Property of the Revolution: One Cuban Refugee's Story of Loss, Legacy, and the Power of Intergenerational Storytelling | Ana Flaster

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Welcome to the Human Experience, a podcast about the stories

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we live out every day and the importance of championing the vulnerability

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and courage of the storyteller. I'm your host,

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Jennifer Peterkin, and it was through my own lived story of experiencing domestic

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violence that this podcast was created. By traveling the globe

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and interviewing each guest in person, I am convinced now

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more than ever, that stories have the power to change the world.

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Thank you for being here. In a world full of noise,

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to listen with intention is an act of resistance.

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Anna, thank you so much for meeting with me

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in New Hampshire. I had to remember where I was real quick.

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You're in New Hampshire. Concord, the capital. Yes.

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I'm excited to do some exploring this weekend while I'm here. Walking street

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is where you want to start. Okay. Yeah. I need all the recommendations. Yeah.

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I don't know the town well, but I know it's a lovely town.

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Great. I love walking on that street. It feels like old New England

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in a lot of ways. Nice. Even some of the parking. Is that diagonal parking

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against the sidewalk? Yeah. Perfect. So I haven't been

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north of New York. Wow.

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I know. All right, well, you're right up there, close to Canada now.

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I'm excited. Now, I. I. And I purposely put this trip off till

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the fall because I was like, I need to be in New England in the

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fall. Just feels like the vibe, so. Yeah,

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yeah, it's. The leaves haven't turned yet, but there are hints of

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that happening. I'm very excited. The summ is long.

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Yeah. For me, I am a fall person through and through,

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so I'm looking forward to it. Good. Well, if you travel a bit

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farther north, you'll see some. Okay. All right. Good to know you

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are from this area. Well, that's not true. But you've lived in this

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area for quite a while, correct? Yes, I have. When we fled Cuba,

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we were in Miami briefly at a refugee processing center in

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1967, then briefly with my aunt and two

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cousins in Lynbrook, New York, for a few weeks,

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and then within a month, we arrived in Nashua,

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New Hampshire. Oh, okay. Which is a former mill town.

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And in December, amid snow and

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which is so foreign and scary to people from the Caribbean, but for

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kids, it has that magical. Sure. Piece to it. Sure.

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Yeah. Not quite as jarring when you're a child as when you're an adult,

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I guess. Yeah, no, it's. You know, kids. Kids love

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snow, and I was one of them.

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So if I ask you where your story starts, what does that mean to

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you? That would mean our barrio on

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the outskirts of Havana, which was called Juanelo. It's still there.

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It's still a scrappy little barrio full of working people,

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working class people. But if

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I had to say a moment, I think the moment would be really the beginning

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of Property of the Revolution, which is the scene when

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I, you know, my Cuban life ends. And I was just

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shy of six years old. I was playing at my great grand, at my grandmother,

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my paternal grandmother's house. I heard the sound of a motorcycle.

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I knew that some. That always when a motor, when you heard that

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motorcycle, someone, something big was going down. I couldn't quite figure out what

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it was, but people were disappearing. From what I could see,

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families would just disappear overnight. And I knew that the thing was, that event was

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tied to this motorcycle appearing. And so I ran

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down the street to our house, and there was a mob

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in front of the house and a motorcycle parked up on the sidewalk.

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And inside my house, my father was being interviewed by

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a guard with a gun. My grandmother was holding my baby brother,

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and she was crying, and he was crying, and my mother was running

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around behind them, packing are the one suitcase we'd be allowed to

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take out. Oh, wow. So within no time,

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we were out on the street, and he locked the door and

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put a banner across the door, which I had seen on other doors.

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It was a long banner that sealed the door shut.

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And many years later, I learned that it said Property of

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the Revolution, because we had applied to leave. And one of the things that you

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knew would happen if you got your exit papers after the revolution

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was that everything you owned had to be turned over to the government,

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to the revolution. And so that is

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emblematic for me. And a moment where my

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story begins. Yeah, you're so young at that

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point. And so to view that through a child's lens,

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I think is really interesting as well, because I think

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for a lot of us when we're children, things are simpler in terms of,

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like, this happened. And this is what my perspective is,

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right, that we don't hold a lot of the nuance from other experiences in our

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lives. So to experience that at 5, almost 6 years old,

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what did that. What did that mean to you? Did you have any context

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for that before it happened? No, I didn't.

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You know, I. My parents, our extended family always

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put us children first, and they protected us. And we were.

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We were persecuted and called worms, which is what the government called people

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who turned away from the revolution. And they even

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taught me how to react at school if somebody called Me a

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gusano. And they would play at home a game where

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you would wriggle your. If someone calls you gusana,

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what do you do? And I would hold up my, my pinky and

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wiggle it and say, I'm a gusanita, I'm a little. And it was

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a giggling, funny reaction to being called kusana.

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And that's what. So they always protected us and shielded us.

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But the context, you're right, I didn't

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have a context. But do you know how children, young children,

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even though they don't have a vocabulary, they sense an injustice when

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it's happening. They know something's unfair. And I think that that was

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what I recognized that night.

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And then in all the nights that followed,

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that something unjust had happened, something unfair had happened.

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And that stuck with me. And so I was curious about

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all those stories and always begged my old

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people, my viejos, to tell me stories about Cuba.

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And they did. You know, growing up in a multi generational family and

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being Cuban, you know, we tend to talk a lot. It's a very verbal culture.

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I was blessed with stories every

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day. And I saw what stories did for my family.

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It revived, it resurrected what was lost. And they

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always get, they always seemed happy when they were talking about Juanelo, our home.

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Yeah, I think that's so important and so incredible that even

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at that age and beyond, you were so

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invested in your history and your family

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and where you came from. Because I think

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especially when, when you live or grow up in America,

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there's always this sense of you came from somewhere

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else. Right. Like that's the whole, that's the whole thing of

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America, as much as people try to deny it now I am third generation,

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so, you know, my ancestors came through in the early 1900s,

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but from where? Italy? Uh huh. I thought with Peterkin

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it would be, oh, that's my dad's side. Oh,

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that's a little earlier, you know, Scottish. But my mom's side is

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Gizzio and so Italian. And they

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came through in the early 1900s, and there's still so

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much emphasis placed on the culture and,

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and the memories and the stories and, you know, growing up in

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South Philly and my grandfather and all of my stories

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and, and I share a very similar experience in

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that I was always seeking out the older members

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of my family to tell me stories. There's always somebody in

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the family, thank God, right? Yeah. Well, at least I think it's really. And I

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know you do too, because my cousins, we, you know, I grew

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up in a household with three mothers. My mother, my grandmother, and my

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aunt. And my. My uncle and my father

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were the two dads. And then I had cousins that were

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like brothers, two of them, and my. My own siblings.

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My. My younger brother and sister. There was no

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one else that seemed to have the patience or the interest about

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the past. Stories about the past. And I lived for them.

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Did you find that that changed as they got older?

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Yeah, a little bit. A little bit. My sister.

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Maybe it has something to do with being female, I don't know. But my sister

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was always very interested, and she has a good memory for little details like

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that, so. But I pulled whatever they had from them for the book.

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It was really, in many ways a family project,

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because I was lucky enough that much of what I wrote is

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hap. I wrote before they passed, before the old people passed.

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Yeah, the viejos, as I called them, the elders.

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And so I was able to get a lot of confirmation from them

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and also from my siblings and my cousins. Yeah.

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I have so many questions for you. I don't even know where to start,

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because I love. I love generational stories. I think

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they're so important, and I think that we don't always give credence

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to the fact that generational stories impact us for

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generations and that it's not just, you know, you were

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five or almost six when you left Cuba and you

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had your own experience, but to live through the eyes of

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your elders and to know their stories,

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your life was completely affected by and

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influenced by their experience. Yes. You know,

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and I wonder sometimes, even now, especially because,

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you know, the book is out and I've been doing a lot related to

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the book. It's almost like my life is

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their life. And, you know, you wonder sometimes, am I

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missing out on my own life? Like, it's. So much of what I've lived

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is to honor their life, to honor their experiences,

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and to tell a story that I don't think has been told enough,

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if at all, which is the. The true

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events around the revolution, the Cuban revolution

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that so many people seem to think they understand and

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in some cases still worship, almost because of

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the romantic figures of Fidel and Che and the fact that

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they happened. They came into the attention of

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the world in the 60s when in our country here

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we were going through this cultural revolution. And so these young people who

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were anti war and who were protesting racial discrimination

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saw in Cuba the answer. These young, you know,

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handsome, whatever, revolutionaries, and they bought

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all of the propaganda that they. That they very successfully

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spun. So, yeah,

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I guess it's Part mission. Part mission for

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the theme of the book, the main context

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of the book, which was the revolution, but also the theme of this intergenerational

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bond which comes through stories and

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the richness that all of that brings. But does that mean then that

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I haven't lived my own life,

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lived my own adventures, and. Of course

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I have. But you definitely, when you're focused on their

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stories, it shapes everything. Sure, yeah. I mean,

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it is a trajectory of your life. Right, that not everybody can

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say that they have. I imagine even your family members in

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your generation that contributed to the book still can't have

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the. They don't have the same perspective because they didn't live it out like you

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did. Yeah, I think you're right. And they. What's happened with the book is that

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I have forced them to relive a trauma that

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they, you know, don't want to think of

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necessarily as a trauma. I myself, in the book I

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write how I never saw it as a trauma until I

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was. My daughter was the age I was when we lost our Cuban lives.

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Because, again, stories. The power of stories. So I

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had these really strong women in the family who spun their

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own story about what happened to us, which was,

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we won. We beat Castro, we beat

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communism. Look at us go. If we face discrimination,

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when we did, it was, don't worry about that. That's just an ignorant American who

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doesn't know how awesome Cubans are and feel sorry for them.

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So when. When my daughter turned

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the age I'd been almost six, I became very

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depressed. And it's in the book, in Property of the Revolution,

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where that depression leads me to a realization

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that, in fact, what happened to me, it took a psychiatrist

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to point this out to me. I had thought that my daughter, our daughter

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wasn't ready for kindergarten when the psychiatrist did

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the evaluation and said, she's totally ready, but I'm worried

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about you. And I thought, oh, these. These shrinks, they just won't

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let you go. And she said, I think you're very

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depressed, which I didn't believe either. And I think it has something to

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do with the trauma you experienced when you were your daughter's age. And I said,

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what. What are you talking about? What trauma? And she explained, if you

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lose everything that you know overnight and your family is.

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Is bereaved, and. And you. And you never

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see your family again, and everything gets. That's trauma.

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I said, no, it's not trauma. That's not.

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Because it meant I had to change my story. The story I'd been Told

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the story that had helped us survive and live like

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we were the bomb. We were awesome.

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And so it took a long time. Wow, that's incredible.

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And I imagine is something that a

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lot of people who have been in a similar situation can relate to

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because it's a survival skill, right? Yeah. Yeah,

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definitely. And especially I. I imagine as. Because this

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is not my experience, but I imagine as women who

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are truly the leaders of the family,

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they are kind of our. Our record keepers, but also

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00:15:42,080 --> 00:15:45,240
our emotional guideposts, you know,

234
00:15:45,740 --> 00:15:49,520
whether we want to acknowledge them as leaders or not, Everybody looks

235
00:15:50,020 --> 00:15:53,410
to their mothers and grandmothers, you know, for their

236
00:15:53,910 --> 00:15:57,210
cues. And so. Yeah. How do you survive

237
00:15:57,710 --> 00:16:01,130
if you're not able to spin this in such a way that keeps your

238
00:16:01,630 --> 00:16:05,410
family moving forward? Yeah. And that's what they did. Consciously or not.

239
00:16:05,910 --> 00:16:09,290
Yeah. Interested in their own. And they were telling themselves

240
00:16:09,790 --> 00:16:13,210
that story. They were grieving. In the book, you know, there are scenes

241
00:16:13,710 --> 00:16:16,890
where I'm trying to figure out what's going on in our family. We're in this

242
00:16:17,390 --> 00:16:21,440
snowy new world. The language sounds like people

243
00:16:21,940 --> 00:16:26,400
are screaming or chewing when they talk. It doesn't make any sense because

244
00:16:26,900 --> 00:16:29,680
there was no English as a second language then. You were just put into the

245
00:16:30,180 --> 00:16:33,680
school. And I would go around the house,

246
00:16:34,180 --> 00:16:37,000
and I would find my mother or my aunt in a dark.

247
00:16:37,500 --> 00:16:40,200
In their rooms with the lights off. And I'd knock.

248
00:16:40,840 --> 00:16:43,800
They'd answer. And they'd been crying. They were crying.

249
00:16:44,120 --> 00:16:49,120
They'd say, I just have a backache or a headache. And a

250
00:16:49,620 --> 00:16:53,540
few occasions, I remember going into the medicine chest and looking for aspirin. In those

251
00:16:54,040 --> 00:16:57,140
days, there were no, you know, safety.

252
00:16:57,300 --> 00:17:00,740
I don't think there were any safety bottles, actually bringing them back,

253
00:17:01,140 --> 00:17:04,580
some pills and. But they didn't

254
00:17:05,080 --> 00:17:08,660
want to admit that what they were going through. They were trying to protect us.

255
00:17:08,900 --> 00:17:11,940
Now, when I started writing, and even before,

256
00:17:12,500 --> 00:17:16,020
once we got older, if you ask, they told you what it

257
00:17:16,520 --> 00:17:20,159
was like. They had no problem telling you what

258
00:17:20,659 --> 00:17:23,239
it was like. And every now and then, they'd bring it up themselves. But,

259
00:17:24,199 --> 00:17:27,959
yeah, those stories. Those stories saved us.

260
00:17:28,599 --> 00:17:32,439
They made everything possible. They eased the pain,

261
00:17:33,319 --> 00:17:37,079
and they. You know, they let us laugh at

262
00:17:37,719 --> 00:17:40,919
anything bad that happened. We were. We were superheroes.

263
00:17:41,419 --> 00:17:44,999
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, I think in a way, you were, regardless of

264
00:17:45,499 --> 00:17:47,799
your experience. I think immigrants are superheroes.

265
00:17:49,010 --> 00:17:52,130
Every. I mean, we think. I think a lot of people think

266
00:17:52,630 --> 00:17:55,930
they know what the immigrant experience is like. Right. They know that it's very

267
00:17:56,430 --> 00:17:59,850
difficult. But I think the book takes you to

268
00:18:00,350 --> 00:18:03,970
a place where you see what is difficult and

269
00:18:04,470 --> 00:18:08,330
what is miraculous and what is hysterically funny and what

270
00:18:08,830 --> 00:18:12,810
is so heartwarming. And it's a

271
00:18:13,310 --> 00:18:16,510
place that very few people really experience.

272
00:18:17,070 --> 00:18:20,390
It's only that generation and the

273
00:18:20,890 --> 00:18:23,310
first generation, whether you're a child or an older person.

274
00:18:24,270 --> 00:18:27,990
I think it's the luckiest families, the luckiest immigrant families have

275
00:18:28,490 --> 00:18:31,550
the multiple generations smashed into one house,

276
00:18:32,190 --> 00:18:35,710
figuring out how to survive and making magic every

277
00:18:36,210 --> 00:18:39,390
day. Well, I mean, that's what community is. Right.

278
00:18:39,470 --> 00:18:43,110
So it is. I think it is lucky and important. Yeah.

279
00:18:43,610 --> 00:18:47,430
You know, when you say community, it was like a little island. Like we were

280
00:18:47,930 --> 00:18:51,710
our own little Cuba. Yeah. In the. In New Hampshire,

281
00:18:52,210 --> 00:18:54,950
where there were no Latino. Almost no Latinos at the time.

282
00:18:55,350 --> 00:18:58,710
No Spanish tv, no Spanish radio, nothing.

283
00:18:59,430 --> 00:19:02,070
And we were forced to speak Spanish at home.

284
00:19:02,710 --> 00:19:06,430
So we had. So I thought Spanish was like our family secret code.

285
00:19:06,930 --> 00:19:11,050
I didn't understand that other people spoke it. And when our relatives

286
00:19:11,550 --> 00:19:14,610
would come from Miami or New Jersey, they knew our language.

287
00:19:15,170 --> 00:19:18,690
So I remember once going to a lake

288
00:19:18,930 --> 00:19:22,530
and there was an Ecuadorian family with lots of kids.

289
00:19:23,030 --> 00:19:26,370
So they immediately caught my attention. And they were speaking Spanish.

290
00:19:26,870 --> 00:19:30,450
My mother. Because in those days, if they heard anybody speaking Spanish, they ran

291
00:19:30,850 --> 00:19:33,970
toward them and my mother was talking to them. And I thought,

292
00:19:34,190 --> 00:19:37,470
oh, I didn't know we had other cousins in the area.

293
00:19:38,110 --> 00:19:41,430
So, you know, like, why didn't anybody tell me I had all these other cousins

294
00:19:41,930 --> 00:19:45,070
that I could be playing with? I thought, yeah, you know,

295
00:19:45,570 --> 00:19:49,710
if they're speaking Spanish, they're related to me. Yep. Which is a different experience from

296
00:19:50,270 --> 00:19:54,070
what the. Like a Miami Cuban American would

297
00:19:54,570 --> 00:19:58,070
have experienced, because they went out, their teachers spoke Spanish,

298
00:19:58,570 --> 00:20:02,160
their pharmacists spoke Spanish. Yeah. So it's a unique experience,

299
00:20:02,240 --> 00:20:06,320
I think, when you end up in a far. As the far flung representative

300
00:20:06,800 --> 00:20:10,160
of your culture and your country,

301
00:20:10,480 --> 00:20:14,160
which is what happened to us. I think, too, you know,

302
00:20:14,480 --> 00:20:17,840
I have had the privilege of

303
00:20:18,160 --> 00:20:21,360
interviewing a few immigrants to the United States.

304
00:20:21,840 --> 00:20:25,240
And one of my first interviews that I did, it was early

305
00:20:25,740 --> 00:20:29,460
on, and this man was from Somalia, and he

306
00:20:29,960 --> 00:20:33,020
really broke down a lot of the experience that.

307
00:20:33,500 --> 00:20:37,500
I think you're right in that we assume things are difficult,

308
00:20:37,580 --> 00:20:40,860
but we don't think about what that means day to day.

309
00:20:41,100 --> 00:20:44,620
I think a lot of times we assume that

310
00:20:45,260 --> 00:20:48,300
people that come to the United States,

311
00:20:49,100 --> 00:20:51,820
first of all, all want to be here,

312
00:20:52,940 --> 00:20:56,260
but second of all, that, you know, they arrive and it's

313
00:20:56,760 --> 00:21:00,100
like a mental struggle and maybe, like, they have a little

314
00:21:00,600 --> 00:21:03,960
bit issues assimilating, but overall,

315
00:21:04,200 --> 00:21:07,640
like, it's something that everybody can, you Know,

316
00:21:08,140 --> 00:21:12,360
overcome really easily. And the logistics of

317
00:21:12,860 --> 00:21:16,440
just being here, coming to a totally different

318
00:21:16,519 --> 00:21:20,000
climate, not having a choice. I'm assuming you were

319
00:21:20,500 --> 00:21:23,800
resettled through a refugee center. Well, yeah,

320
00:21:24,300 --> 00:21:27,440
we. At that time, nobody wanted more Cubans in Miami, so they were pushing you

321
00:21:27,940 --> 00:21:31,300
out. But yeah, we had a sponsor in my aunt who had nothing

322
00:21:32,020 --> 00:21:34,500
with her. They had come just six months before.

323
00:21:35,220 --> 00:21:38,740
But yeah, you're hitting on something that's really important,

324
00:21:38,820 --> 00:21:41,220
which is that in general,

325
00:21:41,300 --> 00:21:45,180
refugees are fleeing. They are fleeing

326
00:21:45,680 --> 00:21:48,900
with nothing. They know that they

327
00:21:49,060 --> 00:21:52,100
will probably not be able to go back, that their family probably won't be able

328
00:21:52,600 --> 00:21:56,730
to come out. And there's a kind of grief and trauma that's unique

329
00:21:57,230 --> 00:22:00,730
to that. Generally. An immigrant generally wants

330
00:22:01,230 --> 00:22:04,570
to like in some of these cases, especially at the turn of the century,

331
00:22:05,070 --> 00:22:08,930
for example, you're coming to hopefully have a better life.

332
00:22:09,410 --> 00:22:12,930
You're coming with dreams and to America.

333
00:22:13,570 --> 00:22:16,850
But that's not every immigrant. Yeah, there's a subset

334
00:22:17,350 --> 00:22:20,530
of immigrants that come with what happened to us in varying

335
00:22:21,030 --> 00:22:25,320
degrees. Yeah. And the

336
00:22:25,820 --> 00:22:29,280
other piece of that is those complexities and

337
00:22:29,780 --> 00:22:32,880
the difficulties are something that stay with you.

338
00:22:33,440 --> 00:22:37,000
The immigrant experience doesn't end for many of

339
00:22:37,500 --> 00:22:40,640
us, especially for refugees, former refugees.

340
00:22:41,120 --> 00:22:44,000
And that was one of the reasons for calling the book,

341
00:22:44,320 --> 00:22:47,600
titling it Property of the Revolution, because in many ways

342
00:22:47,680 --> 00:22:50,470
we still are. Hmm. It's claimed to us.

343
00:22:51,430 --> 00:22:54,790
So look at even my cousins and my brother who thought they got away from,

344
00:22:55,110 --> 00:22:58,630
you know, they made a clean getaway, right? No trauma here,

345
00:22:59,130 --> 00:23:02,310
no problems here. We're Cuban American, we're awesome, blah, blah, blah.

346
00:23:02,710 --> 00:23:05,870
Well, now their cousin, their sister wrote

347
00:23:06,370 --> 00:23:09,990
this book. They're reading it, they're listening to it because I did the audiobook.

348
00:23:10,390 --> 00:23:13,550
Huh. It's coming back for you. And every now and then

349
00:23:14,050 --> 00:23:17,810
it comes back for you. Like if you see something you see on TV

350
00:23:18,290 --> 00:23:21,170
during the Ukrainian war, I saw,

351
00:23:21,570 --> 00:23:25,050
I don't know if you remember, but a lot of the earliest footage

352
00:23:25,550 --> 00:23:29,010
was of shelters in Poland and in other

353
00:23:29,510 --> 00:23:33,090
countries. And the shelters were full of old women

354
00:23:33,570 --> 00:23:37,330
and children, which is very much

355
00:23:38,290 --> 00:23:42,430
reflected in Property of the Revolution because the

356
00:23:42,510 --> 00:23:45,870
adults in their prime are the ones making all the decisions.

357
00:23:46,030 --> 00:23:49,830
We're leaving now, we've arrived. Now they've

358
00:23:50,330 --> 00:23:53,750
got to work. Bam, bam, bam, every day. And so if you're

359
00:23:54,250 --> 00:23:57,470
lucky and you have a multi generational family, you have a grandmother

360
00:23:57,970 --> 00:24:01,350
or grandfather or grandaunt, they're in the home. So the two

361
00:24:01,850 --> 00:24:05,710
generations bond in a unique way. They're both

362
00:24:05,790 --> 00:24:10,480
grieving, even though the child doesn't understand that she's grieving and

363
00:24:10,980 --> 00:24:14,440
so there's a unique bond that forms from the

364
00:24:14,940 --> 00:24:18,400
experience of being a refugee or

365
00:24:18,900 --> 00:24:23,480
a reluctant immigrant. Yeah. Again, I can only imagine

366
00:24:23,560 --> 00:24:26,760
what that experience is like because I've never lived through it.

367
00:24:27,260 --> 00:24:31,880
But every story that I hear, I do think it's so important, especially in

368
00:24:32,360 --> 00:24:36,040
today, to highlight that

369
00:24:36,560 --> 00:24:39,800
two things can be true at once. Right. Like you can be glad that you're

370
00:24:40,300 --> 00:24:43,880
in America. Exactly. And still miss where you came from and

371
00:24:44,380 --> 00:24:47,600
still wish it didn't have to happen this way. Right, exactly.

372
00:24:47,840 --> 00:24:50,640
That's it for your. That's what. That's.

373
00:24:51,440 --> 00:24:55,040
That's the essence, in a way, of where

374
00:24:55,540 --> 00:24:59,720
you live as a refugee slash immigrant. You're straddling

375
00:25:00,220 --> 00:25:03,080
that all the time, if you're aware. I mean, some people are just forward,

376
00:25:03,580 --> 00:25:06,810
back march, and they don't look back. They don't want to look back. Yeah.

377
00:25:07,050 --> 00:25:10,130
And I think that's what it is. Right. We don't

378
00:25:10,630 --> 00:25:14,770
always want to confront the difficulty that is in

379
00:25:15,270 --> 00:25:19,090
the past or what our trauma has been that led us here. And as

380
00:25:19,590 --> 00:25:23,410
you said, different people deal with things differently. But I do think it's important to

381
00:25:23,910 --> 00:25:27,290
acknowledge that, you know, you had spoken about grief. I think

382
00:25:27,850 --> 00:25:31,990
I can imagine that leaving in such a way is

383
00:25:32,950 --> 00:25:36,870
akin to death, you know, where it's like you're

384
00:25:37,370 --> 00:25:40,630
never gonna be there again, because even if you go back, it's not the same.

385
00:25:41,270 --> 00:25:44,870
And so to. To actually experience

386
00:25:45,030 --> 00:25:48,190
almost like a living death of a place, of a

387
00:25:48,690 --> 00:25:52,870
time in your life, of a time when your family was in this

388
00:25:53,370 --> 00:25:56,750
space together. So I can imagine. I mean, that doesn't. That doesn't fully

389
00:25:57,250 --> 00:26:00,480
ever go away. No. Because it's something, you know, bone deep.

390
00:26:00,960 --> 00:26:04,320
Bone deep, most definitely.

391
00:26:04,560 --> 00:26:08,200
And you're right about when you return. Because I've been

392
00:26:08,700 --> 00:26:10,480
lucky enough, I was able to return twice.

393
00:26:12,000 --> 00:26:14,480
It's a reminder that what you left isn't there.

394
00:26:15,040 --> 00:26:18,200
First of all, my parents weren't sure they'd ever. We'd ever be able to go

395
00:26:18,700 --> 00:26:22,080
back. Over time, and depending on the administration, it was a little easier.

396
00:26:22,400 --> 00:26:25,510
But it's a reminder that you don't really belong

397
00:26:26,010 --> 00:26:29,270
there either. And here, you know, I'm so American,

398
00:26:29,430 --> 00:26:32,990
Right. I don't have an accent. I just look like a

399
00:26:33,490 --> 00:26:37,470
dark American for part of the year. So you wouldn't necessarily

400
00:26:37,970 --> 00:26:41,230
know, but things happen all the time that remind me.

401
00:26:41,730 --> 00:26:45,510
I was at a baby shower, and the mother of the

402
00:26:46,150 --> 00:26:49,430
mom to be was next to me, and she said,

403
00:26:49,990 --> 00:26:54,390
do you think so? And so will have a Latina nanny?

404
00:26:54,790 --> 00:26:57,670
And I said, I don't. I Don't know, we haven't talked about it. And she

405
00:26:58,170 --> 00:27:02,150
said, because, you know, I just really, I would rather her, you know, have a

406
00:27:02,230 --> 00:27:06,270
Nordic nanny because, you know, the hygiene, they understand hygiene

407
00:27:06,770 --> 00:27:10,750
better. And I had another friend on my other side and she grabbed

408
00:27:11,250 --> 00:27:14,790
my arm and she knew I was about to go ballistic.

409
00:27:15,030 --> 00:27:18,150
And she, she shook her head. She's like. Because you have to decide when

410
00:27:18,650 --> 00:27:22,390
you're going to fake, when you're going to do a, have your little battle.

411
00:27:22,630 --> 00:27:25,950
And I decided I was gonna let that one go. But things like

412
00:27:26,450 --> 00:27:29,990
that all the time. Yeah. And there are people who questioned me

413
00:27:30,490 --> 00:27:34,230
at times when I describe myself as Cuban American. There's a scene

414
00:27:34,730 --> 00:27:38,310
in the book about that at work where an executive said, why do you insist

415
00:27:38,810 --> 00:27:42,350
on calling yourself Cuban American? I don't know how I had

416
00:27:42,850 --> 00:27:46,350
just referred to my background because my name or my dark

417
00:27:46,850 --> 00:27:50,430
skin in the summer would, would raise questions. And I

418
00:27:50,930 --> 00:27:54,390
said, well, because I am. Oh no, you're not. You've been raised

419
00:27:54,890 --> 00:27:58,630
here. You're. And so, you know, this comes up.

420
00:27:58,710 --> 00:28:02,150
Yeah. In many different ways. Yeah.

421
00:28:02,550 --> 00:28:06,230
It's a very interesting. And interesting probably isn't a

422
00:28:06,730 --> 00:28:10,470
strong enough word, but when people think that

423
00:28:10,970 --> 00:28:14,550
they, they get to have a say about how immigrants experience,

424
00:28:16,490 --> 00:28:19,770
particularly, I guess, refugees experience, you know,

425
00:28:20,270 --> 00:28:23,730
their, their movement forward and how they should behave or what

426
00:28:24,230 --> 00:28:27,930
they should or should not be doing. And I think at the, at the

427
00:28:28,490 --> 00:28:30,970
base level of it is we're all human,

428
00:28:31,290 --> 00:28:36,010
right. And so while our nationalities

429
00:28:36,250 --> 00:28:39,970
do inform the way that we move

430
00:28:40,470 --> 00:28:44,250
through the world, they aren't our identity in such a way that it should offend

431
00:28:44,750 --> 00:28:48,320
us when somebody wants to, you know, claim their nationality

432
00:28:48,800 --> 00:28:52,080
or claim one that they, you know, that they're proud of.

433
00:28:52,160 --> 00:28:55,680
Yeah. It's nobody's business. I mean, really, it's. No, but nobody's,

434
00:28:56,180 --> 00:28:59,280
Nobody should be policing that. Your identity, your. How you

435
00:28:59,780 --> 00:29:03,200
identify. Yeah, I agree, I agree. But it's an offense to

436
00:29:03,700 --> 00:29:07,400
some people, which is crazy. It is crazy. Yeah. Where do you think

437
00:29:07,900 --> 00:29:09,520
that comes from? A good question.

438
00:29:10,880 --> 00:29:14,310
I think I didn't fit his view

439
00:29:14,390 --> 00:29:17,590
of what a Cuban was or even

440
00:29:18,090 --> 00:29:19,910
what a minority or an immigrant was.

441
00:29:20,950 --> 00:29:24,950
And he didn't want me to break whatever

442
00:29:25,450 --> 00:29:28,789
the model was that he had in his head. And it bothered

443
00:29:29,289 --> 00:29:33,110
him, bothered him a lot. We got into a good old fashioned

444
00:29:33,670 --> 00:29:37,310
debate in his office over this. And my

445
00:29:37,810 --> 00:29:41,270
mother, I was still living at home. It was my first job out of college.

446
00:29:41,770 --> 00:29:45,130
Oh, geez. And when I went home to

447
00:29:45,630 --> 00:29:48,850
my multi generational home, my mother's, I told

448
00:29:49,350 --> 00:29:52,810
them what had happened and my mother said something

449
00:29:53,310 --> 00:29:56,730
like, well, that's his problem, not yours. Typical. Like, let's spin it around.

450
00:29:57,230 --> 00:30:00,130
He has no clue what he's talking about. But my aunt said,

451
00:30:00,770 --> 00:30:04,650
don't let anyone ever tell you who you

452
00:30:05,150 --> 00:30:09,800
are, because that's what happened to us after the revolution and

453
00:30:10,280 --> 00:30:14,120
we didn't stand up. So you stand up for who you are

454
00:30:14,600 --> 00:30:17,640
and don't ever let anybody tell you that. Yeah. You know,

455
00:30:17,800 --> 00:30:21,960
that's the beauty of the multi generational home.

456
00:30:22,280 --> 00:30:26,920
Yeah. Especially one where people fortunately and unfortunately

457
00:30:27,420 --> 00:30:30,920
aren't afraid to tell you what they think. You know, in our home,

458
00:30:31,000 --> 00:30:34,400
nobody ever held back for the

459
00:30:34,900 --> 00:30:38,080
good and the bad. So. But through that comes

460
00:30:38,580 --> 00:30:41,680
wisdom. And through that you learn about life.

461
00:30:42,180 --> 00:30:44,800
You learn how to live your life, you learn how to make a better life.

462
00:30:45,520 --> 00:30:46,880
And it's sad. You know,

463
00:30:48,880 --> 00:30:52,480
when my husband Andy and I had our first child, I became

464
00:30:52,960 --> 00:30:56,520
depressed. And I realized that part of

465
00:30:57,020 --> 00:31:00,400
it was this wasn't the household that I understood

466
00:31:00,800 --> 00:31:04,280
as a mother. Where were my other mothers? Yeah. Where were all

467
00:31:04,780 --> 00:31:08,080
the other people? What did I know about having a baby? Who was going to

468
00:31:08,580 --> 00:31:11,600
help me? Who's going to. It just didn't add up.

469
00:31:12,160 --> 00:31:16,560
That must be very jarring to move from such a multi

470
00:31:17,060 --> 00:31:20,560
generational culture to a very individualistic culture.

471
00:31:20,640 --> 00:31:24,320
Yeah. Where we place a lot of emphasis on the nuclear

472
00:31:24,820 --> 00:31:28,960
family, but we don't have as much of an attention span

473
00:31:29,120 --> 00:31:33,680
for multi generational living and being

474
00:31:34,180 --> 00:31:37,760
together. Community. Yeah. It's foreign. If you think

475
00:31:38,260 --> 00:31:41,160
about it, our culture, American culture,

476
00:31:41,720 --> 00:31:45,160
is one of the fundamental

477
00:31:45,240 --> 00:31:48,640
values is independence, and another one is

478
00:31:49,140 --> 00:31:52,520
privacy. And I talk about that in the book. Neither one of those

479
00:31:52,680 --> 00:31:55,920
mattered much in Cuban culture, but I think in

480
00:31:56,420 --> 00:31:59,160
general in Latin American culture and many Asian cultures too,

481
00:32:00,420 --> 00:32:03,660
where, you know, actually in Cuba,

482
00:32:04,160 --> 00:32:08,260
if somebody says, tuer es muy independiente, you are very independent.

483
00:32:08,500 --> 00:32:11,620
That's a slam. Okay. Right.

484
00:32:11,860 --> 00:32:15,260
So those are the reasons that there's

485
00:32:15,760 --> 00:32:18,980
this constant clash that, you know,

486
00:32:19,480 --> 00:32:22,900
privacy is another one. Privacy is. There's a scene in the book where

487
00:32:23,400 --> 00:32:26,740
my grandmother was. The family was taking care of my grandmother, who was

488
00:32:27,240 --> 00:32:31,340
in a wheelchair at home. And there happened to be a physical therapist visiting

489
00:32:31,840 --> 00:32:35,540
the home at the time. And she came in when my parents were giving my

490
00:32:36,040 --> 00:32:39,140
grandmother a bath. My parents and my aunt and uncle. And they had set up

491
00:32:39,640 --> 00:32:42,780
this. It was a tiny little house, a contraption,

492
00:32:43,180 --> 00:32:46,780
where they would fill up. They moved the kitchen table out of the

493
00:32:47,280 --> 00:32:50,500
way. They filled up a kiddie pool in the middle. No, first they wheeled her

494
00:32:51,000 --> 00:32:54,300
in. Okay. They collapsed the sides. They Wheeled her in. Then they hooked

495
00:32:54,800 --> 00:32:59,180
a hose up to the sink, they brought it over. Now her

496
00:32:59,680 --> 00:33:03,300
son in laws were turning away while the daughters bathed

497
00:33:03,800 --> 00:33:07,420
her. And then at the end they brought the wet vac

498
00:33:07,920 --> 00:33:11,460
and vacuumed out the water and the whole thing. And so

499
00:33:11,960 --> 00:33:17,020
we were, all the little children, the great grandchildren were there and different generations

500
00:33:17,520 --> 00:33:21,100
were there observing this phenomenon. And the American

501
00:33:22,380 --> 00:33:25,700
physical therapist said, I can't believe

502
00:33:26,200 --> 00:33:29,760
they just did that. But what about her privacy? And I

503
00:33:30,260 --> 00:33:32,920
said, you know, Cuban Abuela is just.

504
00:33:33,800 --> 00:33:36,120
They don't really care about the privacy part of it.

505
00:33:37,000 --> 00:33:40,840
They know they're being loved hard and hands on

506
00:33:41,320 --> 00:33:43,400
and that's what matters to them.

507
00:33:44,520 --> 00:33:47,840
But you see, right. Huge difference how

508
00:33:48,340 --> 00:33:52,040
that just doesn't match. Oh, yes. And that's what my

509
00:33:52,540 --> 00:33:55,320
generation does interpret for both sides,

510
00:33:56,750 --> 00:33:59,470
which is a whole other responsibility.

511
00:33:59,870 --> 00:34:04,270
Right. Because you have the distinct place

512
00:34:04,510 --> 00:34:09,390
of being the ones that have to understand both

513
00:34:09,890 --> 00:34:13,470
sides and having to learn more quickly, I imagine,

514
00:34:13,790 --> 00:34:16,910
the new culture that you're coming into so that you are able

515
00:34:17,410 --> 00:34:20,350
to help do the interpretation. Yeah,

516
00:34:20,510 --> 00:34:23,790
yeah. Culturally, language,

517
00:34:24,590 --> 00:34:27,540
I mean, you'll see this happens. I don't know.

518
00:34:28,340 --> 00:34:31,860
Where do you live, Jennifer? Outside of Philadelphia. Okay, well,

519
00:34:32,180 --> 00:34:35,780
so that's a big city. I'm sure you've seen immigrants,

520
00:34:36,280 --> 00:34:39,580
immigrant children interpreting for their parents at some point or

521
00:34:40,080 --> 00:34:43,500
another. And that's what we did all the time. But it's language and

522
00:34:44,000 --> 00:34:46,980
it's explaining. Yeah. Because, you know,

523
00:34:47,140 --> 00:34:50,780
there's colloquialisms, there's phrases that you use in

524
00:34:51,280 --> 00:34:54,800
English and if translated literally like that doesn't

525
00:34:55,300 --> 00:34:57,920
even make sense or that's kind of scary. Why would we do that? Right.

526
00:34:58,080 --> 00:35:01,280
No. Yeah. One example was I was

527
00:35:01,780 --> 00:35:05,160
little, newly arrived and quite

528
00:35:05,660 --> 00:35:09,280
early I was invited to a sleepover and boy did I want to

529
00:35:09,780 --> 00:35:13,040
go. But my parents could not fathom.

530
00:35:13,280 --> 00:35:17,360
They would say, well, why would Americans send their children to sleep

531
00:35:17,860 --> 00:35:21,280
in a stranger's house? They were baffled. And of course,

532
00:35:21,780 --> 00:35:24,880
I never went. I never went to a. When I was older, I was allowed

533
00:35:25,380 --> 00:35:29,400
to go and then had to come home at 10. Okay. And only if,

534
00:35:29,480 --> 00:35:32,600
like there were no dads around or older brothers.

535
00:35:32,920 --> 00:35:36,240
They were, you know, very protective. Your parents probably

536
00:35:36,740 --> 00:35:39,680
had it right or your family probably had it right. Yeah, yeah. But I was

537
00:35:40,180 --> 00:35:43,480
angry at that. Sure. I wanted nothing more than to be an

538
00:35:43,980 --> 00:35:47,400
American girl. Yeah. And they blocked my way

539
00:35:47,900 --> 00:35:50,440
all the time they wanted. When I, when I was old enough to date,

540
00:35:51,240 --> 00:35:54,800
they said, well, first of all, novio is

541
00:35:55,300 --> 00:35:59,320
the word for boyfriend in Spanish. Except it's not really boyfriend,

542
00:35:59,820 --> 00:36:03,800
it's betrothed oh, so even the word doesn't really

543
00:36:04,300 --> 00:36:07,480
exist. And they said, well, no, you're not old enough,

544
00:36:07,980 --> 00:36:12,160
but when you are, your grandmother will be your chaperone. Now they

545
00:36:12,660 --> 00:36:15,960
literally, they were totally serious about that. My grandmother was going

546
00:36:16,460 --> 00:36:19,740
to be in the backseat of any car that I ever went out on a

547
00:36:20,240 --> 00:36:23,820
date on. Oh, my God. So how was dating for you?

548
00:36:24,540 --> 00:36:27,980
Oh, my God, it was, it was a. Well,

549
00:36:28,480 --> 00:36:31,580
first of all, the boys had to come into the house every.

550
00:36:32,140 --> 00:36:35,060
To pick me up and drop me off. They had to come in and they

551
00:36:35,560 --> 00:36:37,500
had to chat for a long time.

552
00:36:39,100 --> 00:36:42,340
And some couldn't take that. Yeah. And then

553
00:36:42,840 --> 00:36:46,340
I just, as the party was going, getting going, I'd have

554
00:36:46,840 --> 00:36:50,020
to be taken home. I had to be home before the end of the News

555
00:36:50,520 --> 00:36:53,840
hour at 11:30. Oh, interesting. If I was even in

556
00:36:54,340 --> 00:36:56,840
high school. I mean, very late through high school.

557
00:36:57,400 --> 00:37:01,360
So there were just certain things I wouldn't budge

558
00:37:01,860 --> 00:37:05,680
on because of protectiveness. Very protective,

559
00:37:06,180 --> 00:37:08,840
Very old world. Even when I wanted to go away to college,

560
00:37:09,400 --> 00:37:12,920
my father, my mother, my aunt and my grandmother

561
00:37:13,640 --> 00:37:17,240
had like a two year campaign nonstop to

562
00:37:17,830 --> 00:37:22,150
get him to realize or to consider that

563
00:37:22,650 --> 00:37:26,510
I could go away even though I wasn't married. He said

564
00:37:27,010 --> 00:37:29,350
to me, how can I let you go to college? You're not even married.

565
00:37:29,850 --> 00:37:33,430
I can't let you leave the home. And he wanted me to go to

566
00:37:33,750 --> 00:37:36,950
a local Catholic college and come home every day.

567
00:37:37,030 --> 00:37:40,630
Yeah. And were you able to go away? I did. I went to Smith

568
00:37:41,130 --> 00:37:44,630
College, which is only about two, two and a

569
00:37:45,130 --> 00:37:48,390
half hours away. But it was a big deal for him.

570
00:37:48,890 --> 00:37:52,490
He really struggled. Sure. Yeah. I mean, I can't

571
00:37:52,990 --> 00:37:57,170
imagine having, like, not just losing

572
00:37:58,130 --> 00:38:01,650
what you have, but having to then

573
00:38:01,890 --> 00:38:05,770
recreate a life in the context of a completely

574
00:38:06,270 --> 00:38:10,330
different culture. And at certain points you kind of have

575
00:38:10,830 --> 00:38:14,450
to just go with it. Right. You can't completely shut

576
00:38:14,950 --> 00:38:18,220
that out. No. Yeah. And even my grandmother, my grandmother.

577
00:38:18,620 --> 00:38:21,420
Andy is Jewish. We were raised Catholic.

578
00:38:22,220 --> 00:38:25,420
And I had. This is in the book too. So when we were dating,

579
00:38:25,660 --> 00:38:28,940
he would end up sleeping in my grandmother's room. My grandmother, being very

580
00:38:29,440 --> 00:38:31,420
devout Catholic, had, you know,

581
00:38:31,820 --> 00:38:35,020
crucifixes. I called it hippie Jesus. There was

582
00:38:35,520 --> 00:38:40,020
a hippie Jesus painting. There were palm fronds

583
00:38:40,520 --> 00:38:44,260
from the previous Palm Sunday. And Andy

584
00:38:44,760 --> 00:38:48,020
was sleeping in there. And so Andy didn't really bring

585
00:38:48,520 --> 00:38:52,340
it up. But then my grandmother loved Andy and said, you know, so why

586
00:38:52,840 --> 00:38:56,060
is it taking you guys so long to get married? You know, you're, you're 27.

587
00:38:56,380 --> 00:39:00,460
This is bad. You're waiting too Long. And she said.

588
00:39:01,020 --> 00:39:04,100
I said, well, for example, we're trying to figure out the Jewish Catholic thing.

589
00:39:04,600 --> 00:39:07,580
Okay, well, explain that to me. What is the problem there?

590
00:39:09,180 --> 00:39:12,800
They have the Old Testament. I said, yes, but for example,

591
00:39:13,300 --> 00:39:17,080
symbols, Crucifixes, like in your room, those. No, I didn't say

592
00:39:17,580 --> 00:39:21,880
her room. I just said, crucifixes, for example, are a

593
00:39:22,380 --> 00:39:26,400
sign, a symbol of a group that persecuted them and

594
00:39:26,800 --> 00:39:30,560
for millennia. And she said, oh, okay. I didn't understand.

595
00:39:30,640 --> 00:39:34,160
Andy came to visit another weekend and he

596
00:39:34,240 --> 00:39:37,280
came down to breakfast, it was just the two of us. And he said,

597
00:39:37,780 --> 00:39:41,780
anna, what hippie? Jesus is gone.

598
00:39:42,020 --> 00:39:45,220
The crucifix is gone. Everything's off the wall.

599
00:39:45,700 --> 00:39:49,460
Your grandmother, like, took everything out. What's going

600
00:39:49,960 --> 00:39:52,980
on? And I asked her later on, I said, well, Abuela,

601
00:39:53,480 --> 00:39:56,980
you know, you didn't have to do that. Oh, I will put it all back.

602
00:39:57,480 --> 00:40:01,300
Don't worry. I just don't want him to feel uncomfortable after what you said.

603
00:40:01,780 --> 00:40:05,270
And I thought I was shocked, but I

604
00:40:05,770 --> 00:40:09,230
attributed it to just what you were saying, which is you can't

605
00:40:09,730 --> 00:40:13,750
ignore what's happened. You have to make these incremental changes

606
00:40:14,250 --> 00:40:17,030
over time. And sometimes you don't even know you're making them.

607
00:40:17,670 --> 00:40:20,790
Incremental changes. And so that

608
00:40:21,290 --> 00:40:24,390
old heart had been practicing

609
00:40:24,890 --> 00:40:28,550
and making changes and opening up ever so gradually.

610
00:40:29,270 --> 00:40:32,700
And so when it came to a potentially Jewish grandson

611
00:40:33,200 --> 00:40:36,420
in law, she was rolling with it. Yeah, yeah.

612
00:40:36,920 --> 00:40:40,860
It was kind of like the least of her. No. Yeah. And she. This is

613
00:40:41,360 --> 00:40:44,860
a woman who read her Bible every day and always had

614
00:40:45,360 --> 00:40:48,940
it out to wherever she was reading. Yeah, I think that's

615
00:40:49,440 --> 00:40:52,740
a really interesting, interesting juxtaposition of,

616
00:40:53,060 --> 00:40:56,260
you know, the immigrant who is,

617
00:40:56,500 --> 00:40:59,580
you know, very set in their ways, or like you said,

618
00:41:00,080 --> 00:41:04,160
old world, even very staunch in their beliefs,

619
00:41:04,640 --> 00:41:08,120
are also the people that are able to

620
00:41:08,620 --> 00:41:12,440
be open and accepting of others more

621
00:41:12,940 --> 00:41:16,800
readily because of their own experience. Yeah. Isn't that weird when you think about it?

622
00:41:17,300 --> 00:41:19,680
It does. It's. It's contradictory. Yeah,

623
00:41:20,640 --> 00:41:24,320
it's contradictory. But that's part of the beauty

624
00:41:24,820 --> 00:41:28,200
of the, of the immigrant experience. If you dig in like those

625
00:41:28,700 --> 00:41:31,800
are these, are these nuances. Right. When we were talking about how people think they

626
00:41:32,300 --> 00:41:35,180
know. But if study it a little bit more closely,

627
00:41:35,420 --> 00:41:39,420
you really see the miracle of immigration.

628
00:41:39,820 --> 00:41:43,620
It's our oldest human story, you know, of being the

629
00:41:44,120 --> 00:41:47,580
other, of having to leave home for one reason or another.

630
00:41:48,220 --> 00:41:51,100
And there are miracles in that story.

631
00:41:52,220 --> 00:41:56,100
Absolutely. So I want to kind

632
00:41:56,600 --> 00:41:59,900
of go back, if you don't mind, because I would really love to

633
00:42:00,400 --> 00:42:04,140
hear from Your perspective. The. And I know

634
00:42:04,640 --> 00:42:07,260
this is a. This is a big question, so first of all, take it however

635
00:42:07,760 --> 00:42:11,300
you want. And you're scaring me, Jennifer. Strokes here. No,

636
00:42:11,800 --> 00:42:15,620
I. You had mentioned before that people think they know about Cuba

637
00:42:16,120 --> 00:42:19,580
and the revolution and what that meant. Can you kind of

638
00:42:20,080 --> 00:42:24,020
walk through the broad strokes of what that was and

639
00:42:24,500 --> 00:42:27,940
how you and your family saw it differently

640
00:42:28,440 --> 00:42:32,060
from maybe it's taught to us in America? Yes.

641
00:42:32,620 --> 00:42:36,500
Okay, so let me. I will try to do the

642
00:42:37,000 --> 00:42:39,900
best job I can with this, but in the most simple terms,

643
00:42:41,180 --> 00:42:45,820
when the rebels were gaining

644
00:42:46,460 --> 00:42:49,500
attention and backing and support in Cuba,

645
00:42:50,000 --> 00:42:53,900
which was during the 50s, the vast majority of Cubans

646
00:42:54,220 --> 00:42:57,260
believed what the different rebel groups. There were three fronts.

647
00:42:57,740 --> 00:43:01,440
Fidez was one. And they believed what all

648
00:43:01,940 --> 00:43:05,960
of the rebels were saying, which was that they were going to restore the 1940

649
00:43:06,440 --> 00:43:10,240
liberal democratic constitution, which had been in place throughout

650
00:43:10,740 --> 00:43:14,000
the 40s and remains a model of liberal

651
00:43:14,500 --> 00:43:17,920
democracy, democratic principles. They're going

652
00:43:18,420 --> 00:43:21,560
to oust the Batista dictatorship,

653
00:43:21,640 --> 00:43:24,440
which had been in power since 1952,

654
00:43:25,960 --> 00:43:29,530
and restore democracy to Cuba, restore free

655
00:43:30,030 --> 00:43:33,850
elections to Cuba. That's where the vast majority of

656
00:43:34,350 --> 00:43:37,450
Cubans hoped and thought this was going. They were not looking for a

657
00:43:37,950 --> 00:43:41,330
communist revolution, which is somehow the

658
00:43:41,830 --> 00:43:45,730
way that the propaganda came out after the revolution.

659
00:43:46,610 --> 00:43:49,810
It was like the Cubans wanted a communist revolution.

660
00:43:50,130 --> 00:43:53,290
That's not what they wanted. They wanted now. They believed

661
00:43:53,790 --> 00:43:57,290
in Fidel. And Fidel himself said, this isn't a communist

662
00:43:57,790 --> 00:44:00,960
revolution, and it's as green as a palm tree. And it

663
00:44:01,460 --> 00:44:04,920
was only after, I believe, Bay of pigs in 1961,

664
00:44:05,420 --> 00:44:09,560
April of 61, that he admitted that

665
00:44:10,060 --> 00:44:13,320
it was a communist revolution. And then it was,

666
00:44:13,820 --> 00:44:18,240
whoa. For most people. But BY Then, by 1961,

667
00:44:18,740 --> 00:44:21,120
he took power January 1, 1959,

668
00:44:22,560 --> 00:44:26,530
when Batista fled. And so

669
00:44:26,610 --> 00:44:29,650
all of 59, 60, part of 61.

670
00:44:29,970 --> 00:44:33,570
So two and a quarter years, people could see everything

671
00:44:34,070 --> 00:44:37,290
had changed. So there were committees for the defense of the Revolution

672
00:44:37,790 --> 00:44:41,770
that sprung up on every block, which were basically spy centers.

673
00:44:42,270 --> 00:44:46,290
Spying centers. People were denounced for not being revolutionaries.

674
00:44:46,530 --> 00:44:50,570
People lost their little businesses and

675
00:44:51,070 --> 00:44:54,450
the world life had changed already. There were Russian technicians

676
00:44:55,170 --> 00:44:58,570
moving in to neighborhoods and Cubans being

677
00:44:59,070 --> 00:45:02,970
thrown out of their homes for the Russian technicians to live there. That's in

678
00:45:03,470 --> 00:45:07,250
the book, too. And so my mother was a perfect example

679
00:45:07,330 --> 00:45:11,810
of someone who ended up crossing, going, doing a 180 in

680
00:45:12,310 --> 00:45:16,450
the late 50s. She actually risked her life to help the rebels. She collected

681
00:45:16,950 --> 00:45:20,250
money and medicine to send to the rebels. Oh,

682
00:45:20,750 --> 00:45:24,710
wow. Clandestinely, she was part of a cell, and she was

683
00:45:25,210 --> 00:45:28,470
almost arrested once And a

684
00:45:28,970 --> 00:45:31,350
cop, a Batista cop from our neighborhood,

685
00:45:31,590 --> 00:45:35,110
intervened and saved her. So she

686
00:45:35,610 --> 00:45:39,670
was all in on the revolution. Then after the executions,

687
00:45:40,170 --> 00:45:43,550
after Fidel and Che Guevara were executing thousands

688
00:45:44,050 --> 00:45:47,990
of people without trials who were linked to Batista.

689
00:45:48,550 --> 00:45:52,890
And seeing all these other changes, she gradually began to

690
00:45:53,850 --> 00:45:57,530
realize that this was the opposite of what she

691
00:45:58,030 --> 00:46:01,810
had risked her life for. And many, many Cubans had

692
00:46:02,310 --> 00:46:06,170
to come to that decision, or came to that decision and

693
00:46:06,670 --> 00:46:09,930
ended up losing their country, ended up doing something they never

694
00:46:10,430 --> 00:46:13,290
thought they would have to do, which was leave their beloved family,

695
00:46:14,010 --> 00:46:17,530
generations of their family. In the United States,

696
00:46:18,820 --> 00:46:22,940
as in most developed countries, you have this ability and this

697
00:46:23,440 --> 00:46:27,140
understanding as you grow up that you can move to the west coast, you can

698
00:46:27,640 --> 00:46:31,380
move to another state for school and work and whatever. And that's natural

699
00:46:32,100 --> 00:46:35,300
in Cuba, especially at that time. You stayed with your family.

700
00:46:35,620 --> 00:46:39,380
You stayed in your neighborhood. You built your new life where your

701
00:46:39,700 --> 00:46:43,300
parents had had their lives. So to leave your old people behind,

702
00:46:43,540 --> 00:46:47,010
never to see them again, we were working class. It wasn't about

703
00:46:47,650 --> 00:46:51,050
leaving the little that we had materially. It was about knowing

704
00:46:51,550 --> 00:46:54,810
you would never see your old people again. You would never be there to care

705
00:46:55,310 --> 00:46:58,890
for them during a time that looked like it was only going to get worse.

706
00:46:59,390 --> 00:47:03,010
And it did only get worse. So those are just

707
00:47:03,330 --> 00:47:07,370
things that came out of nowhere for these people who thought they were

708
00:47:07,870 --> 00:47:11,850
going to have free elections and a restoration of

709
00:47:12,350 --> 00:47:15,940
a democracy that had been in place before the

710
00:47:16,440 --> 00:47:20,140
Batista dictatorship. Yeah. So one of the changes

711
00:47:20,640 --> 00:47:24,380
was Cubans could no longer leave the country as

712
00:47:24,880 --> 00:47:28,900
they always had been able to. Now you had to get the government's permission,

713
00:47:29,300 --> 00:47:32,820
an exit pay exit visa, which only a handful of countries

714
00:47:33,300 --> 00:47:34,980
still to this day require.

715
00:47:36,260 --> 00:47:40,790
And Cuba, you know, was, I don't know, 40 years before Cuba lifted

716
00:47:41,290 --> 00:47:45,190
that restriction. And still, even though it doesn't officially

717
00:47:45,690 --> 00:47:49,110
exist, you still have to notify the authorities that

718
00:47:49,610 --> 00:47:53,550
you're seeking a visa to travel somewhere. And not

719
00:47:54,050 --> 00:47:57,830
everybody can leave, because if they educated you as

720
00:47:58,330 --> 00:48:02,190
a doctor, for example, they own you. And if the country needs you,

721
00:48:02,270 --> 00:48:05,790
you can't leave. You're just one of those who won't be able to leave.

722
00:48:06,680 --> 00:48:10,880
So is there less incentive to pursue?

723
00:48:11,380 --> 00:48:15,240
I mean, I feel like, you know, education is a lot of people who want

724
00:48:15,740 --> 00:48:19,560
to leave. It's their quote, unquote ticket. Is that

725
00:48:19,640 --> 00:48:24,280
kind of opposite in this? Yeah, it's interesting. I think for medical

726
00:48:25,000 --> 00:48:28,200
professionals, they may. Well, first of all,

727
00:48:28,520 --> 00:48:31,880
you don't. Generally, you don't choose what you study.

728
00:48:32,440 --> 00:48:35,500
So you're offered, had, let's Say four majors,

729
00:48:36,060 --> 00:48:39,940
and then they choose what. Which major you will study.

730
00:48:40,440 --> 00:48:43,900
Interesting. Yeah. That's your free educa. One of the ask many.

731
00:48:44,400 --> 00:48:47,660
There are many. And if you're a person who has a bad revolutionary record,

732
00:48:48,300 --> 00:48:51,660
meaning you haven't gone to the. You haven't volunteered,

733
00:48:52,160 --> 00:48:55,580
you haven't. You've criticized the government, you're not

734
00:48:56,080 --> 00:48:59,620
gonna be accepted. You know, they're. You're gonna. You have

735
00:49:00,120 --> 00:49:03,380
a different path, you have a different life because of what you believe and because

736
00:49:03,880 --> 00:49:06,580
you're not with the revolution, you're a problem.

737
00:49:07,700 --> 00:49:11,460
So there's a. What many call a political apartheid

738
00:49:11,780 --> 00:49:15,620
that exists that people who believe in the revolution in

739
00:49:15,780 --> 00:49:19,820
Europe or United States or wherever and still defend it apparently

740
00:49:20,320 --> 00:49:23,700
have no problem with. Wow. While they. They themselves

741
00:49:24,200 --> 00:49:27,980
wouldn't live under it. Yeah. For some reason, if it's in Cuba, they've got no

742
00:49:28,480 --> 00:49:31,840
problem. Right, right. They don't see it that. It that way at all.

743
00:49:32,400 --> 00:49:36,000
That's wild. Yeah. Now, were you taught

744
00:49:36,500 --> 00:49:39,920
about Cuba in school? Yes. And how was

745
00:49:40,420 --> 00:49:43,760
that in. In. In the

746
00:49:44,320 --> 00:49:47,360
70s and when I was in high school,

747
00:49:48,320 --> 00:49:52,240
we. They didn't really get into it as much, but they did portray

748
00:49:52,740 --> 00:49:56,000
Fidel as, you know, sort of this. A hero in a way,

749
00:49:56,500 --> 00:50:00,000
but not, not too much. It was when I got to college and I studied

750
00:50:00,500 --> 00:50:04,360
economics at Smith College and the Economics department was pretty

751
00:50:04,860 --> 00:50:08,560
heavily Marxist. And in some. Some of

752
00:50:09,060 --> 00:50:12,240
the professors would tell you that they were Marxist Leninists at the beginning of

753
00:50:12,740 --> 00:50:15,720
the semester to identify their bias, which I thought was great.

754
00:50:16,040 --> 00:50:19,440
But the problem was that the version of history they

755
00:50:19,940 --> 00:50:23,240
were teaching and left out all of these things that we were just talking

756
00:50:23,740 --> 00:50:27,530
about. And it was all like. I went to a class once where

757
00:50:28,030 --> 00:50:32,570
the professor described Cuba in the 50s and

758
00:50:33,070 --> 00:50:36,450
said that women in the 50s in Cuba had a choice.

759
00:50:36,950 --> 00:50:41,250
They could either be seamstresses or prostitutes because

760
00:50:41,750 --> 00:50:45,210
there were no options for women. When I knew that there

761
00:50:45,710 --> 00:50:48,770
had been women business owners. I had an aunt in my family who had a.

762
00:50:49,270 --> 00:50:52,850
She was a seamstress, but she had a little shop. And there were women

763
00:50:53,350 --> 00:50:56,860
in our neighborhood. I told you, that's a working class neighborhood. There were factories,

764
00:50:57,360 --> 00:51:00,980
they worked at a towel. There were women heads of households working at

765
00:51:01,480 --> 00:51:04,180
factories, that my mother and my aunt were teachers.

766
00:51:05,140 --> 00:51:08,260
There were plenty of women in the

767
00:51:08,760 --> 00:51:12,340
university. And so I raised my hand and

768
00:51:12,820 --> 00:51:15,860
the professor didn't really want to hear from me.

769
00:51:16,180 --> 00:51:19,710
So I went and talked to my. The head of

770
00:51:20,210 --> 00:51:24,110
the department about it because, oh, the other thing that this

771
00:51:24,610 --> 00:51:28,590
professor said was that the Americans had bombed Havana during

772
00:51:29,150 --> 00:51:32,030
the Bay of Pigs. Which is not true.

773
00:51:32,510 --> 00:51:36,510
There were Cuban pilots in a few, because Kennedy

774
00:51:37,010 --> 00:51:40,750
pulled the air coverage at the last minute. But there were a few

775
00:51:41,250 --> 00:51:44,910
Cuban pilots in American jets and they bombed

776
00:51:45,590 --> 00:51:49,590
an airstrip outside of Havana, on the outskirts

777
00:51:50,090 --> 00:51:53,350
of Havana. They didn't bomb Havana. But all of these smithies

778
00:51:53,850 --> 00:51:57,030
were sitting there taking notes. So that's what I wanted to bring up to the

779
00:51:57,190 --> 00:52:00,310
professor, because I could. Well, the head of the department,

780
00:52:00,810 --> 00:52:05,190
because I couldn't seem to get the professor to add

781
00:52:05,690 --> 00:52:09,350
some nuance to the lecture. And the

782
00:52:09,910 --> 00:52:12,380
head of the department said,

783
00:52:12,940 --> 00:52:16,340
so what did your father do? And I

784
00:52:16,840 --> 00:52:19,540
thought, what does that have to do with anything? I said, my father was a

785
00:52:20,040 --> 00:52:23,660
forklift driver. Well, but he had a job, so he was privileged.

786
00:52:24,160 --> 00:52:28,180
Anyway, before the revolution. I said, all right, well, can we talk about this

787
00:52:28,680 --> 00:52:32,540
lecture? And he said, in a nutshell,

788
00:52:32,940 --> 00:52:37,020
you shouldn't concern yourself with smithies being corrupted

789
00:52:37,350 --> 00:52:40,950
in a 45 minute lecture. They've lived 20 years

790
00:52:41,450 --> 00:52:45,990
of privileged life and they can handle this.

791
00:52:46,550 --> 00:52:50,470
And I actually shook his hand and left just

792
00:52:50,970 --> 00:52:54,790
because I was kind of in shock. But this happens. I mean, I've gone to

793
00:52:54,950 --> 00:52:58,670
classrooms, high school classrooms, where they have pictures of

794
00:52:59,170 --> 00:53:02,950
Che Guevara, who ran the secret police, who ran the

795
00:53:03,450 --> 00:53:07,180
executions, bragged about executions at

796
00:53:07,680 --> 00:53:10,900
the UN in 1964. But he's up as a hero.

797
00:53:11,460 --> 00:53:14,020
And so it's an example of how.

798
00:53:14,900 --> 00:53:17,780
What is the saying? The victors get to write history. Yeah,

799
00:53:18,280 --> 00:53:22,380
history's written by the victors. And so there's

800
00:53:22,880 --> 00:53:26,100
another version to this. The Cubans want to tell.

801
00:53:26,600 --> 00:53:30,340
Cuban Americans want to tell. But one of the great lines of propaganda that

802
00:53:30,580 --> 00:53:34,320
the regime spun out is that you can't, you shouldn't

803
00:53:34,820 --> 00:53:39,000
listen to Cuban Americans or Cuban exiles, because we

804
00:53:39,400 --> 00:53:43,360
are. We just have a chip on our shoulder. We want the

805
00:53:43,860 --> 00:53:46,840
regime to fall so we can get our lands and riches back.

806
00:53:47,560 --> 00:53:49,480
And so in essence,

807
00:53:50,360 --> 00:53:53,720
they have shut down the Cuban American

808
00:53:53,960 --> 00:53:57,800
voice. Especially when you try to tell

809
00:53:58,300 --> 00:54:01,790
this other story, this, this, this more complex

810
00:54:02,290 --> 00:54:06,030
story. Yeah, it is complex. Right. And I think that

811
00:54:06,530 --> 00:54:10,070
is the overall theme of everything, is that there's nuance to everything

812
00:54:10,870 --> 00:54:14,070
and almost nothing is black and white. And, you know,

813
00:54:14,630 --> 00:54:18,150
because what was overthrown was a dictatorship.

814
00:54:18,650 --> 00:54:22,790
So it wasn't, it wasn't good. In the 50s, it was a brutal dictatorship.

815
00:54:22,870 --> 00:54:25,990
Yeah. So it's not that that's what anybody wanted,

816
00:54:26,490 --> 00:54:30,190
but to replace it with something so awful.

817
00:54:31,150 --> 00:54:34,190
Yeah. That ended up being worse. Yeah. More restrictive,

818
00:54:34,430 --> 00:54:37,670
more. At least there was economic freedom,

819
00:54:38,170 --> 00:54:42,030
there was economic progress. Cuba, most Americans don't

820
00:54:42,530 --> 00:54:46,430
know this. During the 50s Cuba had ranked second,

821
00:54:46,510 --> 00:54:49,950
third in the hemisphere, fourth in all of

822
00:54:50,450 --> 00:54:53,870
the key economic development categories.

823
00:54:54,190 --> 00:54:57,870
It had a GDP per capita the equivalent of Italy or

824
00:54:58,370 --> 00:55:02,170
Spain or one of the southern European countries. It had more hospital beds

825
00:55:02,670 --> 00:55:06,570
per capita than the vast majority of Latin American

826
00:55:06,730 --> 00:55:09,850
countries. And it was first in the world, in some areas.

827
00:55:10,730 --> 00:55:14,250
The first color television broadcast, I believe

828
00:55:15,290 --> 00:55:18,730
the longest railway system, certain things

829
00:55:19,230 --> 00:55:23,370
like that. So at least they had that.

830
00:55:24,090 --> 00:55:27,690
They barely have that now. Economic freedom.

831
00:55:27,770 --> 00:55:31,660
Entrepreneurialism is still a, A bit of a dirty word.

832
00:55:32,620 --> 00:55:35,780
It's just, I mean, I, I'm angry and I am

833
00:55:36,280 --> 00:55:39,460
not and zero. Part of me is Cuban. But yeah, I get so

834
00:55:39,960 --> 00:55:43,820
angry when it's, you know, these people

835
00:55:44,320 --> 00:55:47,740
in power just promise

836
00:55:47,820 --> 00:55:51,940
all of these wonderful ideals and at

837
00:55:52,440 --> 00:55:55,300
the end of the day, it never looks like that because, you know,

838
00:55:55,800 --> 00:55:59,220
that's the other one is power. Corruption. Yes. Absolute power corrupts

839
00:55:59,720 --> 00:56:02,940
absolutely. Yes. And, you know, the more I live my life, the more I am

840
00:56:03,440 --> 00:56:06,620
just like, this is crazy because nothing,

841
00:56:07,020 --> 00:56:11,180
you know, it's almost like nothing can exist in

842
00:56:11,660 --> 00:56:15,260
goodness. It's all such a power grab

843
00:56:15,980 --> 00:56:19,660
and, you know, so many people live their lives working

844
00:56:19,820 --> 00:56:23,020
so hard to just have a life,

845
00:56:24,060 --> 00:56:27,850
and it's, you know, the pawns that. That are being played.

846
00:56:28,250 --> 00:56:31,850
Yeah, that's. I, I don't know if that has

847
00:56:32,350 --> 00:56:35,290
ever been different or if it ever will be different. Yeah. Do you think.

848
00:56:35,450 --> 00:56:39,370
No, you know, I think that's just human humanity and,

849
00:56:39,450 --> 00:56:42,690
and the imbalance of power. The imbalance.

850
00:56:43,190 --> 00:56:47,290
There's always going to be a winner and a loser in a political economic system.

851
00:56:47,370 --> 00:56:51,610
Politicians are always going to simplify and lie to their advantage.

852
00:56:52,700 --> 00:56:56,500
And for me, one of the things that helps is a free press.

853
00:56:57,000 --> 00:57:00,580
Cuba doesn't have a free press. Neither does any

854
00:57:01,080 --> 00:57:04,220
totalitarian government. That's the one shot we've got.

855
00:57:06,140 --> 00:57:09,340
And even our press, the press has its bias.

856
00:57:10,300 --> 00:57:13,860
Each media outlet, and so it falls on us.

857
00:57:14,360 --> 00:57:18,060
And it's really hard as a citizen to decide

858
00:57:18,220 --> 00:57:22,440
now, especially today, where to go for unbiased

859
00:57:22,940 --> 00:57:26,040
news. Yeah. Oh, gosh, very hard. Yeah,

860
00:57:26,540 --> 00:57:30,520
it, it really is. But I, I think

861
00:57:31,020 --> 00:57:34,440
we're seeing a rise in independent journalism just because of the,

862
00:57:34,920 --> 00:57:38,240
the mainstream and, and I, you know, biases.

863
00:57:38,740 --> 00:57:41,960
Yeah. But I also think the business of it. Right. You know, who get.

864
00:57:42,280 --> 00:57:45,720
It's all about who can get the most clicks. It's not about who can get

865
00:57:46,220 --> 00:57:49,520
the news out there. It's about what can you say that will get people's

866
00:57:50,020 --> 00:57:53,740
attention and how do you. You get to their emotions, you rile

867
00:57:54,240 --> 00:57:56,900
them up. Yeah. It's not Even good emotions.

868
00:57:57,300 --> 00:58:00,740
No. Oh, gosh. You want anger, they want a little.

869
00:58:01,300 --> 00:58:05,220
They want what you're describing. That's how they want to leave

870
00:58:05,720 --> 00:58:09,500
their consumer. And it's awful because, you know, there are so

871
00:58:10,000 --> 00:58:13,540
many good things that are happening out there. Yeah. So I see it all the

872
00:58:14,040 --> 00:58:17,220
time. I see hope, I see reasons to hope all the time.

873
00:58:17,780 --> 00:58:21,180
And you, you, you don't even have to look that hard. You just

874
00:58:21,680 --> 00:58:25,320
have to have people sharing like you, human to human. Hey, you know what I

875
00:58:25,820 --> 00:58:29,480
just saw? This is kind of pared down, but basically a

876
00:58:29,980 --> 00:58:34,000
right wing neighbor approach a left wing

877
00:58:34,500 --> 00:58:38,240
neighbor who was hosting a family of Syrian refugees.

878
00:58:38,960 --> 00:58:42,000
And the left wing neighbor thought the right

879
00:58:42,500 --> 00:58:45,800
wing neighbor was coming over to complain because the kids were making noise

880
00:58:46,300 --> 00:58:49,520
in the driveway. But the right wing neighbor came over to say,

881
00:58:50,320 --> 00:58:53,990
you know, those kids are just playing basketball. I've got

882
00:58:54,490 --> 00:58:57,990
all these bikes from when my kids were little in the garage. And why don't

883
00:58:58,490 --> 00:59:01,230
you go over there and get those bikes and, you know, teach those kids how

884
00:59:01,730 --> 00:59:05,230
to ride a bike. And then he went back, he saw children.

885
00:59:05,630 --> 00:59:08,670
He didn't see refugees. He saw children. He saw the

886
00:59:09,170 --> 00:59:12,430
human being, he saw the grandmother. He understood

887
00:59:13,070 --> 00:59:16,630
that these were human beings. Yeah. And I

888
00:59:17,130 --> 00:59:19,830
know the story because the left wing neighbor was at an event, we were doing

889
00:59:20,330 --> 00:59:23,120
a refugee assistance fundraising event.

890
00:59:23,680 --> 00:59:26,960
And he told the story and I said, you know,

891
00:59:27,360 --> 00:59:31,120
I've seen that over and over, over and over.

892
00:59:31,680 --> 00:59:35,680
But we don't talk about that. We don't hear it. It's all the negative stuff.

893
00:59:37,040 --> 00:59:40,320
We have to believe in each other as, as citizens,

894
00:59:40,820 --> 00:59:44,320
as neighbors, and as people who have the potential to,

895
00:59:46,080 --> 00:59:49,290
To. Yeah. I refuse to

896
00:59:49,530 --> 00:59:53,690
give up my hope of this country or of my fellow citizen.

897
00:59:54,650 --> 00:59:58,690
I've seen too much. I've benefited from

898
00:59:59,190 --> 01:00:02,330
it over and over in my life.

899
01:00:02,649 --> 01:00:07,050
And certainly as newcomers in New Hampshire in

900
01:00:07,550 --> 01:00:10,330
1967, my parents worked in factories.

901
01:00:10,650 --> 01:00:13,750
Those factory co workers took them under their

902
01:00:14,250 --> 01:00:17,230
wings, taught them all about life in the north,

903
01:00:17,950 --> 01:00:21,390
how to, you know, where the White Mountains were, how to, how to roast

904
01:00:21,890 --> 01:00:25,110
a marshmallow, how to use chapstick. Chapstick can save

905
01:00:25,610 --> 01:00:29,230
your life. You know, things like that. Yeah. And they didn't have to be that

906
01:00:29,730 --> 01:00:34,030
way. And they were. We faced discrimination that happened,

907
01:00:34,190 --> 01:00:36,990
but, but, but we focused on this other piece.

908
01:00:37,150 --> 01:00:40,640
Absolutely. Because there were more good people out there than bad

909
01:00:41,140 --> 01:00:45,280
people. Yeah. I, I do think that we have

910
01:00:45,780 --> 01:00:49,400
to hold on to that for dear life because there's no other way to survive.

911
01:00:49,900 --> 01:00:53,600
Yeah. And it's the truth though, right? Yeah. I mean, it has absolutely

912
01:00:54,100 --> 01:00:58,120
Been my experience, yes. A hundred percent. Yeah. I have met so

913
01:00:58,620 --> 01:01:02,120
many wonderful people and this experience of interviewing,

914
01:01:02,280 --> 01:01:06,040
doing these interviews has just cemented that on a

915
01:01:06,540 --> 01:01:10,660
whole different level. But, you know, I think it's interesting in the moment

916
01:01:11,160 --> 01:01:14,820
that we're in, in time in America. I can't remember a

917
01:01:15,320 --> 01:01:19,260
time when people were so identified by their political views.

918
01:01:19,760 --> 01:01:23,060
Right. I think you're right. And so I think as much as we can

919
01:01:23,560 --> 01:01:27,020
shed that they are worn as badges of

920
01:01:27,520 --> 01:01:30,900
honor as much as, you know, fences for other people.

921
01:01:31,700 --> 01:01:35,140
And I am certainly guilty of doing

922
01:01:35,220 --> 01:01:38,900
that kind of thing myself. Me too. Me too. So I cann

923
01:01:40,200 --> 01:01:44,560
say any of this without pointing a finger at myself as well, but it's

924
01:01:45,060 --> 01:01:49,000
hard. There's. There is a lot of emotion, there is a lot of anger

925
01:01:49,160 --> 01:01:52,680
and, you know, fear. Fear. I think there's fear. And that.

926
01:01:53,180 --> 01:01:55,960
I think that's what it is more than anything. I think it's fear.

927
01:01:56,600 --> 01:02:00,440
And so I think it's really interesting to be having this conversation

928
01:02:00,520 --> 01:02:04,000
now too, especially with, you know, both sides of

929
01:02:04,500 --> 01:02:08,290
the aisle are afraid. They're afraid of the same thing, but how it

930
01:02:08,790 --> 01:02:11,890
happens. Yes, right. And what it's called. Yeah. Right.

931
01:02:12,370 --> 01:02:15,850
So both sides are afraid of this in

932
01:02:16,350 --> 01:02:19,250
a way of totalitarianism. Yeah. Right. One.

933
01:02:19,570 --> 01:02:23,410
One party ruling everything in a total way

934
01:02:23,910 --> 01:02:27,250
from top to bottom, which is what you have in Cuba, a single party state

935
01:02:27,730 --> 01:02:31,410
for the last 66 years, military dictatorship.

936
01:02:32,430 --> 01:02:37,230
But for some people, that's okay because it's their political

937
01:02:37,630 --> 01:02:41,950
ideology experiment. So somehow that's okay.

938
01:02:42,270 --> 01:02:45,390
But they wouldn't want to see what's happening there,

939
01:02:45,890 --> 01:02:50,190
here. Right. Under a strictly

940
01:02:50,430 --> 01:02:54,030
Republican Party flag. Same thing.

941
01:02:54,270 --> 01:02:57,630
But maybe that would be okay for the Republican Party

942
01:02:58,300 --> 01:03:02,340
to see if it was called. It was. If it was under their banner.

943
01:03:02,840 --> 01:03:06,580
Right. So, yeah, we can't do that. We have to. And you know,

944
01:03:07,080 --> 01:03:11,900
the other thing? How about this? How about if each time a

945
01:03:12,400 --> 01:03:16,220
friend tells us one of these really heartbreaking,

946
01:03:16,720 --> 01:03:20,140
horrific stories, we have in our pocket, one of our good

947
01:03:20,640 --> 01:03:24,140
ones, to bring that friend back

948
01:03:24,540 --> 01:03:28,120
and say, let's not give up hope. Yeah. We have to do that for

949
01:03:28,620 --> 01:03:30,760
each other. I hope people do it for me. I know people do it for

950
01:03:31,260 --> 01:03:34,920
me. Yeah. I will say I. I've said this to a

951
01:03:35,420 --> 01:03:39,160
few people, but this, doing this podcast really restored my

952
01:03:39,660 --> 01:03:41,760
faith in humanity in a way that I didn't think was possible.

953
01:03:42,960 --> 01:03:46,080
Because a lot of the work that I do is

954
01:03:46,160 --> 01:03:48,800
around domestic violence advocacy. I know. Yeah.

955
01:03:49,280 --> 01:03:52,600
And it is really hard to be in

956
01:03:53,100 --> 01:03:56,900
that space because it's something that it's in

957
01:03:57,400 --> 01:03:59,940
A lot of ways it hasn't changed very much.

958
01:04:00,580 --> 01:04:04,260
And you know, to the outside world, if you're not

959
01:04:04,760 --> 01:04:08,260
experiencing it or if it's not something that you're looking at,

960
01:04:08,760 --> 01:04:11,459
it doesn't feel like that big of a part of life.

961
01:04:12,180 --> 01:04:15,460
Whereas I see it, I feel like every time I turn the corner.

962
01:04:16,180 --> 01:04:20,220
And so I really didn't realize how

963
01:04:20,720 --> 01:04:23,300
much anger that I was just harboring in.

964
01:04:24,100 --> 01:04:27,300
Not in kind of like society in general.

965
01:04:27,540 --> 01:04:30,860
Right. That, that this was still as big of an issue as it was and

966
01:04:31,360 --> 01:04:34,900
why couldn't people see? And this really

967
01:04:35,380 --> 01:04:39,140
broke me down to the. Again, human to

968
01:04:39,640 --> 01:04:43,060
human interaction. And I do

969
01:04:43,560 --> 01:04:47,460
believe that anytime we look at things from a bird, anything from a bird's eye

970
01:04:47,960 --> 01:04:52,020
view, we lose perspective. We think we're seeing

971
01:04:52,180 --> 01:04:55,280
a bigger pict or a full picture, but most

972
01:04:55,780 --> 01:04:59,320
of the time we're, what we're actually missing is the nuance

973
01:04:59,820 --> 01:05:03,400
or the variables that make it human. Yeah. And we're

974
01:05:03,900 --> 01:05:07,320
not able to really connect from a bird's eye

975
01:05:07,820 --> 01:05:11,480
view. Right. If we're all the way up here, how are we connecting with

976
01:05:11,980 --> 01:05:14,880
people? Yeah. No matter how high up you get, you got to go down.

977
01:05:15,040 --> 01:05:18,540
Like you said, you know, you have to go down and connect with people and,

978
01:05:19,410 --> 01:05:23,130
and always know that unfortunately there is evil in

979
01:05:23,630 --> 01:05:26,810
the world. It's always been there. It's always going

980
01:05:27,310 --> 01:05:30,970
to be there. But there's goodness too. And there's

981
01:05:31,470 --> 01:05:35,570
the potential for goodness too. It's not looking at

982
01:05:36,070 --> 01:05:38,850
the label, but looking at the person and trying to,

983
01:05:39,730 --> 01:05:43,410
not even trying to suss out how far

984
01:05:43,910 --> 01:05:47,050
to the right or to the left they are. Just who are they? Who are

985
01:05:47,550 --> 01:05:51,550
they? What do they care about? What, what are they worried about? What are.

986
01:05:52,190 --> 01:05:55,710
Let's find some common ground. We have so much more in common.

987
01:05:55,870 --> 01:05:59,310
Yeah. But there's so little space

988
01:05:59,390 --> 01:06:03,310
given to this. When I talk to high school kids,

989
01:06:03,810 --> 01:06:06,590
I always talk to them about this. That's great.

990
01:06:06,750 --> 01:06:11,110
What happened in Cuba after the revolution was

991
01:06:11,610 --> 01:06:15,230
neighbor went against neighbor and you had to prove which.

992
01:06:15,820 --> 01:06:18,300
How, how much you believed in an ideology.

993
01:06:19,580 --> 01:06:22,140
That's the extreme of where we're heading. Yeah.

994
01:06:22,540 --> 01:06:25,580
Because what you, you just said. Right. We're. When we talk with each other,

995
01:06:26,080 --> 01:06:29,740
you're like, well, a new person. Where is this person really at?

996
01:06:30,240 --> 01:06:33,540
Yeah. Can I. First of all, why are

997
01:06:34,040 --> 01:06:37,780
we worrying about that? Let's first start with who is

998
01:06:38,280 --> 01:06:41,020
this person? What's happened to this person in her life?

999
01:06:42,250 --> 01:06:45,690
Start there. Not, not with the politics.

1000
01:06:46,090 --> 01:06:50,050
Yeah. With the humanity. Yeah. Yeah. I, I truly

1001
01:06:50,550 --> 01:06:54,170
do. I know that it would change so much in the way that we.

1002
01:06:54,650 --> 01:06:57,930
Why, why do you think we're all there? Do you think,

1003
01:06:58,430 --> 01:07:01,410
do you think it's anger? Do you think it's fear? What, what,

1004
01:07:01,910 --> 01:07:05,490
which of those emotions is the bigger culprit,

1005
01:07:05,990 --> 01:07:08,890
do you think? I think anger is a masking emotion.

1006
01:07:09,130 --> 01:07:12,700
So I think fear is at the root. And I

1007
01:07:13,200 --> 01:07:15,780
think you're right. I also think that, you know,

1008
01:07:16,020 --> 01:07:19,860
unfortunately, while there

1009
01:07:20,360 --> 01:07:23,980
are so many good things about technology and,

1010
01:07:24,480 --> 01:07:26,180
you know, as I sit here with all of my technology.

1011
01:07:27,860 --> 01:07:31,460
Yeah. While I think there's so many good things, I do believe

1012
01:07:32,340 --> 01:07:36,420
that we were never meant to have this much access to

1013
01:07:36,500 --> 01:07:39,740
information. And not just information,

1014
01:07:40,060 --> 01:07:43,940
but access to whatever everybody

1015
01:07:44,440 --> 01:07:48,220
else thinks at any given moment. Right. We are in a weird space

1016
01:07:48,380 --> 01:07:52,460
where there almost like are no experts there.

1017
01:07:52,700 --> 01:07:56,540
Anybody can get online and say whatever they think.

1018
01:07:57,020 --> 01:08:01,780
And the amount of reactions to that thought is

1019
01:08:02,280 --> 01:08:05,780
the validity of that thought. Right. That's the perceived validity. So if

1020
01:08:06,280 --> 01:08:10,110
you, as a quote unquote influencer, get on and start just

1021
01:08:10,610 --> 01:08:14,790
making something up, as long as you have enough people standing behind you saying,

1022
01:08:15,290 --> 01:08:18,910
yeah, that's right, or even following you right then, okay, that's the truth

1023
01:08:19,410 --> 01:08:22,630
now. And that's really scary. And so I think.

1024
01:08:23,110 --> 01:08:26,390
I think there's a fear. I also think there's an exhaustion

1025
01:08:27,110 --> 01:08:30,710
of, you know, we, we feel that we are.

1026
01:08:31,210 --> 01:08:35,230
We know who's safe and we're not going to venture outside

1027
01:08:35,730 --> 01:08:38,560
of that because we're too tired to do that.

1028
01:08:39,360 --> 01:08:42,560
Yes, I agree with all of that.

1029
01:08:43,120 --> 01:08:46,480
I don't know what the solution is. I think being aware of it

1030
01:08:46,800 --> 01:08:49,840
the way you are. Well, you're finding a solution, aren't you?

1031
01:08:50,320 --> 01:08:55,760
I'm trying. I just think it's marvelous that you

1032
01:08:56,260 --> 01:09:00,120
go to the human, you listen, you go face to

1033
01:09:00,620 --> 01:09:04,730
face, you listen to the story, and you are present as

1034
01:09:05,230 --> 01:09:09,090
a human being and not on a screen and not

1035
01:09:09,590 --> 01:09:11,890
on a. Through a. Through a gadget.

1036
01:09:12,610 --> 01:09:14,850
It's so incredibly important.

1037
01:09:16,370 --> 01:09:19,010
And I think I said this to you when I first came in, right?

1038
01:09:19,510 --> 01:09:23,810
Like, you're doing the opposite of what all of my other experience

1039
01:09:24,290 --> 01:09:28,130
promoting the book has been, which is generally like super efficient,

1040
01:09:28,290 --> 01:09:30,980
super quick when it's convenient,

1041
01:09:31,460 --> 01:09:34,700
and in and out and no depth.

1042
01:09:35,200 --> 01:09:38,500
I mean, well, there's depth if you can find a little bit

1043
01:09:39,000 --> 01:09:41,540
of time, but the human element,

1044
01:09:42,260 --> 01:09:45,980
we gotta get back to that. And you know, the other

1045
01:09:46,480 --> 01:09:50,340
thing that you're doing right, is you're using stories. You love stories.

1046
01:09:51,300 --> 01:09:55,260
Like you said when we were chatting before, we're wired for

1047
01:09:55,760 --> 01:09:59,180
stories. There's no time for stories. We're Drowning

1048
01:09:59,680 --> 01:10:02,340
in data. Yeah. And starving for wisdom.

1049
01:10:02,580 --> 01:10:05,980
Yes. And where do

1050
01:10:06,480 --> 01:10:10,180
you get wisdom? Through the stories of the older generation.

1051
01:10:10,740 --> 01:10:13,220
I think they're ahead of us. They learn things.

1052
01:10:13,540 --> 01:10:17,220
Maybe they learned the wrong things, but we can make up our minds about that.

1053
01:10:17,720 --> 01:10:21,820
Yes. And I have always loved stories. I especially love

1054
01:10:22,320 --> 01:10:25,710
stories from old people. And maybe that's.

1055
01:10:26,340 --> 01:10:30,340
I think old people are scared, too. I've got some older

1056
01:10:31,460 --> 01:10:34,180
friends, neighbors in their 90s, and they're scared, too.

1057
01:10:34,420 --> 01:10:38,020
But we have to get back to the human being and to hope.

1058
01:10:38,580 --> 01:10:42,620
You were talking about the domestic violence situation, and I

1059
01:10:43,120 --> 01:10:46,500
know I've heard you say. Cause I was listening to some other work that you've

1060
01:10:47,000 --> 01:10:51,900
done about how domestic abuse isn't within the home necessarily.

1061
01:10:52,400 --> 01:10:55,110
It can happen anywhere that it's abuse. It's.

1062
01:10:55,900 --> 01:10:59,020
It's taking someone's voice, it's controlling someone.

1063
01:10:59,660 --> 01:11:03,740
And in a way, that's happening to us through media and through technology,

1064
01:11:04,220 --> 01:11:07,620
we're being abused, and we've got to stand up for ourselves,

1065
01:11:08,120 --> 01:11:10,700
and we have to be very conscious of how to do that.

1066
01:11:11,500 --> 01:11:15,140
And it's incredibly difficult because we've.

1067
01:11:15,640 --> 01:11:19,580
Like you said, there are so many good things about this technology. Yeah. I mean,

1068
01:11:19,660 --> 01:11:23,300
I don't think we throw the baby out with the bathwater here, but I

1069
01:11:23,800 --> 01:11:26,860
do think that I am hopeful in seeing that there are

1070
01:11:27,160 --> 01:11:31,240
movements of people realizing how damaging

1071
01:11:31,560 --> 01:11:35,800
it can be to spend all of our time doing

1072
01:11:36,040 --> 01:11:39,480
this or people, younger people getting off of social media.

1073
01:11:39,800 --> 01:11:43,279
I think it's marginally easier for

1074
01:11:43,779 --> 01:11:47,080
people that didn't have it growing up. Right.

1075
01:11:47,580 --> 01:11:50,280
So for those of us who didn't have it growing up, it's. It's easier because

1076
01:11:50,780 --> 01:11:54,650
we know what life is like without it. Yep. But for those of us

1077
01:11:55,150 --> 01:11:59,250
or for those that are toddlers and are, you know, being introduced to

1078
01:11:59,750 --> 01:12:03,610
this technology, I feel like it's harder to disconnect

1079
01:12:04,110 --> 01:12:07,450
from that because it's all. That's the only thing, you know. So I am

1080
01:12:07,690 --> 01:12:12,290
hopeful in seeing some of these younger generations purposefully

1081
01:12:12,790 --> 01:12:15,610
pulling back from the Internet or social media.

1082
01:12:15,930 --> 01:12:19,250
Yeah. What. Where are those stories? Yeah, let's. Let's listen

1083
01:12:19,750 --> 01:12:22,690
to that. Yeah. And listen to what? What it's like. I.

1084
01:12:23,190 --> 01:12:26,870
I've read not. Not of young people, but of adults who

1085
01:12:27,370 --> 01:12:31,190
do that and what it means to them after a month. And it's

1086
01:12:31,690 --> 01:12:35,270
life changing. You sleep better, you think better, you. You're not

1087
01:12:35,770 --> 01:12:40,150
as exhausted like you said. Yeah. You know, when I intentionally.

1088
01:12:40,950 --> 01:12:44,110
Because we all get to choose how we use our time.

1089
01:12:44,610 --> 01:12:49,640
Right. I mean, to a degree, there's privilege in that as well. But if

1090
01:12:50,140 --> 01:12:54,960
I choose to read a fictional book over scrolling

1091
01:12:55,280 --> 01:12:58,480
through a news app or through a social media app,

1092
01:12:58,980 --> 01:13:02,800
that regardless of who I know on the app, I'm going to see news

1093
01:13:03,300 --> 01:13:06,800
and political opinions, I am so

1094
01:13:07,300 --> 01:13:11,040
much happier and lighter feeling than when I

1095
01:13:11,540 --> 01:13:16,160
choose to invest my time. It doesn't all have to be productive

1096
01:13:16,660 --> 01:13:20,240
as we see it as Americans. Right. I think that's

1097
01:13:20,740 --> 01:13:24,360
another thing that's coming out, which I love, is that the investment

1098
01:13:25,800 --> 01:13:29,000
in fictional story and how important it is

1099
01:13:29,080 --> 01:13:32,880
to our ability to problem solve

1100
01:13:33,380 --> 01:13:37,400
and imagine and move through the world in creative ways.

1101
01:13:38,120 --> 01:13:41,960
So, yeah, I think there is so much out there and there is hope

1102
01:13:42,200 --> 01:13:45,440
to be found. But once again, we've got to

1103
01:13:45,940 --> 01:13:49,140
get down to the. The street view and go

1104
01:13:49,640 --> 01:13:52,980
people to people or the porch view. Right. Like that.

1105
01:13:53,480 --> 01:13:56,540
That image that I have in my head of, you know,

1106
01:13:57,040 --> 01:14:01,020
somebody's an old guy, old gals rocking in a chair and I'm

1107
01:14:01,520 --> 01:14:04,660
sitting on the floor listening and finding

1108
01:14:04,980 --> 01:14:08,540
a way to do that is I.

1109
01:14:09,040 --> 01:14:12,700
I've always loved stories, though. It's. That wouldn't be hard. It's really just the.

1110
01:14:13,200 --> 01:14:15,700
Finding the time. Yeah. Yeah. Finding the time.

1111
01:14:16,340 --> 01:14:19,460
And I don't know. I don't know.

1112
01:14:19,860 --> 01:14:24,980
It's a cultural thing too. I think this culture in particular is

1113
01:14:25,540 --> 01:14:29,260
especially primed for the technology because

1114
01:14:29,760 --> 01:14:34,420
we're all about efficiency, we're all about performance, we're all about production.

1115
01:14:34,900 --> 01:14:38,620
Yeah. Achieving. Yeah. I mean, it's hugely

1116
01:14:39,120 --> 01:14:42,920
harmful. It can be hugely harmful if we're not putting it in the right context

1117
01:14:43,420 --> 01:14:47,160
culturally. There's a scene in here, in the book about Rudolph the Red

1118
01:14:47,660 --> 01:14:50,800
Nosed Reindeer because we came in December, was on the

1119
01:14:51,300 --> 01:14:55,320
radio all the time. Okay. I was made fun of at school because I didn't

1120
01:14:55,820 --> 01:14:59,480
know the lyrics. I didn't know anything. But my

1121
01:14:59,980 --> 01:15:03,640
mother asked us one night what the lyrics

1122
01:15:04,140 --> 01:15:08,000
meant and we tried to explain it to her and

1123
01:15:08,500 --> 01:15:12,020
she said, wait, so. So there's this little deer and the deer,

1124
01:15:12,420 --> 01:15:16,740
everybody makes fun of him, but then the deer can

1125
01:15:17,060 --> 01:15:21,420
light the way and so then everybody likes

1126
01:15:21,920 --> 01:15:25,540
him because he can do something nobody else can do. She said,

1127
01:15:26,180 --> 01:15:29,780
folks, I think this country is going to be all about performance.

1128
01:15:30,900 --> 01:15:33,700
Wow. And I never forgot that.

1129
01:15:34,180 --> 01:15:37,800
And it is. That's incredible. Yeah. And so.

1130
01:15:38,300 --> 01:15:41,400
But it takes somebody from a culture where it's not about performance,

1131
01:15:41,720 --> 01:15:45,640
it's about maybe who you are as a person

1132
01:15:46,140 --> 01:15:49,840
or what you do for your family, how good of a person you

1133
01:15:50,340 --> 01:15:54,440
are to your family. I would say that that's a very, very important

1134
01:15:55,160 --> 01:15:58,480
part of the Value system of not just

1135
01:15:58,980 --> 01:16:02,270
Cubans, maybe, but of most Latino cultures.

1136
01:16:03,630 --> 01:16:07,630
Fundamental difference. Yes. And it requires such

1137
01:16:08,130 --> 01:16:11,590
different talents and skills and belief

1138
01:16:12,090 --> 01:16:16,030
systems. Yes, yes, immensely. I think

1139
01:16:16,110 --> 01:16:21,070
that is extremely poignant and wise because that

1140
01:16:21,570 --> 01:16:25,470
story, as we hear it is, you know, these people

1141
01:16:25,550 --> 01:16:29,550
finally came around to this. This cute

1142
01:16:30,050 --> 01:16:33,470
little reindeer because they knew it was the right thing to

1143
01:16:33,970 --> 01:16:36,790
do. Right. And. But you're right, it is.

1144
01:16:36,870 --> 01:16:40,350
It's about what he can do for them. And I

1145
01:16:40,850 --> 01:16:44,070
will tell you very honestly, I've spent a lot of time in therapy

1146
01:16:44,390 --> 01:16:48,310
talking about this very thing. You know, I'm only worth what I can provide

1147
01:16:48,790 --> 01:16:52,310
to somebody. Yes. Yeah. I'm only worth what I can produce

1148
01:16:52,810 --> 01:16:56,280
for somebody. Yeah. And that's not true. It's not.

1149
01:16:56,520 --> 01:16:59,320
But it is, I think, what many of us believe,

1150
01:17:00,120 --> 01:17:03,960
even if we don't realize it. Yeah, exactly. We don't realize

1151
01:17:04,460 --> 01:17:08,120
it. We don't realize what's driving us, but that's part of what's driving us.

1152
01:17:08,280 --> 01:17:11,320
Producing, performing, achieving,

1153
01:17:11,960 --> 01:17:15,360
accumulating, acquiring. And in the

1154
01:17:15,860 --> 01:17:19,200
end, it doesn't even matter. Things don't matter. It really doesn't. What matters

1155
01:17:19,700 --> 01:17:22,840
is, you know, who's with you, who you are to them,

1156
01:17:23,400 --> 01:17:26,750
who they are to you. Yeah. At the end of the day, most of us

1157
01:17:27,250 --> 01:17:31,710
will never see or experience these

1158
01:17:31,790 --> 01:17:36,310
people in these platforms that we spend so much time arguing

1159
01:17:36,810 --> 01:17:41,150
over and dedicating our lives and time to and resources.

1160
01:17:42,510 --> 01:17:45,950
You're right. What we should be focusing on

1161
01:17:46,030 --> 01:17:49,550
is who we are directly interacting with and how

1162
01:17:49,710 --> 01:17:53,260
we move through life with them. Yeah. It's seeing them.

1163
01:17:53,760 --> 01:17:57,100
Really looking at them. Really seeing them. Yeah. I think one of

1164
01:17:57,600 --> 01:18:00,900
the things that this has taught me more than anything is that listening

1165
01:18:01,400 --> 01:18:05,500
is very active. It's not a passive thing

1166
01:18:05,660 --> 01:18:09,700
by any means. And oftentimes I

1167
01:18:10,200 --> 01:18:14,220
think we listen in order to formulate our response

1168
01:18:14,380 --> 01:18:16,220
and not listening to understand.

1169
01:18:17,260 --> 01:18:20,580
And there's a huge difference in that. It doesn't sound like it's very big,

1170
01:18:21,080 --> 01:18:23,780
but it's. There's a huge difference in that. Huge.

1171
01:18:24,740 --> 01:18:28,020
You know, some of that is just human. Right. Because we want to tell our

1172
01:18:28,520 --> 01:18:32,780
story, we want to have our opinion, but we

1173
01:18:33,280 --> 01:18:36,820
can be intelligent about it. We can be intentional

1174
01:18:37,320 --> 01:18:40,820
about it, and I think we'd be better off. We have some control.

1175
01:18:41,300 --> 01:18:44,740
It doesn't feel like it, but we have some control for sure.

1176
01:18:45,700 --> 01:18:49,380
So how was it then you have children of your own

1177
01:18:50,140 --> 01:18:53,740
that's a whole new generation that is born in

1178
01:18:54,220 --> 01:18:57,900
America and doesn't know the Cuban

1179
01:18:58,400 --> 01:19:01,900
experience as you and your family members did. So how was

1180
01:19:02,400 --> 01:19:06,260
that different for you? And you also mentioned, you know, not necessarily

1181
01:19:06,760 --> 01:19:10,500
being close in proximity to your family when you started having kids

1182
01:19:11,000 --> 01:19:14,060
as well. Yeah, yeah, I was farther away.

1183
01:19:14,860 --> 01:19:18,700
It was a nuclear family that seemed completely foreign

1184
01:19:19,200 --> 01:19:22,690
to me. A mother, father and a child. What is that?

1185
01:19:23,330 --> 01:19:26,370
I've never seen that, and I don't know what to do with that. Yeah,

1186
01:19:28,050 --> 01:19:32,210
it's lots of things. It's the loss of language.

1187
01:19:32,930 --> 01:19:37,170
So I tried very hard to hold on to language, but it

1188
01:19:37,670 --> 01:19:41,010
was impossible to really keep that bilingual home once the kids

1189
01:19:41,510 --> 01:19:43,650
started elementary or even before.

1190
01:19:45,090 --> 01:19:47,980
And so I let that slip. So,

1191
01:19:49,100 --> 01:19:52,140
you know, just like you had incremental change,

1192
01:19:52,700 --> 01:19:55,780
Change is inevitable. Well,

1193
01:19:56,280 --> 01:19:59,460
here's another one where when we were growing up, even after we left

1194
01:19:59,960 --> 01:20:03,300
home, Hunt street, which is where we lived and was a duplex,

1195
01:20:03,800 --> 01:20:06,660
with the two families living right next to each other and people going back and

1196
01:20:07,160 --> 01:20:10,460
forth all day long through the basement in the winter, through the front

1197
01:20:10,620 --> 01:20:14,490
porch in this. In the good weather. Two families under

1198
01:20:14,990 --> 01:20:19,210
one roof, but really one family. And then we started moving out, but then

1199
01:20:20,490 --> 01:20:24,330
the mothers took care of our children, so we would drop off the children there.

1200
01:20:24,890 --> 01:20:28,370
And every weekend there was a christening, a birthday,

1201
01:20:28,870 --> 01:20:32,650
a graduation, or you just stopped in.

1202
01:20:32,810 --> 01:20:36,410
But other people were there. And so there were 27 of us,

1203
01:20:36,810 --> 01:20:40,210
often in this little environment, and happened

1204
01:20:40,710 --> 01:20:44,010
naturally, and it wasn't a big deal, but we were always together,

1205
01:20:46,170 --> 01:20:49,370
and that's happening less and less. The viejos are gone.

1206
01:20:50,170 --> 01:20:53,890
Turns out I'm the matriarch now, so I feel like I'm supposed

1207
01:20:54,390 --> 01:20:58,010
to hold this thing together and keep the traditions alive.

1208
01:20:58,330 --> 01:21:01,850
And I would beat myself up sometimes as I saw things falling

1209
01:21:02,350 --> 01:21:05,930
apart and just not being the same. We're still

1210
01:21:06,430 --> 01:21:09,730
a close family, but we just don't see each other. The human to human,

1211
01:21:10,230 --> 01:21:13,510
like what you're doing, this. This human to human,

1212
01:21:13,670 --> 01:21:16,950
face to face, it's not the same to text.

1213
01:21:17,910 --> 01:21:21,230
And so I've stopped beating myself up

1214
01:21:21,730 --> 01:21:26,390
a little bit about being unsuccessful at having

1215
01:21:26,890 --> 01:21:30,510
it be exactly the same way. And I think, I thought about this the

1216
01:21:31,010 --> 01:21:34,630
other day. If you think about the galaxy, the image of a galaxy,

1217
01:21:35,130 --> 01:21:38,510
you have the central part. It starts as a center, and it

1218
01:21:39,010 --> 01:21:42,080
spins and it spins and then falls apart.

1219
01:21:42,320 --> 01:21:45,720
Then it goes into other little galaxies. And so

1220
01:21:46,220 --> 01:21:50,080
it's inevitable. But I'm still holding my little

1221
01:21:50,580 --> 01:21:53,920
galaxy together. And I want to slow it down, slow that spinning down.

1222
01:21:54,320 --> 01:21:56,560
And I can only do what I can do. Yeah.

1223
01:21:57,920 --> 01:22:01,480
And I think writing the book and capturing that

1224
01:22:01,980 --> 01:22:05,520
moment of centrality, of unity in the face of

1225
01:22:05,680 --> 01:22:08,240
super hard things,

1226
01:22:08,880 --> 01:22:12,160
really losing everything, you have,

1227
01:22:12,400 --> 01:22:16,120
including your loved ones, knowing it's

1228
01:22:16,620 --> 01:22:20,240
just you and moving forward and the beauty of

1229
01:22:20,740 --> 01:22:24,680
that and the humor that we had in that house and the love that we

1230
01:22:25,180 --> 01:22:28,520
had in that house. At least I've done that. And we

1231
01:22:29,020 --> 01:22:32,480
can go back to it when we need to, because the book is there and

1232
01:22:32,980 --> 01:22:35,810
we've shared it with a lot of people. Readers tell me.

1233
01:22:36,530 --> 01:22:39,570
Well, they've said over and over a few things.

1234
01:22:40,050 --> 01:22:43,090
I hear I'm jealous of what you had,

1235
01:22:43,410 --> 01:22:46,690
which is so ironic. We had literally nothing,

1236
01:22:47,170 --> 01:22:50,810
but yet we had everything. And then the other thing I

1237
01:22:51,310 --> 01:22:54,290
hear about is I didn't want to leave.

1238
01:22:54,530 --> 01:22:57,090
I didn't want to leave where I was.

1239
01:22:58,210 --> 01:23:01,810
And we saw that growing up. We saw all these Americanitos coming to

1240
01:23:02,310 --> 01:23:05,530
the house all the time because they knew. Knew there was something weird going on

1241
01:23:06,030 --> 01:23:08,410
there that they didn't see anywhere else.

1242
01:23:09,610 --> 01:23:13,450
So it's inevitable that it'll change. I'm going to

1243
01:23:13,950 --> 01:23:17,210
hold onto it as much as I can and do what I can to force

1244
01:23:17,710 --> 01:23:20,249
the human to human as much as possible.

1245
01:23:20,650 --> 01:23:23,930
And I know that I've captured some of it.

1246
01:23:24,250 --> 01:23:27,610
I mean, what you have done is truly priceless. And I think,

1247
01:23:28,090 --> 01:23:31,310
you know, you are rich in the ways that that matter the most.

1248
01:23:32,190 --> 01:23:36,030
And at the end of the day, when people

1249
01:23:36,530 --> 01:23:39,150
sit down to think about it, I think that they know that.

1250
01:23:39,710 --> 01:23:43,630
I think that knowing our family stories

1251
01:23:43,710 --> 01:23:48,110
is important. Having someone to record them is

1252
01:23:49,070 --> 01:23:52,830
just another level. Because for stories

1253
01:23:53,330 --> 01:23:57,070
to continue to be passed on, you need to continue to have a record keeper.

1254
01:23:57,790 --> 01:24:01,070
And if you don't have somebody pursuing that,

1255
01:24:02,010 --> 01:24:05,690
then those stories are lost to time. And it's unfortunate.

1256
01:24:06,190 --> 01:24:10,250
But, you know, this was part of the reason that I started this podcast was

1257
01:24:10,730 --> 01:24:15,770
because my grandfathers were storytellers. And listening

1258
01:24:16,270 --> 01:24:20,370
to their stories was they both had wildly

1259
01:24:20,870 --> 01:24:24,450
different lives and were wildly different people, but they both were

1260
01:24:24,950 --> 01:24:29,290
storytellers. Oh, I love that. And they both had incredible journeys,

1261
01:24:29,450 --> 01:24:32,870
and they're both gone now. And I don't want

1262
01:24:33,370 --> 01:24:36,550
their stories to die with them. I don't want them to die with me.

1263
01:24:37,050 --> 01:24:40,310
What are you doing with those stories? Well, my one grandfather,

1264
01:24:40,390 --> 01:24:43,990
I actually happened to interview him two months before

1265
01:24:44,490 --> 01:24:48,550
he passed. Oh, good. And so I do have some of his stories recorded.

1266
01:24:48,710 --> 01:24:51,870
My other grandfather, I would like to write a book

1267
01:24:52,370 --> 01:24:56,310
about his story. It would have to be fiction and based on

1268
01:24:56,810 --> 01:25:00,270
his story because I don't have enough details of

1269
01:25:00,770 --> 01:25:04,440
what he went through because he immigrated from Hungary

1270
01:25:05,400 --> 01:25:09,080
after being in a communist prison for four years. Oh, dear.

1271
01:25:09,480 --> 01:25:14,680
So, wow. He was incredible and just

1272
01:25:14,760 --> 01:25:18,440
had this incredible Spirit about him.

1273
01:25:18,600 --> 01:25:21,000
Yeah. Not much bothered him,

1274
01:25:21,640 --> 01:25:23,960
you know, after what he lived through. Exactly,

1275
01:25:24,440 --> 01:25:27,960
exactly. He was a rock. Yeah. So. Oh, I hope

1276
01:25:28,460 --> 01:25:32,180
you write that. I would really love to get going. Yeah, yeah, I know,

1277
01:25:32,680 --> 01:25:36,140
I know. And you know what? A historical fiction

1278
01:25:36,940 --> 01:25:40,380
novel is so much easier to sell than.

1279
01:25:40,780 --> 01:25:43,660
Because in the end, you know, we're talking about performance now. We shouldn't.

1280
01:25:43,980 --> 01:25:47,380
But you have to think about the marketplace than a memoir.

1281
01:25:47,880 --> 01:25:51,020
A memoir is. Especially as a non famous person.

1282
01:25:51,180 --> 01:25:54,860
Yeah, right. Which is hilarious because personally,

1283
01:25:55,020 --> 01:25:59,010
I will devour a memoir. Yeah. Not from

1284
01:25:59,510 --> 01:26:02,970
a famous person, but. Yes. Like the story of Owe Me Everything.

1285
01:26:03,210 --> 01:26:06,010
I want to learn. I want to learn. I want to know the real stuff.

1286
01:26:06,730 --> 01:26:10,970
Yeah. I tried really hard to make

1287
01:26:11,050 --> 01:26:14,090
Property of the Revolution historical,

1288
01:26:14,410 --> 01:26:18,210
historically accurate. I worked really hard at that. But I structured

1289
01:26:18,710 --> 01:26:21,970
it in such a way that many have said, and this was my goal,

1290
01:26:22,470 --> 01:26:26,000
that it does feel more like a novel. It's very character

1291
01:26:26,500 --> 01:26:31,960
driven and there are turning points and very,

1292
01:26:32,460 --> 01:26:36,560
very dramatic points and themes that are consistent. And one theme

1293
01:26:37,060 --> 01:26:41,200
leads to another, one scene leads to another. So it's.

1294
01:26:41,600 --> 01:26:45,440
Yeah, I'm really happy with not just the content, but the way

1295
01:26:45,940 --> 01:26:49,000
that it seems to be capturing. You know, another thing that's really

1296
01:26:49,500 --> 01:26:53,230
cool is that I thought it would be more of a woman's read. I wanted

1297
01:26:53,730 --> 01:26:57,590
it to be a male read. You know, my father played professional baseball in

1298
01:26:58,090 --> 01:27:01,630
the United states in the 50s. Oh, wow. So there's some baseball

1299
01:27:02,130 --> 01:27:05,190
in here. So that was my. Well, first of all, I was.

1300
01:27:05,910 --> 01:27:09,590
I loved sports and I loved my father's baseball stories.

1301
01:27:10,090 --> 01:27:13,470
And I've had. I wrote some commentaries

1302
01:27:13,970 --> 01:27:17,580
for NPR that were about his experiences as.

1303
01:27:17,970 --> 01:27:21,250
As a Cuban player in the Jim Crow South. But I don't

1304
01:27:21,750 --> 01:27:25,170
know, I just. I really wanted it to be

1305
01:27:25,650 --> 01:27:28,810
for men and women, for young and old, and so

1306
01:27:29,310 --> 01:27:33,090
far, so good, because the, the men, male readers

1307
01:27:33,590 --> 01:27:36,050
who have reached out to me or who have talked to me after I.

1308
01:27:36,550 --> 01:27:39,890
I go somewhere are passionate about.

1309
01:27:41,010 --> 01:27:44,540
And I think it's because they see. Because there are men and

1310
01:27:44,700 --> 01:27:48,260
male characters, they see themselves in them like

1311
01:27:48,760 --> 01:27:51,980
just a regular guy, kind of a jock, and he's

1312
01:27:52,480 --> 01:27:56,020
caught up in this political tornado and

1313
01:27:56,520 --> 01:27:59,020
he's got a fend for his family now. He's got a fend for his family

1314
01:27:59,500 --> 01:28:02,780
in a foreign land with nothing. And they

1315
01:28:03,280 --> 01:28:05,580
see themselves as family people,

1316
01:28:06,380 --> 01:28:09,380
as a man. And. Yeah.

1317
01:28:09,880 --> 01:28:12,980
It's not just for women, it turns out. Makes me so happy. Yes.

1318
01:28:13,480 --> 01:28:15,800
And, you know, you talked about Hungary and your grandfather.

1319
01:28:17,240 --> 01:28:19,880
I did a talk at a Jewish.

1320
01:28:20,840 --> 01:28:24,480
At a synagogue with A Jewish men's

1321
01:28:24,980 --> 01:28:28,120
book group. On the screen on Zoom. There were a

1322
01:28:28,620 --> 01:28:32,920
bunch of other people and one of the guys was a 92 year old man

1323
01:28:33,420 --> 01:28:36,680
in Arizona, I think, and he had oxygen. He was head of one of the.

1324
01:28:37,160 --> 01:28:40,200
He was using oxygen and he had his hand up the whole

1325
01:28:40,700 --> 01:28:44,240
time and nobody picked on him. And then finally somebody picked on

1326
01:28:44,740 --> 01:28:48,200
him. And. And he said, you know, and they loved

1327
01:28:48,700 --> 01:28:51,840
the book, but he said, I know

1328
01:28:52,340 --> 01:28:55,640
that this is about your Cuban abuela, but this is

1329
01:28:56,140 --> 01:28:59,960
about my. I saw my Romanian Jewish grandmother

1330
01:29:00,439 --> 01:29:04,440
in this book and I saw my 31 first

1331
01:29:04,600 --> 01:29:08,120
cousins in this book. And that's my house.

1332
01:29:08,600 --> 01:29:12,040
That's where I grew up, which I loved.

1333
01:29:12,120 --> 01:29:15,720
Yes. And I've heard that from, you know, an Iranian

1334
01:29:16,220 --> 01:29:18,560
woman, an Afghani woman, a Lithuanian.

1335
01:29:20,160 --> 01:29:23,680
I mean, many people have said that this is their

1336
01:29:24,400 --> 01:29:28,640
home, their household, what they experienced,

1337
01:29:29,520 --> 01:29:33,240
which I really love hearing because that makes us all

1338
01:29:33,740 --> 01:29:37,200
the same. You know, we're just human beings. Once again, stories connect

1339
01:29:37,700 --> 01:29:41,590
us more than anything ever. Yeah. Truly. Yeah. But I,

1340
01:29:42,090 --> 01:29:45,630
I know that you have gotten, you. You've won awards for

1341
01:29:46,130 --> 01:29:49,910
your book. I know that you have been able to really just affect

1342
01:29:50,470 --> 01:29:53,990
some change and start discourse with your book, which I just

1343
01:29:54,490 --> 01:29:58,070
think is so fabulous. Thank you, Jennifer. I. It's a,

1344
01:29:58,570 --> 01:30:02,070
you know, a hard road to get a book out there.

1345
01:30:02,570 --> 01:30:06,500
And this has been the. The reward to know that

1346
01:30:07,000 --> 01:30:09,380
people feel hopeful or happy,

1347
01:30:09,860 --> 01:30:13,460
inspired and understand better.

1348
01:30:13,860 --> 01:30:17,620
What more could I have asked for? And, you know, here's the

1349
01:30:18,120 --> 01:30:21,500
other thing. They love the people and the story just

1350
01:30:22,000 --> 01:30:25,300
like I did. And they feel the love I felt every day

1351
01:30:26,260 --> 01:30:29,780
in this grieving, but funny and

1352
01:30:30,280 --> 01:30:33,660
loving home. And I wanted people to feel that love and they do.

1353
01:30:34,160 --> 01:30:37,560
And that makes people. Me so incredibly happy. Yes. That I got

1354
01:30:38,060 --> 01:30:41,520
to share them. Share my. My viejos, my old people with

1355
01:30:42,020 --> 01:30:46,000
them. I love that. Yeah. We'll definitely link to your book

1356
01:30:46,500 --> 01:30:50,120
and your website in the show notes for people. I can't wait to

1357
01:30:50,620 --> 01:30:54,360
read this. After sitting with you and hearing this much of you, I'd love to

1358
01:30:54,860 --> 01:30:58,080
know what you think. So make sure you let me know. Okay. And. Yeah.

1359
01:30:58,580 --> 01:31:01,830
And then people can grab their own copy as well. So I urge them to.

1360
01:31:02,330 --> 01:31:05,590
I think they'll find some hope. Yeah. And love and humor

1361
01:31:06,310 --> 01:31:10,230
and good things. I think it's a. It's important for

1362
01:31:10,470 --> 01:31:14,230
even the. The moment we're in right now. I think especially there's

1363
01:31:14,730 --> 01:31:17,790
another thing people have said. Yeah. This reminds me so much of what we're going

1364
01:31:18,290 --> 01:31:21,790
through. Yeah. There's some lessons to be pulled out for

1365
01:31:22,290 --> 01:31:25,590
sure. So wonderful. And to find hope through it all,

1366
01:31:26,090 --> 01:31:30,040
I think that's always gonna be the most. The strongest message.

1367
01:31:30,120 --> 01:31:33,840
Yes. So, Ana, thank you so much for sitting with

1368
01:31:34,340 --> 01:31:38,040
me and for doing this. It was so lovely to meet you and to speak

1369
01:31:38,540 --> 01:31:42,600
with you. Well, I feel really happy to be here and honored.

1370
01:31:43,100 --> 01:31:46,360
And what a treat. Face to face

1371
01:31:47,320 --> 01:31:50,120
with Jennifer. Yes. Face to face.

1372
01:31:50,200 --> 01:31:53,890
The real McCoy. Yeah. Thank you for being interested

1373
01:31:54,390 --> 01:31:57,930
in the story and for coming to meet me. What a treat.

1374
01:31:58,090 --> 01:32:01,770
Thank you. My pleasure. Thank you for listening to the human

1375
01:32:02,270 --> 01:32:06,010
experience. Everyone has a story, and I'd love to hear yours.

1376
01:32:06,170 --> 01:32:09,490
So be sure to check out the show notes for more information about how to

1377
01:32:09,990 --> 01:32:11,810
stay in touch, do good, and love.