Next Year in Havana(66)
“Your mother and grandmother must have been very strong to survive on their own like that. To raise you amid such tumult.”
Luis smiles, love shining in his eyes. “They’re amazing. Two of the strongest people I’ve ever known. My grandmother is all smiles and welcomes everyone. My mother is more guarded, but she’s always been there for me.”
“Did your mother ever think of leaving Cuba with you?”
“We never discussed it,” Luis answers. “When my father was alive, there was no need. Life was relatively good as an officer’s wife, as an officer’s son. And I think my mother was more open to the regime back then. Her family believed in Fidel’s reforms; it was a passion she and my father initially shared, although I imagine that passion has all but disappeared after she’s seen the future the revolution promised.”
“I can’t believe the regime has lasted so long given the life you describe.”
“It would be narrow-minded to say the entire country feels as I do, but many do,” Luis replies. “And even though we cannot wear that banner proudly, I believe there are enough of us to change things.”
He delivers the words with such conviction that I almost believe it possible.
“Did any of Fidel’s reforms succeed?” I ask.
“The social ones fared far better than the economic and political ones, for sure. Look, it’s not all bad. I agree with some of the things he’s done or attempted to do. Being black in Cuba is a bit better than it was in 1959—on paper, at least,” Luis adds. “But is ‘a bit better’ enough? It’s been nearly sixty years. How much has the world changed in that time? Race still matters here even though the regime says it does not. The majority of the exiles who send money back in the form of remittances to their relatives are of European descent. My black friends face difficulty getting hired to work in the tourism sector. Without remittances, without access to CUCs, the deck is stacked against black Cubans. And how can we measure racial inequality when the regime willfully ignores it?
“Men and women are ‘equal’ under Fidel’s government, but what does that mean? ‘On paper’ tells a far different tale from the reality of everyday life. This incremental progress where we exalt Fidel for the fact that things have gotten just the tiniest bit better in nearly sixty years is not enough. Fidel was good for Fidel and his cronies. The rest of us deserve more . . .”
He makes a sound of disgust.
“This island will break your heart if you let it.”
I think of my grandmother dreaming of a country just removed from her grasp, ninety miles that stretched on to eternity, of all the refugees and exiles in Miami and throughout the world, and I can’t disagree with him.
“Would you ever want to travel to the United States? If things changed and opportunities for Cubans increased?”
The question fills the air around us, the divide between our circumstances the elephant in the room.
“I don’t know. I got my passport years ago when they finally made it legal to travel. It seemed safe to hedge my bets even if the cost was prohibitively expensive. Without the paladar, I never would have had the funds. In Cuba, your passport is issued for six years, but it costs about two hundred dollars to perform the mandatory renewal every two years. Nearly a year’s salary every two years to just hold a passport. Add in the cost of travel and it seems like a very distant dream unless you have an outside benefactor or access to CUCs.
“And the United States?” Luis sighs. “It’s complicated. Within Cuba, there are different views on our relationship with the Americans. Some believe the United States is the source of our problems; others dream of moving there so they can earn enough money to send back to their families and eventually bring them over, too. And some think the reality lies in the middle.”
“Where do you fall on the United States?” I ask, half afraid of his answer.
Is it possible to separate your political views from your personal ones? To love someone who represents something you don’t agree with? I am American. Does he see me as an extension of my country’s at times flawed policies?
“We’ve paid the price of politics over and over again,” Luis responds. “The embargo is ridiculous. It’s hurt the Cuban people, not Fidel and his cohorts. It doesn’t work.”
“True. But to some it isn’t merely politics. For the most part, there’s a generational divide on the embargo. My grandparents’ contemporaries hate the idea of giving Fidel anything after he took everything from them. They had family members that stood before those firing squads, whose blood spilled on the ground, who were imprisoned for speaking out against injustice. Families were torn apart. They were separated from their loved ones, their memories, their legacies. Everything they had was seized by the government when they left. Their thoughts, emotions, lives were regulated by Fidel before they left. They watched the country they loved change into something they no longer recognized.
“The anger among the exiles is legitimate. It’s lessened with each subsequent generation, but there are real reasons for the anger. The revolution didn’t happen nearly sixty years ago for them. They live the revolution over and over again with each day they are in exile, with each hour they are reminded that they cannot go home.”
“And those of us who remained?” Luis asks. “In some cases perhaps those Cubans were made to leave, but for the most part you seem to forget that they had a choice.”