Celebrities take a stand for freedom over the Cuban Heritage Marlins celebration in Miami

The Miami Marlins baseball team, based at LoanDepot Park in Little Havana, this week launched a series of invitations to the Cuban Heritage Day celebration, but many artists and athletes declined the invitation for various reasons.

The Santiago boxer Yordenis Ugás said through his Instagram he would not attend the May 18 event at the Marlins park.

“I thought that situation and the Marlins' disrespect to our community last year was fixed. I am a man of exile, the greatest recognition I have is what my Cuban community gives me, day by day, which is everything to me,” Ugás wrote.

“I thought that situation and the Marlins' disrespect to our community last year was fixed. I am a man of exile, the greatest recognition I have is what my Cuban community gives me, day by day, which is everything to me,” Ugás wrote.

The boxer’s comments were in reference to the prior treatment of Cuban exiles during the celebration of the V World Classic, when the Cuban regime’s “Team Asere” played the semifinal in their stadium.

“The dictatorship they humiliated us … We have families of political prisoners in exile and others killed at sea. If in the future the Marlins want to fix this, acknowledge their mistake and apologize to our community, I am fully willing to be a bridge and participate,” he said.

The Santiago boxer said that until the Marlins apologize for the expulsion of Cuban democracy activists from the Miami stadium during the Classic or explain why they removed posters calling for Cuba’s release of political prisoners, he will not set another foot in the stadium.

Along the same lines, the Miguelín Locuras influencer's team indicated that it would not participate in the Cuban Heritage show at the Marlins park either.

“We saw it as an opportunity, but it is true that I changed to enter the stadium during the ball game. So that day we will not be present,” they expressed.

Another of the well-known faces that was projected on the event was the content creator and comedian José Ernesto González, better known on the networks as Carnota.

The popular YouTuber living in Miami argued in his profiles:

“I had been invited to this event which I made the decision not to go, I think we all make mistakes and I made one, hitting a team that responded to a dictatorship, today I apologize again. I will not go!”

For his part, Cuban singer Leoni Torres understood the reasons on behalf of the Cuban community in Miami but defended his right to accept the Marlins' invitation to sing the National Anthem on May 18.

“On Saturday, May 18, history will be made at the Marlins stadium,” Torres wrote on various social media networks.

That day the Marlins, starting at 4:10 in the afternoon, will celebrate Cuban Heritage Day and will sell sports packages that include t-shirts alluding to the celebration. The team said a portion of the proceeds from each ticket sold for that day will benefit multiple Miami based Cuban organizations.