We were adolescents when the first embrace from Danny Rivera arrived to our besieged homeland. By then, our parents were writing a heroic and silenced history of confrontation against terrorism. His embrace full of love and melody was as an extended bridge in the Caribbean, where our rhythms have transited in all directions to reaffirm the human warmness, the sensibility, the hospitality and the identity that makes us one.
"I want a people who laugh and chant” cried out our brother, and we laughed and chanted together, and we continue to do that. But we also have to continue defending ourselves because – unfortunately- only through fighting have we been able to realize our dreams. Until we achieve this forever once in awhile we have to exercise our rights.
Today you have come together to laugh and to chant, to denounce another shameful and silenced chapter in the long history of terrorism against Cuba. Again tonight, our Caribbean bridge comes to life and our homelands of Duarte, Betances and Marti; Sara, Sonia y Lucecita unites in only one homeland to defend five of their humbled sons.
In this hour of giving thanks we must also do it in the name of the Boricuas, Afro-Americans, aborigines, and other US political prisoners; victims all of the vindictive and unjust system that this concert is denouncing.
While there is an injustice without remedy we can not forget to laugh, neither to sing nor to continue to fighting.
We wish you a happy concert and we sent you a revolutionary and Caribbean embrace.
Gerardo, Ramón, Antonio, Fernando y René
