Thank you.
And this people
and this country
will know how to be consistent
with their glorious history.
Homeland or death!
We shall overcome!
Sick and tired of lies,
ignorance, and evil.
He can choose whatever he wants.
He has every right in the world to choose whatever he wants.
Well, the thing is, in fact, you chose death.
Yes.
Uh-huh.
Perfect.
I want that to be respected for me too.
Because we are the futureless.
Because we live futureless.
Because we are the futureless.
Because we live futureless.
Futureless!
No one ever imagined that in Cuba there would be punk bands
or heavy metal bands or anything like that.
There are many people who even gave their own lives
and were thrown in jail because of rock and roll.
Society wouldn't accept us, we felt marginalized.
They hunted us down as if we were
butterflies.
At night.
The police hunted us down
and took us in for interrogations.
They'd shave your head, throw you in juvenile detention centers or prisons.
For being a rocker.
Or for being a punk.
I was walking through Central Park,
a cop stopped me and said, “Come with me.”
He drove me to the station and they shaved my head with a razor blade,
my mohawk, and I cried my eyes out.
My first earring cost me an 80 peso fine.
Over time, I gradually became aware that I fit in better
with that type of people than with my own family even.
For me, being a Friki is a big deal.
Every single day, it pushed me to be better,
to be different.
And I liked that kind of life, I liked that kind of music,
I liked the culture for what it was...
It freed me from so many things...
From my family, from society itself, from prejudice...
To be a Friki, you have to like rock music.
The word “Friki” is used mainly among us.
-Among fellow Frikis. -Among ourselves.
But, as such, the community, meaning the people, the population,
to refer to us, they call us “rockers.”
We're not bad, we're not good.
We're not bad, and we're not good either.
We're just punks, which is what we want.
Frikis are a brotherhood.
It's not easy being a punk.
Especially in this country.
At some point, we could have succeeded
in creating a rock and roll movement in Cuba.
We didn't succeed because it was never accomplished.
We were very misunderstood, and we still are very misunderstood.
We are still judged.
Most of the Frikis began to emigrate,
to emigrate from the country, as boat people,
many, many left.
And then something else came along that really undermined the Friki movement,
it arrived in Cuba, HIV entered the country,
and there was a huge explosion.
I got infected, I'm telling you, by my partner,
who injected himself with the disease and didn't tell me.
When I tested positive, I was pregnant.
The first thing they did to me was force me to have an abortion,
when I was five months pregnant.
They took me to court and sentenced me to three years
of imprisonment.
When I got out of prison, they put me in a disciplinary sanatorium
to finish serving my sentence.
And from that disciplinary sanatorium
they transferred me back here, to the normal Sanatorium.
There was nothing on the street.
So, we were supplied with everything.
And the rest of the population didn't have...
And the rest of the population on the outside didn't have anything.
It was the so-called “Special Period” that took place.
I can tell you that any Cuban who went through the Special Period
is prepared to live anywhere, even in the jungle.
Everything stopped arriving from the Soviet Union
and from all other countries: Romania, Yugoslavia...
And we were very accustomed to not suffering,
and that moment taught us
how to do things
we had never even imagined.
All of those things also contributed to all the sanatoriums filling up.
That was the problem.
People preferred to have AIDS...
When they saw that, all the Frikis started saying:
“I want to go to a sanatorium.”
And everyone wanted to start autoinfecting themselves.
The real punks from those years ended up there.
Eskoria came from the sanatorium.
"Chispa É Tren" came from the sanatorium, "HIV" too...
They all went and took refuge there.
You say, “I'm going to get away to this place because they give me food here,
they give me a home, they give me all the amenities..."
And then, in the end, nobody wanted to have AIDS, but it was too late.
Me...
I think the reason why I don't have AIDS...
I don't know...
I think I was just lucky.
I injected myself with HIV.
Me, with a syringe, I injected myself.
Another friend who was in the sanatorium gave me a little bit of his blood and...
I injected it
into my vein.
This next song, ladies and gentlemen...
I want to dedicate it...
It's called “HIV...”
I want to dedicate it...
to everyone who is sick.
WE CHOSE DEATH
PUNK IN CUBA, A MINORITY MOVEMENT FROM ITS INCEPTION,
HAD ITS HEYDAY BETWEEN THE LATE 80S AND THE 90S.
TODAY, THE PUNK SCENE IS STILL ACTIVE BUT DISCREET,
WHILE HEAVY METAL IS BECOMING MORE AND MORE POPULAR.
Those who feel punk carry it in here,
in their hearts.
Punk isn't fashion.
Punk is all heart.
AFTER THE FALL OF THE USSR IN 1991,
CUBA ENTERED A DEEP ECONOMIC CRISIS
KNOWN AS THE SPECIAL PERIOD.
FOOD, FUEL, AND RESOURCE SHORTAGES
RADICALLY TRANSFORMED DAILY LIFE
AND FORCED URGENT REFORMS IN ALL AREAS.
ALTHOUGH IT OFFICIALLY ENDED IN 2000,
ITS EFFECTS CAN STILL BE FELT IN CUBAN SOCIETY.
Fists raised high, punk resistance in Cuba!
IN 1986, CUBA DETECTED ITS FIRST CASES OF HIV
AND RESPONDED BY CREATING A NATIONAL CONTROL PROGRAM
THAT INCLUDED ISOLATION IN SANATORIUMS.
FOR YEARS, LIVING WITH HIV MEANT
MANDATORY ADMISSION TO THESE CENTERS, ONE PER PROVINCE.
THIS MEASURE HELPED SLOW THE SPREAD OF THE VIRUS,
BUT IT ALSO LED TO ISOLATION AND STIGMATIZATION.
SINCE 1994, ADMISSION HAS BECOME VOLUNTARY.
And you're waiting for some great vaccine,
when in fact there will be none.
there will be none, there will be none!
No vaccine!
And you're waiting for some great vaccine,
when in fact there will be none.
there will be none, there will be none!
No vaccine!