Cuba On My Mind: Journeys to a Severed Nation, by Roman De La Campa (Small HC, 2000, $2)
It is hard to accept that the struggle over Elian Gonzalez happened over 10 years ago. I'll bet most of us remember the pictures of the guards going into his family's home to remove him. For many of us, we could not understand the hatred between the Cubans in Miami and the Cubans in Cuba. The author De La Campa understands the situation only too well. "He tells the story of his coming of age in the Cuban diaspora, with its faded sympathies for revolution, and his continuing distaste for official Miami, the exile capital."
His memoir "offers a hard look at his two Cubas, their obsessive attempts to deny the other, their respective use of migration as a political card, and their nationalist passions. Above all it shows how globalization and post-socialism are shaping a Cuban national split, with obvious consequences, not only for Havana, but also for the US."
As a small child I remember my grandparents going to visit Cuba, which now seems strange, since they normally never left their small home town. Why they went is lost in the proverbial mists of time. They did have a grand time though. It is a good thing they went when they did, because Castro took control soon after. Many people, even in the US, had high hopes that Castro would improve life for the Cuban people. He did not. Time will tell how Cuba will evolve now that Castro has handed power over to his brother. We can only hope that somehow the two Cubas will come together, both to be able to physically visit each other, but also to emotionally be one people again. Look for this book on the new non-fiction table, avail. 3/28. (L-Cu)
