…an island on the net without a bearded dictator
News, views and other items related to Cubans living outside of Cuba, be it in the United States or anywhere else.
Many years ago, my father took my brother and I to see “Marcelino pan y vino” in Cuba. I don’t remember when we saw it, but it should have been around 1962. The movie was shown at a church. My guess is that it was not a public event because the Catholic schools had already been shut down.
Yes, my parents used to pronounce “béisbol” like the legendary Chico Escuela.
It’s “Good Friday” so my late Cuban mother would be happy if I abstained from arguing about politics today and share some memories of Easter 1965, or, our first one here in the U.S.
Guest Marcos Nelson Suarez, a journalist and author who left Cuba at that time, remembers the Mariel incident that sent 100,000 Cubans to the US back in 1980.
Before Castro destroyed the Cuban economy with “hope and change,” the island enjoyed a lot of prosperity with an economy that would produce a middle-class and educated people.
We chat with Carlos Rubio, a Cuban American author who attended Concord College, West Virginia University, and the University of Maryland, as well as other stories.
Desi Arnaz was born Desiderio Alberto Arnaz y de Acha III on this day in 1917. His father was a politician and mayor of Santiago de Cuba, or the second-largest city on the island. In the 1930’s, Mr Arnaz sent Desi and his mother to the US. He joined them a little later. Over here, Desi worked in odd jobs and eventually found himself playing “bongos” on stage.
The “Big Band” era had tremendous influence in Cuban music: Beny More, Orquesta Riverside, Perez Prado and many others. As a kid, I remember hearing Glenn Miller stories from my father and how many on the island collected his LP’s.
The great talking horse Mr. Ed died in 1979 at age 31. We grew up watching Mr. Ed, although more have probably seen it on reruns. It was a great show and the theme music was super:
We landed in Wisconsin in September 1964 and everything was Packers football. It was the NFL on CBS and the AFL on NBC. They played on Sunday afternoon, and Vince Lombardy had a weekly show on TV to talk about the last and upcoming games.
Who remembers Jim Brown carrying the ball many years ago?
Much has changed since many of us came here in 1964. Perhaps the biggest change is that we had one TV in the living room back then. This is probably why the Sullivan show was so popular: because it had something for everybody. Hard to believe that today when everybody is connected to something on his phone.
Fernando Hernandez, author of ‘The Cubans,” and I talk about successful Cuban-American businesswomen, including names such Julie Stav, Isabel Toledo, Lucila Jimenez, Aida Levitan, Maricela Presilla and Tere Zubizarreta.
