Maria Robles edit

Maria Elena Batista Robles(born August 4, 1963) is a American artist better known for her Neo Abstract paintings and drawing style.

Early life edit

Robles was born native CubaHolguín, Cuba, She began her career in her studies of fine arts at the Union College in New Jersey, and in 2002 was awarded a Special County Prize for Painting. In 1999 she began the NEO abstract way in the small section of a town Varios de Italiano or also know as Peter's Town in Elizabeth, New Jersey . Robles as a child was fortunate to leave communist Cuba with her mother, father and two younger siblings in the 1970's while the country.

Relations with the United States edit

 
Victorious rebels in the Havana Hilton, January 1959.
 
Fidel Castro and Che Guevara in 1962.

The Cuban Revolution was a crucial turning point in U.S.-Cuban relations. Although the United States government was initially willing to recognize Castro's new government,[1] it soon came to fear that Communist insurgencies would spread through the nations of Latin America, as they had in Southeast Asia.[2] Meanwhile, Castro's government resented the Americans for providing aid to Batista's government during the revolution.[1] After the revolutionary government nationalized all U.S. property in Cuba in August 1960, the American Eisenhower administration froze all Cuban assets on American soil, severed diplomatic ties and tightened its embargo of Cuba.[3][4][5] The Key West–Havana ferry shut down. In 1961, the U.S. government launched the Bay of Pigs Invasion, in which Brigade 2506 (a CIA-trained force of 1,500 soldiers, mostly Cuban exiles) landed on a mission to oust Castro; the attempt to overthrow Castro failed, with the invasion being repulsed by the Cuban military.[2][6] The U.S. embargo against Cuba is still in force as of 2020, although it underwent a partial loosening during the Obama Administration, only to be strengthened in 2017 under Trump.[3] The U.S. began efforts to normalize relations with Cuba in the mid-2010s,[7][8] and formally reopened its embassy in Havana after over half a century in August 2015.[9] The Trump administration reversed much of the Cuban Thaw by severely restricting travel by US citizens to Cuba and tightening the US government's embargo against the country.[10][11]

I believe that there is no country in the world, including the African regions, including any and all the countries under colonial domination, where economic colonization, humiliation and exploitation were worse than in Cuba, in part owing to my country's policies during the Batista regime. I believe that we created, built and manufactured the Castro movement out of whole cloth and without realizing it. I believe that the accumulation of these mistakes has jeopardized all of Latin America. The great aim of the Alliance for Progress is to reverse this unfortunate policy. This is one of the most, if not the most, important problems in America foreign policy. I can assure you that I have understood the Cubans. I approved the proclamation which Fidel Castro made in the Sierra Maestra, when he justifiably called for justice and especially yearned to rid Cuba of corruption. I will go even further: to some extent it is as though Batista was the incarnation of a number of sins on the part of the United States. Now we shall have to pay for those sins. In the matter of the Batista regime, I am in agreement with the first Cuban revolutionaries.

— U.S. President John F. Kennedy, interview with Jean Daniel, 24 October 1963[12]


Paintings edit

  1. ^ a b Gleijeses, Piero (2002). Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington and Africa, 1959–1976. University of North Carolina Press. p. 14.
  2. ^ a b "Ahead Of Bay Of Pigs, Fears Of Communism". NPR. 17 April 2011. Archived from the original on 20 February 2014. Retrieved 9 July 2013.
  3. ^ a b "Cuba receives first US shipment in 50 years". Al Jazeera. 14 July 2012. Archived from the original on 16 July 2012. Retrieved 16 July 2012.
  4. ^ Nash, Gary B.; Roy Jeffrey, Julie; Howe, John R.; Frederick, Peter J.; Davis, Allen F.; Winkler, Allan M.; Mires, Charlene; Gardina Pestana, Carla (2007). The American People, Concise Edition: Creating a Nation and a Society, Combined Volume (6th ed.). New York: Longman.
  5. ^ Faria (2002), p. 105
  6. ^ How the Bay of Pigs invasion began - and failed - 60 years on, BBC News (23 April 2021).
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference TerrorList was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ "Obama hails 'new chapter' in US-Cuba ties". BBC News. 17 December 2014. Archived from the original on 17 December 2014. Retrieved 18 December 2014.
  9. ^ "US flag raised over reopened Cuba embassy in Havana". BBC News. 15 August 2015. Archived from the original on 18 August 2015. Retrieved 27 August 2015.
  10. ^ "Trump administration bans educational and recreational travel to Cuba". PBS. 4 June 2019. Archived from the original on 4 June 2019. Retrieved 6 July 2019.
  11. ^ "Helms-Burton Act: US firms face lawsuits over seized Cuban land". BBC. 3 May 2019. Archived from the original on 3 May 2019. Retrieved 6 July 2019.
  12. ^ "Jean Daniel Bensaid: Biography" Archived 12 January 2018 at the Wayback Machine . Spartacus Educational. Retrieved 3 December 2012.