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El Toque is a multimedia platform focused on telling Cuba in its diversity, complex, creative and also sometimes painful or hidden. Our very existence is a commitment to the diversity of voices, styles and functions in the media ecosystem that they publish for Cubans. Here you can learn a little more about the Island.
Cuban professor and researcher, Julio Cesar Guanche, gives us thirteen points he thinks we need to be talking about here in Cuba.
By the end of December 2020, Cuba had experienced a 74.6% drop in international visitors compared to those that came in 2019. By February 2021, there had been a 95.5% drop compared to numbers in January and February the previous year.
While a pregnancy requires a lot of being careful, it isn’t a disease: I kept working the whole time, even when I was almost 9 months, when my belly was up to my mouth almost.
The first time Hansel Bonilla tried Palma beer, he found it to be more bitter than he had expected. The drink’s design is so similar to Cristal beer that he thought that he was drinking the Cuban beer that is exported to European countries under the name Palma Cristal. However, he was drinking a beer […]
“We’re pregnant” is an expression which, far from being a simplism, joke or pretentiousness, announces the silent revolution of fatherhood, in language too. Using this phrase implies a combination of pride, responsibility and commitment. It establishes a deeper and more equal feeling of being a partner, of being more human, more emancipatory. It also expresses […]
San Isidro is on fire. It has become a street swollen with cries and raised fists, with a pair of handcuffs hanging off them. San Isidro is radiating. With thousands of eyes answering screens back, in chaotic direct broadcasts that go straight to the heart and wake you up. San Isidro is exploding. Because the […]
The idea that socialism helped to resolve Cuba’s race problem is just an illusion: “You can’t destroy a mindset so easily that has been baking for centuries in slavery and colonialism,” says filmmaker Gretel Marin, who graduated from Cuba’s University of the Arts (ISA). Born into a “mixed” family, Gretel discovered racism’s ugly head as […]
Ten children are sitting with their mothers in a waiting room at a health center in Santa Lucia, in the Paz Castillo de Valles del Tuy municipality, Miranda state, waiting for their turn to see the doctor. They are children whose bones can be easily seen poking out under their thin skin. Their eyes are […]
Vito’s days are numbered. He has a very rare form of cancer and could die from it tomorrow. But he could also have many more days to live if he can access treatment. That possibility keeps his hopes alive. Victor Alfonso Cedeño, or Vito, is a 38-year-old independent audiovisual producer. He creates animated drawings and […]
“The end of the Castro era in Cuba” is the headline worldwide to cover Raul Castro stepping down at the helm of the Communist Party: for the first time in over 60 years, nobody with this surname will hold a high-ranking position of power on the island. The Cuban general and former president publicly announced […]
This weekend, we agreed to learn to play chess, seriously. My daughter and I sat in front of each other, the board between us, all of the black and white pieces in position, standing tall, with a pen and piece of paper nearby to take notes. She and I, alone; the world around us could […]
“Understanding comes from talking things out.” This is what grandmothers say on balconies, in front of the TV, advising their grandchildren to be calm, understanding and tolerant of differences. Young people are no longer interested in cakes, just like our ovens, which haven’t seen cakes in a year. New generations haven’t been trained in the […]
The Cuban government has arbitrarily deprived Karla Perez, 22, of her rights on more than one occasion. Firstly, when it violated her right to study because for political reasons. Now, they have left her in a “stateless” situation by preventing her from entering Cuba. They only notified her of the ban on entry when she was already […]
She’s 36 years old, but she seems to have lived a lot longer given the map of experiences traced on her own body in ink. Her name is Yenisley Castellanos. She was born in Banes, Holguin, and is one of the first female tattoo artists in Cuba. Rejection. This word comes up over and over […]
