 Okay. Perfect. So thank you all. And thank you so much for being here. My name is Michelle Elner, and I am part of the Latin American team at Code Pink. And we are, we are all here because we care about Cuba, right? We were all excited when diplomatic relations were reestablished during the Obama-Biden administration. When travel and trade restrictions were eased, we shared with Cubans their joy at the prospects of improved U.S. relations and an uptick to their and their economy. Then we were outraged when Trump reversed all the gains of the Obama-Biden administration and imposed 243 restrictive measures hitting Cubans energy, tourism, and banking sectors and limiting the remittances that U.S. citizens could send to their families in Cuba. Then we were hopeful when Biden during his campaign, his presidential campaign, he promised that he will reverse the Trump sanctions. But now we are disappointed because we see that instead of doing what he promised, he is imposing more sanctions, new sanctions to Cuban leaders, and also having his advisors meet with right-wing Cuban Americans instead of those who support the President Obama's opening policy. So today the embargo plus Trump sanctions plus the pandemic are undermining the well-being of Cuban people and hitting women especially the hardest of all. So we believe that it's our duty to ask for women leaders, democratic leaders in the U.S. to step up and support Cuban families and demand an end to the embargo. This is why we are bringing you today these unique voices of three fantastic and powerful and strong Cuban women who will give us their perspective of what's going on in Cuba. So I want to welcome Liz Oliva Fernandez, Sandra Zocalozano, and Yadira Escobar. And I also want to welcome my co-host for tonight, our incredible co-founder, Miria Benjamin, who you all, I'm sure you all know and love as much as I do. And Marcie Winnigrad, my co-worker, Marcie, who will lead our action at the end because there's no one better in the world for that job. So thank you all. Michelle, before you introduce Liz, I just want people to know that they can introduce themselves in the chat, say hello and where you're from. And anytime during this time for any of the speakers, if you have any questions, you can put them into the chat as well. Thank you so much, Miria. So yeah, so let's start by our first guest. Her name is Liz Oliva Fernandez. Liz is an award-winning journalist with Belly of the Beast and lead protagonist of the War on Cuba documentary series. She has years of experience as a reporter on social, political, and economic issues for radio, print, digital, and television press. Liz, welcome. And it's so great to have you with us. So in Cuba, as well as many countries in Latin America, there is a matrifocal family that predominates, where the woman is at the center of the family and the grandmother is the mother's collaborator when she goes to work, et cetera. So in this context, can you please explain how does the embargo impact women in Cuba and how it impacts also their fight for women's rights in Cuba? First, thank you for having me today. Well, Michelle, life in Cuba is uneasy. And it can be harder if you're alone. Just thinking about what about women in countries with repeated deep economic crisis. And don't forget that in our case, these crises are the most caused by the total economic warfare that U.S. are imposed on my country. My grandma, for example, has been living three quarters of her life under the sanctions. My mom was born under the sanctions, so do I. Almost three generations of her discard city of food, medicine, family care products, and beyond. If you take into the count how patriarchy works, it should be added at the care of children and the early false mailing of women, as you said. That itself is hard work at a pandemic like COVID-19 together with the shortages of food and produce in general. The result will be thousands of women in vulnerable situations who spend most of their time trying to figure out how to survive. And not only them, but the people in their care. On the other hand, one of the sectors more affected by the U.S. blockade is biotechnology. There, women make up 53 percent. They are on the front lines trying to feed the virus and being resilient in order to create vaccines that are two of the best vaccines in the world. One of them are soberanas, vaccines whose production has been seriously affected by the sanctions. Last year, for example, an European company that used to sell medical supplies to Cuba reported that until it reviewed each of its supplies and demonstrated that each of one had less than the famous 10 percent of the components from the U.S., deliveries were top and it could not be supplied to Cuba anymore. Knowing this, I cannot stand for President Biden to say that he would send vaccines to Cuba because we don't need it. 80 needs, whatever amount of dollars needed to. He may need to think about them, but Cuba only needs that the U.S. leave us alone. If we set it, the life of Cuban women will be easier in many ways because we need to take account of our time to be like, to focus in things that can make us better and improve our life in general. No worry about food or worrying about medicines or worry about tasks or worry about everything because when you have a huge economic crisis as we have in Cuba for so many years, your life used to be harder. Thank you so much, Liz. Well, Liz unfortunately has to leave us after this her turn. So if you guys have any questions, anyone has any questions, please post it on the chat. In the meantime, I have some questions for you, Liz. I posted in the chat the article by your colleague, Ed Agostin, who just did a piece talking about precisely what you were mentioning, how it's the embargo or blockade, however you want to call it, that has slowed down Cuba's vaccination program by making it so difficult for them to get, I don't know if it was a reagent or something that they needed for the sober Anna too. And I find this infuriating. I feel like there's a direct link between President Biden, the continued and strengthened embargo and more people in Cuba dying from COVID. And I wonder if you make that direct connection as well. And doesn't it make you extremely angry at what the US government is doing and pretending that there are humanitarian exemptions for food and medicines. And when Biden even said that he wanted to give vaccines to Cuba, he said, but we have to make sure that they would get to the average Cuban as if the Cuban government is hoarding these vaccines and giving each other multiple shots in some Communist Party Central Committee back rooms. So how do you feel about Biden's during a pandemic about keeping Cuba from being able to mass produce the vaccine that would save people's lives? Well, people in Cuba is cynical is pretty cynical about the politics in US because the politics is the same. Even they are from the Democratic or Republican Party is also the same. It's like it's 60 years. There is an alternancy of both party parties. The political against Cuba is the same. The only chance was at the end of Obama administration. Everybody knows the result that was really great. We improve the relationship between both countries. At the beginning, people were saying, oh, Biden, Obama, and people obeyed the connection so quickly. I was like, we need to wait because once is when they are in the campaign for the elections. All the things is when they won the election. So that's the case of Biden. But Biden said one of his someone from his government said in an interview in CNN that Biden isn't Obama. People have to know that the political view is different now. But they forgot to say that Biden is wrong. It's worse than Trump, in fact. It's funny because people were hopeful, expecting likely change. In fact, he's really cynical. I'm angry at this time and trying to laugh myself because it's so cynical that made me laugh at some point. Because I say, I'm going to send. We need to send to Cuba's Internet. We don't need Internet because we already have Internet. We send them vaccines. We don't need vaccines because we are trying to do our vaccines since the last year because the United States that say that Cuba didn't classify for a COVAX program because we are not a poor country. We get out to the COVAX and we need to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to get access to the COVAX vaccine because we don't classify for a poor country that get the vaccine for free for 30% of our population. Nowadays, we have a little more than 40% of our population, at least one shot. So we are happy to taking that decision at that time to, well, we don't have money to pay for vaccines or treatment with COVAX. So we need to do it by ourselves and we did it. We started production of the five candidates. The first one that was like a more successful in the first part was a Soberano vaccine is the last one that we are applying to the populations in the shoots because we are so, so retired to the production of this vaccine because they blockade because they need like a component that is the central component for this kind of vaccine and we don't have access to that because European companies say, well, United States really look at us. They have like, they have a lot of surveillance about the components and the issues that the supplies that we are sending to Cuba. So we need to review all our policies or all our products in order to see what which products have less or more than 10% of the components from the US that is really ridiculous because, for example, when I explain that to someone, I say, well, suppose that you want to buy a car but the seats, not the seats, well, the seats are from the US are unable to buy this car because the seats represent the 10% of the component that is from the US. The most of the products that we already, that the war already, the most of them are from the US or have a small amount of company that is maybe for a private company that made that product in the US. The third thing that Biden said that she wants to need are remittances because he wants to, the remittances go straight to the people without the state that Trump did that. The funny thing is that remittances are strained to the people without any person that the government have to take account with this, but people still are sending remittances with private companies that is based in Florida. So earlier, for example, when the government are like the people that manage that the remittances to go to the people, the government, Cuban government is keep the 12% of the remittances and now private companies based in US keep 40 and 50% of the remittances that families in US are sending to people to Cuba. So where are the benefits of all of this who are really behind these politics against the Cuban people because it's not against the government, it's against the Cuban people. So I see Sandra shaking her head and maybe when you talk you can talk about this because I'm sure you try to send money back home and this was a big issue in the March you did. But Liz, we can't let you go without asking you about the famous July 11 protests and what was the context for this and how did you feel about it? Were you out on the streets and in the next weeks until today, how does this leave you feeling and do you think that there will be more of these kinds of protests in the coming weeks? I have a lot of feelings about July 11 because it's a mix of feelings and I was just one second everybody knows what we're talking about the protests that happened in Cuba on July 11th, right? Okay, sorry, go ahead Liz. I was spending my Sunday with my family outside of the city. At some point I realized that I'm receiving a lot of messages about protests in Cuba. Some of them are trying to organize in Havana. So I left all what's going on behind. I went straight to the protests. It was really impressive because there were, there were a lot of people protests against the government. It was like a picture that wasn't common in Cuba because the protests in Cuba, the manifestations are used to be organized by the government or pro-government demonstrations at some point and this is the kind of different manifestation. I have the opportunity, I had the opportunity to do some interviews. I asked the people why are doing that and at that moment people say because we need to, we want a change because we don't have food, because we don't have medicine. We have a change. We need a change. I was asking a change of what what do you want to go for and they say we don't know. We don't know what are the features that we want but we have, we want a different feature that we have now. I understand then, even I understand the people that protests in a violent way because they you could feel the angry and the frustration that the protesters had in that moment because they don't understand, the people that was on the street that they don't understand about how politics work or how the blockade affects them. They only felt like a helpless, helpless in some point so they need to blame someone. The face of all the problems that you want people have is the Cuban government because this is the way that United States politics works around the world. People protest against the government. It was like, I think that kind of, that there is some seem change in the way that people or react to the real situation because the situation in Cuba in the last months is going to be from bad to worse. Before COVID, we have like a dissensions against Cuba. The blockade really was like a higher level with Trump. They cut the entrance of tourism, cruise ship. We have like our tourism decreased like 40% or something similar and after COVID came, we are on an island, we live in the Caribbean, we live the most of our incomes come from the tourism. COVID was really hard for us because COVID means that a lot of countries, rich countries around the world, get into the real big crisis like a health crisis and also economic because COVID affected us. Imagine Cuba is a small island, so we have been doing well the first year and we handle until now, but the situation that was like it for worse, I don't know how to explain that in English, but while meanwhile, Biden was sitting in the White House thinking about Cuba's policies that is more than six months now, the situation that Cuban people was really deteriorating in so fast and the situation right now nowadays is hard because our COVID cases are increased by the scarcity. It is every day bigger. We need like a solution for that. Cuban government is bad for our vaccines and in some point, but I said that the situation is critical. People failed in the same way. I don't know if people are going to take the strike again. I don't think so for now because the Cuban government has right to manage the situation in some way, but the feeling that people have is that the situation in Cuba has to improve in some point, have to be better because people are tired. There is one thing that people say always about Cuban people is about resilience. We are tired to have to view resilience. We are tired to survive. We want a better life that we have now and we deserve it. I know that we have our own problems, but the government of the United States don't make us easier. That was really amazing, Liz. I really appreciate you being here with us, Liz. In the chat, we posted the link to YouTube for the trailer of the commentary that Liz made. It's the war on Cuba. Please, you have to check this out. It's really amazing work. Thank you so much, Liz. Thank you for that last section of what you said. I myself, I'm from Venezuela and I also hear people say, well, there are resilience. Yes, I have that same feeling. We deserve better. Liz has to leave us because there's a curfew in Cuba, so please give her a clapping. Thank you so much, Liz. We love the work you do and we look forward to the next part that you're going to put out and to everything that you're putting out to educate us. Thank you so much. We are working on it. We are working on it. We are working in July 11 also. Well, it was a pleasure. Bye. It was a pleasure. Thanks for having me. Sure. Thanks. So now we're going to enter. I want to welcome Sandra Zocalozano. Sandra is a Cuban graduate research associate pursuing a PhD in social psychology at the University of South Florida. Sandra taught classes of health psychology and family psychology for eight years at the faculty of physiology at the University of Diabana. She was also a people's power delegate in Cuba from 2013 to 2016 and she recently joined the pilgrimage from Miami to Washington DC to raise awareness about the embargo. So, welcome, Sandra. One of the reasons that we are appealing to the vice president, Camila Harris, is because she's been focusing on immigration. And one of the things that one of the key demands of the Cuban Americans is being able to reunite with their families and so on. So, as a Cuban citizen living in Miami, what's the situation with families back in Cuba? And how does the embargo affect your capacity or your ability to help your family over there when needed? So, Michelle, just two things. I'm doing my PhD in pediatric psychology, not social psychology, and I'm based in Tampa, not Miami, which I'm super grateful for. Not that there is a huge difference, but there is a tiny difference. I'm happy to be in Tampa. You know, one of the things that people ask me a lot. You know, Americans ask me a lot. When I came in 2006, no, 18, for my PhD was, was it difficult for you to come? Was the Cuban government imposing any rules? They allowed you to leave? And I was like, of course they did. They do not put any rule or sanctions or they allowed you to go wherever you want to go. The problem is not the Cuban government. The problem is the government of the United States. You have to ask for a visa. And then in that process, they decided you are worthy or not of a visa. And that decision is based on many elements that are not necessarily, you know, fair. I came to this country in 2015 for a conference, for a psychology conference. And I, during that time, the embassy was open, the embassy was working. It was, you know, the section of interest of the United States of America. And I had to do my very long line. I watched 79, 79 years old grandmas staying in that line from 6 a.m. or 3 a.m. or 4 a.m. and waiting, you know, standing in a, you know, on the sidewalk under the sun. And then I watched them how they would interview, you know, the people who were interviewed. I'm not saying they were bad people as their work, but the process is, it was really, really outrageous. You know, I would see how they would try to tweak these old ladies who would have like a super hard time responding to those questions like, oh, so how did your family arrive to the United States? Oh, are they legal or illegal? Well, I think they're illegal. Sometimes grandmas, they don't even know those details that you're asking. Oh, so you were saying that they were illegal. And then they say, oh, so you were saying that your family doesn't have money to come to Cuba, but they have money to take you to the United States. Anyways, it was a very, very long process. And I would say one of my aunts, her parents immigrated to the United States when they were young, and she decided not to. She had her family, she decided to stay back. And six years ago, her father was very ill, and she requests for that third time a visa to visit her parent. And the person who took her case told her, are you a doctor? Are you able to do something about this? No, I just want to see my dad before he dies. And she was not able, they denied her visa. She was not able to say a final goodbye to her dad. So most of the times the problem is not the Cuban government. Most of the times is the restrictions like right now, that's one of the things that Bridges of Love is advocating for. Because right now, we don't have an embassy. Right now, people have to go to other Latin American or Caribbean places, you know, countries to ask for a visa. The reunification program is closed. A lot of process were left in the open, you know, a lot of families divided. And the process doesn't have to be perfect, but it has at least to work. So it helps, you know, family to reunite. I wanted to take on a couple of things that Liz mentioned. If you don't mind, Michelle. You know, Liz mentioned that how the embargo affected biotechnology, but it's not only biotechnology, what the embargo affects. The embargo affects biotechnology, but affects the health system overall. When I was in Cuba, I was also a professor at the University of Havana, but I would work as a psychologist in an oncology in a pediatric service for children with cancer, children and teenagers. And one of the main struggles that doctors had in that service was that they were not able to get top-notch, you know, last-generation equipment, treatments, everything that we had that was, you know, the things that were coming out from the United States in terms of technological advances, we had to get through third parties and through a lot, a lot, a lot of work. And that was very frustrating, you know, you see in those kids, they're not in those mothers who, you know, in Cuba, mothers are the caretakers most of the time, like it happens in most of Latin American cultures. And those ones have to sacrifice so much to give the minimum, the bare minimum to those children because, you know, they would have to pledge to people outside of Cuba, so they would be able to get minimum medications or, you know, sometimes even that state-of-the-art treatment needed for that specific type of cancer. And the same happens with the MRI machines, ultrasound machines, everything. If a company sold a cup, you know, like let's say three or five MRI machines to Cuba, and a couple of years later, the United States acquired that company that originally sold those things to Cuba, then we cannot get replacements for those machines that are broken. So then you have a whole hospital, like Hospitala Mejeda, which is one of the biggest in Cuba. It had, when I was back there, there was a period that one of the MRIs broke, and they had like three months' wait line to get people doing an MRI because there was no way to fix the MRI, not because we didn't want to, it's because simply the government didn't allow those pieces to be brought back to Cuba. What Lise said about sending money back to Cuba, that's one of the other things that, you know, Bridges of Love is advocating for, because, you know, it's the same thing, like right now you can only do it through private individuals, and it takes, you know, I'm a PhD student. I live on my own here. I am very limited in the amount of resources that I have, and so sending money to my mom after, you know, Trump, what Trump did was it's still a nightmare because it's very difficult for me. I have to pay 30, 40, 50 dollars in addition to the money that I want to send because it's private companies who are unfortunately taking advantage of the situation, that the government is not allowing to, you know, through an official business, do that like we were doing when Western Union was working. You mentioned, you know, like we are resilient. Yes, we are, I think that Cubans are very resilient. I think that Cubans are, you know, we face with the left most of the things that happen to us, but even receiving is half the limit. And that limit came with COVID, you know, worldwide. It's not only out there in Cuba, we are exhausted. We are all exhausted worldwide. It's a psychological process, right? We've been stuck. We kind of go outside. We feel isolated. And in Cuba, of course, this situation is worse because we have the blockage. So you don't have medicines, you don't have food, you don't have, you know, you don't have plenty of things. I'm not saying that the government could do things better. Of course, every government can do things better. That's part of building a better country. But one of the main things that is affecting I have friends that being involved in the pilgrimage really created a friction in their relationships because they did not understand being in Cuba, they did not understand why I was defending the block, you know, trying to or advocating for the end of the blockade, why I was not jailing about the government or whatever I would like. And I was explaining to them, you know, when there is no blockage, maybe I'll join you in saying the government is, you know, it's inefficient, it's taking advantage of the people, you know, maybe at that point I'll join you, but right now the roots of everything that's wrong with Cuba, it's on the blockade. And you guys have to be more mindful of that, but people, it's a normal process. People, it's just exhausted. People, it's tired. We're all humans. So that happens. And one point that Liz had, that was a really good point about July 11. Cuba doesn't have an organized opposition. You know, they have to, the government in my criteria, the government has to do a better job in opening lines of communication with people who may think different, because it's okay to think different. Everybody everywhere thinks different. You don't have to agree with everything that's being said. And the government has to open lines of communications. But the opposition doesn't have a programmatic, you know, they don't have a program. They don't know what they want. They don't know what they want to build. They don't have, like Fidel had when the revolution started in 1969, let's say, he had his program. He knew what he wanted for his people, for us. And right now, people just want to change. They don't know what they want. They just know that they want to live better. And that's one of the things that the blockade will, you know, if the blockade ends, it will allow the Cuban people to live better. I think that the embargo is just a dirty political tool to manipulate the Cuban people to do the dirty work of the United States government and to overthrow the Cuban government. So they don't have, and I don't want, I don't mean to be offensive, okay? I hope you all can understand what I'm saying. They don't have the pants to do it themselves. You want to change the Cuban government? Just do it yourself. Don't put pressure on the people. Just don't take advantage on the needs of the people. Don't starve them. Don't make them suffer all kinds of needs to achieve what you want, because you're just using them, miserably using them. Oh my God. Thank you so much, Sandra. I really appreciate you for coming here. I'm sure you, all of you have a lot of questions for Sandra, but we were, we want to pass right on to our next guest. Please, if you have any questions posted on the chat and we will go to the Q&A section after that. So now we're going to introduce our next guest. I want to welcome Yadira Escobar, who is a young Cuban-born activist based on Florida. She is a political analyst for various news outlets. She's a freelance journalist, radio producer and host. She is a frequent CNN commentator. She also ran for election to the U.S. House of Representatives, to represent Florida's 25th congressional district. So, Yadira, thanks for being with us today. Please share with us your insights about the situation in Cuba and also being in Florida. Please talk about the political and economic interests in Florida, in Miami, that support U.S. policy towards Cuba. You're on mute. All right. Can you hear me now? Wonderful. A typical introduction in Zoom. Somebody's microphone doesn't work. So, it's a pleasure to be with you guys today. Yes, I did run, last year I ran for Congress, because my district is controlled by Mario Diaz-Balart, and he is one of this little club of politicians who have been in their positions for several years now, and their sole mission with regards to the Cuban situation is to just tighten any sort of sanction, just make life more miserable for the Cubans on the island. I think it's so unfortunate how many of these politicians, like for instance, Malart, who was, I believe, born in Fort Lauderdale, who has never visited Cuba, Marco Rubio, for instance, who regularly goes on the house floor to just rant against Cubans, diverse, the nuanced opinions that are on the island. Yadita, we're having some problems. I eventually had to make my decision. Yes. We're having some problems with your audio. I don't know if there's anything you could do, or maybe turn off your... I think it's a connection. Do you think it's a connection? Okay, I'm going to try to remove my... Can you guys hear me better? Yeah, okay. All right, then I'll just have to raise the sound on the phone then. All right, as I was saying, as a Cuban American, I'll just yell a little bit louder. As a Cuban American, obviously, I inherited an ideology. My dad was a political prisoner, and I grew up here in the Cuban American community in South Florida, and there were a lot of things that you take for granted, but the one thing that began to change for me, this whole image that I have of what had happened in Cuba, its history of what our relationship has been to the island was going there and seeing the situation for myself. That's why ever since after 15 years of being in exile, when I went back in 2008, I became more in touch with the reality, and I began to promote reconciliation, dialogue, good diplomatic relations with the island, and it's just so unfortunate that now that even though Donald Trump is no longer in power, Joe Biden, though he promised that he would revert the situation with Cuba and the United States back to how it was before, he has done absolutely nothing. And in fact, he not only has not reestablished the Obama policy, he has made it work. So basically, with regards to Cuba, Donald Trump is still in power. And in fact, Joe Biden has added several more sanctions, and he has not addressed the situation that there are Cubans that are trying to bring in their family, there are thousands of Cubans that are stuck in limbo in terms of their immigration status. So he is not trying to follow in the footsteps of Obama, as he promised. And he is not helping the Cubans on the island because even though we are still in the middle of pandemic, and although when you compare me right now, Florida, we are like having a catastrophic situation with COVID. But even though Cuba has done its best to contain the virus naturally since their economy, what little was left of it after the fall of the Soviet Union rested on remittances, which the Trump administration cut and has made it so difficult for families to send money to on the island. And also with regards to the sanctions, they're worse than ever. And they didn't even for a moment pause to consider that maybe in the middle of such an unprecedented pandemic, the more humane thing would be to at least soften those sanctions and allow for Cuba to buy the type of medicine that it needs by just deal with the United States in a more regular way, considering this is a historic moment. And we were in this together. And if Cuba has a situation on the island with the outbreak, then that in turn affects South Florida as well because people are traveling to and fro. So it is a shame that Joe Biden has missed on the opportunity to undo the damage that Trump did with regards to our diplomatic relations with Cuba, because we see that China has stepped in defending Cuba because they know that this is not good for international relations. And I do think that it's a mistake on the Biden administration to try to still hard when a vote, a demographic that just does not care for him, because we saw how the Biden administration lost Florida. So why if Florida was lost to the Republicans, why is the Biden administration trying so hard to win people that will just never be satisfied? Because right now, they are not satisfied with the fact that Biden, the Communist, has kept in place all of the Trump legacy and made it worse. No, no, they're not satisfied there, because they've got a taste of that blood and they want to really, really extend it and radicalize it. So now they're asking for military intervention. So you give them an inch and they'll walk all over you. There isn't just no satisfying these people because they don't want Biden. They want Donald Trump that will just send him the Occupy Cuba. And in reality, it's more about vengeance. And that is what all these years have taught me living in this community, is that while normal people have a very common sense position with the island, it is the politicians and the media that keep this hard line publicly against Cuba. And so it is a position that is basically based a lot of times on just vengeance, because I have heard time and time again, the arguments of the people that advocate for a very violent overthrow of the government, how they want to just blame the people. So it's not, they like to boast that this is a fight against communism, but no, they actually just want to suppress the people's will because they know many of these people, these classic politicians of Florida, they know very well that at the start of the revolution, the majority of the people were with Fidel and the revolutionaries. So they don't just blame Fidel. And in fact, in private, a lot of them say, praise that Fidel was very smart that he knew how to do things, right? But they still blame the masses. So it is, it's just so hypocritical and just false and sometimes cynical when they boast publicly on these parades in Miami that, oh, they just want freedom for Cuba. When in reality, they are not advocating for freedom, they're just trying to coerce and starve out the people. So it is inhumane, obviously, and I'm glad why most of us, we all agree here that the sanctions are just immoral. And it's also not smart because South Florida, you know, if it's, we're 90 miles from Cuba, it's only a matter of time, no matter how much federal aid money, millions, we're talking about millions of dollars every year allocated to fostering and supporting the opposition in Cuba. Most of that money stays here in South Florida. And so when we vote up against these people that are in the way of the Cuban people's progress and their happiness and them actually having the, being in a position where they can then reform and fix their country because obviously, I think that Cubans, they would like a country that has more prosperity, where they have more political freedoms and all that. But that will only happen if Cubans are not in dire poverty. So these people that talk about freedom, free markets and all that, they actually are the first ones that sabotage free markets. So they're hypocritical because they actively try to punish every single corporation, every company, every businessman that does business with Cuba. So what we see is that they are mutilating, they are hurting the emerging middle class within Cuba. So it's why I fall back on my point. These people in South Florida who have made a career out of hate, they do not want to help the middle class, the population in Cuba. They're just doing their business and we just need to keep doing our activism, supporting things like the Los Puentes de Amor de Caravana for la familia cubana. We need to team up and really go against a multimillion dollar industry that is based on hate. If we want what's best for Cuba. Wow. Yadira, I love your passion. It would be so cool if you were a congressperson representing us in South Florida. I have a question for you Yadira and one for you Sandra. Yadira, you talk about these extremist right wing Cuban Americans and how they don't want what's best for people in Cuba, but can you also talk about how hypocritical they are around just the basics of free speech in this country and how you and so many others in South Florida receive death threats have, I mean it's so courageous for you to speak out, but can you explain how they act towards people who simply want to do things like send remittances to their family? Right because the topic of remittances is a heated one because naturally some people just want to send money to their families and then there are those that sometimes don't want to send anything and then try to ban everyone. So we see that while they like to fill their mouths with things like oh freedom and letting everybody decide and liberty, in reality I like to judge people not by what they say, but how they act and in reality they're always trying to censor these hard liners, are always trying to censor any oppositional voice. If you have a different opinion which is what has happened to me, they will try to smear you, they will call your employers. I have had sometimes to do jobs under different names, I have gone to job interviews that were going so well and then once they recognize me they kind of just didn't hire me. So it is a real thing that having these positions, even though like I don't consider myself a radical, I think it's just common sense and having a little bit of decency and being humane, having love for the people on the island, but these positions are targeted by these hard liners as forbidden and they are the first ones that will try to get you fired, which is why on my show for instance how I do sometimes these live streams, I have so many people that go in with anonymous names, they shut down their camera because they are afraid that they will be recognized, identified and then they will lose their jobs. I mean Moderna for instance, my program, the only shortwave program that was actually financed by Cubans, four Cubans on the island to try to, you know, we try to counteract the whole Radio Marti bombardment, how they just buy up all the slots the airspace, we eventually got canceled, you know, like we, they called the station constantly telling the owner you need to get her off slandering me and eventually they, I suppose they kind of got to them because Moderna was just canceled like two months ago, so we managed to talk to Cubans on the island for three years, but it is a very uphill battle because they managed to through all this money, all this federal aid and they speak to some people's lowest passions and essentially make it very difficult for anybody to go against it because you hear sometimes a young person that will have gone to college and has been exposed to different ideas and then they tell you I can't tell my parents these positions because they will kick me out of the house, it is a very real thing and it's just not changing and that's why for so many people say that, you know, people that have more progressive or liberal ideas, they just say well in Miami, you know, if you're going to be on the Cuban scene, you're not in the United States because your freedom of expression will not be respected, you have to go to Fort Lauderdale, maybe to just start kind of reaching America, maybe, you know. Thank you and thank you for your courage in doing this work in Miami and Sandra, I wanted to ask you about the the potential disaster for Biden if he continues this in that there could very easily be a mass migration from Cuba if the economic situation continues to deteriorate and I want to put it in the context of the hypocrisy of Biden and Kamala Harris now saying they want to invest a billion dollars in Central America and infrastructure and other things so that people will stay in Central America instead of migrating to the US and then when it comes to Cuba, they want to strangle the economy and make things as bad as possible for people. So do you see a mass migration in the horizon and what could we do to try to convince not only Biden but you know Republicans who are so much, build the wall, keep the immigrants out, you know, that this policy is not a good one? That's a great point. I think that, you know, that's a great hypocrisy that they think that they could, you know, they are going to build infrastructure in Latin America then. What's so wrong with Cuba? What's so different with Cuba that you kind of do that, you know, in Cuba? Definitely it could be a mass migration. It runs a bit different now because of the, you know, a years ago we had the dry food, wet food law which allowed any Cuban who would touch like sea or land to be considered, you know, for to have kind of like rights to have rights in the United States. Nowadays that law doesn't exist but still there are lots of Cubans who are going everywhere on the world trying to, you know, from Ecuador to, you know, trying to cross the border so they could potentially have a migratory crisis in their hands and the best way, the best way to alleviate that is to just end up locate, you know, the best way that you could do that is by allowing the Cuban government to really trade with any other countries in the world, helping with infrastructure maybe in Cuba. To me it's so stupid that the Cuban government and the United States government cannot, you know, relate. They kind of, they don't stand each other for what they represent. It's like there are two different positions but what we all want is the well-being of the people, the well-being of the families, you know, you have, you will get, you know, a crisis in terms of a lot of people trying to come here but a lot of people will die on the way. So many Cubans have died trying to reach the United States border and that is simply not fair, you know, it's just asking the Cuban, the United States government to do the right thing and the right thing is to truly care about the Cuban people, to truly care about the well-being of Cubans which they're not doing with the blockade. Thank you Sandra. I want to spend a little time now just saying how we can help and then we'll thank Sandra and Yadira and move on to the action part. It came up with the issues about the lack of materials that they need in Cuba for the vaccination campaign and I just want to say how wonderful it is that a coalition of groups in the United States saving lives campaign, the People's Forum, Code Pink, Global Health Partners, Puentes de Amor came together and raised over $500,000 to buy six million syringes and those syringes, several million have already arrived, others on their way and that means so much to the Cuban people that the people of the United States have sent these despite what the Biden administration is doing and now we've been asked to raise money for food and so I put in the chat where you can go to the donations. Anything that you can give, there are people who give $10 and there are people who give $10,000. We're trying to raise $100,000 right now for this campaign. We've been asked by the Martin Luther King Center to send powdered milk and cantuna and some other items and we're in the process of buying them in bulk and sending them to Cuba so we would appreciate any donations you could make. We're also part of a group called Asere which is a new lobby group that has been pushing for good bills or resolutions in Congress and pushing against the bad ones and you can put in that if you're interested in joining the lobby work or any of these, you can write to me. I'll put my email right in the chat here medea.codepink.org and I can put you in touch with the right groups that are doing these things. Right now in Congress, there is one good bill that Amy Klobuchar has introduced about improving trade in the Senate. We're going to work on that tonight. There's another bill that Marcy, you'll be talking about these, another bill in the House that is for lifting the portions of the embargo as well and there is a bill that we're trying to stop that is introduced by Debbie Wasserman Schultz, one of those evil Democrats in southern Florida that want to say that all of the protests were the fault of the government's mismanagement and corruption and that we stand with the protesters and against the violence of this communist regime and we're trying to stop that bill from getting to the floor. So there's a lot of work to do. It's interesting that under Trump, Marco Rubio, the Republican in south Florida and who represents Florida, was making the policy and Trump was happy to leave it to Marco Rubio and Marco Rubio, Cuban American and now you have a very, very similar situation with Biden who is leaving Cuban policy in the hands of a Democratic Cuban American and that is Robert Menendez, Bob Menendez from New Jersey, who is extremely right-wing when it comes to Cuba and Latin America. So we have a lot of work to do to lift up the voices of those Congress people who are not in favor of this policy that is designed to hurt 11 million Cubans and that's where we're excited that you're going to stay on the webinar tonight. We also have a lot of translating to do. If you're a good translator, you can drop me a note and we have ongoing projects around Cuba that we would like to get your support for. So I think, Marcy, we can move on to the action part. Sure. Thank you, Medea. Thank you, Michelle and our guests, Sandra and Liz and Yadira. I learned a lot listening to you and I second what Medea said about your courage and thank you. Thank you for being out there and you know, leading this effort. How cruel it is. So, all right, Michelle, at this point, perhaps you can share the screen with the action. I co-host with Medea and honey, our dad Barnes is also on this call Code Pink Congress. We're on recess right now as Congress is about to, well the Senate is about to adjourn. But we'll be back in September and I invite you to join us then, September 7th. Here we go. We're going to share a screen. And first, you can see there's a link and correct me if I'm wrong, Michelle. I believe that link is to the petition or the letter to First Lady Biden calling on her to do what she can to influence her husband to end this blockade. And so we ask that you just click on that link or copy it and sign, sign the petition letter. And there's also another one underneath that. So please take a moment to do that. If something's not clear, you can either say it in the chat or unmute yourself. Okay. And after the petitions, we have a script that we can use to email our members of Congress, our House representatives, and our senators. So you can see that we're just asking you to give your name and your zip code. They want to know that you're in their district. And if you're writing to your state senators, rather your U.S. senators from your state, we're asking them to cosponsor S 1694. That's the freedom to export to Cuba Act. If you're writing to your member in the House, it's HR 3625 U.S.-Cuba Relations Normalization Act. Both of these bills seek to end the trade embargo against Cuba and the policy that has failed for over 60 years at great cost to both Cubans and Americans. So we ask that you look up, if you don't have it handy, you know, you can always Google your member of Congress. You don't know who your member of Congress is. You can simply Google, find my rep, and put in your address. And there you'll have it to reach your state, your U.S. senator, just Google their name, email your senator, and feel free to use that script. Or use your own voice. So we're asking for a couple of things. There are two petitions to sign, and then there's this email to send to your House representative or your U.S. senators and or. I'm going to have to stop sharing my screen so I can copy, because I cannot do it while I'm sharing my screen so I can paste it on the chat, unless maybe, I don't know, Leo, if you could copy and paste it on the chat yourself. Media. I'm going to stop sharing. If you put the link in the chat, I can copy and paste. You can also call and leave messages for your member of the House and your U.S. senators. Here's the, I'm going to put the number for the capital switch for it in the chat. I'm sorry, this, the one that I'm sending, this is, yeah, it's, there is the link and the script. And maybe you want to go back to sharing your screen so people can see it there as well. Yeah. Yes, I'm just going to share the other petition. So I hope this makes sense to everybody. Some of you are new to this kind of thing, but it's really important because our representatives don't hear from us enough on this issue. So please make sure you do the action. And if you have any question, you can put it in the chat or unmute yourself. So two petitions, emails to your House representative and your senators and, and or you can give them a call asking them to co-sponsor those pieces of legislation. I am writing my representatives right now. And I'm calling the switchboard. Yes, could I have Marco Rubio? Hi, I'm a constituent and I'm very concerned about the embargo on Cuban, how it's hurting ordinary Cubans. I want to send revisions to my family there. It's very hard to do that now. The Western Union is closed. And I want to have the right to travel to O'Yee, where my family is. And so please rethink your policy that's hurting our family. So Marcy, yes, you want to close us out here? Sure. Okay, so I'm hopeful that many of us were able to email our US senators and our congressperson, leave a message, sign on to those petitions and please do urge your friends and allies in this movement to do likewise. We need to be louder. Thank you so much. It's been a real honor to be with all of you this afternoon. Thank you, Michelle, for organizing this and Medea as well. And Michelle, you have some closing words? No, I just wanted to thank so much Sandra, Oliva, Liz Oliva and I really had to go, but we can thank her and say thank you and clap because of her intervention. Yes, thank you so much. Great speakers, very courageous. And I think we need a certain amount of real shaming this administration for what it's doing. And the work that we're doing is so critical because the right wing is so organized. So we have to stay in touch with each other. I hope you're all signed up on the Code Pink alerts at CodePink.org and we can stay together. And if you want to work with us more as a volunteer, just write to me, Medea at CodePink.org. And I think, Marcy, you just put it in, sign up at the Code Pink Congress. We're going to be starting back up in September and we'll be putting pressure on our congresspeople on all kinds of issues. But we really appreciate you being with us tonight and let's do our part for the Cuban people by trying to change our shameful government policy that's been around for decades. And we can tell Biden to follow Obama's path on this one, not Trump's. Thank you. Thank you.