While U.S. mainstream media is reporting on the celebrations of Cuban exiles and Cuban Americans in the streets of Miami after hearing the news that Fidel Castro would cede power to his brother due to illness, Spanish newspaper 20 Minutos presents another side of the story of Cuban exile, one that’s a bit more complex. One that, in the words of newspaper’s editors, reflects a generation of Cubans torn between admiration of Castro and hope for change.

Mairelys Ramirez, a reporter for the newspaper and a relatively recent immigrant from Cuba to Spain, shares her reactions, mixed feelings and thoughts with readers of the newspaper in a very poignant article (in Spanish) in which she recounts the presense of Castro in her life since birth — in the form of a photo of him hanging over her crib, to being bombarded with his image her entire life.

Some highlights:

“I’m sorry, but seeing my countrymen in Miami celebrating like that, raising their t-shirts to show their grotesque bellies and smiling smiles full of gold teeth — symbols of conquest of working immigrants — makes me feel panic, fear, desolation.

Maybe those who took to the streets last night were just Cubans who escaped on rafts and dream about living in Cuba again, because it must be hard on them that the US government prohibits them to travel there every year.

I don’t know what will happen now. People in Cuba tell me that everyone is calm, although in the work centers they are holding demonstrations in support of Fidel.

The future only concerns Cubans, and it is exclusively up to us to decide. With or without Fidel, it’s our business. Not Europe’s, and not the United States’.

Many might say that you can’t love your executioner, and maybe they are right. But, I’m sorry, I can’t take back my violent mistakes or deny my early years as one of Fidel’s pioneers.

There are thing in Cuba that cannot be understood without him.”

Via / 20 Minutos