I AM practicing my Spanish.

good posting,
it seems the other latino blogs never approach
your particular presentation of 'la realije'.

funny the genetic makeup of mayans and aztecs is\not the
same as cubanos. they look very different.

nyc is full of everything.

gracias mil, cubano gusano. well, we are all mixed tribes, eh? even mexicanos can look so different from one another.

i remember mi querida ciudad nyc well. you sure said it.

There's not much new in the world, is there? The first Cuban immigrant to land on Isla Mujares was a guy named Hernan Cortés. Since 1521, Cubans have been coming to Mexico to improve their economic condition, or for political asylum (among them, José Martí and a labor lawyer -- an illegal immigrant who was for a time locked up in the Pozo Rico jail in the late 1950s -- named Fidel Castro. Also, a secretary I had for a time, who worked for Fidel -- well, at least I wasn't a tryannical boss!)

Yeah, I'm sure some of these Cubans do expect to go to the United States, and I'm sure some Mexicans have considered taking "Cuban lessons", though that sounds more like a typical Mexican chiste than anything else.

I'm not particularly up on Elizabeth Malkin (As far as I know, she's no relation to Michelle). She was, at one time, a reporter for the Mexico City News, and is presently the Mexico City correspondent for the New York Times. You'd think she'd know a Mexican chiste and have a sceptical attitude towards this kind of material, so it may have been the editors who added the "spin" for the U.S. market.

¡i'm slackin, carmenita!

well, that's why i'm glad we have you, ricardo mi favorito güerito! ;) you clear it all up for us. gracias for bringin tha context, bro.

Thank you Richard. I was thinking along the same lines. But my first thought when I read this piece, how many them are the same people who were turned back by our Coast Guard.

It's funny that the Cubans want to come to the US and I can't wait to move to Santiago de Cuba. But I am getting old waiting for the Castros to die off and I am beginning to think they will outlive me. I suspect that Fidel has got at least another 20 years in him and by then I will be 75, so I am thinking it would be better to maybe move to the Pico Duarte area of the DR. PR is collapsing, and while every week here there is another prediction of economic failure and a precise and accurate prescription for saving ourselves issued by the business and economic sector, the political machine cannot be moved, thus our demise is the classic disaster foretold.
The DR and Cuba have nowhere to go but up, and the great thing about Cuba is that it is relatively empty, could produce all of its fuel from sugar, and is a fantastically beautiful tropical location. The DR has the same pluses, but is far more developed than Cuba and has a remarkably enlightened government. The recent initiation of the CAFTA-DR pact will be interesting to watch to see if the DR can make free trade work for them. Please, commenters, don't waste a lot of time telling me about all of the negatives of the DR, I know them. But they are becoming less while those of PR are multiplying and those of Cuba remain as always the problems of intellectually dishonest dictatorships anywhere, the principal negative in Cuba being extreme food shortages. Poor government is the only reason you can have for food shortages on an island with a 365 day a year growing season. Raul Castro is finally being honest about that.

The subtefuge thing is actually a universal constant with immigrants - I'm pretty sure that in britain most of the arab immigrants are "from iraq" at the moment, in no small part because the entire region have arabic as a shared language, and the people smugglers are quite happy (for a fee of course) to provide fake iraqi documents, back stories and give them a bit of coaching on keeping their story straight during hte interrogations they'll get.

Of course this sort of thing is encouraged by harsh treatment of economic immigrants (even as it's used by racists to justify treating all immigrants, asylum seekers or otherwise, to the same bullshit terrorism) because if their options are; be put in one of the various camps and be brutalised by the authorities or...

Get accepted into the country as a cuban fleeing the evil communists.

You'd have to expect immigrants to be either monumentally stupidity or in possession of inhuman lawfulness before you'd find that practice odd or anything.

However, you're right that it does raise questions about how the reporters know there's mexicans pulling that scam, considering the whole point of hte scam is that people don't know they're doing it...

I also wouldn't be too sure that a collpase of the castro government would neccesarily lead to the improvement of cuba that some people think it will, not because castro's wonderful, but because generally tyrants get replaced by the next biggest tyrant in line - and that one will likely do a russian federation and make the country worse in all the ways that weren't actually terrible before the collapse without really getting rid of what made the previous government bad.

Freemarket cuba will not be pretty, but on the plus side, america will no longer have a higher infant mortality rate than cuba (even if only because cuban babies will die at an increased rate than they did) which is... err... good(?)... USA! USA! Win By Default! USA!

R. Mildred: Just to state emphatically that I see no reason for the US or Cuba to be losing right now, but I sincerely believe them both to be and it would be so nice for that to end in both places.
Yes, you are so right that something even worse could replace the Castros. Why, the US Congress might be able to figure out a way to take over there. That would be a disaster. Or the country might easily be the next playground of Blackwater and Halliburton. For that matter, the US is slipping into that power dynamic now.
For pure success in economics and for running a similar sized place which had decades of colonial problems, I say let the Irish Government get Cuba up to speed.
Problems they failed to foresee in Ireland, like inflation, they can try to avoid in Cuba.
You may think this is a joke, but this is a very serious proposition. Every week in PR the business and economic advisors beg the government to follow the Singaporean or the Irish or some other example of success in a country with very little land or resources.
Personally, being Irish, I am shocked at the changes in Ireland over the last 20 years. Knowing the history, the change is miraculous.
The very sad reality that faces many nations is that they are led by non leaders, directed by non thinkers and their economic policies are controlled by morons. I sadly, very sadly, include the present day US as one of those places. I wish that were not so.

My God, can one actually move TO Cuba?!? No, "freemarket Cuba" would not be pretty, but I'll be dead in 30 years, and in 20 more I just won't care.

rc....but you why we don't change, fear. The history is to long, to painful and to fearful.

The whole thing about Mexicans taking "Cuban lessons" sounds like one of the comedy routines on "la Chalaca" (a Mexican TV satirical news show. I don't think Mexicans are capable as talking as fast as Cubans (though it would be a hoot to see them try). Come to think of it, I don't think anyone on the planet can talk that fast. Good thing, I suppose... or Fidel might still be giving the same speech he started back about 1967 :-)

Rafael, I missed what you said, maybe you left a word out. Yes, Farr, you can buy a citizenship in the DR, it takes about 3 years and costs about $6,000 to $8,000 and is a completely legal process. You are made a citizen by presidential decree.
Then you fly to the DR with the US Passport, take out your DR Passport, walk across the tarmac, get in another smaller plane and land an hour later in Cuba.
In Cuba you can't own any land or other RE though. Plus, the Communist Party regulars are keeping an eye on you if you are roaming around the countryside on your own. You might be CIA or some other nosy guy. Best to have a cover like left wing magazine reporter, musicologist, agronomist, tour guide writer, photog, film maker {careful with that one}, representative of American agribusiness {yes, that's a good one these days} or something along those lines. Don't attract the interest of the US Interests Section there either. Stay far away from Havana like over in Santiago. Don't go into business, you can't beat the Castros, they find a way to get most of the money. Have fun and never hang out with any dissidents unless you like the idea of jail. Cuba has tons of jails and they are not very comfy. Behave in the DR too. The jails there are even worse, very medieval. If you need to be in Cuba quite a lot, marry a Cuban, plenty are interested.

Sorry RC, the word I left out was "know". Hope it makes sense now.

I don't see how people as rich as we are (let me tell you we are considered poor by American standards but because we live on a little 20 acre farm we think we are rich)can deny ingress to any other people. God gave us whatever we have and it is not ours to keep. Remember the parable of Lazarus and the rich man?

In separate interviews both the mayor of Tijuana and also Mexico's Defense Secretary asserted that more military operations are in the works in that area to counteract violence. The mayor acknowledged that he receives threats via the police radio on a daily basis. There are presently three thousand Mex. soldiers in the Tijuana area but the Sec. of Defense did not specify how many more would be sent there.