Author Adrianne Miller's Blog

Carlos Eire is a well known prize winning Cuban author and Yale University Professor of History and Religious Studies,  who like me, came to the U.S. in the Pedro Pan airlift.
Carlos Eire is the author of 2003 National Book Award–winning memoir “Waiting for Snow in Havana,” and the recently released Waiting yo Die in Miami: Confessions of a Refugee Boy.
Not all letters sent to Carlos are fan mail.  Here is a letter he received and his response:

Dear Mr. Eire,

Being very interested in cuba a friend of mine recently made me a present of your book, waiting for Snow in Havana.As the saying goes there are always two sides to any story or as they say in France where i live ” il ya toujours deux sons de cloche “. Yesterday i read the other side of the story by the illustrious trovador Silvio Rodriquez, who recently performed in several cities
in America with great success and who is known even in Cuba to be someone with a very open mind and speaks very openly without any censorship or hindrance.

I am sending you a copy of his interview. Of course, his remembrance of his growing up in Havana is very different from yours. Maybe this is because he didn’t live in Mirarmar and didn’t have all the privileges you had. He also feels Fidel made mistakes, but bears him no hatred, maybe because he is not a violent nor vindictive person who never got pleasure from killing lizards. I also agree that Fidel Castro has made many errors, particularly in the economic area, but he gave Cuba three things that no American president has yet been able to give to his people: education, culture and health care. Yes the USA has those three things too, but basically only through the private sector reserved for those people who can afford it like those that lived in Miramar.
In peace and best wishes.

Sincerely,
from France

Here is Carlos’ response:

Dear From France
Thanks for writing, and for letting me know that you consider me a selfish bastard.
Obviously, yes, there is another side to my story, just as there is another side to the story of the Holocaust, and that of the Gulag. All of the Nazis and Stalinists who slaughtered millions of people had their story to tell too, and they thought that their actions were justified.
Mass murderers and psycho killers have their side of the story too. And some people are enthralled by black-velvet paintings of Elvis.

As the French would say, chacun à son goût. Or as the learned used to say, de gustibus non disputandum.
Which story one believes or how one approaches the sublime depends on how one discerns right from wrong.

I understand that for those who believe in the gospel of Marx and Lenin, all of history is defined by class struggle and the worst wrong of all is private property and the “privileges” that come with it. So, from that perspective, whatever violence takes place against the “privileged” is always right and justified.
I just don’t happen to agree with that view. And the fact that I was born into privilege has little to do with it, for thanks to Castro and company I ended up at the very bottom of American society, a penniless orphan and a “spic” who was constantly reminded by teachers and counselors that his proper place in the world was at the bottom. So, I’ve been there, with the poorest, living in the same slums, facing all of the discrimination and obstacles that those at the very bottom must surpass. And no one helped me out of the pit. I climbed out because I was lucky enough to live in a free society where effort and
accomplishment are not punished, but naturally rewarded. I know poverty, and have lived much longer as a poor man than as a child of privilege. But I don’t think that creating a murderous dictatorship that enforces the redistribution of goods is the solution to poverty.

Aaaaarghhhh…. I could go on and on, but I will try to keep my response brief. I know I can’t change the way you think. I am now old enough to realize that it is very hard to convert anyone who is committed to their faith. And it seems to me that you exhibit all the signs of a pious enthusiast, for anyone who thinks that the so-called Cuban revolution is a good thing is indeed a religious zealot, for seeing the destruction of Cuba and the enslavement of its people as a good thing takes commitment to a very specific ideology, that of the prophets Marx and Lenin.

Anyway, my friend, I’m glad we both live in a world where we can communicate freely and disagree with one another. If we were both in Cuba, we’d be unable to have this exchange, because you or someone else would probably be denouncing me
to the authorities, and I would end up in prison, simply for voicing an “incorrect” point of view.

Communism has killed more human beings than any other ideology or religion in the history of planet earth. It has also stifled the free exchange of ideas more cruelly and systematically than any imperial power driven by greed. Yet, many continue to believe in it.

Here is my take on communism: it only works for monks and nuns or for religious communities such as the Hutterites, that is, it only truly works among those who willingly commit themselves to it out of religious conviction. And even in such
communities, it often falls apart and ceases to work. Once it is forced on entire populations, it never works, and becomes unjust to the maximum, since it requires the constant use of violence and leads to all sorts of inequities. Under Communism, “privilege” is never abolished. On the contrary, it becomes more entrenched than under capitalism, and — even worse — is restricted to an even smaller number of elites.

The three so-called benefits that you think were provided to the Cuban people by Castro and company are illusory. First of all, Cuba had plenty of education, culture, and medical care before Castro came along. In 1958, Cuba had a literacy rate of nearly 80%, a lower infant mortality rate than many European countries, a vibrant mix of European and African culture (which gave the world the rumba, mambo, and cha-cha-cha, along with Jose Raul Capablanca, a world chess champion), more television sets and more newspapers per capita than Italy, and attracted over one million European immigrants, and so on… I could send you a long list of items that prove that Cuba was no third world country before it became Castrolandia.
Anyway… what about these so-called achievements of Castrolandia? What is the use of educating people if you restrict freedom of expression and communication? What is the use of health care if you deprive people of autonomy and bar them
> > from all of the privileges enjoyed by tourists to their country? Slave owners provide health care for their slaves, after all, because they are investments. And they educate them too, so they can perform their assigned tasks.

Hitler provided health care and education and culture for his people too.

So, as you can see, you’ve pushed my buttons, as the saying goes. Writing to me and wagging your finger the way you have is an act of aggression, not much different from telling a Holocaust or Gulag survivor that what happened to them and their family was justified. Sending me an article from Granma is just like sending a rape victim a note from the rapist, or sending a page out of “Mein Kampf” to a Holocaust survivor. In other words, your email is an act of unkindness, not much different from a death threat, or an excommunication that seeks to damn me to eternal suffering for the sin of “privilege.”

Yes, I am scum. You are right. I deserved being torn from my family and being prevented from ever seeing my father again, or from attending his funeral. I deserve to die, and to be tortured for years, until the day of my excruciatingly painful execution, and also for eternity after I die. And so does everyone who does not believe in communism. Is that what you were hoping I would say?

I attach two items. One is a brief list of all of the commonplace human rights that are denied to Cubans. The other is an essay I wrote a few years ago.

All the best to you, sincerely… I hope you continue to live in a society that allows you to express yourself freely, and to wag your finger with abandon — a society totally unlike that from which I had to flee.

Peace, love, and freedom, and mutual respect… forever,

Carlos Eire

It began almost unperceived, like a loose thread on a sweater not spotted until the garment begins to unravel, or the almost imperceptive crack in a coffee mug so familiar that it is seldom inspected.

The bearded man was welcome among his people. They ran to meet him, jubilant and full of hope on the day of his triumphant arrival.  On an island adorned with bright multi colored flowers, sunny skies where clouds loved to play, and a vibrant blue ocean, Olive Green made its debut.  Right away we should have known the color was all wrong.  It resonated with nothing that surrounded us. But we were used to playing with chameleons as children, and were willing to wait for Fidel to get his bearings and change the color of his dress.

A little girl had grown up on that island, her body nurtured by its sun and the salty ocean breezes, and her heart by the sweetness of the friends that surrounded her and her faith in God. She had turned eleven a little over two months before her island began to change color, although the first threads had begun to unravel one day a few years before when she arrived home from school to find a tortured man dying on her bed.

Shortly after the arrival of Fidel, of Olive Green, her history began to be rewritten.  Fidel, who promised to liberate the island from a cruel dictator, wove a tale instead of being the liberator of a country consumed by poverty and inequality to justify his Communist dictatorship.

One day the whole world came to believe him.

I was that eleven- year old girl.

When Olive Green began to cloud over all the colors of my island two years later, I was sent away to a land where different colors that still shimmered in the sun.  For half a century I have carried a burden of sadness and longing for the island where my bones were formed.  An island that now only exists in the memory of the last generation of its children.

I have watched myself age, my face as changed as the island that lies dormant and decaying, now fully covered by an Olive Green cloth, as if Christo had chosen to make her his next work of art and been let loose upon her shores.

As I get closer to the ending of my life, I feel an urgent need to speak.  Who will tell all the twelve- year old children who walk on the island today, that the ruins under their feet are but the remnants of a golden island that once shone like a million tons of gold?

Who will tell the twelve -year old children all over the world that we watched as a paradise disappeared because the power of one man’s word was greater than that of the shouts of two million exiles? How do we explain to them that our voices were drowned out no matter how loudly they spoke even by the press of the free country that harbored us?

I will.  I will join my voice to that of their other ancestors who tirelessly tell the truth. That they once lived on an island adorned with bright multi colored flowers, sunny skies where clouds loved to play, and a vibrant blue ocean, before Olive Green made its debut.

CONTRIBUTION BY HORACIO TOLEDO

It must be to him like catching fish with an artificial fly. He practices deceit as a sport. This is a true story and not a novel as it would seem to those who have not had to deal in person with a warped, weird mind.

I will not go into to the many speeches where he deceived the masses.  I will describe only very minor incidents, personal encounters that some of my good friends and I had with Castro during the first 12 months of his being in power. It is a “collage”, snapshots of various dramatic incidents that may give you an insight as to how evil minds function.

Eight of Castro’s rebels from the Sierra arrived in Havana on or about January 5, l959. Their Commander was a distinguished young attorney and a close friend of our next-door neighbors who asked me if I could give shelter in my home to these eight men. I had met him a couple of times but in civilian clothes when he was practicing law before the revolution. His men had not had one decent meal for days and had no place to sleep they looked tired.  Batista had already fled Cuba but his army was still occupying their barracks so I invited the group to stay with us.  The men were most grateful. All were young, one of them only 18 years old.

I had long conversations with them and learned that they had been in the Sierra Maestra Mountains of Oriente Province for two years, patriotic young farmers who did not like Batista’s practice of allowing corruption.  They wanted a true democratic process and had great faith that Fidel would celebrate free elections as he had numerous times promised them.

Much to my astonishment one late afternoon I arrived at my home to find the youngest rebel crying like a baby. He was sitting on a couch with his two hands covering his face sobbing. “My God, oh my God, Fidel is a traitor!” he said.  “We were instructed to report at Camp Freedom (Campamento Libertad in Spanish) for special military training and all I and my group were given was a communist manifesto to read and a lot of communist gibberish. When I stood up and shouted that I had fought for democracy not for communism I was thrown out of the room.  ‘Horacio, call our Commander, he’s staying in his mother’s apartment and tell him what has happened.  I am going back to my parent’s home in Oriente.”

That same evening Comandante (Commander) Frau Marsal showed up dressed in a white suit and tie and told me he had made an appointment with Fidel Castro late that evening.  He wanted to confront Fidel with what his men and other rebels had reported to him.  He also asked me to help him move the rifles grenades and ammunition he had stored in our neighbor’s library, “they will not all fit in my Jeep so I’d like your permission to put them in the trunk of your car,” he said. Then he dropped the bombshell: “It seems right now that Castro has deceived many of us, I am hiding everything in another place in case we start a counter revolution.  I will call you tomorrow and let you know the results of my meeting with him tonight.”

He called early in the morning and his first words were:  “Horacio, I and my men are going underground, we risked our lives for nothing, Fidel is a traitor and we must start a counter revolution before the communists gain control.” The last time I heard of him was that he had committed suicide in Caracas, Venezuela. Comandante Frau Marsal had on two occasions saved Fidel and a group of his rebels from being captured by Batista’s forces who had managed to encircle them.  If effect, he had saved Fidel’s life on two very dangerous skirmishes. Fidel had run circles around this brilliant attorney, a true patriot who was so frustrated and depressed that he ended his life at age 40.

How Fidel managed to deceive these men for two years, a brilliant attorney and several of his men all of whom had risked prison or death in the Sierra Maestra Mountains is a remarkable feat that only a Fidel Castro can be capable of.

Another attorney Tulio Diaz Rivera, a most able and decent man and President of the Cigarette Manufacturers Association of Cuba was on a private plane. He landed at the small municipal airport of the city of Trinidad, a historic colonial city in the Southern part of Cuba. Diego Trinidad owner of a very large cigarette manufacturing firm and a close friend of ours was interested in buying some of the older cigarette making machines that “Eva” (a small competitor) had just substituted for newer ones.  Attorney Tulio’s job was to negotiate a fair price and write a contract for this machinery.  As the one engine plane was touching the runway Tulio saw a weird and confusing scene. Soldiers running up and down yelling “Abajo Fidel” (Down with Fidel). As soon as Tulio and his pilot got off the plane both were placed under arrest and taken to a small office building.  They kept hearing rifle shots and more shouts of “Abajo Fide!” and “Viva Trujillo.”  Chaos, confusion, Tulio could not make heads or tails from what he was witnessing. “Down with Fidel, Viva Trujillo?”

While under arrest he and the pilot were sitting on a wooden bench with a view to an open window when Tulio jumped from the bench.  Fidel Castro was walking towards them! They knew each other very well so as soon as Fidel walked in the office and saw Tulio he walked up to him to shake hands.  The explanation of what was going on soon became clear.  Castro had set up a trap for dictator Trujillo’s invasion of Cuba being organized from the Dominican Republic. There was radio communication received by Trujillo’s Intelligence Service that an uprising was taking place in the Trinidad area so it was ripe for Trujillo’s paratroopers to invade. The whole invasion plan was discarded apparently when the ruse was discovered. This was one more victory won by the Master of Deceit.

Tulio heard Fidel Castro clearly ordering an officer to let him go free.  His exact words were “ponganlo en libertad” meaning in English to set him free. My friend felt great relief but was sent instead to a military camp newly re-named “Libertad” which translated to English meant Camp Liberty.  It was a farce.  Tulio was thrown behind bars at Camp Liberty not allowed to call a lawyer not even to call his wife or anyone. He was kept in prison for days and finally released without any document or explanation as to why nor what he had been accused of.

But this was only one of Tulio’s nightmares. Castro was trying to convince the foreign press and many Cuban business people that he was far from being a communist (in an effort to gain as much time as possible to consolidate his power) so he chose to become the main speaker at a reunion of the Association of Cuban Industrialists.   It was a packed meeting that Tulio had decided to attend the day after he was set free in an effort to learn why and for what reasons he had been thrown in jail. Tulio recounted his experience and said to me:  “Fidel was at that meeting surrounded by the most prominent industrialists when he saw me walking toward him. He elbowed his way from the group and said out loud: ‘Tulio, how I admire you for having the guts to come here tonight. A horrible mistake was made and I must apologize.  He then hugged me in front of all the industrialists.”

That very same night Tulio received threatening phone calls suggesting it was best for him to leave the country or else. It was a sleepless night for him and his wife.  They caught a late flight the next day to Miami. Castro, the Master of Deceit, enjoyed having one more victory. He had gotten rid of another brilliant man. Castro’s intimidation tactics made this possible with many of the distinguished Cubans.

Then comes the story of a prominent Cuban whom I knew very well. He was a most influential banker, Chief Executive Officer of none other than The Trust Company of Cuba. Eduardo Benet is his name and he invited me to a cocktail party organized by him at an elegant casino in honor of John March, one very high executive of the Bank of America from San Francisco who had flown to Havana to have a “face to face” meeting at the party with none other than Fidel Castro!  Fidel sat at our table dressed in a dark suit and an elegant tie, wearing a friendly smile and holding a Daiquiri in his right hand. Bear in mind that this was a banker’s cocktail party that Fidel was attending! John March in perfect Spanish went straight to the point: “Why are you allowing so many known communists to be part of your new government?”  Wow was my first reaction!

Fidel’s answer:  “Your President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, won one of his elections by I believe a margin of 60%.  Today I enjoy a backing of at least 80% of the Cuban population. Why would I profit from sharing such a huge margin of popularity with discredited members of the Cuban communist party such as (and he named Lazaro Peña, Juan Marinello and several others very discredited communists of the labor movement).  Would that make sense to you, Mr. March? When I was at the Sierra Maestra in the midst of a difficult struggle against Batista’s dictatorship I welcomed all who were willing to join me, I did not care if they were black, Chinese or whatever.  We were there to fight against government corruption and for a new decent Democratic government. In front of all these gentlemen and bankers, Mr. March, I promise all to hold fair elections within six months.”

John March of the Bank of America must have been very happy to hear Fidel’s deceptive but convincing explanation. Fidel Castro, by the way, was at his most charismatic behavior that memorable evening.

Eduardo Benet who had backed Fidel with plenty of cash was also betrayed. At dinner one night at our home in Manhasset, Long Island, a few days after he and Cristina his wife left Cuba he told me: “I had mistakenly placed all my faith in him, was willing to back him with millions of dollars and now all I can say is that Fidel is a master manipulator. Castro has betrayed us all.”

I cannot go to bed tonight without writing about another personal experience as told to me by a close friend and competitor, “Dieguito” Trinidad the owner of the No. 1 cigarette manufacturer in Cuba. “Dieguito” was known to be 100% against Batista’s government and he personally told me he had contributed $100,000.00 (a fortune in 1958) to Fidel.  Many prominent industrialists were known to share his dislike of Batista, including the multi-millionaire Julio Lobo better known as the “Sugar King” of Cuba.

Dieguito had not only contributed a substantial amount of money to the Castro revolution but had known Fidel personally and trusted him as a person who could be depended on to bring democracy to Cuba.  But, he admitted to me some time during 1959, he was very concerned with the turn of events and so he managed to have a private meeting with Fidel Castro. He too was confused as to what the hell was going on. That night Fidel gave him a big hug, told him how much Cuba and his new government needed young entrepreneurs like Dieguito to improve Cuba’s economy, how grateful Castro was for his contributions, etc. The very next day after the meeting his cigarette factory had been intervened (nationalized) by the “revolutionary” government. Dieguito left Cuba almost penniless. My question is:  why would Fidel even bother to meet with Dieguito on a Friday evening very late at night?

At a meeting of all the tobacco sectors better known as the “Tobacco Forum” held in Havana and attended by the tobacco growers, the labor unions, the cigar and cigarette manufacturers and the leaf tobacco exporters of Cuba I had the extraordinary opportunity of meeting for the first time both Fidel and “Che” Guevara.  Fidel congratulated me for my speech that morning, was most jovial, even asked for my business card and then said to me: “the revolution needs young entrepreneurs like you, Horacio, we’ll stay in touch with you, it’s been a pleasure to meet you!” Twice during that year Fidel mentioned the exact same words to me.

A few months later “Che” Guevara was denouncing me as a traitor and without a trial, on a Friday evening TV program, he announced I had been condemned to death by a firing squad.  Fortunately my family and I were already in New York when I heard the news.

This act took place one full year after Castro’s victory. By then he had full control of all the armed forces, the news media and was firmly in power.  He had managed this through deceit and treachery, of course, but what amazes me is how consistent and effective he had been in twelve months.

Any one of us who dealt personally with Castro could have been either completely ignored or thrown in jail and yet Fidel took the trouble of meeting with us, saying encouraging words and making false promises. All of course after taking extreme precautions for his personal safety.  I assume he derived great pleasure from these unnecessary meetings doing it as a sport, a modern Machiavelli. The two may soon be complimenting each other in hell.

Horacio Toledo, Casselberry, Fl.

I have just returned home from watching a very good movie, The King’s Speech.  Like many a good movie, the hero’s journey requires that he overcome what is for him a tremendous obstacle.  Imagine a king with a speech impediment.  Or a president.  Imagine a man so isolated that he doesn’t know the meaning of the word friend.  Imagine.

Four thousand plus people on Facebook have united behind an effort for peaceful protests to begin in Cuba starting tomorrow.  The call has gone out for Cubans to stand together in public and show Fidel and Raul Castro and their minions that they have had enough.  That they want their country back.

The call to protest couldn’t come at a better time.  People are already in the streets for the annual book fair which is expected to draw six million people to the street.  How is it possible that Fidel and Raul are allowing so many people out in public during this dangerous time?

Once upon a time, during the Bay of Pigs invasion, every available man and many women were incarcerated for days before the exiles landed.  There was fear that the people would unite and help those who came to their shores to topple the government.  But not now.  After more than fifty years of domestication in that cage of an island, the will of the people has been stripped from them.  The cellular memory of the Cuban who resisted, the Cuban who fought, the Cuban who took pride in every corner of his island, has been erased.  The few who still dare to disagree do so at their own peril, knowing that they have no protection from a friend.  For in my country there is no such thing as trust- thus no such thing as friend.

Fidel and Raul are not the least bit worried.  There is not much access to Facebook on the island except for those who are already a part of the government and even they have fairly limited access.  Bloggers like Yoani Sanchez are the exception.  The majority of the population will never know that they were called to protest, and those who know….just can’t.  It’s about the overcoming of obstacles.  It’s about some obstacles that are just too big to overcome.  And it’s about a king’s speech.

It’s  about a “king” who came to power in disguise.  A “king” whose speeches droned on and on for years numbing the people’s will.  A “king” who promised elections fifty one years ago and then made sure that the people would be too afraid to hope for democracy.  A “king” whose words toppled a country and its dignity.  A “king” who rules an island where its citizens cannot shop in the same stores, stay at the same hotels, or eat the same meals as any foreigner.  A “king” whose hatred was the black hole that consumed his country.  A “king” who taught his subjects how to read so they could only read what he wanted them to, and who now tortures his people with a book fair where one book costs more than the average Cuban salary for a month.  Fidel worry?  Raul worry?

The Cuban people’s speech impediment is more severe than a stutter.  It is a complete forgetting of their ability to speak, their ability to demand, their ability, yes, even to think.  A “king” and his speeches made it so.

If there was a way to make the protest real…if there was a way to overcome…if there was a king of quiet dignity and compassion who would take the reigns but for a moment and hand them to the people….if there was a king’s speech that had the power to make the bad men disappear….

This week I watched as many thousands of Egyptians celebrated the exit of a dictator with unbridled joy, their faces reflecting the release of their subjugated spirits.  I rejoiced with them, not without a little envy that I wasn’t watching those faces celebrating in the Plaza of the Revolution in Havana, Cuba, and filled by a desire for all the world’s people who live in oppression to experience their release.  What a divine moment!

But just a moment…

What next?

I am no expert on Egyptian politics, but I have lived through at least one revolution that  leads me to approach these things with caution.

I once lived through a moment like this in a land very far from Egypt more than a half a century ago.  In the first exhilarating moments, as we welcomed our saviors from Batista and took to the streets in celebration of Fidel’s arrival. we were unprepared for the challenges of freedom We stayed in the moment of celebration for too long and failed to look around us and ahead.  We have paid dearly for that.

I have worked extensively with abused women through my years as a psychotherapist.  I was a Mental Health Program Coordinator in charge of a domestic violence program that treated survivors and perpetrators of abuse, and for years volunteered my time in shelters where I strove to empower women as they faced the challenge of taking charge of their lives, of starting over in the absence of their once knights in shining armors.

New found freedom, whether from an abusive partner or an abusive dictator, brings with it a certain feeling of vertigo.  The childlike need to be “taken care of”, whether by a tyrant in the home or a tyrant head of government, forces individuals and populations to abdicate responsibility for their own welfare.  The victims look to the abuser for direction, for their very sustenance.  In their absence there is a risk that the vacuum will be filled by the first benevolent seeming figure to take their place. Sometimes, benevolent seeming is not a requirement.  Overcome by vertigo, individuals as well as nations fall into the arms of whoever shows up next.  Many times, after the initial sigh of relief, both find themselves in worse predicaments.

I am struck by the fact the the Egyptians are now at the mercy of an army that followed their commander Hosni Mubarak’s orders for for thirty years, and I wonder if their obvious zest for freedom and their stated commitment to work towards democracy will be strong enough to overcome their need to trust those who promise relief.  I wonder if  they will have the clarity that is imperative in order to discern what is best for their country, or if they will fall into the temptation to “look up to” a new savior or saviors.  Will they be up to the challenge of looking ahead and uniting as a people to realize their own vision of freedom?  Is it too much to ask a people who have not known freedom for thirty years to conceptualize what freedom will look like for them?

Observing Egypt I think of my own people.  My fellow Cubans on the island who haven’t taken a free breath for generations; my fellow Cubans who abused by one tyrant, fell right into the arms of another much more macabre than the previous one.  My fellow Cubans in exile are not united.  Were there to be a rising of the people in Havana, a frantic celebration of new found freedom, would things be different?   Would Cubans be able to find their way to freedom, or simply settle for a more tolerable tyranny?

You say you want a revolution?

Well, you know, we all want to change the world…..

But are we prepared?

My hopes and prayers are with the people of Egypt, of Cuba, of  the abused, and all the people of the world for whom freedom is only a dream.

Forty three years ago when I was a sophomore at St. Leo College in Florida, I stood in line waiting to register for class and thinking that this would be the fifth school I would attend since arriving from Cuba.  It was my first day at St. Leo College, a charming small private college in Florida where my father was now a professor.   Once many years before he had been a student at St. Leo, never dreaming that someday he would find himself exiled from his country and a member of the faculty.

I had been in the U.S. a few years then and it seemed to me that many if not most Americans I came in contact with were geographically challenged.  Given Cuba’s proximity to Florida I expected people to know where I was from when I said I was from Cuba.  Particularly in the mid sixties, not so long after Fidel and the Cuban Revolution as well as the tense days of an almost nuclear war that kept the island in the news so frequently and prominently, I was always surprised when people thought I was from a third world country far far away or expected me to be more exotic.

By the time I got to St. Leo I had heard questions like:

“Is Cuba near Hawaii?”

“Is Cuba near Mexico?”

“Where is Cuba in California?”

“How come you’re not brown?”

and  “Did you guys live in trees?”  I wondered why I was asked that question as I never went barefoot and my manners were impeccable for a teenager.

It was impossible to feel offended once I overheard two of my friends arguing about whether Canada was to the north or south of California.  Besides, the questions didn’t come from a stance of ridicule.  These girls and adults were curious about my country and about me.

Nothing in my experience had prepared me for the moment that was to come, as I stood in line that day at St. Leo College, looking for someone to connect with, but content to stand and take in the boisterous greetings, the colorful clothes the girls wore, and of course, picking out the cute guys in the crowd.  It was a time of hippies and peace and flowers in our hair, flowers everywhere.  We were a generation steeped in our commitment to peace, uncomfortable with the growing presence of war, with the rising body count in Vietnam.  Peace lovers at war with war.

Two very cute guys joined the queue discussing which Physics class to register for.   Knowing it was time to begin connecting with my fellow students and drawn by their relaxed demeanor and to no less extent by their handsome faces, I turned to face them and said “Hi!”  As if I were invisible, cute guy one said to cute guy two: “don’t talk to her!  She’s a Spic!”

This young man said the word with such contempt and venom that it felt as if he had spit it out instead of spoken it.  I didn’t know what a Spic was.  I had never heard the word before.  But I knew I had just been degraded, and I knew I had been insulted.  One moment a girl in her new school looking forward.  The next, a girl in her new school rooted to the ground, knowing she had just been branded not only different, but also less than.  Why?

I turned and faced the word spitter and asked: “What is a SPIC?”

Without a hint of apology he said it was a word for Spanish people.  He said, “you know, like nigger for a negro, Spic for a Spaniard, people NOT LIKE US.”

It has been many decades since that day and although I remember the incident as well as the now not so cute seeming guy’s face when he realized he was about to become my father’s student.I hadn’t thought about it until I recently spent time contemplating the power of words.

In the decades since, I have become an American who knows some geography, but now makes a point of looking at a map when she meets someone from Axum, Ethiopia or any other place that “doesn’t ring a bell” and learning something about my new acquaintances culture.  So I won’t have to ask them if they live in trees.

This fall I went to Miami, Florida, where the majority of the Cuban exile population  settled.  At a restaurant with some friends the subject of 9/11 came up and we all talked about how it affected our sense of safety in this country.  I shared with them that my first thought was “Where do we run to from here?”.  One of the people in an adjoining table turned to me and said: “Well, that’s how I felt when you Cubans started taking over my city and now you get to worry about the damned Moslem sand niggers like we worried about you.”  A flurry of spit words.  In an unexpected setting, hatred spoke again.  Gone the days of flower in our hair, our young men dying in another foreign land, our land split in red and blue reeling from the shock that we dared to elect a black man to lead our country.

Spic- NOT LIKE US

Nigger- NOT LIKE US

Moslem-NOT LIKE US

Sand Nigger- NOT LIKE US

Cuban- NOT LIKE US

Latino- NOT LIKE US

Mexicans- NOT LIKE US

Gay- NOT LIKE US

Lesbian- NOT LIKE US

Republican- NOT LIKE US

Democrat- NOT LIKE US

Liberal- NOT LIKE US

Will someone please tell me, so I can understand after half a century as an American:  WHO ARE “US?”

I have been absent from my blog much longer than I planned.  My last blog about Words impacted me in unexpected ways and I found myself contemplating how my blog words could affect others.  That thought brought with it a certain vertigo, a new awareness of my responsibility as a writer, and an inquiry as to the purpose of my writing.  So I come back today with a new awareness and an even greater love and respect for my craft.

You know how it is in contemplation, how one thing leads to another.  I thought about the people who have touched me with their words in my life.  Many came to mind, but three in particular did so quite vividly.  Three people that I have not been in touch with for a long time.  I would like to share them with you tonight.

I waited fifteen years between my undergraduate degree and my graduate degree because of fear.  I had successfully completed a grueling double major in Education and Psychology while raising three children who were twenty months apart.  I graduated when they were eight, six, and four years old and became a grade school teacher.  I graduated with a 3.8 GPA, not shabby by any means.  But I did so without having to take any “serious” math.

Numbers are as foreign to me as words are familiar.  I can balance my checkbook and follow a recipe. something I do only occasionally as my husband loves to cook, but I am terrible at keeping records, calculating mileage (as proven in my recent IRS audit) and the thought of taking a math course is cause for major anxiety.

I always knew that I wanted to be a counselor, a psychotherapist, wanted to be in private practice, or do medical social work.  I also knew that in order to do so I would have to pass two semesters of Statistics.  Numbers.  Never mind that I would have to take the GRE standardized test with its mathematical component.  One day I decided to go for it.  My math scores were risible, but my language skills saved the day and my GRE scores were sufficient to get admitted to a very competitive program at the University of Louisville.  So it was that after having avoided the dreaded Statistics, I found myself in the office of Dr. Ruth Huber.

I had missed the first class and Dr. Huber was explaining the curriculum.  Not only would I have to deal with NUMBERS, but I would have to deal with COMPUTERS.  Dr. Huber invited me to sit at her computer and tears began to run down my cheek.  I had divorced a Systems Analyst but knew not a thing about computers except for my Word program to which I had succumbed once convinced that it was to my advantage to leave behind my beloved typewriter.

So there I sat, feeling incompetent and mortified by my tears, when Dr. Huber began to tell me HER story, and inspire me with her own overcoming.  She encouraged me through both semesters, and in the end I fell in love with Statistics.  Dr. Huber taught my husband a few semesters later, and shortly after that became the head of the Social Work doctoral program.  Her commitment to me as my teacher and mentor far surpassed her “duty”, and her words of empowerment and encouragement, her belief in my ability and my power to change my life, were key in a much deeper transformation.  We moved away from Louisville many years ago, but she has always been on my mind.  A few days ago I looked for her and found her on Facebook.  Again her words, those precious “things” reached out to me.  “I think of you and Ken with pride”.  Wow!  You are NEVER too old to hear that from someone you really admire.  You are NEVER too old to be gifted with love and kindness.  I can’t help but think how many other students she must have touched in so many years, but I am deeply grateful for her remembrance.

There was another professor who touched my life during that time.  Her name is Dr. Jacalyn Claes.  I reached out to her also.

Every one of her classes was an adventure in learning about the subject and in coming into my own.  She was aware of the power of gender and race and embraced them both as she learned her own life lessons.  She was smart, challenged my way of looking at the world…  I never wanted her classes to end and I loved spending time in her presence.  Her words healed my womanhood and my ethnic disquietude.  In her presence I felt accepted and in her recognition of my talent I felt affirmed.  She is largely responsible for my success as a therapist.  These two women made me see my talent and my value as a human being.  Now they are both back in my life, my new Facebook friends.

The last person I reconnected with was not my teacher in a school, and she might be surprised to see herself as a teacher in my life.

I shared with you in one of my blogs that my friend Linda had passed away.  When I was in boarding school, a recently arrived Pedro Pan, Linda attended day school in my school.  Her family welcomed me as their own, and in their home I learned of an uncommon love within their family as Linda and I grew as close as sisters.  Linda passed away, another one of our women taken away by dreaded breast cancer metastasis.  I lost touch with her sister, Mary Ann Rovai.  Mary Ann was older than Linda and I, and she was a newlywed when I first met her.  Her mother’s daughter, she was absolutely gorgeous, and full of grace.  She was gentle and kind, and seemingly unruffled.  She was accepting of this Cuban girl who suddenly appeared in the midst of her family, and as she herself became a mother, Linda and I became aunts to her lovely daughter Vicky.  Mary Ann is all that is left of the amazing family who gave my heart and body shelter when I needed it most.  And I just found her again, another Facebook friend.

Angels in our midst, all three of these women, who shared words of wisdom, words of love, words of acceptance, words of encouragement, and who enriched my own life beyond words creating a world in which I could find the confidence to go forth in my own vision.  I thank you all with all my heart and humble words.

Words are things, I’m convinced

you must be careful about the words you use

or the words you allow to be used in your house.

In the old testament we are told in Genesis that “in the beginning was the Word”

and the Word was God

and the Word was with God

That’s in Genesis

Words are things

You must be careful

careful about calling people out of their names

using racial pejoratives and sexual pejoratives and all that ignorance

don’t do that

someday we’ll be able to measure the power of words.

I think they are things

I think they get on the walls,  they get in your wall paper, they get in your rugs, in your upholstery and your clothes

and finally into you.”

Maya Angelou

I have been taught the sacredness of words in many ways for many years.  Yet, for some reason, that quote, part of a program I watched last night on the new Oprah network, stayed with me all day.

How do I use words? How do others use words around me?  Do I have the courage to use the necessary words in a difficult situation?  Can I stand in my truth with my words?  Are my words respectful?  Do I tolerate disrespectful words towards me, towards others?

I have used words to whisper lovingly in my children’s ears,

to teach young children and college students.

used them in inquiry when curiosity compelled me and to answer when asked, not always in full wisdom.

I have used words to help the dying and the loved ones they left behind

to ease the suffering of those who come to me for counsel

to pray, to sing, to praise,

and to write.

Fortunately I have learned words in various languages and so my well of words is deep. But so is my arsenal;

for throughout this long life, I have used words to wound albeit not always on purpose but sometimes yes.

I have used them to lie when gripped by an addiction stronger than any love I ever felt,

used them to excuse inexcusable behavior, used them to whine and to manipulate and to complain,

and to curse carelessly, to express my rage and outrage without a thought as to what

havoc they’d create, as if this voice had been given me by some dark power.

Always, eventually, and most times sooner than not, I called those words back with a heartfelt “I’m sorry”, but I suspect those two words couldn’t catch the others in time to keep them from invading the rugs and the curtains, and the clothes, and worst of all the hearts of those for whom they were intended.

I too am affected by the words of others.

My soul is full when my grandchildren say  “I love you, Grandma”

or when my husband says “I have your back. Go chase your dreams.”

or when my sons and daughters share their tenderness.

My heart feels glad when my childhood friends reach out to me across the miles.  Even their voices with no words are like a life song.  Powerful.  Healing.  They make me strong.

Sometimes I am wordless, when someone consumed by envy

vows to destroy me, for I know nothing I can say can stop the mad.

Or when too many words, spoken by a tyrant,

hurl me out of my homeland.  and cause me intolerable pain.

No small thing, words.

So much more than noise.

And such a gift and a responsibility for those of us who write…..

Color me reflective.

Fidel Castro condemns attack on US congresswoman

The Jamaica Observer Sun, 09 Jan 2011 09:57 AM PST

HAVANA, Cuba (AP) â Fidel Castro today denounced as “atrocious” an attack on a member of the United States House of Representatives that left six people dead and the legislator fighting for her life.

The attack on Gabrielle Giffords and the murder of six people was indeed “atrocious”.  That Fidel Castro makes that comment is risible.

Under the guise of liberator, later of Marxist Leninist, Fidel is nothing if not a Machavelian opportunist.   Now, as he admits the revolution didn’t work, lays off 250,000 workers, and continues to deny the most basic human rights to his own people, he takes time to express his sympathy and outrage over an attack on a member of the United States House of Representatives; a member of a government he rebukes at every opportunity.

In a kind of “look at how violent Yankee Land can be” statement, he is happy to point out to his citizens just how bad things really are in our great country.  Are we to believe he is horrified by violence even as he perpetrates worse violence on the Cuban people?  It seems he has forgotten the atrocities he himself is responsible for committing in the last half a century;  atrocities that far surpass the attempted murder of Representative Giffords and the murder of six of our citizens.

Twenty percent of the Cuban population lives in exile.  People have preferred to risk their lives navigating shark infested waters in rafts and inner tubes to the U.S. mainland rather than endure his cruel regime.  Those who have been able to do so have escaped to other countries like Peru, Mexico, and Spain to start new lives.  Can you begin to imagine what it would take for twenty percent of U.S. citizens to make a decision to emigrate?  For them to take to the ocean in rafts or anything navigable in an attempt to seek shelter in another country, leaving behind their families, their friends, their homes, and their history?

Some say only the rich left Cuba when the revolution came.  I can only respond that if twenty percent of the Cuban population was rich, then our island was indeed in great economic shape before the revolution.

We left because there was verbal violence, emotional violence, and physical violence.  We left because Fidel lied and promised elections fifty years ago that never took place.  We left because of the bloodshed, because of the indoctrination, because we were governed by a madman;  a madman who would have us believe he is sorry for what happened to a member of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Fidel pounces on every opportunity to point out just how “dangerous” a place our country is.  He can talk about the shooting and tell his people “You want to live in the U.S.?  They are killing the people who govern them.”  Incidents like these give him an opportunity to make our country appear to be an undesirable place to run to.

What has happened in Arizona has been devastating.  For those of us old enough it is a reminder of the vulnerability of  our leaders and of our own.  I watched in disbelief as shortly after I arrived in this country President John F. Kennedy was assasinated  in Dallas and I felt my new found sense of safety disappear.  But let’s not lose sight that these things though tragic are aberrations.  That for the most part our leaders and our citizens live a safe existence.

As I reflect on the tragedy in Arizona, my heart goes out to the families of the dead and to our Representative.  One disconnected lonely man took it upon himself to destroy the lives of innocent people.  Another man in a faraway land used this tragic incident  to express his contempt for our country under the guise of sympathy and outrage.  I am not sure which causes me more pain.

My husband and I visited Turks and Caicos island a few years ago.  It was one of my favorite vacations.  We stayed on the other side of the island from where the action was, in a lovely small resort that practically forced my spirit into a state of rest.  During the day we drove to the most beautiful beaches I have seen since Cuba where I let the waters of my childhood bathe me once again and lay down to sun bathe on sand as white and almost as fine as table salt.

While there I got to know the housekeeper who took care of our rooms during our stay.  She was a “belonger”- a native islander.

A belonger….isn’t that a beautiful word?  I belong.  Tribal. Primitive. Safe.  Humans are social beings and the urge to belong is very strong.  As a psychotherapist I know that we are relational beings and that the absence of meaningful relationships in our lives can and frequently does make us ill.  When we stop belonging, we begin longing.  We enter a stage of prolonged unfulfilled desire; a stage of acute discomfort.

As the year came to an end I couldn’t help but think about the exiles in this world, not just the Cuban exiles, but all who have had to leave their countries in their longing for freedom, curiously arriving in freedom only to live in an acute state of discomfort longing for their return home.  I thought about the courage and the faith that renouncing to living in the country where our very bones are formed requires.  I wondered when the diasporas would end.  I wondered if we would ever learn to live in peace….if the world’s exiles would soon be able to walk freely into their countries without fear of repression, without fear.

As a new year begins I know that I am a belonger on the earth.  That we all are.  That it is incumbent on each one of us to do what we can so that the world can become a better place.  So that less people live in a state of acute discomfort.  We need a revolution, but not a revolution fought with guns.  We need a revolution within ourselves.  A revolution that defeats our prejudices, our hatreds, our own fears; a revolution that makes us more vulnerable and open to love.  A revolution that causes us to embrace respect and kindness as a way of living in the world.

I hope for a world where every race, creed, and sexual orientation is accepted.

I hope for a world where no one threatens to destroy another personally.  A world where envy and bullying will not exist.

I hope for a world where life is thrill enough without the aid of substances.

Where we all have the space to grow into who we were always meant to be.

A world where we lend each other a hand when needed and find joy in another person’s accomplishments.

A world devoid of terror.

A world where we can all proudly call ourselves belongers.