When a Cuban family stays awake searching for an essential medicine that is “out of stock,” when a grandfather realizes that the daily necessities are entirely out of reach of his pension, or when a young person resists dreaming of their future amidst blackouts and shortages, politics ceases to be a distant debate and becomes an intimate and painful experience.

In the midst of this harsh and complex daily reality, a question arises that appeals directly to the heart and ethics of the nation: who are the true enemies of the Cuban Cuban people? Is it those who, with successes and failures, attempt to keep the island afloat in the middle of the storm, or those who request, design, or apply the sanctions that keep it on the brink of shipwreck?

Is it acceptable for citizens to question their government's management? I say it is even necessary. It is a civic right. However, where is the consistency and sincerity when, minutes after speaking in the name of Cuba's well-being, they walk hand in hand with those who sustain and deepen the economic blockade that suffocates it, and while threatening and harassing it, the hardships of Cuban men and women seem to them a fair price to achieve “democracy”? Which democracy? Is a discourse of love for the homeland and freedom credible when measures that cut off fuel, food, or medicine needed by the neighbor next door are applauded?

Attempting to set oneself up as a defender of a people while embracing the entity directly responsible for their greatest hardships is a paradox bordering on cynicism. It is not merely a political contradiction; it is a moral and ethical fracture. Doing so in the name of the God who commands us to love our neighbor is a sin, for He Himself previously commanded not to take His name in vain.

Thus, an uncomfortable but necessary question must be asked: is an opposition that adopts the agenda and lives off the funds of the United States government respectable? Dignity is a value that is not financed from abroad. We already know that “he who pays the piper calls the tune.” When the cause being championed depends on the budget of a foreign power, the voice ceases to be one's own, and the project stops belonging to the people, serving instead the interests of the funder. A genuine calling for change is born from painful love for one's own people, not from Washington's tutelage.

In the light of Cuban history, we find definitive answers, incontestable lessons on how leadership and legitimacy are forged. None of the great articulators of Cuban sentiment, none of the men and women who managed to touch the deepest chords of our people and transform the country, ever did so under the protection or financing of a foreign government, much less the one about which Martí warned: “I lived in the monster, and I know its entrails,” in the same unfinished letter to his friend Manuel Mercado, in which he wrote:

“… annexationist activity, less fearsome due to the lack of reality among the aspirants of the legalistic species—without vision or creativity—than due to a convenient disguise for their complacency or submission to Spain, asks it without faith for Cuban autonomy, content only that there be a master, Yankee or Spanish, to maintain them or create for them, as a reward for their services as procurers, the position of prominent men, disdainful of the powerful mass—the skilled and moving mixed-race mass of the country—the intelligent and creative mass of whites and blacks.”

The most universal of Cubans wove the “Necessary War” from austerity, penny by penny, with the selfless help of tobacco workers in Tampa and Key West—emigrated Cubans—never with the sponsorship of the U.S. government, which he viewed with wise and anxious distrust. Half a century later, Fidel Castro and the Generation of the Centenary led a movement that penetrated the popular soul because it was born from the people themselves, financed by the modest peso of the worker, the peasant, and the student, without submitting to any external agenda.

They understood something fundamental: the tactic of foreign backing simply does not work in the Cuban consciousness, because Cubans, from their historical roots, instinctively reject tutelage over their destiny. Why then do the new figures attempting to position themselves as “opposition” repeatedly use that same failed formula?

Perhaps because they have forgotten that those who ask the oppressor for help to solve their problems end up handing over the keys to the house. Or perhaps because it is more comfortable to seek diplomatic applause, scholarships, and financing than to embark on the long, difficult, and genuine path of building a project with and for Cubans. Probably because they do not even believe in their own roles as freedom fighters, or because, as my neighbors in Central Havana say, they simply “don't have what it takes”—they lack arguments, grace, and talent.

The history of Cuba is essentially a history of dignity and human resistance. One can differ, debate, and seek paths to overcome the difficulties that overwhelm us today, but the ethical and non-negotiable limit will always be sovereignty and empathy with one's own people. A true patriot suffers with the pain of their people and never allies with those who coldly and strategically plan their suffering. As popular wisdom has already decreed: the friends of my enemies are not my friends. Whoever chooses to be friends with the enemy of their people inevitably ends up separated from the soul of Cuba.

Translated by Sergio A. Paneque Díaz / CubaSí Translation Staff

What did playing Lía mean to you on a personal and professional level?

"It meant a challenge, an opportunity in capital letters, responsibility, it meant that I put in more dedication, in addition to what I normally put in, which is quite a lot. Normally you will hear many actors say: I don't want a leading role because a leading role is always good, it doesn't allow you to move around, to move well. That is a reality. But what happens with Lía is that she is not the typical protagonist of a soap opera, Lía has contrasts, she navigates between waters and allows you to bring out a broad range of emotions, expressions, etc."

Taking on a leading role in a soap opera always implies enormous responsibility. How did you face the demand of leading the story?

"I didn't see it as such that I had the demand of leading the story, because I had a team where the responsibility did not fall solely on me. However, I had to be up to the task, first of all, for the defense of the character herself, and secondly, because other excellent actors whom I respect very much had been called to the soap opera. So I don't see it as an individual entity, but as a collective work and a product in general that must be carried forward.

"My entire family has a strong weight in the soap opera and there is the very talented Yamira Díaz demonstrating it, there is my brother Jonathan, Alfredo, and there is my younger brother, Daniel Barrera. There are also other actors who, for the simple fact that today it falls to me to be the protagonist, and they are in the same project, such as Mayra Mazorra, Fernando Hechavarría, Daisy Quintana, José Luis López, who are actors of the old guard, of the old school, whom I respect very much and it was like a commitment I had with myself that these great actors enjoy Lía; that was more the demand I made of myself."

What aspects of Lía's personality resonated most with Flora?

"Between Lía and Flora, two very important points resonated: love for family and not betraying oneself. Now that I can speak a little more, we will see as the soap opera progresses that Lía does not betray herself. She did have a mission, a plan, something to resolve for her family, but without betraying herself, and it was immediately the first response she gave when she fell in love with that name that had been given to her as the culprit of everything that happened with her brother and decided to live it with courage. She verified that no, she delved into the story and continues the search.

"Another point is that she knows how to separate. Even if it is the mission for the family, it does not blind her. And that also has a lot to do with me because my mother taught me that she was never blind even with her children. So that is also a point that Lía and Flora have in common, not blinding themselves."

And which aspects demanded more research or transformation work from you?

"Foreign points, which demanded a lot from me, since I am a little more frontal. Lía, despite being frontal and direct to the extent that her position allows her, has that ability to be more cautious, to be like on a hunt, like a feline, measuring well before delivering the blow. I am more direct, more about going to ask and going to resolve. Not about waiting so much or fabricating a plan. Things like revenge do not exist in my system. I rather believe in karma. I would have taken a stance on this, in case it had happened to me, but not delve into a family to take revenge. Perhaps I would have paid a detective, used other tools, come to Havana, approached, but I would not have delved in like that, into a plan at those levels. I cannot sustain a lie at the levels that Lía sustains it.

"That cost me a bit of work. I didn't resist it, because I quickly had to start loving and wanting her in order to defend her, but I worked a lot on how the justification of love for her family led her there and how, once there, love for her partner makes her begin to defend her partner from her own family, and that is the greatest dilemma of this character. So those would be the points in common and the points against.

"It also took me some work, research, feeling, advocating for that which is born with us women, which is motherhood, because that is another thing. From motherhood, from the moment Lía becomes pregnant, there is a change in her and toward everyone, because she already carries a life in her womb. And the more that little belly grows, the more she becomes that woman who already has a family to defend. Apart from her own, for which she came to seek revenge or justice, and I am not a mother, so I had to research, I had to start looking at mothers, talking a lot about their children, getting into the maternal, seeing what happens at the level of sensations when one is pregnant in relation to the conflicts that arise.

"And the super mega commitment of responding to Félix Ruiz again for the opportunity, and this time the opportunity of the leading role. That was also what kept me from sleeping, because it is extremely beautiful that they call you again, and this time with the leading role. So my infinite gratitude always toward him."

The Cuban public follows the national soap opera with great passion and judgment. How have you experienced the audience's feedback in the streets or on social media as the plot progresses?

"It has been an interesting process regarding feedback, starting from the fact that my character navigates in certain waters, but is currently being treated on social media with a bit of resistance, they are rejecting her, they are complaining, and here something is happening that I don't quite understand. Where is the Cuban who fills his mouth saying, for my family, anything? Here there are clear things that have happened and that we have been giving in the story: there was an injustice with my brother's character, an injustice at large levels, a man was robbed of four years by someone who decided to harm him. So the family decides to take action, since there was no justice on the legal side, it seems the work was so splendidly well done that the police could not find the real culprit. Therefore, the family is left with dissatisfaction and impotence and decides to come to do justice, as Jonathan said, to take revenge. Lía's reaction, Elsa's, Ernest's, is totally understandable, but the public is attacking her and taking for granted that she is bad.

"She is not bad, she has given proof that she fell in love with Yadrián, and I am astonished because the public has not fully understood Lía, that is, I believe they have sympathized too much with Yadrián's character and have covered the sun with a finger regarding what truly happened to that family. On the street they ask me please not to be bad, that they love me very much, that the character I am doing, that they love it, that they feel they love my work. People have liked the couple of Lía and Yadrián, but right now they are attacking me greatly.

"This still surprises me because, if I were doing a villain, I could understand it, but Lía has a justification, a solid, concrete reason. I would just love for the public on social media to have more empathy, to be honest and say what they would have done in Lía's position. Surely they would have found more just paths, who knows, this was the one she found, but it is an action-reaction to what happened with the family."

A soap opera demands an intense filming rhythm, especially under current conditions, and great rapport with the team. How was the working dynamic with the direction and the cast during filming to achieve the result seen on screen today?

"The relationship with the team in general was wonderful, with my colleagues, with the direction team, it was great. Being able to count on that director whom I appreciate so much, being able to feel supported, cared for, directed and, at the same time, counting on a technical team led by him that supported Lía a lot in every scene. She has many scenes of solitude and that support was a guarantee of taking much firmer steps.

"It was a soap opera of very good coexistence, respect, trust and as for colleagues, please, my companions, my family, even with my enemy Camila, because the relationship with Lisandra Batista was spectacular. I loved the process with every actor I coincided with and today on screen I greatly enjoy those I could not coincide with.

"There was a lot of companionship, because furthermore, we faced a chikungunya illness that attacked house by house of the characters and there was a sense there of protection, of care, that was very beautiful too and I learned from the master Jorge Luis López, who was the one most hurt by that illness, that the game is not over until it is over and, feeling extremely bad, in a wheelchair, Jorge Luis did not abandon the project. That was a life lesson. The discipline an actor can have, no one calculates it, even on their most difficult days."

Looking back, from your first steps in acting to this moment in Entre Aguas, how much do you feel you have evolved professionally?

"The path has been beautiful, wonderful. I see today and there is a high percentage of satisfaction. Many things still to overcome, many things to polish, many things to work on, yes, until the last day there will surely be things we can perfect. But there has been a journey of evolution and I like that, I am grateful for it and it is gratifying, for many reasons: the maturity to be able to internalize more the director's command voices, to reach agreements, to let myself be guided and see the result, to understand with more depth of analysis the why of that command voice being given to me, why the director is making that decision with the character and try to do my part."

Translated by Sergio A. Paneque Díaz / CubaSí Translation Staff