by Diana Block and the Bay Area Cuba Solidarity Network
Hundreds of people across the Bay Area and Sacramento welcomed Yasser Ibarra, First Secretary, and David Ramirez, Second Secretary, from the Cuban Embassy in D.C. with warm expressions of solidarity over the four day Let Cuba Live tour. Members of community, political and church groups as well as elected officials, including newly elected Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee, turned out to demonstrate their support for Cuba as the Trump-Rubio diabolical duo unleash new draconian attacks every day. The broad success of the tour is built on decades of political, social and cultural interchange with Cuba, its people and its institutions.
The tour began on May 31 with a lunch hosted by local chapters of the DSA (Democratic Socialists of America), which have been mobilizing members across the United States to pressure the government to remove Cuba from the fraudulent State Sponsors of Terrorism (SSOT) list. In his last week in office, Biden did finally remove Cuba from the SSOT list, but as Ibarra and Ramirez explained, this performative gesture was too little and too late. On his first day in office, Trump put Cuba back on this arbitrary list, which greatly tightens the economic stranglehold that Cuba already experiences from the blockade (first imposed in 1960) by restricting international banks from handling any financial transactions with Cuba, including humanitarian aid, and keeps investors around the world from investing in Cuba.
At a reception held in the main gallery of the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts, director Dr. Martina Ayala offered a warm welcome to our Cuban guests. She emphasized longstanding bonds between the Mission district’s artistic and cultural community and Cuba. Dr. Ayala presented a famous screenprint of José Martí (Cuba’s national hero) created by San Francisco-born Chicano artist Oscar Melara. Two members of San Francisco Supervisor Jackie Fielder’s staff gave our guests Certificates of Honor from the San Francisco Board of Supervisors reflecting the support for Cuba that the Board of Supervisors had shown in July 2020 when San Francisco became the first major U.S. city to pass a resolution to promote medical and scientific collaboration with Cuba to combat the COVID-19 global pandemic.
On Sunday, June 1, our Cuban guests attended a dynamic Sunday morning forum at the San Francisco Unitarian Universalist Church which was also broadcast over youtube. They moved on to a packed youth focused event in Oakland’s Fruitvale district hosted by the Cuba Venezuela Solidarity committee and the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL). Sunday culminated in a public event at Oakland’s First Unitarian Church, where musicians from the Afro-Cuban band Pellejo Seco opened the program with beautiful Cuban melodies.The event ended with a surprise appearance by Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee. Despite her busy schedule, Mayor Lee made time to welcome our guests and reiterate her long term commitment to ending the blockade with Cuba. Just a year before, in January 2024 when she was still a Congressional representative, Lee had been removed from a House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee hearing, chaired by Maria Elvira Salazar, in order to prevent her from expressing support for the normalization of relations with Cuba.
On June 2, our guests traveled to Sacramento where they were welcomed by city officials, including Vice Mayor Karina Talamantes, Mayor Pro Tem Eric Guerra and former Mayor Darrell Steinberg. These officials presented a Certificate of Recognition to Ibarra and Ramirez and expressed their unwavering solidarity with the Cuban people, its government and its sovereignty. Other participants at the event included representatives from the Sacramento Central Labor Council and family members of Sacramento labor leader Bill Camp, whose legacy of Cuba solidarity organizing, particularly with Cuban labor organizations, was uplifted throughout the program.
To complete their tour, Ibarra and Ramirez attended the monthly meeting of the Richmond City Council on June 3. Surrounded by the entire City Council, Mayor Eduardo Martinez presented them with a Proclamation from the city which urged the U.S. government to remove Cuba from the SSOT list and end the embargo. This strong statement of solidarity is built on Richmond’s sister city relationship with the Cuban city of Regla, which was established in 1999. Our Cuban friends were very honored by the Proclamation and were also deeply moved by an exhibit of prints by the Cuban-Regla artist Antonio Canet that were up in the Council chambers as part of the 25th anniversary commemoration of the Richmond-Regla sister city relationship.
At every event that they attended, Ibarra and Rammirez spoke about the many accomplishments of Cuba’s socialist project – from its exceptional 99% literacy rate to the universal free health care that all Cubans enjoy. They proudly pointed to the significance of Cuba’s passage of the Families Code in 2022. With the Families Code, Cuba sets a global example by establishing the most advanced set of rights for LGBTQ+, women and children in the world. The fact that the Families Code was adopted through a meticulous popular democratic process exposes the U.S. propaganda which paints Cuba as an authoritarian dictatorship.
Our Cuban guests repeatedly pointed out other egregious lies that the U.S. tells about Cuba. One of the most vicious in this period has been the accusation that Cuba’s famed international solidarity Medical Brigades engage in “human trafficking” and “slave labor.” This dangerous lie is being manipulatively used as the basis for denying visas to government officials whose countries contract with the Medical Brigades.
In a recent press statement, Marco Rubio fallaciously stated that the Brigades “deprive everyday Cubans of essential medical care that they desperately need in their homeland.” In fact, it is the sweeping U.S. blockade which is the real reason that many types of medical treatment and medications are desperately needed in Cuba despite the pervasive presence of trained medical providers all over Cuba. The blockade denies the export of medicines and medical equipment to Cuba by the U.S. and by other countries that trade with the U.S. They emphasized the critical need to counter the fake news about the Medical Brigades, as well as many other falsehoods, with a comprehensive media campaign that can reset the narrative about Cuba for people in the U.S.
Ibarra and Ramirez characterized the continuing escalation of trade restrictions against Cuba as a “slow genocide.” Energy and fuel shortages and repeated power outages due to lack of equipment, as well as growing food scarcity are clear aspects of this slow genocide. New restrictions on sending remittances to Cubans by family members living in the United States, the deportation of Cubans who had been living in the U.S. under protected status and the banning of many types of travel between Cuba and the U.S. are all meant to further sabotage the Cuban economy and exacerbate the hardships of the Cuban people, instigating social unrest and dissatisfaction with the current government.
Ibarra and Ramirez asked people to consider why the U.S. is so threatened by a small island of 10 million people which has consistently tried to establish positive diplomatic relations with the U.S. government. The only logical answer is that Cuba’s humanistic socialist experiment, which has been able to accomplish so much for so many with so little, represents a stark challenge to the U.S. capitalist system and its model of profit, exploitation and inhumanity.
Despite painting a very sobering picture of the current challenges in Cuba, Ramirez and Ibarra were clear that the Cuban people would never accept U.S. driven regime change. They pointed to the continuous inventiveness and imagination which had enabled Cubans to resist U.S. domination since 1959. They affirmed the concepts that ICAP President Fernando Llort articulated in his address to the recent international May Day convocation in Havana that solidarity is “the antidote to the barbarism fostered by the capitalist socio economic system“ and that solidarity, peace and sovereignty must be the pillars of global resistance in the world today.
We are glad that the Let Cuba Live tour was able to amplify the friendship and solidarity that has long existed between Northern California and Cuba through direct engagement with two Cuban leaders and strong collaboration between many organizations. To build on this momentum, we will be holding a virtual meeting on Tuesday, June 17, to discuss collective priorities going forward. Register for the meeting at bit.ly/6-17-25. For more information contact bayareacubasolidarity@gmail.com. Cuba Si, Bloqueo No!
Diana Block is a member of the Bay Area Cuba Solidarity Network and the California Coalition for Women Prisoners. Check out more about her on dianablock.com.
