More than 500 U.S. artists and academics demand an end to the blockade

They respond to a message sent by Alicia Alonso

By Pedro de la Hoz —Granma daily staff writer—

MORE than 500 prominent artists, writers and academics in the United States have signed a message addressed to U.S. President George W. Bush, asking him to end the blockade against Cuba and to stop preventing cultural exchange between the two nations.

“We are writing you as representatives of the cultural sphere in the U.S. We write you as American citizens. We write to express our dismay at your administration's continuing hostility towards Cuba. We write to express our opposition to policies that keep us divided from our Cuban counterparts, preventing cultural interchange between our two countries. We believe the time has come to move towards cooperation and constructive relations with Cuba,” the letter said.

The initiative, sponsored by an organization called U.S.-Cuba Cultural Exchange, was taken after many of the letter’s signatories received a letter sent on October 26 by Cuban prima ballerina assoluta Alicia Alonso, asking them to speak out against the blockade and work together “so that Cuban artists and writers can take their talent to the United States and so that you do not prevent your artists and writers from coming to our Island to share their knowledge and values; so that a song, a book, a scientific study and a choreographic work won’t be thought of, irrationally, as a crime.”

Those who signed the message to Bush include popular actors Sean Penn (2004 Oscar for Mystic River), Peter Coyote (ET and Erin Brocovich), Harry Belafonte and Danny Glover, and celebrated writers Alice Walker (The Color Purple), William Kennedy (1983 Pulitzer for Ironweed), Gore Vidal (Juliano and Williwaw) and Cristina García (National Book Award finalist 1992 for Dreaming in Cuban).

Many of the signatories are musicians and music industry executives, such as legendary rocker Carlos Santana, composer and singer Tom Waits, producer and guitarist Ry Cooder, who led the first Buenavista Social Club; musicans Tre Cool (Green Day), Mickey Hart (former drummer with the Grateful Dead) and Tom Morello (formerly of Rage Against the Machine, now with Audioslave); folk music icons Holly Near and Bonnie Raitt, the latter a nine-time Grammy winner, and salsa star Andy Montañez.

Dozens of those who added their names are from the Latino intellectual community, including Cuban-American academics Nelson Pérez Valdés, Enrique Sacerio Gari and Lisandro Pérez.