With them, I Stay...

This Sunday, the Municipal Assemblies of the entire country approved their proposals for deputies to the Cuban Parliament. Names and faces as diverse as we are on this island were known: I found congratulations to a representative of the Abakuá Society, a popular educator and the leader of a small business in Havana; I learned that women are 55% of the candidacy and I discovered, among them, some that I know and admire.

There is the famous Tay Tay from Facebook who, of course, is not called that, but Taymí Martínez. She is a young health professional who runs the Faustino Pérez Hospital in Matanzas and she doesn’t need to pose to earn the respect and admiration of those who know her in real life or, like me, in that increasingly complex space which are social networks.

She is a woman and she is young, like Santa Massiel, whom I have personally seen create music and leadership at the head of Hermanos Saíz Association in Ciego de Ávila; like Annié Garcés, a beautiful voice who has put herself at the services of the best causes and was not intimidated by those who tried to tone her down or Indira Fajardo, the President of the Cuban Institute of Music.

But there’s also Elián González, the boy who Fidel promised to return to us and between all of us we reunite him with his father and his homeland. Today it’s a huge symbol to find him among the candidates for deputies to the National Assembly of People's Power.

According to official data, of the 470 candidates for positions in our highest legislative body, 20% are under 35-year-old, but the average age is 46.

The coverage of the Juventud Rebelde newspaper quotes the President of the National Candidacy Commission, who assured that this "speaks of the confidence people have in the new generation and the recognition that it gives to their leading role in these difficult times."

It’s also a sign of the commitment of this new generation to Cuba, of their desire to live and do things here. It seems that not all of them have decided to give in, as they would have us believe. Are they the majority? I don't know, but it’s clear that they are the vanguard, and they go ahead, like the young people of the Centennial Generation, when it was their turn to assault their own dreams of nationhood.

Many people have told me lately that I’m going to be left alone to light up the Morro lighthouse, indeed they are right, I’m staying, but not alone, but with them, with the young people who this Sunday boosted up my hopes of keeping the lighthouse on, the future. Those boys and girls who do not exist for certain editorial profiles, for some pages on social networks, but are there, in real life, doing their thing for a better Cuba, which is certainly possible.

Translated by Amilkal Labañino / CubaSí Translation Staff