The following article appeared in Spanish in the March 9, 2024, online edition of Radio Miami.

World-Outlook is publishing it for the information of our readers. It reports on an important Cuba solidarity activity on March 8, in which about 40 Florida International University students and others participated.

The original in Spanish can be found here. The headline, and photos and captions that follow, as well as the text, are taken from the original. Translation into English is by World-Outlook.

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Florida International University students in Miami mark international women’s day with a call to end the blockade of Cuba

Radio Miami, digital edition

March 9, 2024

An evening dedicated to International Women’s Day at Florida International University (FIU) in the city of Miami was co-sponsored by a coalition of organizations in Miami that work together to end the U.S. blockade of Cuba. The sponsors included: the FIU chapter of the Youth of Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA), the Miami Coalition to End the U.S. Blockade of Cuba, the Miami Caravan Against the U.S. Blockade of Cuba, the Green Party of Miami-Dade, and the Miami DSA.

During the meeting, participants emphasized that Washington’s brutal blockade of Cuba is the main obstacle to advancing the struggles for equality by women and LGBTQ+ people.

Participants in the March 8 event in Miami enjoyed two movies followed by discussion. The film “Maestra” (Teacher) is a 33-minute-long documentary directed by Catherine Murphy. It is focused on the youngest teachers during the 1961 Cuban Literacy Campaign. Alice Walker, a Pulitzer Prize winning author, narrates the movie in English and conducts interviews in Spanish (with English subtitles) with nine women who participated in that campaign.

The second movie screened at the event, “Mariposas en el andamio” (Butterflies on the Scaffolding), is a 1996 award-winning documentary directed by Margaret Gilpin, which paints a not so well-known picture of the daily life of gays and transgender people in Cuba during the difficult years following the collapse of the former Soviet Union. The documentary follows a group of working-class drag queens in La Güinera, a suburb of Havana. It shows how they gained their neighbors’ respect, becoming an integral part of the community, forging an alliance with female leaders of a local voluntary work brigade, and performing in the workers’ cafeteria.

The event took place at 6:00 pm on Friday, March 8, in the Hall 140 of FIU’s Ryder Business Building. It was an activity full of symbolism and love for the Cuban homeland that sent another message to the Joe Biden administration that the time has come to end the blockade of Cuba.

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