While in Miami, Yoani Sánchez tweets at record pace

Posted on Sunday, 03.31.13

While in Miami, Yoani Sánchez tweets at record pace
By MIAMI HERALD STAFF

Famed Cuban blogger Yoani Sánchez spent Easter Sunday in South Florida
explaining her motivation for speaking out against the Castro government.

She didn't do it on the radio or on television, fittingly she took to
Twitter, her weapon for free expression.

Starting at noon Sunday, Sánchez responded to every inquiry on the
social media venue posed by both supporters and haters, writing over 130
tweets at her handle @yoanisanchez.

At 6 p.m., she was still going strong.

Scores of people engaged the Cuban blogger in conversation. She
responded to all, even vigorously arguing back and forth with her
critics. Sanchez is currently on an 82-day tour of the Americas, U.S.
and Europe.

"I will not shut up!" she tweeted after one heated exchange.

On Monday, Sánchez officially begins her speaking tour of Miami with an
8:30 a.m. meeting with the Miami Herald editorial board. If you have
questions for Sánchez, send them to live@MiamiHerald.com. The meeting
with Sanchez will be livestreamed on newspaper's home page.

At 2 p.m. Monday, Sánchez will speak at Miami Dade College's Freedom
Tower, an iconic building for Cuban exiles, where she will be
interviewed – Actor's Studio-style – by Miami Herald Editorial Editor
Myriam Marquez.

Besides well-wishes and criticism, Sánchez's visit has also stirred an
urge by historic Cuban exiles to explain themselves to Sánchez, in the
hopes she will take back to the island the real version of events they
took part in the wake of the 1959 Cuban Revolution.

Bay of Pigs veterans, who invaded the island in April 1961 to overthrown
Fidel Castro, last week issued a welcome to Sánchez and offered to meet
with her to explain why they took part in the invasion. Castro has
always referred to the Bay of Pigs participants as CIA operatives and
mercenaries.

Some Operation Pedro Pan children also want to give their side of the story.

Eloisa Echazabal, of Miami, has written a letter she will try to pass on
to Sanchez explaining why her parents sent her to the U.S. during the
mission that brought 14,000 unaccompanied Cuban children to Miami.

"The island's communist government loses no opportunity to say that it
was all a plot by the CIA and that our parents were deceived and the
children became pawns in the political game with the U.S. This is far
from the truth. Our parents sent us to the U.S. as soon as they realized
that their right for free expression — and to raise and educate their
children as they wished— was disappearing."

Sánchez has several other events planned in Miami the rest of the week.

Read more here:
http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/03/31/3316581/while-in-miami-yoani-sanchez-tweets.html