Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Cuban Blogger Yoani Sanchez's Acclaimed Blog Turns 5

Cuban Blogger Yoani Sanchez's Acclaimed Blog Turns 5
Published April 10, 2012
EFE

Generacion Y, the blog in which Yoani Sanchez describes with a critical
eye the day-to-day realities of Cuba, marks its fifth year online.

"Today I reach the 5th anniversary of the blog since I posted the first
entry on Generacion Y," she wrote Monday on Twitter, where she said that
the blog has brought a "total change" to her life. "But I'm not sorry."

Sanchez said it has cost her an "enormous" personal and social sacrifice.

"The gift of invisibility that it boasted went by the boards, between
the hugs from those who approve of me and the watchful eyes keeping me
under surveillance," an article on her Web site said.

Papal Visit to Cuba & Mexico

Recalling the first Generacion Y text, Sanchez said that she decided to
launch a blog because she was tired of "saying nothing, of applauding
and pretending," and also because citizens no longer had any way to
express themselves in their own country.

Over the past five years, the 36-year-old blogger has become one of the
critics of the Cuban regime best known abroad and has received numerous
international awards, such as the Ortega y Gasset Digital Journalism
Prize in 2008.

Pro-government bloggers on the Communist island denounce Sanchez as a
"fraud" and a "mercenary" in the pay of Washington.

Cuba's Shadow Economy

During these five years the authorities have barred the blogger from
leaving Cuba to receive the honors awarded to her in person.

The name of her blog, Generacion Y, was created as a tribute to the
Cubans of her generation whose names in many cases and because of a fad
at a certain time begin with the letter Y.

Before debuting as a blogger, Sanchez worked at a publishing house in
Havana and as a freelance Spanish teacher giving classes to German
tourists, until she emigrated to Switzerland in 2002.

She decided to return to the island in 2004 with a new understanding
about the importance of information technology and the power of the
Internet.

http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/lifestyle/2012/04/10/cuban-blogger-yoani-sanchez-acclaimed-blog-turns-5/

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