Hialeah changes acts for July 4th amid protests of Cuba ‘exchanges’

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After canceling a show by performers deemed too close to the Cuban regime, the city of Hialeah is switching gears and the council will likely vote on Tuesday evening to spend $30,000 on U.S.-based Cuban talent for the Fourth of July celebration at Milander Park.

Willy Chirino‘s Zarabanda Productions would get $20,000 and Albita Rodríguez would get $10,000 if the council approves the new program for the Independence Day party at Tuesday’s council meeting.

Normally, that would be the end of that.

But the old program may still be a point of contention as protests are planned about the prior approval of a contract for $30,000 to Jacob Forever, an artist who may live in Miami but spends a lot of time with family in Cuba (like this photo with his mom posted on social media) and was photographed in 2017 wearing a Che Guevara shirt.

Last year, a year after the photo, Jacob Forever — whose real name is Yosdani Jacob Carmenates — played at Hialeah’s Independence Day party.

His performance, as well as those of Senorita Dayana and El Micha, also known as Michael Sierra Miranda, two other artists who reportedly would be coming to Miami from Havana on “cultural exchange” program visas, were cancelled after a Cuban exile leader and a former Cuban political prisoner  complained to Hialeah Mayor Carlos Hernández and explained that these exchanges are not really authentic because those artists become ambassadors of the regime and because Cuban American artists from Miami are not free to perform in Cuba.

Like he needed explaining? Like Hernández didn’t already know and not care?

Now, activists and other exiles want to know how much the city paid Carmenates and the other artists, not just this year but last year. And in years prior. And where the money came from.

And how it happened without any public input.

This being an election year, Ladra fully expects the candidates on November’s ballot to be there, taking advantage of the TV cameras.

Meanwhile, nobody has seen the new flyer.

  Carlos Hernandez, Hialeah politics