Luis Manuel Otero at the Ermita de la Caridad del Cobre in Miami on July 18, 2026. Screenshot
By Circles Robinson
HAVANA TIMES – On Saturday July 18th, Cuban artist and activist for freedom of expression Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara arrived in the US after five long years of prison for being what he is, an artist, who cares about his fellow humanity.
I stopped what I was doing and watched three hours of live broadcasts from Cuban journalists covering his arrival to Miami airport and the subsequent gathering at the Ermita de la Caridad del Cobre (Our Lady of Charity) Cuba’s patron saint. I was incredibly happy to see Luis embrace numerous friends, colleagues and strangers there to celebrate his release and presence.
Luisma, as his friends call him, probably hadn’t had many good nights sleep since he was taken on July 7 to some unknown Cuban State Security location before his 5-year prison term expired on July 9th. However, adrenaline is something that can make one rise to the occasion even when exhausted, and Luis did just that.
I was touched by much of what he said in brief questions and answers with different Cuban alternative media and local Miami press.
I want to share his answers to two questions by an El Estornudo journalist that specially made me incredibly happy for Luis, and for the rest of us who want to see a happy ending to a tragic situation in Cuba.
El Estornudo: Who are you, five years after your arrest?
Luis Manuel Otero: First of all, I’m more human. Prison is a place where you learn to look into the eyes of people who, even after committing the worst of crimes, are still human beings.
At some point, you refuse to let hatred turn your heart to stone, because that is what those in power want: for you to become bitter, to become dark, and to stop seeing. Because in the darkness, no one can see anyone else.
So, I’m a better person. I’ve matured. Maturity is something important. You feel your body changing, your mind changing, as if you were passing through a curtain.
I’ve matured tremendously. I’m more human, I’ve matured, and I’m more committed with that.
Because, if, after five years, I still haven’t stopped emphasizing the need to keep working for the good of human beings, then I continue to become more human.
El Estornudo: But it is also a tragedy
Luis Manuel Otero: It is also important to recognize the fact that I have been expelled from Cuba, and that this is not right. It’s not right.
I have also come here to understand what exile means.
Right now, I’m coming down from a kind of euphoria—the feeling of, Ah, Coca-Cola, everything is great! But we’ll see tomorrow when all of this dies down and I start breathing air that is not the air of my home, when I can’t see my son, when I can’t go back home.
Of course I’m going to feel all that tomorrow. And it’s not right. And that is the basis from which I’m going to work.
Luis Manuel Otero repairing a statue of Our Lady of Charity on July 18, 2026, that he brought with him in pieces as a symbol of the longed for reconstruction of Cuba. Captura de pantalla
Read more from Circles Robinson here on Havana Times
