Despite having always lived in a country where the lack of freedom has been both the premise and the fabric of everyday life, I always felt like a free man.
Stáhnout obrázek
Pedro Manuel González was born on May 10, 1957, in Caibarién, Cuba. He began his schooling at an early age and spent part of his childhood at a military school—an experience that profoundly marked his life and which he ultimately abandoned to avoid a military career. He later studied economics but was expelled from university for being considered an “ideological deviant” due to his ideas and affinity for U.S. culture. Throughout his working life, he was employed in construction and the agricultural sector, serving for more than two decades as a specialist in costs, labor force, and wages. During the Special Period, he was transferred to an agricultural farm and, after being removed from his managerial position, began working as a self-employed barber. From the 1990s onward, he became involved in the cultural sphere and artistic activism in Santa Clara, particularly through the alternative cultural center El Mejunje, where he developed the performative and drag persona Roxana Petrovna as a form of personal expression and social critique. This visibility led to recurring conflicts with State Security, including travel restrictions, harassment, and reprisals that also affected his family. After several international trips between 2009 and 2019, and following years spent caring for his ill parents, in 2024 he decided to leave Cuba due to the country’s deteriorating situation. He currently resides in Asturias, Spain, where he continues to reflect on his life trajectory, political repression, and freedom of expression. This interview was conducted within the framework of the project Memory of Our Cuban Neighbors, in Madrid, 2025.