The café is spacious and softly buzzing, with quiet conversations carrying over from distant tables. Reflections flicker in the large mirrors lining the walls of the Lavapiés café where we meet.
Seated near the entrance is activist and playwright Yúnior García, who speaks about memories and longings tied to his native Cuba. “I’m a chronic Cuban,” he says. “I can’t get it out of my head that I’m Cuban and that my home is there. My dreams, for the most part, are there.”
García left the island more than four years ago, in November 2021, after facing harassment from the Cuban government and its supporters for organizing protests demanding greater political freedoms. Madrid became his…