco Rubio -- the Senator from Miami -- to dictate America's Cuban policy just as strenuously as the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship dictated Cuban policy from 1952 till it was chased to Miami's Little Havana in January of 1959. Today Cubans like Cristina Escobar blame Rubio more than anyone else for continuing to punish everyday Cubans from his Miami mansion and from his exalted seat in the U. S. Senate. Rubio, of course, got to the Senate still claiming that his parents escaped the Castro tyranny for the freedom of Miami, at least till it was revealed that his parents escaped the Batista tyranny in Cuba before Americans heard about Castro. Also, one of America's most respected investigative journalists, Ken Silverstein, has penned a deeply researched article, replete with names of key Rubio associates, that paints Rubio as the most corrupt presidential candidate in America's history, a position he will aspire to again in the 2020 election. Meanwhile, while denying Hugo Cancio airtime, the U. S. mainstream media affords Rubio and his ilk all the airtime they desire to assail Cuba. Rubio has never been to Cuba but his political and economic fortunes in Miami are tied to hurting Cubans.

       A simple "Ken Silverstein Rubio Article" Google search will take you to the entire article, which is one you should read.

    The mainstream U. S. broadcast media is simply a propaganda machine, like the above defense for Rubio concerning one of the many, many things he is accused of by Silverstein and others.

     And Rubio can create "Breaking News" headlines anytime he wants to rant against Cuba by using the mainstream U. S. propaganda machines where he never worries about rebuttals.

       Like her friend and colleague Cristina Escobar, Rosy Amaro Perez blames Cuban-American benefactors like Rubio the most for assaulting her beloved island while hiding behind the skirts of the world superpower. And whether it's Republicans like Senator Jesse Helms of Helms-Burton fame or Republican Presidents like the Bushes or Trump, Rosy is quite aware that it is "easy as pie" in the U. S. to "solicit unsavory and powerful allies who also benefit politically and economically from assaulting Cuba." Like most Cubans on the island, Rosy watched Trump's June 16th speech delivered in the Bay of Pigs Artime building in Little Havana in which Trump railed against Cuba as the prelude to signing a bill overturning positive Cuban advances made by former President Barack Obama. Then on her Facebook page Rosy wrote: "I've lived in Cuba all my life and I do not know the Cuba Trump talked about."

      I believe that Rosy Amaro Perez epitomizes the typical young-adult Cuban that Cristina Escobar went to great lengths to describe on that YouTube-Tracey Eaton tape. In other words, Rosy is smart, well-educated, healthy, focused, and very much a supporter of the Cuban Revolution and Cuba's sovereignty. Rosy like all Cubans has had totally free health care all her life...with no worries about outrageous health insurance or hospital bills. Rosy like all Cubans who want it received a totally free and excellent education through college. She's never had to worry about student loans but she's read in USA Today that U. S. students are having a hard-time repaying $1.3 trillion in student loans. Meanwhile, Rosy is also aware that someone like Rubio can starkly demean Revolutionary Cuba while lavishly implying that Batista's Cuba treated everyday Cubans as kindly as Mother Teresa would have treated them.

 Rosy Amaro Perez: a skilled broadcaster.

Rosy Amaro Perez: A devoted mother.

In identical dresses: Rosy & her daughter.

Rosy' daughter.

       On U. S. television and in the U. S. Congress, without any fear of being contradicted, Rubio claims he is more concerned about everyday Cubans than true Cubans like Rosy Amaro Perez are. Rosy, shown above on the pinto, not only contradicts Rubio, she says he benefits from such lies and in America he has no reason to stop them. Rubio's rants vs. Rosy's smiles define U.S.-Cuban relations.

Whether Americans believe Rubio...

who has never been to Cuba...

or believe Rosy Amaro Perez...

who has lived in Cuba all her life...

Americans finally need to realize

there are two sides

to the U.S.-Cuban conundrum. 

And Rosy's smile represents one side.

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