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ment in economics and culture." At some point surely those two groups
will meet. (Already there are exiles with blueprints for shopping malls in
colonial Havana.) And what happens then, after the initial euphoria?
All this may be years away, despite the near-hysteria everywhere. For
as Sanchez Mejias puts it, "We who live here have a sense of how long
things take. Nothing is about to happen."
For now, Reina, who never set out to be heroic, continues her
fight for autonomous culture. But the future of Reina's House of Poetry
may be much less important that her open home, where the young have
gathered now for so many years . And tonight, like all other nights,
Reina tosses her keys from the roof to the young artists calling to her
from below.