Generation Y Behind Bars

Generation Y Behind Bars / 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez
Posted on September 17, 2015

Generation Y, Yoani Sanchez, 17 September 2015 — With the publication of
the Official Gazette No. 31, there have been many published opinions
about the pardons granted to 3,522 prisoners in anticipation of the
visit of Pope Francis. Most of the criticism has focused on the fact
that the beneficiaries include no one sentenced for political reasons.
However, on reviewing the list of the released prisoners, another
element jumps to mind.

At least 411 of those pardoned have names that begin with the letter
"Y," more than 11 percent of the total. It could indicate the we are
talking about people between 20 and 45 years of age, because from the
beginnings of the seventies to well into the nineties it was a fad in
Cuba to give children names starting with the penultimate letter of the
alphabet. Thus, we are in the presence of the "New Man," born and raised
in a society that felt itself part of "Utopia," living under Soviet
subsidies and excessive ideological indoctrination. How is it possible
that so much of this human clay has ended up behind bars?

Meat from the social laboratory and the skin of prison, Generation Y is
far removed from what was projected for it. It has come to live in a
different country from the one promised, and to survive in this jungle
it has had to do the exact opposite of what it was taught. Although the
list of released prisoners doesn't include the crime for which each one
was condemned, it is easy to adventure what led many of these Utopian
men and women to end up in a cell.

Perhaps among them is Yoandis who killed a cow to feed his family, or a
Yuniesqui who stole fuel from a company to resell on the black market to
make up for his low wages. Who knows if some Yordanka was led down the
road to marital revenge because of gender violence? Or a Yusimi, who
learned from the time she was little in the tenement where she lived
that it was better to strike first than to strike twice? From little
Pioneers with their colored neckerchiefs, they passed to being inmates
in gray uniforms; from the Cuba of Marxist manuals they fell into the
real world.

A generation trapped by circumstances, forced many times to commit
crimes, pushed at others to escape, and condemned to few opportunities.
The 411 families of these children of the Cuban experiment will be
relieved right now to see them return, as will the relatives of the rest
of those pardoned. But, the society they will encounter on passing
through the bars continues to belie that which was once explained in
front of the blackboards and at the morning school assemblies. Prison
has been a part of the social alchemy that has touched them.

Source: Generation Y Behind Bars / 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez | Translating
Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/generation-y-behind-bars-14ymedio-yoani-sanchez/