Cubaverdad

After Juanes Concert in Cuba, Emotions in Miami Still MixedSeptember 22, 2009Jordan Levin

When Fabio Diaz settled in with 15 members of his extended Cuban family to watch Colombian singer Juanes' historic concert in Havana on television Sunday, he — and the rest of his clan — had mixed feelings. Diaz, who is 35 and came to Miami at 19, thought the event should have been staged in an intermediary location between the island and Miami, as a bridge between the two sides. And he wanted Juanes to speak out directly about freedom in Cuba.

But as he and his family watched the show, which aired live from Havana on three Miami Spanish-language television stations — itself an unprecedented event — Diaz said his feelings overpowered his doubts. "What I loved was seeing so much of the Cuban people — and I feel completely Cuban — all together for a celebration and not for something political," Diaz says.

Much of Cuban and Latino Miami witnessed that celebration via their television and computer screens. Univision's Channel 23 in Miami drew 220,000 viewers for their five-hour long broadcast, and 140,000 in the U.S. and Puerto Rico watched on the network's website. Telemundo's afternoon-long coverage on its Channel 51 in Miami drew triple their normal viewership, and more than 600,000 visits to their website which streamed the show — more than four times the usual web traffic for that time period.

Emotions in Miami were mixed about the show, which drew hundreds of thousands of people to pack Havana's Plaza de la Revolucion on Sunday for performances by 15 artists from six countries.

A protest by exile group which brought a small steamroller to Calle Ocho to run over Juanes' CD's, sparked a counter demonstration that led to physical clashes between the two sides.

Some callers to radio talk shows were happy that, as one woman put it, "young Cubans had the chance to feel happy for one day" while others felt that the joyful image on television was far from Cuban reality. And some exiles remained disenchanted and angry that the show did not directly address problems and repression in Cuba.

"It's not about foreign musicians singing in Cuba," said Esperanza Brigante. "A real concert for peace should start by denouncing the human rights violations that plague the island… because we all know this is a political show."

But there was a strong, often emotional response at seeing the sea of young Cuban faces, and a sense that the concert signaled a turning point in exile attitudes towards Cuba. "I was very moved," said Ana Maria Perez Castro, 38, who came from the island in 1979. She watched the entire concert at home with her 16-year-old son.

Castro said she cried during the performance of Cucu Diamantes, a Cuban-American singer with the U.S.-based group Yerbabuena. "She's also Cuban and she left, and to see her going back and performing for her people in her country was very emotional," Castro said. "I could totally connect to the message to break that barrier, that fear which is what keeps all this old mentality intact."

Juanes, who was traveling Monday and could not be reached, was optimistic that the show had achieved his goal of helping to bring people together.

"Today the hearts of everyone here have changed. Cuba cannot be the same after this event," the multi-Grammy winning rock star told The Herald from Havana Sunday evening. "This event reaffirmed the necessity for all of us to unite… The government of the U.S. has to change and Cuba has to change too. But this show of love and peace and affection is so important for both sides."

Juanes has said hopes to stage the next Paz Sin Fronteras concert on the U.S.-Mexico border between Ciudad Juarez, where violent clashes between drug gangs and authorities have made the most violent city in the world, and El Paso, Texas.

That the Havana concert was allowed to take place at all, with so many people allowed to come together freely in the largest non-governmental gathering since the Pope visited Cuba in 1998, was itself indicative that Cuba was changing, said Fernand Amandi, executive vice-president of Bendixen & Associates, a public opinion research firm which specializes in the Cuban-American community.

"More than anything [the concert] underscores the fact that Cuba and relations with Cuba are undergoing a dramatic transformation that is irreversible," Amandi said. "At the end of the day it is simply a concert… But you're beginning to see a loosening of the very rigid, very totalitarian Cuba… while it is still totalitarian, the government is probably beginning to recognize that it cannot survive in the future by further isolating itself."

Another change, said Amandi, was an increased acceptance of differing points of view in the exile community, and frustration with the strife that often seems to dominate discussion of Cuba. On radio talkshows people were critical of the media focus on the raucous clash between anti and pro concert demonstrators in Little Havana. Many more Cuban-Americans "that have never agreed with the hardline stance are no longer afraid to speak up," Amandi said.

On the island, Cuba's best-known blogger, Yoani Sanchez, gave an insider's view of the concert in frequent posts on her website, www.desdecuba.com, and her Facebook page. She also uploaded a video of the concert on YouTube — "from the people's point of view" which shows she is wearing an olive green T-shirt with the Generation Y logo.

"I didn't go dressed in white to the concert for peace, but I opted for the color of freedom, which is the color each of us chooses to wear," she said. "The color each one of us chooses — that's the color that I like."

To Diaz, what finally mattered most was that the concert brought the world a glimpse of Cuba and its hopes to him and to the world. "We could tell that Juanes's goal really was to bring a moment of happiness to the people," he said. "And I think he did this. And I think the world should see 1,150,000 Cubans there who hope for change, for peace, for understanding of dialogue, and that history has to take another direction."

After Juanes Concert in Cuba, Emotions in Miami Still Mixed – HispanicBusiness.com (22 September 2009)http://www.hispanicbusiness.com/news/2009/9/22/after_juanes_concert_in_cuba_emotions.htm