Comedian Alexis Valdés responded to attacks by official media and Cuban regime spokespersons against the performers of the song ‘Patria y Vida’, especially the qualifier used against rapper Yotuel Romero, who they describe as ‘jinetero’ because of their relationship . with the Spanish artist Beatriz Luengo.
In a series of comments on his Instagram profile, Valdés assured that he knows the phenomenon well, because “he was working in the cabarets of Havana in the 1980s when it all started. The jineteras were just girls who wanted to have fun and access certain things they didn’t have. (…) Things that only a foreigner can ‘invite’ you to.
Was that a crime? Was that unworthy? Of course not. They were girls who wanted to enjoy their childhood. There came a man from another country who could be in the hotel where she couldn’t, who could eat in the restaurant she couldn’t, that she could go to clubs she couldn’t, and for her the man of course Superman. ‘
And Sabina dedicated verses to them, including Willy Chirino. And at one point, the government that initially prosecuted them let them continue in a state of quasi-legality because they knew it was a major draw for tourists. men go to Cuba?
The comedian recalled that the legitimacy of foreign tourists over Cuban citizens was supported by official policies and the uncertainty of everyday life on the island.
“In Spain it even became fashionable for the most famous artists to bring a Cuban and that became the appeal of the heart press. (…) The most common phrase was ‘Do you know who brought a Cuban?’ And for those of us who had come as artists, like me and Yotuel himself, it bothered us that they asked us about that in all the interviews. … One day a taxi driver said to me, Are you crazy? And I said to him, “I’m sorry sir, I have nothing to do with that,” and he replied, “Come on, come on, little Cuban, you’re all the same.” that was the image the Spanish people had of the Cubans. “
Valdés recalled that in the same cabarets where he saw these people, he included “many representatives of the government … who drank, ate and enjoyed those foreign businessmen who came to do business in Cuba.”
What do I want to tell you about this? Just a bit of a big truth. We were all jineteros. We all had a foreign friend who bought us something. Even today, many people in Cuba receive money, things and help from people living abroad to survive. And if not, they are not alive. Is that unworthy? Are all people unworthy? ‘he asked.
So accusing Yotuel Romero or anyone else of being a jinetero is stupid. Since a country where there are jineteros is a common way of making a living, one cannot accuse that it is jinetero. … Our country became a jinetero out of material necessity and lack of dreams. That is the great truth they will never say on the television news. “
As Serrat also said, ‘… be more careful where they play’. A little respect for the sacrifice and pain of your own people. Too bad to talk about our own people like that “, ended his comment.
The song “Patria y Vida”, which brought together the artists Yotuel Romero, Gente de Zona, Decemer Bueno, Maykel Osorbo and El Funky, has provoked a wave of attacks, crimes and slander by the Cuban regime, both against its interpreters and against Cubans . who took it as a hymn.
It was only Monday that the house of activist Anyell Valdés, where she lives with several children and her elderly mother, was attacked by a gang organized by the state security, which, among other things, violently painted the phrase that residents in the house were on the facade.
The Cuban regime’s bad taste, mixed with its homophobia and its reports of hatred, seems to be the only answer it strikes for any bourgeois or artistic initiative that questions it.