I was thrilled and honored when I received an email from the award winning Cuban-American novelist and playwright, Teresa Dovalpage, inviting me to review her soon to be published collection of short stories.   I'm so happy I accepted because I throughly enjoyed reading The Astral Plane: Stories of Cuba, the Southwest and Beyond, a collection of eight short stories, published by University of New Orleans Press.   

My review:

Imagine a motley group of Habaneros as disciples of self-proclaimed guru Maestro, who channels of all people, Walt Whitman and Joan of Arc.  These delightful and entertaining characters are the main inhabitants of the first and foundational story in the collection, Astral Plane.  Can you find relief from the tedium of life under communism by seeking nirvana among the Cosmic Brotherhood?  Is it possible to flee darkness? The stories that follow Astral Plane are a literary descent into the reality of being Cuban, adrift in the island’s dysfunctional ethos, whether in Havana or in exile.

 The stories are thoroughly Cuban, original, delightful, and unexpected.  In this cohesive collection, Ms. Dovalpage’s prodigious talent takes us on a dazzling journey of high drama, whimsical imagery, nail-biting suspense, and laugh-out-loud hilarity.  Along the way she lays bare the reality of life in Cuba and totally debunks the myths of the Castro Revolution. 

One favorite passage includes a lyrical, evocative description of El Malecón that made me weep with longing for the sights, sounds, and smells of that drive; a paragraph later I erupted in laughter at a character’s offhand comment.  This savory collection is certain to become a favorite read, highly recommended.

The E-book is available here.

Carlos Eire discussing his latest book, "Waiting to Die in Miami" at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, Thursday, April 21 as part of the George Washington Forum on American ideas, politics and institutions.  It's fabulous, revealing, instructive, and heartbreaking. Take tissue.

Thank you Carlos for sharing your Cuban soul, and bearing witness to Cuba's true history.

H/T: Honey

 If you're in the LA area, you don't want to miss the esteemed Manuel Marquez-Sterling presenting his important and wonderful book, "Cuba 1952-1959 The True Story of Castro's Rise to Power."

Where:  Eso Won Bookstore
4331 Degnan Blvd. LA.
90008
(323) 290-1048

When: Friday, November 19 2010, 7:00pm - 9:00pm

 Introduction from the bookstore's website:

Cuba 1952-1959: The True Story of Castro's Rise to Power

by Manuel Marquez-Sterling

Manuel Márquez-Sterling was born in Havana, Cuba. He has lived in the US since 1960. He is Professor Emeritus of History at Plymouth State University. His publications include Historia de la Isla de Cuba (co-authored with his father, Carlos Márquez-Sterling), Carlos Márquez-Sterling: Memorias de un Estadista, and "Fernán González, First Count of Castile: the man and the legend." He is also known for his acclaimed historical novels La Cúpula and Hondo Corre el Cauto. The latter topped the Miami Nuevo Heraldo best seller list. An accomplished playwright, his works in that genre include La Salsa del Diablo (The Devil's Sauce), which won the Madrid-Miami Letras de Oro Award in 1993, and Corneille's Dream, winner of the 1996 Southern New Hampshire University Spectrum Award for One Act Play. Following the example of his grandfather (Manuel Márquez-Sterling [1872-1934]), the author also writes a long running op-ed column for the (Spanish language) Diario Las Americas. Before becoming a historian he studied law at the University of Havana in the 50s, where at graduation he received the Ricardo Dolz Arango National Law Award, the top University of Havana law student prize. His law practice in Cuba included serving as Public Defender and arguing a constitutional law case before Cuba's Supreme Court. Hopefully you will be able to take time out from your busy day and c'mon by and enjoy what should be a memorable event with the Los Angeles Cuban Community.

My family left Cuba in early 1961.

My brother was on the first Pedro Pan flight in December of 1960. Happily, my family was only separated for a few very tense months. But we were part of the lucky few who managed to leave the country rather quickly.

Once reunited, my father vowed we'd never be separated again and so when my older sisters were to be married in California, he packed up the family and we never looked back.

We lived in Miami for the first 3 years of our exile, before my parents moved us across the country and so we made our lives in Southern California.

As Cubans in California - "en el exilio del exilio" - we managed to find other Cuban families and connected with the familiar community of people who spoke our language and recognized our customs and our food.

My sisters and me. Miami, circa 1962.

There were other waves of Cuban refugees. But unarguably, those who landed in Miami during the early 1960's and 70's were the ones who built that city.

I've just received a copy of the beautiful book, Historic Photos of Cuban Miami by Jennifer Ortiz. With nearly 200 black and white photographs and detailed captions and stories. It has simultaneously captivated my attention, made me joyful and fiercely proud, but also broken my heart.

Cuban exiles are amazing people, individually and collectively.

My mom poured over the book for hours, pointing out familiar faces and reciting the names of the former presidents of Cuba who lived in Miami in exile. We sat together and turned pages and it was like I was a child once again. I sat quietly as each photo triggered a memory and she told me story after story.

She pointed to a photo, "My first visit to Miami was aboard the S.S. Florida." She remembered her excitement and how she and my dad packed as if for a world cruise rather than a weekend trip.

She marveled over the photos of the historic Vizcaya Estate and laughed out loud as she saw the photos and remembered moments from the ground-breaking television show, "Que Pasa, USA?"

The folks at Turner Publishing have generously sent me a copy of this gorgeous coffee table book to give away. Yes, to give away. (I know. Shut up.)

To be entered in the drawing for this beautiful book, please leave a comment on this same post over at MBFCF. (<---click the link and leave a comment over there.)

I'd love to hear your answers to these 3 questions:

• Where in Cuba is your family from?
• What year did they arrive in the U.S?
• Do you still have family there?

I'll be choosing a winner on Monday, June 21, 2010 at 11 am Pacific Time.

By the way, this is my answer:

"Havana. 1961. Yes."

On Wednesday 27-January, Manuel Márquez-Sterling will deliver a talk in Spanish at the Miami presentation of his book, Cuba 1952-1959: The True Story of Castro's Rise to Power. His talk will be followed by a panel discussion with question and answer period, and book signing. Panelists are Marcos Antonio Ramos, Alberto Luzárraga, and Sylvia G. Iriondo.

The book presentation is sponsored by sponsored by Herencia/Cuban Cultural Heritage and the University of Miami's Institute of Cuban and Cuban American Studies (ICCAS). It will be held on January 27, 2010 at the University of Miami’s Casa Bacardi, 1531 Brecia Ave., Coral Gables, FL. The program begins at 7:00 pm.

For reservations and other event information please contact ICCAS at: (305) 284-CUBA (2822)

(This event is a Spanish-language program for the English-language book.)

If you're interested in "The True Story of Castro's Rise to Power,"  then tune in and listen to an interview with Manuel Márquez-Sterling and R. Rembert Aranda on Blog Talk Radio's  "Speak Your Mind,"  hosted by Cubanology's Jose Reyes.

The books author Márquez-Sterling, and his collaborator, R. Rembert Aranda will discuss their new book, "Cuba 1952-1959: The True Story of Castro's Rise to Power."

Cuba 1952-1959 unearths a lost world to reveal events in Cuba during the critical seven years of the Cuban revolution. It brings to light long-buried fragments of history and masterfully pieces them together to lay bare how castro really came to power, and stands as living documentation of the Lost Republic of Cuba, laid to ruin by the castro regime through terror, purposeful neglect and revisionist history.   As the son of Carlos Márquez-Sterling, the author possesses an insider's knowledge of the events leading to the end of the Republic, and the long nightmare of the castro regime.

Do not miss this show; it airs today, Thursday, November 19 at 9:00 p.m. EST.  Listen in at the show's website here, and please call in with your comments and questions.  The call-in number is (646) 915-9812.

UPDATE: In case you missed it, here is the recording of the show:

Via Cubanology, comes the exciting news of the release of Manuel Márquez-Sterling's important book, "Cuba 1952-1959:  The True Story of Castro's Rise to Power."

The son of  Cuba's seminal figure, Dr. Carlos Márquez Sterling, this book is a must have.  For a taste of the historical treasures sure to await you within its pages, visit the Professor´s blog: Cuba 1952-1959.

 Marta Darby -  author, blogger extraordinaire, and more importantly just about the best person I know, has shared her family's story in The Orange County Register!   Super congratulations Marta!

Cuban, with a detour in Mission Viejo
By MARTA DARBY

I was born in Havana, Cuba. My family left Cuba on Valentine's Day, Feb. 14, 1961. I know the date because it is stamped on a passport, and forever in my memory.

It cost $21.60 for the half-fare for children to fly the ninety miles from Havana to Miami.

It's not lost on me that I can easily spend more than that to feed my family at McDonald's, and that the distance is about roughly from here to San Diego.

We didn't tell anyone in Cuba that we were leaving. There were no goodbyes. My mother never saw her own mother again.

My dad left Cuba months earlier and was just waiting until my mother could get visas for the five girls.

My brother left Cuba as an unaccompanied minor on Dec. 26, 1960 — one of the original Pedro Pan kids taken in by Father Bryan O. Walsh in Miami.

So it was my mom, and us girls, and 13 suitcases on that midnight flight.

•••

Back then, in early 1961, Cubans would still go to the airport to greet other arriving exiles.

I remember being oh-so-tired and happy when we landed. I remember seeing my dad on the other side of the customs counter and not being allowed to go to him. I remember that he and my brother were yelling directions to my mother: "Ask for 3! Ask for 3!" I later found out that it was for the length of the visa. I remember the cheering and clapping when we finally made it through customs.

I remember wishing my dad a happy birthday and thinking how very old 50 was. I can only imagine the relief that was in his heart that day as the eight of us were reunited.

That was 48 years ago. All my family's memories of Cuba, B.C. (Before Castro) are happy ones. We still maintain many of our Cuban traditions and love all things Cuban, particularly the music and the food.

I am the youngest of six.

My parents, Luz and Rodolfo Verdés were married for 60 years. My dad, Papi, passed away in December of 1999. Before he died, he asked me to return his ashes to his hometown of Pinar del Rio.

"Wait," he said, "until Cuba is free." I will keep my promise to him one day. But, as of today, I am still waiting.

I don't know if it is because we spent the first few years in exile talking about when we would return to our home in Cuba. I don't know if it is that we left home and family and beloved places without much warning or planning. But not a day goes by that I'm not aware of a longing for the land of my birth. I fill it with the music and the food, and of course, I scrapbook, and I write.

I am happy to be connected to an amazing Cuban community online. Before anything else that I am, I am first and foremost Cuban. And I celebrate that every day. My immediate family has since grown to over 40 people who all consider themselves to be Cuban-Americans. My children, nieces and nephews who were all born here in the U.S. are also proud of their Cuban heritage.

•••

My sisters Miriam, Alina and I started school in Miami in the fall of '61. We spoke a tiny bit of English that we had learned back in Cuba.

We looked different. We dressed different. Our food was different. Yet there were so many of us experiencing the same things. At that time, there were so many Cuban exiles in Miami.

But time passed and we realized we would not be returning to Cuba. So we assimilated. We moved to California. We grew up. We married. We had families of our own.

In our homes we have tokens of our heritage. We drink café Cubano. We pay extra close attention to anything having to do with Cuba on the news. Practically the first thing we tell people we meet is that we're Cuban-Americans. We say it by way of explanation. We leave this part unsaid, but implied — "That's why we're different."

We are different.

We are proud U.S. citizens. We value freedom in a way many born here in the U.S. do not. We value family in a way someone who has never been separated from theirs would not. We pass our heritage on to our children so proudly. We love our culture. We love our food. We love our homeland. We love the USA.

We are no longer dreaming of the day we will return to Cuba.

And yet, we still have an intense desire to see real freedom come to our homeland.

But to this day, when we encounter other Cubans wherever we are, there's always a sweet recognition. Then comes the interview:

"Where are you from? How long have you been here? Do you still have family there?"

"Havana. 48 years. Yes."

Contact the writer: Marta lives with her husband, Eric, and 4 children, in Mission Viejo, in their cozy home with a white picket fence. She writes all about her Cuban-American life on her blog, http://www.mybigfatcubanfamily

By Yoani Sanchez

I skirt the edge of my building, avoiding walking under the balconies, because the kids throw condoms filled with urine to kill the boredom. A man with his daughter is carrying a bag that’s dripping a mix of grease, water and blood. They’re coming from the butcher’s, where the line announces that some rationed product came in this morning. The two climb the stairs happily carrying their trophy meat. The wife is probably already cutting the onions, while breathing a sigh of relief that the protein is back, after several days’ absence.

I’m behind them and I manage to hear the little girl ask, “Papi, how many chickens have you eaten in your life?” I see the bewildered face of the father, who’s made it to the sixth floor, sweating from every pore. His answer is a little brusque. “How would I know that? I don’t keep a count of the food.” But the young girl insists. Evidently she’s learning to multiply and divide, so she wants to take apart the world and explain it—completely—with pure numbers. “Papi, if you’re 53 and every month you get one pound of chicken at the butcher’s, you just have to know how many months you’ve lived. When you have that number you divide it by four pounds, which is more or less what a chicken usually weighs.”

I follow the mathematical formula she’s developed and I figure I’ve eaten 99 chickens in my 33 years. The man interrupts my calculations, telling her, “Sweetie, when I was born chickens weren’t rationed.” I start thinking about how I grew up with the shackles of rationing attached to both ankles but, thanks to the black market, the diversion of resources from State enterprises, the shops that sell only in convertible pesos, the trading of clothes for food, and a ton of parallel tracks, I don’t know the exact amount I’ve digested. I hurry past them and hear the doubting phrase from the little Pythagoras: “Oh, Papi, do you expect me to believe that before, in the butcher shops, they sold you all the chicken you wanted…”

This was originally written and published in Spanish by Yoani Sanchez and translated and posted in her English version blog. Since the castro regime continues to curtail her internet access and continues to block access to her blog and other internet sites in and out of Cuba, we are posting Yoani's work in its entirety in solidarity and to help promote and distribute same.

For those of you living in the New York City area, Ramiro Fernandez and Kevin Kwan, creators of the new book, "I Was Cuba: Treasures from the Ramiro Fernandez Collection," will be holding an open discussion on their recent work. The event takes place February 29th - 7:00 p.m. at McNally Robinson - 52 Prince Street, New York City.
For more information, please visit the McNally Robinson site.
And for reviews on the new book, simply visit Amazon.

“Ten piedad de mí, Señor, cubano soy”.
For those of you in the New York and Miami metro areas, Professor Carlos Eire, author of "Waiting for Snow in Havana," will be celebrating the release of a new Spanish translation at two speaking engagements in New York City and Miami, Florida.
Friday, October 6th at 6 p.m., Professor Eire will appear at Columbia University's Casa Hispánica
612 West 116th Street, between Broadway and Riverside
AND
Saturday, November 10th at 2:30 p.m., Professor Eire will appear at the 24th Miami International Book Fair
Miami Dade College, Wolfson Campus, Room 3208-09

“You’ve gone snorkeling before, right?”
Yes, I had gone snorkeling before: as a child, in swimming pools and backwoods ponds, and as an adult, in still reef waters where you might as well be sleeping on a cushion of air. I had not, however, been snorkeling in this particular part of Mariel. On this day, my cousin Emilio and I would join two family friends in the Cuban seaside town, on a mission to hunt octopus which would later be sold for ceviche on Cuba’s ever-expanding black market. In a nation where the average state salary often rings in at around 250 pesos-a-month (about $10), enterprising Cubans have found a raft of ways to support their households. Some skim off the profits of state-run stores, others run illegal taxis (boteros) and still others sell illegal lobster - or in our case, octopus - to visiting tourists and Cubans alike.
We arrived at the point of embarkation about noon, making our way down a winding and rather desolate dirt road that skirted alongside Mariel’s rocky coastline. Tall weeds danced in the breeze on either side of Emilio’s Muskovitch as the clouds above continued to dissipate following the previous night's rainstorm. We lurched to a rather abrupt halt outside a small house that sat no more than ten yards from the waters of the Caribbean Ocean. Lazaro and his 22-year-old son Danilo, friends of my Cuban family, had invited us on the hunt and greeted us with a couple of cold Bucaneros (Cuba’s answer to Budweiser) as we stepped out of the car.
Now, at this point I feel I should describe my rather unimpressive nautical abilities. I grew up in rural Maryland. Yes, it’s true that I lived near the shores of the Chesapeke Bay but, the Bay’s frigid waters aren’t exactly what you’d call “inviting” and I never bothered swimming in it all that often. I can swim but I’m no Greg Louganis (yes I realize he’s more of a diver than a swimmer). As we donned our flippers and goggles, I did everything possible to hide my fear. The fact is, octopi live in rocky waters, where they can hide amid holes in the sea-floor. The previous night’s thunderstorm had left the ocean in a very turbulent state. As a result, I couldn’t help but imagine my skinny body being slammed into razor sharp corals by rogue waves. I asked Emilio about how far out we’d have to swim in order to find our prey. “No more than a few hundred meters” came Emilio’s reply. Great.
Our equipment was about as simple as it gets. A coat hanger fashioned into a hook, complete with wooden handle would be used to poke around in whatever holes we came across on the sea-floor. The idea was to snag an octopus with this thing and then race up to the surface before running out of air. At that point, our prey would be attached to a long line of hooks bobbing on the surface thanks to several empty soda bottles. One of us would tow the line in behind the hunters.
The swim out to the hunting grounds was arduous to say the least. Struggling against the current, I sapped my strength after the first 15 minutes, at which point, Emilio asked if I needed to go back. That’s when the “machismo” kicked in. “Of course not. Why, are you tired?” I was a bit worried these guys would mistake me for a “mariquita,” a Cuban term roughly translating to “sissy.” Emilio cocked his head as if to say “oh, OK, sorry about that” and sped off ahead of me. After what seemed like an entire day of swimming, we had arrived at our target area. I turned around and noticed the town of Mariel had become so tiny in the distance that I could no longer make out individual figures strolling along the shoreline. No boat. No life jacket. Nothing. I was experiencing a rather odd sort of jubilant terror.
Over the course of the next 30 minutes, the four of us took turns diving to the sea-floor. My first attempts were feeble to say the least but finally, after the fourth or fifth attempt, I broke the surface with an octopus wrapped firmly around my hand. Emilio grabbed, disemboweled and hooked it to our towline in one fell swoop. We had brought up well over a dozen octopi and the sky seemed to be changing rather rapidly. With that, we made the decision to head back to dry land.
Getting back to shore was full of its own hazards. Although we were swimming with the current - and thus exerting less energy - the remnant waves kicked up from the previous night’s thunderstorm would pick me up and slam me down at regular intervals, leaving my face mere inches from the rocky seabed. As if that weren’t enough, I had to be mindful of my heading. Emilio had stressed the importance of staying right behind Danilo, who knew the exact route necessary to take in order to avoid a wide variety of submerged obstacles. The closer to shore I got, the closer my nose came to the rocks beneath me with each passing wave until finally, I was able to extend by arms and grab hold of terra-firma. As I righted myself in the rolling surf I caught a glimpse of Danilo’s wife, seated on the family patio. Beside her sat several cold Bucaneros. My Bucaneros. I’ll be damned if I hadn’t earned them.
That evening, as the temperature dropped into the mid-seventies and the sun disappeared below the horizon, four men sat together gutting octopus bodies while sharing stories of conquered women and terrific hangovers. Tired and hungry from the hunt, we decided against selling our bounty, opting to coat it in salt and citrus juice for our own consumption. The following day would involve even more swimming, this time in search of conch, and I’d need to pack in the calories if I wanted to conquer the waves. God forbid these guys should think I was a mariquita.

What follows is the text of an essay written by an individual identified only as "Gabriel." With his permission, I am posting his words here at Babalu, in a bid to foster just a bit of understanding as to the life of an exile. Be it a Cuban exile, a World War II-era refugee escaping from Nazi Germany or a Haitian refugee fleeing Papa-Doc Duvalier - we all share similar qualities. Our stories often show striking commonalities. With that, I give you Gabriel's "40-Year Wait: a Collision of Two Worlds."

As a young child, Cuba was nothing more than a fictitious place that existed only the minds of my mother, grandparents, aunts and uncles. The representation of Cuba in the media and in school textbooks was that of an impoverished third-world country, and not the prosperous society of my family’s memories. Cuba for me simply boiled down to a variety of items in the Maryland home of my grandmother Yolanda; a few framed photographs hanging on the wall of her TV room, a safe full of jewelry smuggled out of the island in the early sixties, and a dog-eared book held together by Scotch-tape, titled “Memories of the Cuba We Left Behind.”
“79 views in full natural color,” boasted the little tattered booklet. My grandmother had paged through its depictions of the Cuba that once was on countless occasions and it showed. There were no photographs of decaying facades in Havana, no depictions of tourist-only hotels in Varadero, rather, the image presented was that of a bustling nation of middle-class workers, old world architecture, clean streets and Woolworth’s five-and-dimes. I was never quite able to wrap my head around “the two Cubas.” Until the Spring of 1999, the Pearl of the Antilles was nothing more then a few dozen musty items withering away in dark drawers and dusty bookcases.
After news arrived from relatives in Miami that my grandfather Marco’s brother Emilio and sister-in-law Cuca had finally been awarded exit visas to travel to the U.S. from Cuba for a ten-day visit, I realized that after 20-some-odd years of wondering about what Cuba had become, I’d be able to truly understand. Emilio and Cuca were for me, the embodiment of what had happened to the island. Already married with children at the time of the revolution, they had experienced the full circle of recent Cuban history: from first-world economy to third-world disaster. They had seen it all.
At first however, Marco wanted nothing to do with the reunion. Looking back on the Spring of 1999, his daughter Rosi theorizes that he feared the arrival of Emilio would spark his death. Eventually however, he relented to fate and agreed to meet a man and woman he hadn’t seen since the Winter of 1960.
When the door opened at the Cabrera residence on May 26, 1999, two worlds collided. Marco grabbed his cane and eased his tired body up from a chair in the corner of the living room and set eyes on what had become a stranger. Emilio was not the 40-year-old architect who bade farewell to his brother in 1960, thinking he’d be hack in a matter of months. Rather, he was a wrinkled man of eighty who had watched over the ancestral home their father had built 60 years earlier as it decayed in a syncopated rhythm with the revolution. For 40 years, Marco's chair at the head of the Sunday dinner table in Havana had sat empty – Emilio refusing to take his place at what he felt was rightfully his brother’s spot. Now, amid the manicured lawns of suburban Maryland, the brothers Cabrera would sit together at the head of a new table, surrounded by an even larger family than the one that ceased to exist after Fidel Castro had rolled triumphantly into downtown Havana decades earlier.
What struck me the most about the reunion that day was the initial lack of tears. I had expected a symphony of welled-up waterworks but witnessed a sort of quiet shock instead. Marco stood silent and wide-eyed throughout the first moments of the reunion, seemingly unable to speak. He knew he wouldn’t last past Emilio and Cuca’s return to Havana and it was alright. They had done what the Castro regime had tried so hard to prevent for so long. For seven days in May, they had rebuilt a bridge torn asunder by a revolution’s broken promises, and less than a year later, I would find myself sitting in the chair my grandfather once occupied every Sunday more than four decades earlier during those compulsory family meals in Havana. I was finally home.
-Gabriel

This morning, I offer readers a glimpse into the reaction of a son of Cuban exiles living in Barcelona, upon his arrival in Cuba on a trip to discover his roots. "Antonio Diaz Torres" traveled to Cuba back in the Winter of 1999 and has told me on numerous occasions: "It changed my life." What follows is part II of II. Babalu readers can find part I by clicking here.

Homecoming - Part II of II
Morning greeted me with a lack of coffee. Sensing the opportunity for a small adventure, I set off to a neighboring town, shirtless on my cousin Miguel’s brakeless bicycle. Winding my way east into the hamlet of Santa Fe, headed towards La Puntilla Beach, I was greeted every three blocks or so by family friends who - even though I’d met them only days before - treated me like an old friend. For all the damage the revolution has wrought, it has never been able to totally dampen the Cuban spirit. The lack of material possessions and experience with the outside world has served to instill in the people of that island a sense of camaraderie, friendship, love and welcome that I have never experienced anywhere else. I no longer felt like a foreigner. I was a Cuban and as a Cuban, I had temporarily left behind my metro-centric life, with its fast pace and neon cheesiness.
I knew there was a well-stocked store catering to both tourists and Cubans alike at La Puntilla. If they didn’t have coffee, no one would. Sure enough, there was no coffee to be had. Hopes dashed, I ambled out the door and headed to the beach. La Puntilla, The Point, consists of a prominent rocky outcropping that looks out on the Gulf of Mexico. Just east of the big rock lay a stretch of beach that still whispers of the pre-Fidel days.
When Havana was still a popular playground for American tourists, the Santa Fe Casino was a hotspot just west of the Havana suburbs where my mother and father had grown up. A small roadway wound its way right over La Puntilla Beach, leading gamblers right to the waterside casino. In the heady days following Fidel’s “triumph,” the Santa Fe Casino became one of many victims of the revolutionary fervor that led thousands to vent whatever frustrations they may have had on what Fidel dubbed “those meccas of inequity.” The roulette tables were smashed, windows were broken and the casino officially closed shop when Fidel outlawed organized gambling on the island.
The years wore on and the old highway fell into disrepair. As cobwebs overtook the old casino by the sea, chunks of asphalt washed away into the lapping waves and nature devoured the work of man. Today, the old street lamps still poke out of the sand, reminders of infrastructure long-gone. Where they once lined the highway, only beach remains, a sort of Planet of the Apes Statue of Liberty scene, Cuban-style. A new exploration was unfolding. I followed the old street lampposts down the beach, falling away from the screaming children throwing clumps of wet sand at one another.
When I finally arrived at the casino, it felt like arriving in some sort of apocalyptic netherworld. Clumps of weeds sprouted from a mosaic tile floor meant to mimic a compass rose. Once upon a time, a beautiful glass ceiling had covered this very same floor. Walking into the main casino structure was like braving New York City’s Grand Central Station in the 80s. Broken tiles cracked under foot and the walls were defiled with every manner of dirty graffiti imaginable. “Fuck her in the ass” was one of the of the more prominent phrases scrawled upon the walls where once upon a time, dashingly dressed gamblers once leaned, drinks in hand. The ceiling had long since caved in, allowing the sun to pierce the structure with the incessant Caribbean heat.
Along the casino’s rear wall ran a waterside promenade. During the ‘pre-Fidel’ days, the walkway was lined with ornate lamps that now sat just a few feet beneath the water’s surface, toppled over like dominoes and slowly succumbing to the variety of crustaceans and barnacles that now made their homes there.
Like bookends on either side of the casino complex stood two very different reminders of the revolution. Greeting me upon my arrival at the old mosaic-floored building was a water inlet. Leading from the little bay behind the casino, out into the open ocean, the narrow waterway had been sealed off by the Cuban government only a couple of years before as a result of its having become a common departure point for those fleeing the island via every manner of small craft imaginable. Walking along the waterside promenade, past the tumbled and submerged lamps led me into an overgrown area obscured by a few young trees and chest-high grasses. What looked like an oversized concrete opening to a septic pit poking out from behind the weeds quickly grabbed my attention. Immediately after crawling inside, I realized that I was standing in one of many vestiges of the Bay of Pigs invasion that dotted the island. From where I now stood, had it not been for the weeds and small trees that now surrounded me, I would have had a clear view of the coastal skies and any approaching aircraft. My New Balance sneakers were resting in what remained of an old anti-aircraft gun emplacement.
Shortly after that ill-fated invasion in 1961, my grandmother received a telephone call in suburban Fort Lauderdale from a woman she had once shared social circles with at the Miramar Yacht Club in Havana. Dina greeted my grandmother over the telephone with a bit of trepidation. Still living on the island, she spoke in hushed tones, not wanting her husband to hear the topic of conversation. She went on to describe the details of some gossip that had shocked the neighborhood in which she now lived, outside the capital. “Do you remember Magdalena, at the yacht club?” In 1958, Magdalena had worked as a waitress at the Miramar Yacht Club, tending to the club’s female members, shuttling drinks from table-to-table, ferrying towels to-and-fro. After the “triumph of the revolution,” her anger toward the elite patrons she had once served knew no bounds and she had become an outspoken, virulent supporter of Fidel. “The kind that bights,” my grandmother used to say. Following the failed invasion by Cuban exiles initially backed by the Kennedy administration, Magdalena sat riveted by the events unfolding on her television screen. As the cavalcade of broken, disheveled men made their way past in tones of black and white, she commented with disdain and anger, “Well done, they should shoot every last one of you” until the face of her own son marched past the cameras. “Sufrió un infarto alli mismo,” “She suffered a heart attack right then and there.” Magdalena died another faceless victim of the revolution. The story was emblematic of the divisions that appeared within thousands of families with regard to the revolution. Brothers turned on brothers, sons turned against fathers. Betrayals within bloodlines became commonplace as Fidel’s grip grew stronger.
Later that afternoon, as Alberto and I made our way into downtown Havana via Avenida Quinta, we were obliged to stop along with the rest of the traffic passing by Fidel Castro's infamous "Punto Cero" residence in Jaimanitas. A phalanx of shiny black Mercedes Benz sedans filed out of the heavily guarded compound. The "maximum leader" was on his way to some sort of engagement no doubt. Sitting in traffic, I scanned the faces of those stuck in the long line of cars and bicycles. Oddly, they all displayed the same lack of emotion in their faces. Confronted with the personfication of their misery, their simply wasn't anything to say - no way to react. For those few moments, the joyful countenances I had witnessed in my many personal encounters were no where to be found. For three minutes in this one pocket of Havana, emotion was dead. These poor souls had become just like Magdalena the waitress - senseless victims of a reviled revolution. No, not much has changed in communist Cuba, and it isn't just the cars.

Today, I offer readers a glimpse into the reaction of a son of Cuban exiles living in Barcelona, upon his arrival in Cuba on a trip to discover his roots. "Antonio Diaz Torres" traveled to Cuba back in the Winter of 1999 and has told me on numerous occasions: "It changed my life."

“Tonight you’ll see what it means to live in Cuba. Tonight you’ll understand what it is to live in fear.”
As night fell, Cuba's oppressive heat gave way to a gentle, sweet-smelling Caribbean breeze. The power had gone out midway through my shower and I found myself using a 5-gallon bucket and soup ladle to rinse the soap off my body. As the last remnants of the Irish Spring I’d brought with me to Cuba for my family rolled off my chest, I rested my chin on the tiny square windowsill that looked out onto the side lawn of the house from the shower. I have a mind that tends to wander and meander through the oddest of topics. Had my great grandfather rested his chin on these very same tiles at some point during the revolution? How had this very same bathroom changed over the past 40 years – what types of colognes and liniments lined the medicine cabinet the day Fidel marched into town. How did it smell the day night fell on Havana?
Suddenly, my cousin Alberto began to rap on the door; “Oye, let’s go,” he whined, “we’re going to be late,” he added as he tapped on the face of his watch. I tossed on an old t-shirt, took off my watch and exchanged my new sneakers for a pair of ratty flip-flops. I’d need to pass as an islander if I wished to be easily accepted at the party. We hopped into Alberto’s Muskovitch and rumbled on down the road.
Driving through the streets of small town Cuba at night is a strangely eerie experience. The streetlights were shut off long ago, leaving the only available light to see by, that emanating from passing cars. As we made several tight turns in a cluttered residential neighborhood, we’d catch little snippets of life in Fidel’s Cuba, frozen in time for brief moments by the yellowish haze of our headlights; a boy walking his mangy dog on a frayed rope lead, a young woman perched atop the hood of a Lada, passionately kissing her boyfriend, and on every block, impromptu barbecues held street side, complete with 55-gallon drums loaded with homemade charcoal on which cooking chicken emitted a scent that mixed with the smell of the ocean and thick exhaust fumes trailing out of the tail pipes of any number of 50’s-era American cars. All of this, a part of the yearly celebration of the CDRs. These were the old guard celebrating, the ones who had staked everything in the revolution when it triumphed back in ’59. Nary a young face was to be seen street side. Only wiggly chins and aging jowls.
“Look at these people,” snapped Alberto. “They only continue to support him because that’s all they have left. The memory of what they thought they were fighting for.”
Within a few minutes, Alberto pumped the brakes and brought us to a halt in front of a Soviet-.style apartment building. As the engine sputtered to a halt I slipped a small tape recorder into my pocket.
Inside the courtyard of the apartment complex, a decrepit structure blighted by peeling paint and crumbling stairwells, salsa music mixed with cheap government rum made for quite a raucous-sounding party. As Alberto and I made our way through the crowd of mostly young people, an older woman handed me a plastic glass of something that smelled more like kerosene than rum and I was introduced as a cousin visiting from a neighboring province. Toasts were made, cigarettes were lit and I began to let my guard down just a little bit.
Over the course of the next half hour, I was introduced to a dozen or so locals. Alberto told those he trusted the real story – that I was in Cuba for the first time, on a mission to unearth my roots and get to know my family for the first time. Snickers began to emanate from the faces of those around me as an older woman who served as the president of the local CDR began to speak with some of the old guard in attendance about the glories of the revolution. Most were there simply for the salsa music and free rum. “Nobody gives a shit about Fidel,” whispered the woman next to me as she grabbed my arm.
Finally, at midnight, the old CDR president asked for silence.
“Well my friends, its already midnight. The 40th anniversary of the CDRs is upon us. Long live Fidel! Long live our commander in chief. Fatherland or death, we will succeed!”
At first I sat silently through her recitations until I felt a tug at my right arm. “Oye, you’ve got to say it, you’ve got to pump your fist,” whispered Alberto. I thought for a few very brief moments. If I were to pump my fist in the air and give out a “long live Fidel” chant, it would feel like spitting on my own family. Forgoing the fist-pump however would most surely result in trouble. Too many people at the event knew Alberto, and his association with an overt “anti-revolutionary” would garner attention. I crossed the fingers of my left hand, took a gulp of air and exclaimed “Venceremos!” (We will win!) in response to the customary statement: “Patria o meurte!,” Fatherland or death!
Fatherland or death. My aunt Yolanda had brought up that very topic earlier in the day, railing on about the way Cuban school children were indoctrinated into party policy by repeating those very same statements at the compulsory rallies their parents often attended in downtown Havana. Is “Patria o Muerte” so different from the pledge of allegiance I myself had grown up with during grade school in rural Georgia? The difference lay in the fact that American statements of patriotism don’t often involve the topic of death unless you live in New Hampshire (Live Free or Die). “What does a 12-year-old know of politics?” said tia Yolanda. “Why does my child need to sing of the glories of Fidel every morning in the schoolyard?” “The only thing Fidel ever brought us was misery.”
Over the course of the evening, glasses of rum continued to be foisted upon me until the alcohol began to assist in the pulling of my heart strings. Visions of what had happened to my family began to play in my head. This, combined with my earlier fist pumping caused the tears to begin to well up in my eyes until finally, I asked Alberto to take me home. Guilt had indeed set in. We left the sweaty smell of revolutionary indoctrination at 1:30 in the morning. Not a word was uttered between us on the ride home.
Crawling into bed that night, my mind began to wander yet again. I felt somehow cheapened by what I had just done, so much so that I felt it sacrilegious to be falling asleep in the very same bed on which my mother had been conceived in the 1940s.
My aunt Yolanda’s bedroom was a time capsule of the life they had all led in February of 1961, when my mother, uncle, grandfather, and grandmother fled Cuba. Weeks after they’d left their house in El Vedado abandoned, my uncle Eugenio had arrived with a moving truck to salvage what he could. All around me lay revolutionary hand-me-downs. My grandmother’s dresser, a rococo-style mahogany piece complete with hand painted flowers loomed before me and the mattress I was tossing and turning on was straight out of 1942 – so worn that I settled in the center, enveloped by two hillocks of mattress on either side of me. That night I fell away while staring at the myriad of tiny, winged denizens of Havana that scurried along the opposite side of my mosquito net. An odor of salt water and sweat wafted through the worn wooden louvers of the storm shutters in my bedroom, lulling me to sleep. I felt as if I was home.

Carlos Alberto Montaner, photo by Felix Gerard, El Universal

Carlos Alberto Montaner is one of the great Cuban thinkers of our era. He has watched the bearded beast for decades since his harrowing escape from Cuba in the early 1960s. He fought castro's thugs in the Escambray mountains as a teenager, resisting castro's communism. He was captured, and would have been killed, until he made a daring escape from the prison itself and found refuge in a friendly Latin American embassy, something that we can now see was providential. Since then, Montaner's writings show a penetrating analysis of the monster of Havana - he knows castro's mind better than castro himself. Check out that very first reply to the interviewer, - amazingly clear thinking! He's truly insightful, and every word he says must be read over and over.

So that we don't ever lose its link on El Universal, I reproduce it here:

INTERVIEW / Carlos Alberto Montaner and the Cuban transition
"Caracas will shiver with Castro's death"

"(Venezuelan President Hugo) Chávez will be politically forsaken and become a division factor between Cuba and Venezuela." In the opinion of the writer in exile, nobody in Cuba loves the Venezuelan leader

BY ROBERTO GIUSTI
EL UNIVERSAL

Cuban author, journalist and politician Carlos Alberto Montaner has been in exile for more than two thirds of his life. In Cuba, "when the time of freedom comes, in the course of one generation, a relaxed, flourishing democracy may form the spearhead in Latin America, along with Chile, by using the tools of political and economic freedoms," he dared to say.

He expressed willingness to take part in the country's reconstruction. And he does not think that imperialist plans underlie the offer made by the administration of US President George W. Bush for a smooth transition. "Cuba's annexation is the worst nightmare of an US President. In three-day term, 90 percent of Cuban inhabitants would be settled down in the United States."

Q: Is not Fidel Castro's imminent death another lure to test the reaction in Venezuela, the United States and Cuba?

A: Fidel Castro's death is announced every once in a while because everybody, including his followers, looks forward to it. Some indications point towards that direction. As he will turn 80 years soon, has suffered several brain ischemias and shows symptoms of decrepitude, it is expected that he will die in the short term or become totally disabled.

Q: Taking into account that he is the boss, is it possible that Castro himself spreads these rumors?

A: Sure enough, Fidel himself is responsible for the rumors about his health. It is obvious that he is trying to organize post-Castrism at forced march and he acts this way because he presages his death. He smashes reformers; evicts foreign corporations; chases opposition democrats as furiously as ever, and forces his brother Raúl to say in public, to read out a written speech, that following the top leader's death, the caudillo leadership will also vanish and the party will rule. Incidentally, in that speech delivered before high-ranking army officers, Raúl wore a bullet-proof jacket and a shielded cap.

Q: What, in your view, is the reason for the comeback of the most bigoted standpoints?

A: By means of re-Stalinization, Castro wants to avoid any reforming inconstancy through the party ranks. Today, dissidents are not his bitterest foes, because he has had an iron fist to keep them under control, but revolutionaries who want changes. However, when he dies, after an amazing funeral, including hysteria scenes, there will be a steep readjustment at the top leadership.

Q: How do you envisage the transition? Will a popular uprising sweep away the regime once and for all? Will succession take place, as planned by Castro, by means of a collegiate leadership of the Communist Party Central Bureau? Or will his brother Raúl's military clan come in?

A: Initially, Raúl Castro will inherit the authority, but perhaps in a divided way, as it happened in the Soviet Union after Stalin's death. Somebody like Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque, who looks like the commander's clone and promises that his ideas are by no means different from his boss' ideas, will play the role of political head. Carlos Lage will continue being the madhouse sorrowful manager. Raúl Castro will keep the control of the armed forces and the Ministry of the Interior through his buddy, General Colomé Ibarra.

Q: That is, the same old story, except for Fidel.

A: No, because the collegiate administration will be short-lived. The key components are present for the system demise. Top leaders are demoralized and the society is deeply disappointed at collectivism and dictatorship. After half a century of failures, misery and rationing, one must be a blithering idiot to believe that someday the situation will get better.

Q: Are you talking about popular uprising?

A: Cubans are aware that Castro's has been the worst government in the country's history. After almost 50 years, all problems have gotten worse -food, transportation, housing, water supply, power supply. Dictatorships are usually a despicable misfortune, but at least they improve the material conditions of their people's lives. Juan Vicente Gómez and Marcos Pérez Jiménez were brutal, but in the material area the Venezuela they left was better than the one they received. After an outrageous dictatorship, Castro will pass on Cubans a sty planted with dungeons and a society overwhelmed by poverty. It is a unique case of iron hand in the world history.

Q: Based on Fidel Castro's overriding influence over President Hugo Chávez' political project, how would his death affect the goal of moving ahead in consolidation of a totalitarian regime?

A: The effects of Castro's death will be felt not only in Havana. Caracas will shiver also. Chávez will be politically forsaken and become a division factor between the two countries. Castro and Chávez dream of federating both countries, but they fear the reaction in both nations.

Q: Federating them for Chávez to inherit the power and rule the alleged federation?

A: Last December, Cuban Vice-President Carlos Lage said in Caracas that Cuba had two presidents -Castro and Chávez. It was a sounding balloon, but the trial did not work. It was a way of appointing Chávez as Castro's heir. But Cubans do not want Chávez. Those in the power view him as an untrustworthy guy who tries irresponsibly to go back to the adventurous, interventionist climate of the Cold War. Those years, a lot of people were killed and sacrificed in the island. More sensible Cuban authorities felt a sense of relief when the Soviet Union collapsed. At least, the adventures of the "revolutionary internationalism" that made them fight for 15 years in bloody African wars were over.

Q: The Cuban people must be thankful because their standard of living improved thanks to Chávez' aid.

A: Ordinary Cubans do not want Chávez either. They resent the special treatment given to the Venezuelans who visit the island for health care or political and paramilitary training. Those Venezuelans, due to their privileges, cooperate in the humiliating apartheid suffered by ordinary Cubans, who are apart from the comfortable life enjoyed by the leading class.

Q: It is just that many Venezuelans feel that Cubans and Fidel Castro are the bosses in Venezuela.

A: Reasonably enough, Venezuelans view the Cuban Government as a greedy bloodsucker determined to keep a totally nonproductive system that can survive only by means of the Venezuelan charity, accounting now for thousand million US dollars. It is always uncomfortable to be a colony. But being a colony of a failed, third-world banana dictatorship is an insult. Venezuelans, including Chávez' supporters, do not understand why they should pay such a huge invoice while 60 percent of the society is awfully poor. Castro and Chávez joined in a secret marriage that distresses tremendously the two families. Everybody, except for the two of them, feels cheated. Both for Venezuela and Cuba, this marriage is a terrible misfortune.

Translated by Conchita Delgado

I've blogged about Luis Garcia, the Cuban-Australian author of Child of the Revolution here, here and here.

Now you can hear the Cuban with the Australian accent talk about his book on this Australian radio interview.

Other interviews are available here.

And the book can be purchased through this Australian bookseller. Prices are in Australian dollars.

From: The Australian

Memories of Cuba

Journalist and political adviser Luis M. Garcia was a good little communist until his parents decided to flee the Castro regime, writes Justine Ferrari

June 10, 2006

IN one of life's surreal moments, Luis Garcia and his family went on holidays in the middle of the Cuban missile crisis. As the rest of the world held its breath, Garcia and his younger brother Jose Antonio swam in the warm Caribbean sea in sight of US warships moored off the coast of Cuba's Playa de Morales.
The boys built sandcastles and laid roads in the sand, turning rocks into trucks to carry missiles to protect the revolution, while their mother worried. "When my mother looks up at the horizon, she can see the ships. There are five, six, probably a dozen huge, grey American ships anchored just off the coast," Garcia writes in his memoir, Child of the Revolution.

"The ships look really close, as if you could almost swim to them, and they look threatening, making my mother even more nervous than she already is, which is plenty."

Even after moving to Australia in 1972, Garcia's mother, Gisela, still could not shake the fear of political instability. The day Gough Whitlam was dismissed, Garcia arrived home from school to find his mother in a terrible panic, waiting for her family to arrive home.

"The government was falling and she was sure the tanks would be out in the street any minute and people would be arrested," he says. "That was the first time she realised Australia was a very different place. It was a much welcome anti-climax. It was probably when she decided this was the right place to be."

Garcia, 47, is the same age as the Cuban revolution, born the year Fidel Castro and his guerillas seized power. Before Castro, the Garcias had run a successful shop in the small sugar town of Banes, about 15 hours' drive from Havana.

Banes is near Cuba's largest harbour, where the Russian missiles were shipped in, which put the town unwittingly in the middle of the incident now judged to be the nearest the world has come to nuclear war.

While Cuba has an attractive romanticism that lures tourists to see the faded glory of Havana, sip mojitos, smoke a Montecristo and listen to the salsa from the Buena Vista Social Club, growing up there was very different.

Garcia's childhood revolved around Lenin, Marx, Che Guevara and, of course, Castro, as well as queuing for food while hankering after pork and chewing gum. Never stand between a Cuban and a pork chop, he says, while chewing gum was a rare and highly prized commodity among neighbourhood children.

As a good little communist, Garcia's world was turned on its head when his parents decided to leave Cuba after 10 years of the regime. It was not a decision to be taken lightly.

Garcia's father Juan Luis was sent to a labour camp for three years to cut sugar cane, and the police took a stocktake of everything in the house from the plates in the kitchen to the pillows and clothes in the bedroom. It now all belonged to the state.

"Once we decided to leave, we knew anything we did, any little thing could jeopardise you leaving. Even at the airport, they took my mother and aunt away and strip-searched them, which I remember so vividly," he says.

"I remember thinking at the time they'll come back and say, 'You've got to go back. You're not leaving.' My father was a nervous wreck. And that experience is not just theirs.

"It's the experience of anyone who left Cuba at that time. Any petty official in an olive green uniform could put a black mark next to your name and that was that."

After a few months in Spain, the plan was to move to New York, where Garcia's aunt and uncle, who had put up the money for them to leave Cuba, now lived.

But they ended up in Australia, largely because Juan Luis couldn't say no and the Australian embassy persisted with offers of free

air fares and even money to buy luggage to convince the Garcias to call Australia home.

Garcia says it was easier to start again in Australia than it would have been in the US.

"Florida is like Havana with airconditioning. Here it was much easier to leave that behind and start again and draw a line that separated the past. It would have been much more difficult in the US."

After finishing high school in Sydney and completing a university degree, Garcia landed a cadetship with The Australian Financial Review and then spent many years at The Sydney Morning Herald, mostly covering NSW politics.

"No job opens as many doors," he says of journalism. But becoming a journalist was not a conscious reaction to his communist upbringing, where the trade in information was heavily controlled. Nor was deciding to work for NSW Liberal MP Kerry Chikarovski, first as a ministerial press secretary and later as her chief of staff when she became Opposition leader.

Yet there's no doubt Garcia was politically aware from a young age. He says the disintegration of his position as a political adviser, as Chikarovski lost the leadership, was the low point of his career.

Now a partner with Sydney-based corporate communications firm Cannings, Garcia has never been back to Cuba, despite marrying a Cuban and applying for a visa when he was planning his honeymoon.

"I was a journalist and they never said no, but I never got a reply back. I decided even though I would like to go back I'd wait until there's a change in government. Sadly for me, it seems to be going on and on and on forever."

Garcia believes the oppressive Government in Cuba will die with Castro, who turns 81 in August.

"Everyone knows that things will change but there's this waiting game for the biological solution," he says.

"I doubt very much whether I'd go back to live in Cuba. I certainly miss it but I'm Australian and my kids [he has a son and a daughter] are Australian. But there must be something about the place that has this incredible hold on your mind, because my father is really only first-generation Cuban. My grandparents were Spanish. I think when you leave the place that was your initial home, it's a joy and a burden that you carry with you."

I recently posted an article about Luis Garcia, the Cuban-Australian author of the forthcoming book Child of the Revolution. I subsequently contacted him and he was kind enough to answer my numerous questions via email.

HG: Why did your parents take you to Australia? It's obviously the furthest place from Cuba, culturally and geographically.

LG: We ended up in Australia – en el otro lado del mundo, as my mother says – by sheer accident. We arrived in Spain in 1971 with the intention of travelling on to New York to join my aunt and her family. But then we discovered that this was easier said than done – there was a wait of at least two years. So, a friend of my father suggested this other, great land of opportunity: Australia. It took my father months to convince my mother but eventually she relented and so we arrived here in early 1972. That’s a whole separate story, let me tell you. When we arrived in Sydney, we knew no one, couldn’t speak English, and had no idea what awaited us. Crazy, I know.

HG: How is your story different than Carlos Eire's which he documented in his excellent book Waiting for Snow in Havana? How is your story similar?

There are some similarities between Child of the Revolution and Waiting for Snow in Havana (by the way, what a great title), in that both look at a period in Cuban history through the eyes of a child. The key difference is time. I was born in July 1959, so I have no memories at all of Cuba before Castro.

HG: Many of Fidel's biggest detractors today were once on board with the revolution. In that sense it was a popular Revolution at the time, many people fought to rid Cuba of the Batista dictatorship only to begin a new fight against the Castro dictatorship. Where did your family fit in to all of this? Was your father political? Your press materials mention that your father was forced to go to a labor camp. What were the reasons given?

LG: My parents were not involved in politics but like many Cubans, they were generally supportive of the Revolution and its aims in the beginning. Like everyone else, they assumed that Castro would keep his word and hold elections within 12 or 18 months.

Some of my extended family, however, were involved in the process. One of my uncles was a barbudo in the Sierra Maestra, while others were working for the underground in Oriente province against Batista.

My father was sent to the labour camp (there is no better term for these places) in mid 1968, as soon as it became known that we’d applied to leave Cuba. As you know, this happened to all gusanos back then. He spent the next three years cutting sugarcane, a terrible time for the entire family but especially for him. He never complains about it. I admire that.

HG: How has growing up as a teenager and young adult in Australia transformed you?

LG: I would like to think I have taken on board much of what is good about a place like Australia – its sense of egalitarianism, an ability to laugh at yourself and not take things too seriously, loyalty to your mates, a fondness for beer...

HG: I know of other Cuban families living in Australia, but I can't imagine there are too many. Is there any social club or group of Cuban-Australians in Sydney or in other cities in the country?

LG: You are right there, my friend. There are probably about 100 or so Cuban families in Australia. Most came at about that time – early 1970s – and most live in Sydney and yes, we all know each other. It’s like extended family – with all that entails!

There is no social club as such but somehow, los viejos in particular tend to get together at least once a month and do what you’d expect Cubans to do: play domino, listen to Celia Cruz, argue about politics and make tremendo escandalo!

HG: Where do you go when you get the urge for un cortadito, or una medianoche?

LG: Un cortadito: at home. Una medianoche: Miami.

HG: Do you speak English with an Australian accent?

LG: Strewth, cobber. What do you reckon?

HG: You work for a corporate communications company. How did you end up in that career?

LG: I started my journalistic career in 1981, after graduating from The University of Sydney. Journalism was what I always wanted to do. I started with The Australian Financial Review, which is a financial daily – a Down Under version of The Wall Street Journal. From there, I moved to The Sydney Morning Herald (SMH), which is Australia’s oldest daily and similar in history and approach to papers such as The New York Times.

I was at the SMH for about 15 years with stints in between as a political adviser, including time as Chief of Staff to a senior minister.

Working in corporate communications brings together my experience in both areas, I guess. It’s good fun.

HG: You were a journalist previously, what is your evaluation of the way Cuba is covered (or not covered) in the media?

LG: The Australian media, like their counterparts in the US and elsewhere, has a very schizophrenic approach to Cuba. Plenty of stories about the “colourful” crumbling colonial buildings in Havana (blamed on the American embargo, of course), and about Castro’s terrific health system, etc, etc. Then there will be a story about the lack of basic human rights in Cuba, and speculation about what will happen when Castro dies… All in the same paper, sometimes in the same week. I guess it’s their idea of being fair?

But overall, with some notable exceptions, the coverage goes easy on Castro.

HG: How much of the sympathy much of the world has for castro do you think is a direct result of anti-Americanism?

LG: I think 95 to 99 per cent.

HG: In a recent interview with the Sunday Telegraph, you mentioned the popularity of Che Guevara among young people. Do you think they see him as a symbol of anti-establishment? anti-Americanism? pro-communist? Anarchist?

LG: I think some see Che Guevara as some sort of revolutionary, anti-US hero from long, long ago. But I think most see Che Guevara from a purely consumerist point of view. You know, a “cool”, iconic brand. No different to Nike or iPod...

HG: How long did the book take to write? You mentioned that you're happy to have completed it. Why was it difficult? What were the most painful recollections to put down on paper?

LG: Sometimes, I think I started writing this book the day left Cuba. I know Cubans would understand what I mean... But I got serious about it a couple of years ago when I overheard my daughter, who is now 19, speaking to her grandfather - in a combination of Spanish and English - about Cuba and those first few years after Castro came to power. I thought, there is something here I’d like to leave behind for my own kids.

It was a difficult enterprise in the sense that some of the recollections were painful – and there were aspects of what I remember that only surfaced when I started putting pen to paper. A friend who knows me well says it was a cathartic experience which is a wanky term for trying to come to terms with your past, I think. I am still glad I wrote it.

HG: What were the challenges as a writer, writing about events that occurred when you were a child?

LG: I have attempted to write a book that is a faithful retelling of memories that have endured with surprising clarity over all this time. As far as possible, I attempted to confirm what I recall with my parents and other members of my extended family – most of whom are now living outside Cuba. They were very helpful.

But it’s a story based on what I remember. It’s my interpretation. So, some of the events I describe in the book may be remembered differently by others. It doesn’t mean I am right and they are wrong, of course.

HG: You have mentioned the indoctrination that you were subjected to in school as a child. How did your parents handle that? Did they try to counter the propaganda? Did they tell you not to repeat (at school) certain things they told you at home?

LG: In some ways, that is what the book is about – a battle between Castro and my parents for the mind of an 11 year old. I would be taught something at school, get home, tell my parents what I had been told and they’d shake their heads and say something like, No, niño, no... Mira… and on they went. Of course, the pressure to conform, to belong was enormous. In fact, I think I only became convinced that my parents were right and Castro was wrong after I left Cuba. It was amazing – as if this thick fog had suddenly been lifted.

And yes, you are right: It was always a case of, Niño, ten cuidado con lo que dices, por Dios!

Of course, the experiences I recount in the book are not unique. More than a million other Cubans have left the island since Castro came to power and most had to go through the same hardships and humiliations my parents had to go through to get out.

HG: Tell me something about Australia that most Americans wouldn't know or would be surprised to learn.

LG: Where to start? Australia is a great place to live. We have never regretted ending up in Australia, even though my parents had a tough time at first with no friends, no family and no English. And no café cubano!

Australians are very open-hearted, and they have this endearing habit of always downplaying their achievements. It’s called the “tall poppy syndrome”. It means you don’t advertise your success. You don’t let it go to your head. And you treat everyone equally even though, quite clearly, they are not. It’s the sort of place where the Prime Minister always (and I mean always) travels in the front passenger seat of his official car, next to the driver. Never in the back seat...

One other thing: Australians love this weird concoction called Vegemite, which is a black, salty spread you put on your toast. Like guayaba without the flavour. I hate it. My Aussie-born kids love it. Que enredo...

* * *

Child of the Revolution will be officially released tomorrow (June 2nd) in Australia. The official web site for the book is here. And you can also purchase the book here. Prices are listed in Australian dollars which are about 75 cents US.

]]> http://babalublog.com/2006/06/child-of-the-revolution-interview-with-the-author/feed/ 11 http://babalublog.com/2006/05/cubans-down-under/ http://babalublog.com/2006/05/cubans-down-under/#comments Fri, 26 May 2006 18:24:38 +0000 Henry Louis Gomez http://babalublog.com/wpr/2006/05/cubans-down-under/

If there's one thing that I've learned since I've been studying Cuba and blogging about it, it's that there are Cubans in every corner of the world. One Cuban-Australian named Luis Garcia is releasing a new book called Child of the Revolution. He recently did an interview with Australia's Sunday Telegraph. Read it here. From what I can gather, the book may have some similarities to Carlos Eire's Waiting for Snow in Havana but Garcia is younger than Eire (he was born in 1959) and thus he has no recollections of Cuba Bc. I've already placed my order. Can't wait to read it.

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