In observance of May Day, the Center for Global Justice will focus on Cuba where this annual event will resume with a massive march in the Plaza de la Revolucion. They will be celebrating six decades of socialist construction. Helen Yaffe, author of We Are Cuba: How a Revolutionary People Have Survived in a Post-Soviet World , will talk about Cuba’s accomplishments and the challenges it faces today. She will explain how Cuba has been able to build socialist institutions in spite of the US blockade, explaining the evolution of its model. In addition to authoring several books, she has also produced documentary films on the Cuban health care system and on its response to climate change. She is senior lecturer in Economic and Social History at the University of Glasgow.
Among the many challenges Cuba is facing, is the punishing sanctions the US has imposed on the country. They have far-reaching effects that are not well understood by most USians. Public opinion strongly favors removing them, yet the political elite remains wedded to them. Andrés Jiménez will speak to the need to end the criminal economic blockade. He is Director Emeritus of the California Policy Research Center at the University of California.;