As a kid growing up in Little Havana, there was only one television character on American television I identified with: Ricky Ricardo in I Love Lucy. Cuban actor, singer, and performer Desi Arnaz embodied our experience of growing up as both Americans and Cubans. Like us, he was a Cuban living in an American world and he took advantage of the best both worlds offered.
This is an old report (from 2004), but one worth repeating. Desi Arnaz was really just like us: Proud to live in America, and proud to support freedom in Cuba.
Desi Arnaz Secretly Funded Anti-Castro Groups
May 9, 2004
Desi Arnaz of “I Love Lucy” fame and fortune helped finance the freedom of hundreds of Bay of Pigs fighters captured in 1961 by Cuban government forces, veterans say.
A belated thank you to the late entertainer has now happened, 18 years after he died.
This past Friday, according to a Miami Herald report, surviving vets of the Bay of Pigs invasion presented a posthumous award to daughter Lucie Arnaz for his “moral support and generosity.”
That generosity was legend among Bay of Pigs veterans.
“He always supported the Cuban cause,” said Felix Rodriguez Mendigutia, president of Bay of Pigs Veterans Association. “Anything against Fidel Castro, he supported.”
In accepting the award, Lucie Arnaz said her father would have felt honored. She revealed that even she was unaware that her famous father had given money to the cause of the imprisoned invaders, but said it would be consistent with his character and his sympathies.
“Knowing my dad and my grandfather, I’m sure they were emotionally very involved in the Bay of Pigs invasion. I’m sure my father would be very proud to be acknowledged,” Arnaz added.
Surrounded by admirers of her father at the Miami event, Arnaz said, “I feel like I have a lot of friends and family here. We’re all probably related.” Desi Arnaz was a native-born Cuban.
Nilo Messer, vice president of the association and one of the invaders who were imprisoned, said, “We would always get news from the common prisoners and the employees. Someone told me that Desi Arnaz was helping with the efforts to get us out. He was one of the people pushing for a commission to negotiate our release.”
The veterans say Arnaz donated $50,000 — an amount worth about $300,000 today. Reportedly, Arnaz gave the money to a commission headed by Eleanor Roosevelt that arranged to send $53 million worth of food, medicine and farm equipment to Cuba in exchange for the prisoners’ release.
Arnaz also provided seed money for several exile organizations, said the Herald report. Arnaz also is said to have provided the contact that led to liberated prisoners appearing on the Ed Sullivan show.
“He cooperated a lot,” Rodriguez said. “And he never sought any publicity for helping us or anyone else. Now that he’s gone, we want to honor his memory.”
I don’t know; he doesn’t look too “Latino” to me.
Things have changed considerably, obviously. Prominent Cuban-Americans now go for “normalization.”