Upstream - Cuba Ep. 12: The Two Sisters, Cuba and Puerto Rico w/ Niki Franco AKA Venus Roots

Episode Date: October 20, 2026

In this conversation, episode 12 in our ongoing series on Cuba, we're joined by Niki Franco, AKA Venus Roots, for a discussion on what the radically different histories of Cuba and Puerto Rico can teach us about colonialism, capitalism, socialism, and the struggle for liberation in the Caribbean and beyond. Niki Franco is a Caribbean abolitionist community organizer, writer, facilitator of spaces for collective study, and author of Flies in the Tropics published this month by 1804 Books. The conversation begins with Niki describing her connection to Puerto Rico and introducing us to her working class family history in Puerto Rico and presenting the colonial, imperialist nature of the U.S.'s relationship to Puerto Rico. Niki then describes her upbringing in Miami and the reactionary, far-right politics of much of south Florida before describing how she broke out of the city's suffocating anti-communism and embraced socialism. We then begin our discussion on Cuba and Puerto Rico—beginning with their intertwined colonial and anti-colonial histories. We talk about how, in the mind of many reactionaries, Puerto Rico is elevated to a "good colony" position while Cuba is vilified as what happens to bad colonies. We end by connecting the struggles in Cuba and Puerto Rico to Palestine, Congo, Sudan, and the entire global South's struggle against imperialism and colonialism. We are now on Youtube! You can find us and subscribe to our channel at youtube.com/@upstream_podcast Further resources: Flies in the Tropics, by Niki Franco (1804 Books) Related episodes: Listen to our ongoing series on Cuba Abolition with Niki Franco (AKA Venus Roots) Intermission music: "CARACOL" by dj juanny Upstream is entirely listener funded. No ads, no promotions, no grants—just Patreon subscriptions and listener donations. We couldn't keep this project going without your support. Subscribe to our Patreon for bi-weekly bonus episodes, access to our entire back catalog of Patreon episodes, and for Upstream stickers and bumper stickers at certain subscription tiers. Through your support you'll be helping us keep Upstream sustainable and helping to keep this whole project going—socialist political education podcasts are not easy to fund so thank you in advance for the crucial support. patreon.com/upstreampodcast For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Instagram and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Youtube, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

Many, many centuries of shared history, of shared culture, of shared political struggle, but a very intentional pivot to try to separate, and not just separate, but quite literally try to antagonize these two communities against each other. And, you know, something I'll see is like all these right-wing gusanos in Miami. They love going to Puerto Rico and vlogging from Puerto Rico, and they'll say, like, this is what Cuba could be. They're like in this like busy resort hotel on the water and they're like, this is what Cuba was and it should be. And in one way, yes, the two were these sort of complete absolute possessions of the U.S. and it was, you know, mafia ruled and so on and so forth. But what they fail and omit to mention is like at sort of what price it comes, you know.

What is the price? What is the cost to the Puerto Rican people, to the Puerto Rican land, to our culture, to our sense of dignity to be an ultimate possession of the United States. You're listening to Upstream. Upstream. Upstream. Upstream. A show about political economy and society that invites you to unlearn everything you thought you knew about the world around you. I'm Robert Raymond. And I'm Della Duncan.

Cuba and Puerto Rico, despite having traversed very different paths in the 19th and 20th centuries, have a shared history which goes very important. very deep, and which also goes back quite a ways historically. Two wings of the same bird, two sisters locked in similar struggles internally, as well as against the same enemy, U.S. imperialism. In this conversation, episode 12 in our ongoing series on Cuba, we're joined by Nikki Franco, aka Venus Roots, for a discussion about what the histories of Cuba and Puerto Rico can teach us about colonialism, capitalism, socialism, and the struggle for liberation in the Caribbean and beyond.

Nikki Franco is a Caribbean abolitionist community organizer, writer, facilitator of spaces for collective study, and author of the new book, Flies in the Tropics, published this month by 1804 books. And before we get started, Upstream is entirely listener-funded. No ads, no promotions, no grants, just Patreon subscriptions and listener donations. We couldn't keep this project going without your support. Subscribe to our Patreon for bi-weekly bonus episodes, access to our entire back catalog of Patreon and for stickers and bumper stickers at certain subscription tiers. Through your support, you'll be helping us keep upstream sustainable and helping to keep this whole project going.

Socialist Political Education Podcasts are there. not easy to find. So thank you in advance for the crucial support. And now, here's Della, in conversation with Nikki Brank. Nikki, welcome back to Upstream. So good to have you back. Thanks for joining me. It's so good to be back. And we are celebrating in part your new book. Thank you for flies in the tropics. I'm so so happy to have gotten to read it and to speak about it with you today. So for those who may not know you, let's do an introduction. Please introduce yourself and also share your connection to what you call your two favorite sisters. Who are they?

And what's your connection there? Absolutely. Again, thank you for having me again on the show. Big fan of y'all's work. So it's always good to be among comrades and family. But absolutely, I'm Nikki Frankel. I'm a Caribbean organizer originally from Miami, Florida. And I would say my work is generally interested in kind of like disjointing these

systems of domination over the Caribbean and its people. I guess in short, I'm like an anti-imperalist, you can say. And yeah, I've just written my debut book, Flies in the Tropics, and the book essentially explores the CIA and colonial connections between Miami, Puerto Rico, and Cuba. and to your question, those are three really dear places to me, my family, my political journey as an organizer, also as an artist, and how I understand the world. And yes, I dedicate the book to my favorite sisters, Cuba in Puerto Rico, and it was the sort of quote. The dedication is like a bit of a nod to a famous poem by Lola Rodriguez de Tio, who is a Puerto Rican

abolitionist poet. And she has this quite famous poem titled Kua. And in it, she refers to Kua in Puerto Rico as two wings of the same bird. And I think that little excerpt in that quote has now become quite popular. But, I mean, my connection to these two places is my family is Puerto Rican. And I grew up in the heart of the Cuban diaspora in the States, Miami, Florida. And I mean, you know, I know we'll get into it and excited to do so. but the shared connection between the two countries is quite expansive.

I mean, even before the colonial timeline of the Spanish arriving with their colonial ships and their brutality, and then the U.S. domination, even before that, you know, pre-colonial era, the sort of like, daino people were commonly exchanging, you know, I mean, everything, right, among the islands of what we call the Caribbean today. So like those colonial borders come later and even within like the colonial structure. There's so much shared history. I mean, culturally, like our music, our language, our spiritual practices, our love for salsa, our relationship to the U.S. And I mean, yeah, there are two islands that have so much history as it pertains to understanding how the U.S. asserts itself, how it controls a region, how it pins people against one another. that otherwise have the world to win.

And yeah, and I think also on the flip side, it's also like this threat of very insistent dignity. I think Cuba and Puerto Rico both refused to die and, you know, how we place the enemy of those places. It depends on your understanding. But, yeah, I love Cuba, the Cuban people, history, and I also, you know, love Puerto Rico. And Miami's a little bit more complicated and we'll get into it.

It is my hometown. but a little bit of a more complicated place. And just to expand from the quote, the poem by Lola Rodriguez de Tio, here it is. Cuba and Puerto Rico are as two wings of the same bird, they receive flowers and bullets into the same heart. And that's bringing that in from your book. So thank you for that powerful poem. And one thing I really appreciate about your book is that,

It is educational. It is definitely political education and the reader is brought about to be radicalized with you in your journey from growing up in Miami and visiting Puerto Rico and Cuba. And it's also very personal. And I really appreciated that aspect. So maybe let's begin by introducing your grandfather for us and tell us what you learned from him and what you learned from him related to your journey in awakening and place. political organizing. Sure, totally. I mean, so my grandfather, who people will sort of meet as like my abuelo in the book, he, and, you know, this question's a little tender because when I think of it, I think, and when I was writing the book, I think it's actually a little bit easier for me to understand my grandfather as a worker than it is as like my grandfather. And I think partially because there was a lot of estrangement, a lot of distance,

and then, you know, I later come to understand that that trauma and all of that is actually a direct outcome of the militarization of the island, the corporate control of the island. But, yeah, my my abuelo, my grandfather, he worked for Carribe Hilton for over 40 years in San Juan Puerto Rico. And, yeah, for most of his life, he worked serving tourists and foreigners at the Caria Hilton. And I think for some context on, you know, now we're in 2026, so the Hilton is like in every single corner, but to give a little bit of context of how we got there is the Caribbean Hilton, and this one specifically in San Juan Puerto Rico, in the capital of Puerto Rico, was built in 1949.

And my grandfather was part of the inaugural staff team. But this hotel was part of a much more extensive program on the island called Manoja La Obra or an English Operation Bootstrap. And it was a plan launched by the U.S. us in 1947 to sort of like blast Puerto Rico into maternity. And, you know, that's the sort of occupation that my grandfather holds for essentially the rest of his life. And so this place was always in conversation in the background. You know, we'd always hear, Carribe Hilton, Carribe Hilton. And in some ways, and I think this is revealed

in the book, like, that's mostly the aura in which I understand my grandfather. You know, he worked so much. And when even we were together, it was still about work. And there was this sort of, yeah, this sort of like assumed an internalized work ethic that I think was pushed upon a lot of Puerto Ricans on the island to be grateful that the U.S. had chosen us in a way. And that's one thing. And then I think to your point, it is a deeply personal book. It is political. It's educational. And I think when I think of my grandfather, when I think of my family, I realize that so much of the global majority, our realities and our family stories are less about, you know, these individual actors, but more so just shaped by what decisions the U.S. military and U.S. politicians have decided upon our people and our homelands. And I wanted to illustrate that a bit in the book because I think it's a huge gap in sort of mainstream diaspora literature. it's kind of more hyper individual, you know.

And while I think my grandfather's story and him working in this very corporate American chain hotel and in a sort of position of servitude to our Americans, this whole life is surely interesting in some way, it's most importantly not unique. And that's something I think I wanted to highlight. And for listeners, I want to just maybe paint a picture a little bit more of this hotel. As you read the book, it's, again, it's, omnipresent in the same way that it was for me growing up. And I don't actually step foot into that specific hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico until I'm an adult in like 2015. And that sort of

illuminated the way in which the tourism economy and these sort of industrialization props sort of package the tropics for the U.S., for foreigners, for tourists. And, you know, what became clear to me, was that these sort of industrial projects aim to make the island feel safe, you know, and controllable for Americans. You know, in the book I say, to save it from its savagery, you know, there's a lot of like colonial tropes.

But in Carribe Hilton, from when it started to this day, it's like a place that you go and experience our so-called golden tourism era where you can like watch these glittery live cabaret shows and bolero and rumba orchestras. But you also don't. actually have to engage with any of the realities of the island.

And that first time I went to Cario Hilton, it was wild because I wasn't staying there by any means, just to say it. But I wasn't staying there. I was just, you know, investigating the siege. And then when I stepped out of the hotel, like the first thing you see, there was like graffiti that said Yankee go home, Al Carajo Gringo, and Lay Vente Basura. I'll translate that, you know, Yankee go home, go to hell, gringo.

and late 20 trash. Law 20 is the one that has sort of opened up this tax haven reality for corporations and for rich Americans to move to the island. And then kind of to just kind of wrap up this point. And again, it's funny because you asked me about my grandpa, and it's easier for me to speak about the hotel and that than like him as this individual. But I think it was also wild the first time I went,

to Cuba and seeing what used to be, the Hilton Havana, Havana Havana Hilton in Bedado, which is this really gorgeous, formerly a very rich neighborhood of Havana that was built off sugar plantation money. But yeah, that same hotel now today is Havana Libre. And to compare those feels stark. But in some way also, like, there's a shared parallel of, like, the same corporations coming to the islands and doing the same thing. But of course, there's a very diverging path that the two islands go on.

But, yeah, I mean, that's the sort of reality. My grandfather spent his days in and out of, and I think in the book I try to illustrate what is loss in this colonial reality, whether it's leisure time with your family, whether it's mobility, whether, yeah, it's understanding yourself beyond just your occupation. You know, that's some thoughts on my grandfather and sort of how his role and his occupation impacted my understanding of family and of the island. Yes, and here's another quote from your book, just bringing this, you know, even further. Learning more about what the island of Cuba was like pre-revolution sounds a lot like the dream Americans continue to have.

for what Puerto Rico can and should be to them, a haven where they can maximize glee and profit under swaying palm trees and ocean breezes. I thought of every tourist abuelo served, those who came to the island to escape their corporate monotony or who came to ideate how to grow their investment portfolio. Is paradise a curse? Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. That sort of tension, I think. comes up a lot in the book and yeah we'll get into it but definitely that so let's go into your upbringing in Miami because as you mentioned in your introduction there's kind of three protagonists in this story there is Puerto Rico there is give up but there's also Miami very complex place so share what was it like to grow up in Miami and you have so many great ways that you describe Miami but one of them was a graveyard of socialist revolutions and then also a place where fascists come to thrive. So just very different reality. So Cher, what was that like? And kind of what were you indoctrinated with,

told, taught, and then how did you start to unlearn that as you grew? Yeah, Miami. Complicated for sure. I mean, I think maybe when I hear the question, the thing that comes to mind is growing up in Miami felt like growing up in a dysfunctional abusive family. Because on one end, you do experience a sense of deep familiarity, especially if you're a Caribbean immigrant or a Caribbean person, because you are surrounded by people speaking the same language as you who look like you. Spanish is everywhere. Patient Creole is everywhere. The floor and fauna of Miami itself mirrors the tropics. in every sense of the word, it's deeply a Caribbean city.

But at the same time, there is this very over and also subtle sense of social grooming to make sure that everyone growing up in, growing up and trying to build and live in Miami upholds a hardline anti-left politic and rhetoric. And I, of course talk about this in the book, but I really, you know, I think people, who are not from Miami or South Florida, it's maybe a little easier to sort of disregard the place. It's just kind of this like vapid backwards place that is not meaningfully engaged in the broader political arena, which I personally think is a misread in some ways. And I think it's part of like broader anti-South tropes. But it's certainly not grounded in a context of like, well, why is Miami this sort of like paradise almost like casino,

vice city where you have so many black and brown immigrants and people in diaspora upholding such a hard line towards the right. You know, it's the place where Marco Rubio comes out of. And for some people, they were like, whoa, this guy is crazy. For some of us in Miami, we're like, oh yeah, this is a big chunk of the city. But I want people to understand that not just as like an obvious given. It's something that you are groomed into. Like, there's serious consequence if you attempt to be a leftist, let alone a socialist, in a place like Miami. And then that sort of helps get everyone in line, you know.

And in the book, I sort of talk about a constellation of characters. Some are Venezuelans, some are Cubans, some are Cuban Puerto Rican, who similarly like me were deeply steeped in Antila Frederick because you simply cannot escape it in Miami. but are sort of like reckoning with like, wait, something, something feels wrong. Like, this doesn't fully make sense. And what happens to people when you try to question, you know, I mean, the consequences come in a spectrum, but they're severe. And, you know, they say Miami is a place where even the ocean lies.

And in many ways it's true. Like at some point, when I was doing research for the book, I learned through some declassified CIA documents that the CIA at one point was the biggest employer in Miami and in that I had like over 15,000 Cuban Americans on payroll. At some point, the CIA station in Miami was the biggest one in the world, with exception of its headquarters in Virginia. And, you know, those are just some details, but you can only imagine the sort of vast network of, you know, propaganda machines, of intelligence services, of contractor services, and so on and so forth that have sort of been seated in Miami and financed and popped up. I mean, so much to the point that actually I was listening

to a podcast of one of the contractors who was tasked with kidnapping President Maduro of Venezuela. And those operations came out of Miami. And, you know, that's one example, but we could draw many, many, many, many over the decades. So because of that, Miami becomes this extremely complex place where there's this vast network of upholding the right. And there are so many people who are attempting to go against that, but there's profound consequences. And for myself, you know, I mean, I've lost a lot. There's a reason I don't live in Miami anymore. I've lost access to spaces. I've lost friends. There's times where I have, you know, the doxing chapter, in the book, yeah, I was worried from my family, you know. These are, yeah, it's not like,

oh, I disagree with you. It's like, I believe you should be killed, you know. I mentioned in the book, yeah, sometimes right-wing Cuban-Americans will, like, go on TV and just say really heinous stuff around anyone that's quote-unquote remotely a socialist. So that's a sort of, I think, like, social political reality of the city. I think in terms to how that also connects, next to like it being this graveyard for socialist revolutions is even with my book, I mean, there was several chapters of research that I just omitted from the book because it's just there's so much history of Miami ensuring that the left in the region doesn't exist, doesn't succeed. Of course, Cuba is its most obvious example, but I think even the sort of political trends and

themes that we're seeing right now in Latin America and Caribbean are also very directly connected to Miami. And it's not surprising to me that Trump and Marco Rubio and all of these sort of like psychopath, right wingers of Latin America all met in Miami. Specifically, they met in Dural, the neighborhood I grew up in, which is, you know, another hardcore place. And maybe we can talk about Dorel a little bit. But yeah, if you haven't been to Miami, if you're not from there, like that where it doesn't mean anything to you. If you are from Miami, it's scary to be a leftist of Miami, and it's in some ways even scarier to be a left as a socialist,

a communist, a communist, and a place like Dural. But, yeah, I mean, I think that's one layer of adding some color to Miami. And it wasn't always this way, but it has certainly been propped up to become this way and truly like a factory of everything for the right, everything for fascist imagination. Yeah, and one of the things that you really illustrated was the complexity of class related to this, that, you know, this idea of folks identifying as exiles or, you know, really as victims and then looking at their backgrounds and even like their familial connections with dictators

and things like that. So there's a lot of complexity there with class and also with whiteness and and with, you know, all of that too. So there's a lot of layers there. And as you mentioned, you're kind of indoctrinated as you grow up in Miami into this worldview. Now, how did you see the cracks and start to go against the grain? Because you could be sitting here and just completely pro Marco Rubio and, you know, all of that. And it would be understandable because it would have been, you went to Ronald Reagan high school. Okay. Insane. Insane. Insane. So scary. So, It is so hard for us to start to see cracks and then to follow them, right, to read the books that we're told don't read that. Or, you know, in one chapter you hide a book because it has a picture of Hugo Chavez on it, you know.

So tell us about what are the cracks that you started to see and what started to make you aware that maybe this reality wasn't helpful for people in the planet. Yeah, no, it's a great question. Well, I think maybe I'll step back a bit and, you know, a lot of this is all in the book, but, you know, just to give some teasers and some breadcrumbs. I grew up in a very specific neighborhood, the one I was just referring to, Dural, which is a sort of suburb near, suburb of Miami. And when I say suburb, it's still like, you know, 20 minutes to the city center. And it's a suburb that is quite wealthy.

It's nicknamed Doral Suela. And it is sort of where really wealthy Venezuelans after Will Chavez's election moved to. And they sort of like brought their businesses and, you know, their wealth there. And it wasn't all Venezuelans. You know, there was sort of like elite folks from all over Latin America and the Caribbean that have sort of settled in Dural and have called it home. How I end up in Doreau is a very different path. I end up there because me and my parents, you know, there's a housing lottery. It's like a voucher system.

And at random, people are selected. And we were fortunate enough to be selected. So we moved into this sort of like mixed income government subsidized housing apartment complex in Dural, which is, I mean, yeah, it just already put me at odds. You know, all of my friends growing up, you know, meet these characters in the book. were extremely wealthy while I was growing up in government subsidized housing and my mom works at the local grocery store at Publix and my dad does AC maintenance work. So I think the first place is like there was a huge class difference. And when you're young, you know, you don't have maybe

the frameworks, the language, but it was very obvious. You know, I remember like feeling shame because I didn't want like my friends who I knew were really rich because I'd been to their homes and I would see the cars that they would get picked up in from their families. I didn't want them to like run into my mom at public. And being really young, I mean, this is like elementary school and having these sort of thoughts around like shame for essentially being poor for being working class. So I think class was like the first layer. And then I think in that, similarly in Miami, or I think in the broader sort of like Latin American community. There is this obsession with this idea of mestizage, this idea of we're all in the same community. We don't see race as if we weren't, you know, countries colonized

where some of our ancestors were enslaved and others, you know, were the slavers. And so because of that, I think like the racial framing for me came a little bit later, but not that much later, like early middle school where, you know, the racist comments that I would hear from like my friends' parents or the only other like Afro-Latina person I saw like in elementary school was the maid of one of my first best friends. You know, they were like these rich Venezuelans who this person's father was the VP of Exxon Mobil in Caracas. You know, I had another friend whose father was a godson of Fulgencio Batista in Cuba. So to your question of like, how the hell do we go from that to being like, yeah, I'm a Marxist and I'm out?

I mean, I think the cracks start revealing themselves because I think the like fallacies of meritocracy just felt short, right? This idea of like if you work hard, you make money. If you work hard, you become an impresario, you know, business owner and you get X, Y, and Z. Well, I knew that wasn't true. I mean, I could tell that my friends and my classmates' parents quite literally, like, did not work that hard, you know? It was like, for most of them, I'm like, I couldn't even tell what their parents did. You know, they were kind of just at home. Like, there was a lot of leisure, would take long vacations and all summer, you know, kind of a lifestyle that doesn't, for me, particularly indicate, like, lots of work.

So I think that, like, felt flat quite early on in my life. And then versus I would see my parents, you know, there was so much of. I kind of had to just like raise myself in some points because my parents would work late and my mom would work night shifts and weekends and I would just feel the difference. And then I think when they spoke about their political understanding, you know, when they speak of themselves as exiles who had to flee, the things that they left behind were things that I could never relate to. You know, I think I'd hear, you know, having boats and how they loved spending the weekends

in like, you know, these islands off the coast. You know, I think when that would come up a lot on my school is like, Isla Margherita, Venezuela. So, I mean, I'm never going to own a boat. And it's just like what they left behind was just like a very particular class and access. So I think that became, that started ensuing like some curiosity and some question. And then I think, you know, as I was being like politicized around Portuguese, Puerto Rico, specifically as a young person, going back to the island, seeing the deteriorating

conditions, also seeing, like, political artists who were Puerto Rican, who were speaking to what was happening on the island, who were speaking to the colonial condition. I was like, something's off here. Something's fishy. Somebody's lying, and I'm going to find out who. And I sometimes joke, and I truly don't know, but I sometimes joke that I don't know if I would have arrived to socialism as like this logical conclusion if I wouldn't have grown up in such a politically hostile place like Miami. It was almost like the hyper fixation, the obsession with communism. I think when I read the book, you feel the sense of like being suffocated by its presence almost, you know? It's like, oh my God, it's everywhere. It's in the statues. It's in the news.

It's in everyday conversation. You're getting a sandwich. Someone's talking about it. You're getting a quick coffee. It's coming up. You're in the barbershop. It is everywhere. It's in the murals. It's in people's bumper stickers. There's such an obsession with communism as the boogeyman in Miami that at some point, either you fully lie into the bit or you're like, okay, wait a minute. Like, what's going on? Like, what is this really about? And, you know, I had some interesting teachers that I think wanted to break the mold a bit. We're either like anarchists or were socialists themselves. Not many. But I think. really also one of the things that like really, really transformed my politics was when Obama

sort of did this opening up with Cuba. And it was a lot easier for Americans to visit the island. And I was in that early sort of go of people. And there was a lot of debate, you know, in Miami. Like it was very split. It was like, if you go to Cuba right now, like, you are a disgusting communist and I will never speak to you. And then there was people, and I think this is also a class difference, there were like, no, this is great. I have my grandmother who I love. I have my aunties. I have my cousins. This is great. I want to be able to send them more remittances. I want them to be able to set up their little cafeteria. I want them to have more access to things, you know, and I want to be able to visit them with less, you know, bureaucratic red tape from the U.S.'s end. So, anyways,

I go to Cuba and in the book you experience that I was like there's like me before going to Cuba and then there's after. I think I had had suspicions that things were, you know, I was being lied to around communism. But for a lot of reasons, I think socially and emotionally, I wasn't going to take the dive yet, you know. But it was going to Cuba and experiencing and talking to people across so many different sectors of society that it completely flipped the scripts for me. You know, I was able to understand what I had heard in Miami as, like, really perfected propaganda.

And, you know, propaganda works in many ways. Sometimes people spew propaganda that's against their own material interests. And we see that here in America all the time. So, yeah, I mean, I think that's, like, sort of one of the threats that helps me arrive at socialism, you know, There was also so much around black organizing that was also incredibly informative. For me, you know, Trayvon Martin was murdered my high school year in 2012 in Florida.

And that sort of opened the path for black young people to be organizing in South Florida. And it was the first time I heard about Palestine in connection to the black liberation struggle here. It was the first time that I was also kind of hearing about. anti-imperialism as a framework. It was the first time that like people thought Che Guevara was cool and like a freedom fighter and someone we should learn from. So all of those things happening at once and in concurrent sort of helped me arrive here. But yeah, it's been a long journey. And I will say, I think there's a lot of people like me. I don't think I'm unique. I think there's just a lot of fear. And I mean, I think, yeah, I have friends that are like, if I post

that, like, I will be disowned by my family. And that's a tough position to be in. I don't think anyone wants to be this home by their loved ones. I don't think people want their social ties severed. I don't think people want to feel alienated or isolated. But yeah, that's sometimes a choice that people have to make in a place like Miami. Thank you for sharing your journeys. And, yeah, I really hear that, like, getting to go there and getting to experience and talk to people. really opened your eyes. And I had a similar experience I got to live in Cuba for a little bit. And same thing. It just getting, for me, like one quote that stood out on, it was painted on a wall. This revolution is de los humilde and parolosumel de, this revolution is from the humble and for the humble. And I was like,

what does that mean? It's like little things like that just guide us in different ways of thinking about reality. So thank you for that. So, you know, we have been doing this series on Cuba. and really in reading your book and wanting to speak with you, I'd love to do kind of a comparison with Puerto Rico, because, as you say, they are two sisters, right? They are two wings of the same bird. So they share a lot of history, a lot of culture, a lot of geography, right? And there's the flags, there's their independence movements from Spain,

there's U.S. control. There's even, to this day, U.S. economic warfare, right, and colonialism in different forms, and actually militarism, too, Guantanamo Bay and, of course, the naval bases. So there's a lot that they share. So tell us about Cuba and Puerto Rico what they share, historically, geographically, culturally, and then kind of how you would describe how they diverge. Like, what happened there? Because they've really taken two very different paths, although, of course, their struggles are still very similar in who their enemy is, as you said. But tell us about how you would frame their stories as they've come forward. Yeah, amazing question. I would try my best.

I'll probably start in the 19th century because like I said, even pre-colonial times, there was Daino-Kasikas strategizing and plotting and exchanging across the islands. But I think in terms of like colonial contexts, and if we start perhaps in the 19th century, there's key figures. You know, in this time, the two islands are really important colonies of the Spanish Empire. And the Antilian Confederation is this idea that comes forth in 1868 around then. And it was an idea proposed by Ramona Metterio Betances, someone who then later is an inspiration for Jose Marti. And what the Antilian Confederation was interested in, it was essentially, putting forth the idea that people of the Spanish speaking greater

in Tilly's in the Caribbean needed to unite in a political confederation in order to protect the sovereignty and interests of the islands. And of course, like supporters of this confederation wanted to free the colonies from Spain. And also, there was already a sense, even when you read some of this early writing, that like Spain wasn't going to be the last,

the last colonial stop. So there's that activity happening between Puerto Rico and in Cuba. So much of it. Folks might know about the Grito Delares revolt, which was an anti-colonial revolt in Puerto Rico, which was sort of instigated by Ramon Metairio Betanzes. And there's a flag that comes out of that that, like, interestingly now is having a revival. I've saw it a lot in like the Barbani concerts, and that's the sort of Lares flag, which it was an anti-colonial revolt. That anti-colonial role in Puerto Rico was planned as part of a coordinated effort with also Cuban comrades, and they led the Grito de Ires, the cry of Yara. So if you've been to Havana, maybe you've seen a gorgeous theater in Bedado that's named

Yara. And that is this, that is named after this sort of shared anti-colonial struggle where the two islands coordinated. And that was in 1868. And as years go on, Jose Marti is also in this sort of milieu of exiles that had either been pushed out to New York City or to the states because of their work against the colonial reality and Spanish colonial rule. and Jose Marti was part of founding the Cuban Revolutionary Party, the PRC in New York City. From the beginning, when you even see the original documents, the Cuban Revolutionary Party sees itself as fighting for the independence of both Cuba and Puerto Rico. Jose Marti starts this newspaper called Patria, and in it, he writes multiple articles,

again, never sort of excluding Puerto Rico. And that sort of like dynamic is something we observe through decades. I mean, literally through centuries. What makes it challenging about this is like, where do we start? Who do we mention? But, you know, I think something to bring Florida into the mix too is there was actually also a network in Florida before it became this like hardcore right wing place where there was workers and intellectuals coming together to sort of strategize around

independent struggles for both Puerto Rico and Cuba. And I'm trying to summarize, like, you know, where do we event? But point is, it's like there's been so much shared struggle strategizing. And I actually want to read one little thing from a CIA declassified document that I thought was really interesting. Something, you know, folks haven't read through CIA declassified documents, I recommend it. I think it's really telling. But in 1978, the CIA says the following.

As long as Fidel Castro remains in power, the Cuban government will not deviate from its support for Puerto Rico's independence. The Castro regime has not seized upon the Puerto Rican issue simply as a means of gaining a bargaining chip. It is committed to Puerto Rican independence for historical, ideological, and practical reasons. And that to me tells me it's like, the U.S. government itself, the enemy admits that Puerto Rican independence is inextricably linked to the sovereignty of the Cuban people and thus the Cuban Revolution. But, you know, to the question we see throughout the 19th century, throughout the 20th century, this deep, deep kinship and struggle, coordinated, revolts, exchanges, literature, culture, like you mentioned, our flags are quite literally

were designed in unison. But things eventually change. And I would say the breaking moment, And that sort of pitchfork in history is the Cuban Revolution opened a complete new pathway to Cuba's development, its sense of sovereignty, how it understands itself in the region, and just globally. In a way where, you know, Puerto Rico, we didn't have a successful revolution. You know, we had many movements, we had many attempts, but we didn't actually have a successful revolution. And I think what that creates in the 1960s, it almost makes a U.S. really want to make an example out of Puerto Rico. And as I'm sure everyone listening knows, a revolution is not easy, right? So just because Cuba had its successful revolution in 59 did not guarantee that we would have the same outcome.

And I think what actually happens is an even, doubling down and even more intense cracking down of Puerto Rican independence, nationalists. You know, there's the FBI had carpetas, you know, these extensive surveillance files. It assassinated people. It incarcerated people. And I think it's important to mention that because the U.S. wanted to make an example of Puerto Rico, as like this golden child of like, look, these are the good Caribbean. Look at their hotel. look at how they let us buy homes. Look at how we own everything here.

It's so great and it's so sunny. But there was also like a sort of cracking down also in terms of surveillance. I think when you read through the CIA declassified documents, Richard Nixon says we must eradicate this cancer from our hemisphere, this cancer being the Cuban Revolution. So I think that made the conditions in Puerto Rico even more difficult in terms of revolutionary potential. And I think that's important to name because it's related to why the two islands are so different. And it's also a sort of like red-baiting tactic that is used to divide Puerto Ricans and Cubans to this day.

It was just election season last year in Puerto Rico. Well, there's many elections, but throughout election season, you will see that the ruling right-wing party of Puerto Rico, known as the PNP, you'll learn about these very evil characters in my book, but when you actually watch their commercials, they don't have a platform, they don't even have a vision. The only thing that you can see in every single commercial is if you don't vote for us,

you will become like Cuba. And this is not a new tactic, and it's now a tactic that's being deployed across the region, right? It's like, you know, before it used to be Haiti, oh, you don't do this, we're going to punish you like Haiti. Now it's Cuba. Oh, you don't get in line. then you'll be the next Cuba.

And look how much Cuba is struggling without any context as to like who's actually responsible for that suffering. So many, many centuries of shared history, of shared culture, of shared political struggle, but a very intentional pivot to try to separate and not just separate, but quite literally try to antagonize these two communities against each other. and, you know, something I'll see is like all these, like, right-wing gusanos in Miami. They love going to Puerto Rico and vlogging from Puerto Rico, and they'll say, like, this is what Cuba could be. They're, like, in this, like, busy, like, resort hotel on the water, and they're like, this is what Cuba was and, like, should be.

And in one way, yes, the two were these sort of complete absolute possessions of the U.S., and it was, you know, mafia ruled and so on and so forth. these like vice city paradises. But what they fail and omit to mention is like at sort of what price it comes, you know, what is the price, what is the cost to the Puerto Rican people, to the Puerto Rican land, to our culture, to our sense of dignity, to be an ultimate possession of the United States. So, you know, sometimes I've heard from Cubans like, why are you up in our mass? Like, you're Puerto Rican. I'm like, our mess has always been our mess, you know? Like, we've always had shared struggle and we will continue to. It's not surprising that the remilitarization of Puerto Rico

today is to target Venezuela, to target Cuba. Yeah, I mean, I think the parallels are just overwhelming. But I think it's important to mention the ways in which they created also as like a propaganda talking point to separate us. And that's, you know, propaganda is effective, especially American propaganda. And there are people where in Puerto Rico completely brain washed and they say, I rather be colonized with the U.S. than be like Cuba. And there's a lot of work, I think, for, you know, I see it as part of my task and I think the task of people on the island and also in diaspora to revitalize that, not just solidarity, because that already exists in kinship, but I think to sort of counter that historical

of Nisha and sort of bring us back to, yeah, our long, long, long thread of solidarity with one another and co-stratadigizing and holding each other. You're listening to an upstream conversation with Nikki Franco. We'll be right back. That was Karakol by DJ Wani. Now back to our conversation with Nikki Franco. Let's go deeper into this idea of Puerto Rico as the golden child. And Puerto Rico is what Cuba could have been had they not had a revolution. And also, I feel like it's like Puerto Rico is what Cuba could be if we just get rid of the dictator, right? The dictatorship of communism and, you know, have that successful overthrow. And then they can be another territory, right? So there is also like an aspirational aspect to it. And yet,

you know, as you say in the book, like, let's look at what's actually materially happening. in Puerto Rico, right? Like, I think that's important too. So tell us more about, because I know you've traveled to both of these places all throughout your life, particularly Puerto Rico, and then more recently you've just come back. So what is the material reality like in Puerto Rico? How can we also create some cracks in this idea that it's a showcase for good capitalism, good American capitalism, and that it's working well? And also just the reality of it being a territory. Like, that word, that designation, like not even a state, right, let alone a sovereign independent nation. So tell us about the material reality of Puerto Rico. What is actually happening there

by way of today's reality? Yeah, absolutely. It's an important question. And some of that, of that sort of like golden child's narrative is still very prevalent. It's not like, just because it's untrue people have sort of woken up from it. And I think an example, just to mention, like, in popular cultures, there was, you know, hundreds of thousands of people visiting Puerto Rico for the first time last summer for the Bad Bunny residency, right? And in that time, you know, last summer, I was there too. It was really fascinating to see so many Americans across, like, you know, there was people who were from the U.S., but, like, you know, might be from Latin America or the Caribbean. There was, you know, a very diverse set of people coming to the island. To see,

their shock of how difficult material conditions are on the island. To the point where even staying in one of these corporate hotels doesn't ensure that you will have running water. It does not ensure the corporate hotels, they have their generators. But there's only so much that you can hide about the material conditions. And to see people's shock, I think it was a little surprising for me because, you know, I started going to the island when I was like three, so in like the late 90s, and I've been going every year, essentially. And it is no surprise, independent of your politics, you know that the material conditions in Puerto Rico have gotten worse and worse and worse, almost entirely by the hand of the U.S. You know, many dynamics in that to sort of articulate,

you know, this is not new. We can talk from like, You know, my grandfather's era and that era up to now, you know, in Obama and the fiscal board and the current ruling party. You know, there's so many angles in which we can take it on. But what is undeniable is the conditions are worse on the island every single day that passes. There has been a blackout crisis for years. And sure, some people are able, similarly, like people who have family here are able to purchase some generators to get them by. Generators are extremely expensive, and this is relevant for both Cuba and Puerto Rico. Now there's the crisis of water, which is also not new, but it has hit a new level of escalation,

where essentially across the island there is no access to running water for the majority of the day. Similarly, to get those water canisters, it is extremely expensive. And this is all true while Puerto Ricans on the island pay the highest utilities for both water, and electricity. So that's one reality. That's Puerto Rico, right? And, you know, that's just two elements of it. You know, we're not talking about education, access, or the lack of, right?

We're not talking about essentially the entire public school system K through 12 is almost entirely privatized. Functionally, it is. We're not talking about the hundreds of schools that have been closing just the last couple of years. We're not talking about the lack of health care. We're not talking about the militarization. We're not talking about the brain drain. You know, I'm going to keep it narrow, but truly, I mean, the multitude of crises in Puerto Rico is simply overwhelming, right? This is, while we are a colony of the United States, while all of these utilities are under U.S. corporate rule, while our fiscal board, which is tasked with absolute control, this unelected fiscal board is tasked with absolute control over the money of Puerto Rico. Rico is all ham picked by the U.S., by the president of the United States. Initially, it was Obama and now it's Trump.

You know, most of these are like Wall Street investors, right? Even within those, it's a complete failure, but it does not serve the Western media to talk about how their colony is a failure because of their own actions. That doesn't help the brand. Now, if we talk about Cuba, and I mentioned this in the book, I think the electricity crisis is a really point in one to bring up. So maybe I'll focus there. But I mean, everyone knows that Goua has been having an electricity crisis.

It's quite difficult to escape that information from the Western media. And I think it's fine for people to know. I think people should absolutely know that because folks are in crisis on the islands. But I think, for example, me seeing how they, Mundo and Ubivision cover the two. It's on one end, like, to sell Cuba's suffering, that is the prime show. That is the 5 p.m. news because it, again, fulfills the, like, empire politics that, like, look, this is proof.

Cuba is a failure. It's a failed state. We hear Marco Rubio say that. We hear Donald Trump say that. We've heard many different politicians from the U.S. say that. So it's a crisis that has capital and it needs to be broadcasted in high definition to Miami's diaspora and to the rest of the country, but particularly Miami's diaspora because of their political influence. But on the other hand, while Puerto Rico, a U.S. colony is drowning in darkness,

we don't hear about it. It's this sort of like, it's a bureaucratic footnote is what I say in the book, you know, and it's not worthy of the same outrage. Because, the people to blame, as per the U.S., are very different. And yeah, in the book I mentioned, like, for the U.S., the apagon, the blackout in Cuba is political theater, and the apagone, the blackout in Puerto Rico is just another Tuesday. And I think it's important for people to sit with that. All of this is incredibly intentional. It does not serve Western interests.

It does not serve the U.S. interests to convey to the rest of the American population how they have exploited, how they continue to mismanage Puerto Rico. You know, mismanage even feels like a weird word. I mean, there are colonial rulers and they're quite horrible. Versus, you know, we need to take down this dictatorship versus, as Trump says, he would love to have the honor of taking Cuba. So the conditions are very similar in many ways in terms of all the, markers we've mentioned, but the way in which it's understood in the West is almost entirely like opposite. And that feels really difficult. Like it creates this dynamic where on one end,

now as organizers, we have a lot of work to do to make those connections for people, like build those bridges again. You know, there's a lot of amazing work that organizers on the island in Puerto Rico specifically are doing to really nourish those connections, to go on delegations to Kua. You know, when I went a few years ago, it was for Pride Week in Havana. And there was this delegation of trans elder Puerto Ricans from Puerto Rico that were there. And we're learning about the trans, just how the health care system in Kua includes trans health care. And the difference it makes for trans elders, you know, elders, you know, cis elders are sort of abandoned in the West. but then you add the element of transness.

It's even a deeper level of abandonment. And those sort of connections for people, for Puerto Ricans and Cubans to make, I think is super important. But I think to your question, it just creates a whole other level of like reeducation, of making those bridges of, yeah, the red baiting, the fear-mongering. There's still even debates on the island in Puerto Rico around,

like, yeah, we want independence, but we don't want socialism. we want like, you know, like good capitalism. And I think there is still like, you know, when you've been colonized for over 500 years, that's going to impact the collective imagination of what's possible. That's not to say that there aren't tons of people on the island and diaspora that feel that a socialist, independent,

sovereign Puerto Rico is the only way we will have a liberated future. But it's certainly part of the dynamic. I would be lying if I say, oh yeah, no, that's not in the room of course. course it is. So, you know, that's in some ways in which I see the sort of like tension play out, which brings up so many challenges. It makes a lot of things challenging. But there's also so much opportunity for us to kind of learn our history and come back to that. Yeah, I'm really hearing how Cuba's economic crisis is framed as a failure of communism, right? It is a failed state. Communism failed, it didn't work. And yet Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico's economic crisis is, like you said, barely

covered. It's actually surprising to people who visit. And then it's never articulated as the result of capitalism's failure or imperialism or colonialism's failures, right? None of that. So I love how you are making clear the connections of why things are the way they are. And yeah, that's why one of the biggest insights from your book was how both countries share being victims of economic warfare from the U.S. And one of the surprising things from your book I didn't know about was the Jones Act. I don't know if you want to just tell us briefly because this shocked me. You have this part where you describe your mom who works in Publix, the grocery store in Miami, visiting a grocery store in Puerto Rico and finding everything was more expensive in Puerto Rico except beer and rum. And you were

like, that's interesting. So tell us about the Jones Act briefly, just because I thought this was a great example of a legacy of economic warfare that Puerto Rico has experienced. Yeah, such an important question. Thanks for mentioning that because it's also something that my friends who go to like have a good time, oh, it's the number one thing that I hear from everyone. Oh, my God, food in Puerto Rico is so expensive. Puerto Rico is so expensive. But the Jones Act is a law that dates back to 1917. And in that law, it requires all goods shipped into Puerto Rico to be transported from U.S. ports on U.S. built, U.S. owned, and U.S. crude vessels. Obviously, I mean, let's just pause for a second. It's like the island's in the Caribbean, not on the U.S. mainland.

So that is always going to create a bottleneck for shipments. And it means that Puerto Ricans on the island are paying more for the same product. So the same exact brands that you will see at any grocery store here in the United States is the same ones you will see in Puerto Rico, but significantly more expensive. And this sort of colonial chokehold became extremely disturbing and obvious during the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in 2017, where some people may remember, but there was images of so many solidarity goods that had gone bad, just boxes of goods that had perished while the people on the island desperately needed food, needed clean water, generators, medicine. And that sort of reality that the U.S. gets to dictate, you don't get to just have a normal

direct shipment line. It has to go through us first, usually in Miami, stop in Miami, and then it delays shipments. Granted, when Hurricane Maria happened, there was like just 10 days where the Jones Act was lifted, which is, I think, just really reveals the level of control that the U.S. has over the island. I mean, it's humiliating, to be honest, to be like, this is all set up above us. Like, you can't control that. And I think to me that that feels really similar to the sort of economic warfare that the U.S. is waging on Kula. It looks slightly different, but it's like, if,

you can successfully cut Cuba off of every single market, you make it significantly more difficult for them to get the basic goods that they need. You make them have to maybe ship things from China, which is quite far from Cuba. It would be easier if Cuba would be able to just trade with its neighbor countries and to be able to have more productive capacity to just do the things that they can. In same way as Puerto Rico, I mean, over 90% of our food is important. imported. And similarly, our islands, it's not like we're not able to, or the land is not able to provide what its people need. It's because we are both in this sort of colonial domination reality. But yeah, the Jones Act is, it comes with its realities. If you go to Puerto Rico,

you will be shocked to see how expensive everything is in the grocery store except Medaya beer and Puerto Rican Rung, that you can get at a discount, you know, at a rate cheaper than here in the States. But yeah, that makes everything difficult and not to, you know, and adding that onto the fact that, like I said, Puerto Ricans on the island are already paying an extremely inflated rate for basic utilities. And just to bring in another quote from your book, this is part of a poem from Roque Salas Rivera, who wrote, the hurricane is not a metaphor. It is the sound of the government erasing our names. It is the sound of the debt growing teeth. It is the sound of the sea knocking down the door and the president throwing paper towels like we are dogs begging for tricks. And I know that's from another image from the time of the Hurricane Maria of was it Trump throwing paper towels to people. So yeah, what is revealed during times of crisis, right? You're saying, and one of them is, again, the chokehold of American imperialism and colonialism. So let's connect now. You did it briefly, but let's connect what's happening in Cuban Revolution today with an independence movement for Puerto Rico. And as you've said, it's had many

expressions. But what does that solidarity look like today? What is that connection? And one of the things that I learned before talking to you was that Vidal Castro was part of the Federation of Students Committee for Puerto Rican Independence, so he himself had that connection. So just walk us through how these two movements have been connected. And maybe to right now, how are they in solidarity with one another? Yeah, yes. Yes, he was. He was part of that.

And yeah, there's so many examples. I think with the solidarity connection and movement is at today is it is certainly budding with just, you know, more young people are learning about this history. Because I think in the time of the 60s and 70s and when anti-colonial revolutions are springing up across the global south, it was a lot more clear. And I think when you look at the images, the posters, the language, the mottos of revolutionary movements coming out of Puerto Rico, or also even like the ones in the states, like the Young Lords, for example, like they all all clearly identified themselves in solidarity with Cuba and also have this socialist, anti-imperalist

character. I think, you know, in the 80s and 90s and sort of like this peak of neoliberalism, we've obviously seen some setbacks. I think where the movement is at today is, like I said, there's a lot of young people that are learning their own history for the first time, because you will not learn this in the classroom with a defunded education system run by just colonial goons. So, you know, that's why these sort of delegations, these connections, the cultural production between the two are, is incredibly important. So I think there's some of that. You know, there's like a realm of just Puerto Ricans and, I would say specifically Puerto Ricans really understanding their struggle as one shared with Cuba, kind of like remembering our

history. And I think that now there is a sort of, there's going to be a, another iteration of the struggle because, like I said, the red baiting has become more intense. As conditions get worse in Puerto Rico, you have to blame someone, and you have to employ fear-mongering into the people. And I think there's opportunities there. You know, we've almost seen it, like, here in the States, like, the more you try to tell people to not support Palestine, the more they're going to be curious, the more they're going to learn and build those connections. the more you escalate the wall on Iran, the more people will say, wait a minute, my enemy is not the workers of Iran. My enemies is these elites that keep my life unaffordable and unlivable. So I think

there's an opportunity there. And I really, I think there's so many brilliant organizers in Puerto Rico who are really putting forth the sort of the need for sovereignty. And in every aspect of our lives, there are people who have moved back to the island to remitriate and do land work. You know, we spoke a little bit about this sort of food crisis. And also the development that's privatizing all over our lands. There is also like a lot of cultural production that's coming, you know. And even just the last couple of years, I have seen at the popular culture a deeper understanding of like, oh, this is a fight against imperialism.

oh, this is a fight against the U.S. We can continue to be in these cycles of voting, but so as long as the U.S. controls every element of the island if we're going to be stuck in this loop. And I think there's a lot of ways in which predicans are coming to understand Cuba as a teacher, you know, and we knew that in the past, and I think there is kind of a resurgence of that.

And I've been watching a lot of new films that are coming out of the island, and I've been surprised to see how many of them will pay homage to the Cuban Revolution and will speak to that connection. And I think that's something that maybe even like 10 years ago, maybe even five years ago, I was personally not seeing our history,

our struggle had been individualized and sanitized. So I think there's a lot of opportunities there. I think as someone, you know, I think to be real and frank, as someone that doesn't live on the island, there's limitations of kind of the lay of the land, as I understand it. But I could also say similarly in the States, I think a few years ago, you know, even saying that Puerto Rico was a colony, that was not commonplace. That was not commonplace. And I can say in just the last couple of years, and I think Palestine and the Palestinian resistance has opened doors for people to make connections that otherwise would just not seem so obvious. Because I will say since,

Since October 7th, Puerto Ricans have seen the parallels of land theft, of land grabs, of the U.S. employing the same tactics. You know, it looks very differently, of course, but in terms of the militarization, in terms of just giving freeway for settlers to steal your land. And in that, I think, it was really amazing to see these last couple of years for Puerto Ricans on the island to, like, also see themselves connected. to Cuba, to Palestine, in a way that I think even a few years ago was maybe more kept to like political spaces or people who had a certain set of ideology. And I think now it's truly in the popular culture. I mean, when I went to Puerto Rico with my partner who's Palestinian, like they were shocked to see the warm embrace from all types of people, you know, not just, oh, the organ, I mean, everybody, and people's clarity and understanding what's happening there

and how it connects to imperialism in Puerto Rico. And I think similarly, something's happening with Cuba. There's a lot of exciting campaigns around sort of establishing a peace zone where it could create a halt to this militarization. Because at the end of the day, I mean, we don't benefit from being used by the U.S. military as an experimentation lab. We've already endured that for bombs and for war games against people who sound like us, who look like us, and who are quite little.

literally like our kin. So I think there's a lot of opportunities, but, you know, history is not predetermined. So just because there's opportunities, I remind myself, like, and this is an active, it's an active struggle, right? Like, we have to do the job of, like, cutting through the propaganda, making those connections and believing that people can change, can transform and can win. I really hear the connections that people are making, and I also hear the shifts. in languaging and understanding, that's huge and that's hopeful. And I also understand the doubling down, right, of the administration and the economic blockade on Cuba and the propaganda machines. All of that, too, is happening as well. And so, you know, you already did a little

bit of this, but just very clearly for us, connect the struggles globally, you know, because we're talking about Miami and Cuba and Puerto Rico, but, you know, how does this really to Gaza? How does this relate to Palestine? How does this relate to Africa? How does this relate to the globe in general and what's happening right now? And what is that recognition of seeing us as interconnected, seeing this movement as a more holistic global movement, maybe support us in this time? And also, I'd love to hear a little bit about, like, you know, how is this all informing your work, right? Like, as you came out as a Marxist organizer in Miami, like, what does all of this mean for you today? I think the connections, for example, I started writing this book in 24. So it was one

year into the into the genocide. And even myself, I was kind of surprised that like when I was doing some of the research of like big corporate settlers in Puerto Rico, you know, maybe they had like a corporate name, but I was like, who's actually behind this? And it was a lot of Zionist New York based real estate companies. And that's still true. You know, when you use. see the for sale signs across the island. So there's some clear connections there. But I mean, in terms of like what, what are the connection? I mean, you could quite literally find these enemies. It's like the same enemy absolutely everywhere in terms of the surveillance softwares that are being used in all of these places. It's all the same. I mean, right now there's a same campaign in

Puerto Rico like glock to the flock against flock cameras. But, you know, I mean, that's a direct that's one direct line. So there's a surveillance element. There's a settler like land theft, land grabbed element. There is also, I mean, I think another dynamic that I guess, you know, I haven't spoken much about this, but I think is one of the reasons I wrote this book is even with how much people have learned about Palestine, about imperialism, about the U.S. and its true nature, there are still blind spots in the West.

and to be really specific is in the time we writing this book these past two and some years, two years, I could see how people in the same line and the same breath could say free Palestine, but those dictators have to go, whether it's Cuba, Venezuela, or Iran. And saying that kind of just like publicly, you know, sharing the same language as someone like Marco Rubio, but being able to be like, but free Palestine. And I think for the rest of the world, that is. very clearly incoherent and dangerous. But I think for us in the belly of the beast,

it's kind of the thing that Americans do, even Americans on the so-called left. And I wanted this book to be an invitation and an agitation, to not lend yourself to empire just because there might be projects that you don't necessarily agree with 100%, or because they're not your perfect version of a project. But to really be sharp and precise around, like, who is the primary enemy? And I think that's, you know, when we talk about Sudan and Congo and

to know how much Israeli and Zionist normalizing Gulf states are involved in these genocides to know how that connects to Palestine, how that connects to Haiti, and the way in the U.S. continues to choke out Haiti. That's certainly connected to Cuba, to Venezuela. And, I mean, quite literally, I think we're seeing all over the world people waking up. I mean, there's, as we speak right now, there's mass protests happening what feels like in every single corner of not just a global south, but even in some of the global north of people saying these conditions are unlivable. So I think, you know, there's some obvious connections there. And I think I want to invite people to get curious as to, in the same way that there's connections of our oppression, like how have our solidarity also existed before? for this moment because, you know, when I think of the Cuban Revolution, I think of its wide

felt support across the African continent in material ways and ideological ways and cultural exchanges. I remember when I went to South Africa, maybe like two years ago, I was already writing the book and I went to South Africa with like a cohort of artists. It wasn't like an explicitly political delegation, but you know, everything's political. And we went to the Nelson Mandela House and there was a room that was like dedicated to Fidel Castro. And it was images of Fidel and Nelson Mandela all over and different sort of memorabilia of their exchanges and their solidarity. And that might sound crazy to someone from Miami, but that exact sort of scenario is something I've experienced in many different parts of the world. I've been in southern Italy where housing organizers are squatting and

outside of their squat, they have a huge Fidel Castro mural. And, you know, the examples are just so many. But I think when I was younger, I'd be surprised. I'd feel like almost like, oh my God, like no one can know. Like, why is there like a Che Guevara thing here? Why is there a Fidel here? You know, I had like that Miami chip in my shoulder. And now after being fortunate enough to like travel a lot to many, many different places,

you see there is always a nod to the Cuban Revolution. I think what the Cuban Revolution has been able to do 90 miles away from its enemy against all odds, and not just defend its sovereignty, but also built life and structures and institutions that affirm life, I think is incredibly impressive, even with its imperfections, even with its mistakes. And I think people outside of the West, I think, are actually quite clear on that. and I was leading a third book Marxist course earlier this year and an activity I had. I said, you can Google wherever your people might be from, whatever part of the world your people might from, you can find a way in which Cuba has demonstrated solidarity to the oppressed people

of that place. And it was, and I was like, let's do it right now, real time. And it was really beautiful to see folks being like, wow, I didn't know that, like, Cuba did this amazing literacy campaign in where I'm from. Oh, I actually didn't know that they did medical missions there. Oh, I didn't actually know that this, you know, anti-colonial leader I love actually was deeply inspired by Fidel and so on and so forth. And I think where one of the tasks that we have to do is like, be students of history. We're not above study. And that can look in many different ways, but there is not an exact blueprint, but there is a lot of lessons that have already been set out for us to learn from. So we're not starting from scratch, but we do find ourselves in more escalated,

militaristic, and, you know, techno-fascist conditions. But I think we're certainly not starting from scratch. So moving into our closing invitations for those listening, obviously, I'll make the invitation for folks to read your book, flies in the tropics. And, you know, I said at the top that it was very much an exercise in political education and also personal story. I will add, though, very poetic and very beautiful. And not in like a surface level vapid beauty, like a deep, like touching beauty, like really and a joy to read. And so yeah, please check out the book. We will link to how to get the book and to read it. And yeah, I'm really wondering like how can people support the book's release, right? Like are you looking for places to speak?

And, you know, I'm thinking of, like, how does this book get into the hands of Puerto Ricans and Cubans and, you know, just people all over the world. But particularly this gift of the book in understanding how you grew up and then how you started to see the cracks and then how your, like, continuous unfolding of, like, experience and then study has led you to the understanding that you have today of the interconnectedness, the, you know, abolitionist movement, the Marxism and also the like, yeah, how do we have. collective liberation, you know, for all. So yeah, tell us those invitations and any quotes that you'd like to share as we've come to a close. Yeah, absolutely. So affirming your invitation for folks to get the book. And there will be a book tour announced quite soon, actually. And yeah, in that, I'm prioritizing some parts of the South. I'll be back home in Miami, which will be an exciting homecoming. I'm in conversations with some amazing comrades in Puerto Rico to hopefully host a book talk, but I'm excited to bring this to different corners of this country. I think some amazing

feedback I've gotten from different people in different parts of the U.S. is like, I'm not Caribbean. I've never been to Miami, and I resonated so much with this book, and I learned so much of this book, and I want to gift it to so many people. And that was, that was, that was, was truly one of my main goals. Like, this isn't just, you know, this isn't like a book for, oh, just Cubans or Puerto Ricans or like Cuban Americans who are Marxist curious. Those are certainly people who are in the audience, but it's quite really for anyone who feels that things are deeply wrong in our system and want a narrative invitation with facts and history on how to understand why that might be and who might be to blame for that. And I think,

I think maybe I'll end with a quote from the book that I think summarizes some of that intention and those connections. But from the book, I say, History is not a straight line, but a spiral, tightening around the throat of the oppressor. From Palestine's rubble to Sudan's trenches, from Haiti's burning barricades to the Zapatista Highlands, the colonized are rewriting the script. The 21st century belongs not to the international monetary funds spreadsheets or to the Pentagon's drones, but to the generation that no-se-deja, those who refuse to kneel. Cuba taught us that Puerto Rico is remembering it.

The door of history spins on its hinges, and on the other side waits a world, where the canals run clean, where the mountains are not mined but sacred, where the only chains left are those we've shattered. The path there is paved with fire. It demands our hands, our voices, and our rage. Vencer Eames is not a hope. It is a promise. You've been listening to an upstream conversation with Nikki Franco,

Caribbean abolitionist community organizer, writer, facilitator of spaces for collective study, an author of The New Book, Flies in the Tropics, published just this month by 1804 books. Please check the show notes for links to any of the resources mentioned in this episode. Thank you to DJ Wan for the intermission music. Upstream theme music was composed by me, Robbie. Upstream is entirely listener-funded.

No ads, no promotions, no grants, just Patreon subscriptions and listener donations. We couldn't keep this project going without your support. Subscribe to our Patreon for bi-weekly bonus episodes, access to our entire back catalog of Patreon episodes, and for stickers and bumper stickers at certain sites. subscription tiers. And if Patreon's not really your thing, you can also make a one-time or recurring donation on Maslow through our fiscal sponsor, Independent Arts and Media. Through your support, you'll be helping to keep upstream sustainable and helping to keep this whole project

going. Socialist political education podcasts are not easy to fund, so thank you in advance for the crucial support. And for more from us, please visit upstreampodcast.org and follow us on social media for updates and post-capitalist memes at Upstream Podcast. You can also subscribe to us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. And if you like what you hear, please give us a five-star rating and review. This really, really does help get upstream in front of more eyes and into more ears. Thank you.