After replying to this thread Musicat suggested there might interest in this kind of thread. So here it goes.
I was born and raised in Cuba, all under Castro’s regime. After school I worked in IT for MIC, the ministry of IT in Cuba for a number of years. I was essentially an IT consultant that the Cuban government rented out to companies all over the caribbean.
When I was sent to a conference in Canada I took the opportunity and stayed, after 6 years in Canada I came to work in the US, and it’s looking like I might stay here for a while.
That’s the background, if you have any questions ask away.
I have a million questions, but I will start with just a few…
When you say that you are a “former” Cuban Communist, does that mean that you agreed with them ideologically, or only that you were living under Communist rule? And if the former, has your mind been changed, and why?
What are your thoughts about what the Cuban population in general thinks about the government and their situation? Here in the US, I think we have a perception that just about everyone wants to get out, but do you think that is really true? Do you perceive that the people generally blame any problems in the country on outside forces, such as the US embargo, or do they blame it on the Communist government?
Thanks for starting this thread…I am very interested in this subject.
Thank you. I like the US, but I know that living in Canada was a good first step. I was very disoriented when I first saw Toronto, eveyrthing was bigger, faster, brighter, but got over it quickly. When I came to the US everything was just like Canada, but more so.
I’d say that until age 12 or so I was a communist. At about that time I started to reason through and question some of the things I’d assumed were ‘normal’. For instance at about that age I went into Lenin school, where we spent half a day working in the field and half a day in school. After a while I noticed that although we grew potatoes, tomatoes, rice, sweet potatoes, and so on, we never saw those items in our menu. In fact our menu was usually rice, black beans, and a piece of bread.
When I asked about it I was told that the produce we were growing was going to the farmers’ market to be sold for hard currency, not to tourists but to other Cubans. It seemed wrong and not very communist to me.
Most Cubans understand that communism is a failure in an economic sense and rightly blame the shortages and rationing on this. They also understand that Castro’s government has only survived because it has been able to use the US government as a useful enemy to publicly blame.
A lot of people want to leave Cuba. Some because they live in abject poverty and want to have a better life, others because there is no space in Cuba for ideological dissent, and still others because they have family abroad. I wanted to leave because I did not want to live two lives, one life praising the revolution and another life where I looked around me and saw that the revolution had ruined the entire country.
I saw a documentary on the old cars that were abandoned when communism chased all the Americans away in the late 50s. It was fascinating and I was wondering if the island is still peppered with craftsman who can create damn near any part for any car to keep them all running.
Well the cars were not exactly abandoned, nor did they belong to americans. Since the revolution car ownership has to be approved by the government, in other words you can’t just buy a car from someone or from a dealership. The only exceptions to that were cars owned before 1960, so if you had a car then you did everything possible to keep it running, because you can’t get another one.
Part of keeping those cars running is making parts if you can’t get a replacement, or invent something. Most of the old cars you see in Cuba are like Frankestein monsters, Chevrolet body, Lada engine, Fiat transmission, brakes made in someone’s kitchen, and so on.
I was in Puerto Rico about 20 years ago and it was absolutely beautiful. I told this to my grandmother and she stated that Cuba was always regarded as the “Jewel of the Caribbean” and that it was even more beautiful than PR. Last year, my wife went to PR to see her mother a remarked about how dirty and run down the island was. Her family said that drugs were the cause.
From about 1960 to 1990 Havana was in a steady decline. Most o fit had to do with soviet values and a communist economy. Clubs and restaurants were state run and poorly supplied, hotels few and poorly maintained. Then after the fall of of the USSR Cuba was opened to tourism and Havana became two cities. One is a city of freshly painted hotels, fancy clubs and restaurants for tourists only. The other Havana has crumbling buildings, I mean that literally buildings fall down everyday in Havana, still empty stores, and clubs full of young people.
It has gotten so bad that even Juventud Rebelde, a government newspaper that usually only publishes government sanctioned news, published a multipage article on the terrible state of diversion available to cubans.
So I guess the answer to your question is yes, Cuba has suffered a similar decline, but not for the same reasons.
On the other hand - what is good about Cuba? Is there anything that you miss? Whether it’s to do with the climate, the geography, the people, the music, even aspects of the government, politics, the law or the economy - what does Cuba still have going for it?
That was going to be my next question, as well…was it hard to leave? What do you miss about it? How hard is it to communicate with family & friends?
My father-in-law was originally from Cuba, and he came here before the revolution. I think it was very hard for him to suddenly be cut off from his life back home.
I love Cuban food. Everything from ropa vieja to Cuban sandwiches tastes great to me, and seems like an early and fabulous example of fusion cuisine.
How inventive have Cuban cooks been with austerity? Rice and beans can get dull pretty fast. And do you find you can get better Cuban food now that you are in the States?
When you said you stayed in Canada did you officially defect? What did you have to do to make your status legal? Are you now a Canadian citizen working in America, a Cuban citizen who is a resident alien of Canada on a work visa to America or are you now a legal American resident? If you are not now a citizen of Canada or Cuba do you plan on changing that? What do you think is going to happen back home when Catro dies? Will Raul keep a strangle hold on the country or will there be big changes?
To a lot of Americans, it seems that US policy toward Cuba is dominated by the views of those who left Cuba and maintain really hardline views – maintain the trade embargo, prohibit Americans from traveling to Cuba, etc.
Aside from how you feel about these policies, whether they are good or bad, what are your thoughts about the Cubans who live in the US and are such die-hard opponents of Castro? For example, do you think of them as extremists who should be dismissed? Or are they viewed as well-meaning but go too far? Might you have sympathy for them as fellow Cubans who suffered under Castro? Or maybe you think they’re entirely right?
Aside from your own views, does the average Cuban in Cuba have an opinion on the matter?
I miss Cuba every day. Every morning I miss waling around the corner to pick up Amelia, to walk together to work talking about last night’s tv shows, or the guy she just dumped, Amelia is always dumping someome, strangely she has never been dumped herself.
I miss going to work and sitting in Oscar’s office, and once again failing to convince him to get me a five finger discount on some memory cards that I would sell later and split the profits with him. But he does not get me the cards and I don’t give him a penny. Oscar’s office is the only one in the whole building that is air conditioned, so I talk to Oscar a lot.
I miss walking down the streets of Old Havana, with the air so thick it feels like cotton, hot humid cotton. And then turning a corner and being pushed back by the salty breeze coming off El Malecon. I miss going by my cousin’s house to drink coffee, and watch the baseball game on tv, and screaming at him, because how in God’s name can he root for the Industriales! The Industriales! The only team worth rooting for is Los Tigres, he doesn’t know that. He is not right in the head.
I miss taking my mom in my motorcycle to her hometown in the countryside. Her arms squeezing me tightly, and her voice in my ear “Slow down mijito, slow down, we’re not in a hurry!”
But I don’t miss the meetings during work to talk about the ‘counterrevolutionary elements’, and how we need to stop them. I don’t miss the mandatory trips to every freaking government event. I don’t miss ignoring the closet full of sticks we had to maintain so the Rapid Response brigades could use them to quelch any manifestation. I don’t miss skipping meals because to buy the only food available I need hard currency and I don’t have any.
I miss Cuba, I dream of Cuba, but sometimes I also have nightmares.
Ok, I have a million questions, but not much time, so let me ask something that might seem random and weird.
We were watching the finalists for an international film festival (don’t remember which one) and there was a short film made in Cuba (on the lo-lo.)
Basically the film plot went like this:
[SPOILER]
Young girl is sitting in classroom with her classmates, signing up for (what appear to be) government-mandated military roles in the event of combat. She’s got a letter. She opens up the letter. Says something like, ‘‘Congratulations, you have been selected to go to the United States!’’ The whole film consists of her wandering around wondering if she should leave. Cut to the girl’s grandmother sitting zombie-like in a rocking chair watching stock footage of Castro’s speeches. Cut back to girl talking to her friends, ‘‘You’d be f’ing crazy to leave this beautiful paradise!’’ etc. Finally the girl goes to her grandmother and shows her the letter. Grandmother takes one look at it, disappears into the kitchen and returns with a letter of her own, saying, ‘‘I was also selected.’’ Cut to grandmother’s letter, which shows a photograph of her when she was the girl’s age and a giant red stamp that reads: DENIED: NO RECORD EXISTS or something along these lines (I only saw the film once.) Grandaughter returns to the beach. End film.
It was a beautiful film. My question is, What the heck was going on there? I can’t figure out if the grandmother’s letter was denied by Cuba or the U.S., and whether U.S. or Cuba sends these letters, or what was being referenced. I figured if anyone would understand this, it would be you.[/SPOILER]
What is your opinion on the future of Cuba? Do you feel that Fidel’s brother will continue on in the same fashion or do you think they can expect changes that will improve their lives, move them away from communism, etc.?
Making the decision to leave was not hard. I was fed up and frankly it was either that or kill myself. Like your father in law the hardest part was missing everyone and everything.
Communicating with the family is not complicated, and sending money to them is pretty easy through Canada, somewhat more difficult from the US, but I still have my Canada accounts.
