WEBVTT - Cuba on the Brink: Ada Ferrer on Life Under US Pressure 0:00:02.840 --> 0:00:10.360 Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. 0:00:11.119 --> 0:00:15.160 The people I'm talking to in Cuba are suffering terribly. 0:00:15.800 --> 0:00:19.000 Blackout's twenty twenty two hours a day. A country can't 0:00:19.000 --> 0:00:22.600 survive like that. People just want to live, right. 0:00:23.800 --> 0:00:29.000 Ada Ferrer, Pulitzer Prize winning historian of Cuba and America. 0:00:29.760 --> 0:00:33.000 It feels like a heavy weight to carry. 0:00:33.400 --> 0:00:36.480 My coming here meant that I had opportunities I would 0:00:36.520 --> 0:00:38.760 have never had had I stayed in Cuba. At the 0:00:38.800 --> 0:00:41.400 heart of the book is a profound sense of guilt 0:00:41.520 --> 0:00:44.559 that my mother brought me with her to this country. 0:00:44.680 --> 0:00:48.120 She left behind my brother. He had trauma. I had 0:00:48.280 --> 0:00:49.040 a loving mother. 0:00:51.240 --> 0:00:56.120 From Bloomberg Weekend, this is the Michelle Hussein Show. I'm 0:00:56.160 --> 0:01:04.160 Michelle Hussein. We're not even halfway through the year, and 0:01:04.640 --> 0:01:10.039 it has been such a dramatic one in world affairs. Venezuela, Greenland, 0:01:10.360 --> 0:01:15.200 Iran Lebanon that I wouldn't blame you if the extent 0:01:15.440 --> 0:01:21.399 of Cuba's crisis hadn't fully registered. But the island really 0:01:21.560 --> 0:01:25.360 is in a deep crisis. The oil that used to 0:01:25.400 --> 0:01:29.360 come in from Venezuela stopped in January after the US 0:01:29.480 --> 0:01:32.160 removed its leader, and then the oil that used to 0:01:32.160 --> 0:01:35.880 come from Mexico, stopped because its government didn't want to 0:01:36.000 --> 0:01:40.680 risk President Trump's wrath. So that means today people in 0:01:40.720 --> 0:01:47.000 Cuba are desperate, and like many Cuban Americans, historian Ada 0:01:47.040 --> 0:01:51.520 Ferrer is worried about family and friends in Cuba. But 0:01:51.680 --> 0:01:55.080 for her, the present is part of a long history 0:01:55.320 --> 0:01:58.880 between Cuba and the United States, one that she's studied, 0:01:59.440 --> 0:02:03.280 one that has shaped her own family, as she reveals 0:02:03.280 --> 0:02:07.080 in a new book called Keeper of My Kin. So 0:02:07.200 --> 0:02:11.840 this conversation is in part personal but also takes in 0:02:11.880 --> 0:02:16.239 the political picture. Marco Rubio, another Cuban American, comes up. 0:02:16.840 --> 0:02:19.639 And when you turn to the written version of this, 0:02:20.000 --> 0:02:22.880 as I hope you do at Bloomberg dot com forward 0:02:22.960 --> 0:02:27.800 slash Michelle, you'll see my notes and reflections. So the 0:02:27.840 --> 0:02:32.440 Bay of Pigs, the Mariel boatlift, Alligator, Alcatraz, Cuba, and 0:02:32.520 --> 0:02:37.360 American politics, it's all there. But here's how we began. 0:02:37.760 --> 0:02:42.239 When Ada Ferrer dialed in from her university studio at Princeton, 0:02:43.560 --> 0:02:45.799 doctor Ferrer, it's Michelle. Can you hear me, Yes, I 0:02:45.840 --> 0:02:48.799 can hear you. Thank you so much for joining us. 0:02:48.800 --> 0:02:51.400 I can't tell you how happy I am to be 0:02:51.440 --> 0:02:55.880 speaking to you because I found your book really resonant. 0:02:55.919 --> 0:02:59.600 I learned so much from it, and therefore I just 0:02:59.600 --> 0:03:01.880 want to think, thank you not only for being part 0:03:01.960 --> 0:03:04.200 of this conversation, but really for writing it, because I 0:03:04.200 --> 0:03:06.359 think it's an incredible historical record. 0:03:06.400 --> 0:03:08.000 Well, thank you for reading the book. 0:03:08.200 --> 0:03:11.480 Essentially, Keeper of My Kin was my introduction to your 0:03:11.560 --> 0:03:16.560 earlier book, and I think it's this really unusual combination 0:03:16.680 --> 0:03:20.320 of it being incredibly timely with everything that's happened this year, 0:03:20.400 --> 0:03:24.080 but also kind of timeless, which is I think, in 0:03:24.120 --> 0:03:25.440 a pretty immense achievement. 0:03:26.240 --> 0:03:27.880 You know, there's a part of me that knew that 0:03:27.919 --> 0:03:30.280 I would always have to write this book, that it 0:03:30.320 --> 0:03:32.800 was part of my story, part of my family story, 0:03:32.840 --> 0:03:36.440 part of Cuba's story, part of an American story. I 0:03:36.560 --> 0:03:39.800 didn't know when I started writing it that as I 0:03:39.840 --> 0:03:43.480 wrote it would become more relevant because of basically US 0:03:43.520 --> 0:03:46.680 immigration policy and what's happening with deportations of Cubans. And 0:03:46.720 --> 0:03:49.080 then by the time I had finished the book and 0:03:49.160 --> 0:03:51.760 it was in production, then there's a whole new kind 0:03:51.760 --> 0:03:54.360 of timeliness with what's been happening in Cuba since the 0:03:54.400 --> 0:03:55.680 attack on Venezuela. 0:03:55.760 --> 0:03:58.119 Yeah, I think the stage is set for your next book, really, 0:03:58.160 --> 0:04:00.160 and I do want to bring us right up to 0:04:00.200 --> 0:04:04.000 the present day. But i'd love you to start by 0:04:04.040 --> 0:04:07.840 helping us understand your relationship with Cuba. And I think 0:04:07.880 --> 0:04:10.800 you've hinted at it already there. There's a line in 0:04:11.480 --> 0:04:14.800 Keeper of my Kin where you write that Cuba is 0:04:14.840 --> 0:04:18.240 the place that you were taught by your family to 0:04:18.279 --> 0:04:22.520 both love and hate, right, Can you deconstruct that for us? 0:04:22.600 --> 0:04:22.920 Yeah? 0:04:22.960 --> 0:04:26.719 Well, I was born in Cuba, so that's the beginning 0:04:26.800 --> 0:04:29.440 of the relationship. But I left when I was ten months, 0:04:29.520 --> 0:04:31.480 or I was taken when I was ten months, which 0:04:31.520 --> 0:04:33.800 means that I had no memory of it at all. 0:04:34.520 --> 0:04:38.960 So my introduction to Cuba was via other people, via 0:04:39.480 --> 0:04:43.720 mostly my parents, but also neighbors and community, and in 0:04:43.760 --> 0:04:46.880 that community and in my family, there was an intense 0:04:47.560 --> 0:04:51.279 love for the place and intense nostalgia about the place 0:04:52.040 --> 0:04:56.400 for a long time, and intense desire to return. At 0:04:56.400 --> 0:05:00.560 the same time, there was profound disagreement with the government 0:05:00.560 --> 0:05:05.279 of Cuba, and so that made it a complicated place. 0:05:05.400 --> 0:05:07.800 You know, you could love the place but not the government, 0:05:07.920 --> 0:05:10.880 the people but not the leaders, So that was part 0:05:10.920 --> 0:05:12.520 of it. The other thing is that you know, like 0:05:12.600 --> 0:05:16.640 any American teenager, when your parents keep talking about something 0:05:17.080 --> 0:05:19.720 and keep trying to get you to like it and 0:05:19.800 --> 0:05:22.280 value it, there's a part of you that always resists. 0:05:22.400 --> 0:05:22.599 Right. 0:05:22.720 --> 0:05:25.800 So, whenever they compared the US to Cuba and oh, 0:05:25.839 --> 0:05:28.120 everything was so much better in Cuba, or in Cuba, 0:05:28.160 --> 0:05:29.960 we didn't do that in Cuba. You would have never 0:05:29.960 --> 0:05:31.880 been able to do that, all my sister and I 0:05:31.920 --> 0:05:34.120 could say was you're not in Cuba anymore. Right, So 0:05:34.200 --> 0:05:37.000 there was as a good American teenager, I kind of 0:05:37.080 --> 0:05:39.760 learned to be a little skeptical of everything my parents said. 0:05:40.600 --> 0:05:42.680 But also it's kind of extraordinary that they're saying that 0:05:42.720 --> 0:05:45.600 to you, because in no way do they want to 0:05:45.720 --> 0:05:48.640 live in the Cuba of Castro. They've made a very 0:05:48.680 --> 0:05:50.560 distinct choice to leave it behind. 0:05:50.400 --> 0:05:51.279 Right exactly. 0:05:51.480 --> 0:05:53.920 So, I think you know, their assumption, as with many 0:05:53.960 --> 0:05:57.960 people who left early on, and it was a plausible 0:05:58.000 --> 0:06:00.479 assumption in that time and place, right the height of 0:06:00.520 --> 0:06:03.599 the Cold War, the US ninety miles away as it 0:06:03.640 --> 0:06:06.800 continues to be now. Their assumption, and also the US 0:06:06.839 --> 0:06:09.880 with a history of a long, long history of intervention 0:06:10.000 --> 0:06:14.760 in Cuba, they really assumed that the Castro government wouldn't last. 0:06:14.880 --> 0:06:17.279 There had been the Bay of Pigs in nineteen sixty one, 0:06:18.120 --> 0:06:21.640 in which the US invaded Cuba using Cuban exiles, and 0:06:21.720 --> 0:06:25.200 the US was defeated. But even then people really thought 0:06:25.200 --> 0:06:27.719 that there would probably be another invasion, that a next 0:06:27.720 --> 0:06:30.799 invasion would not be as badly organized as that one, 0:06:31.720 --> 0:06:34.039 or they just or they thought Fidel would fall of 0:06:34.080 --> 0:06:37.120 his own accord, So their assumption was that they would return. 0:06:37.160 --> 0:06:39.479 When my father left in nineteen sixty two, my mother 0:06:39.600 --> 0:06:42.080 was pregnant with me, so he left a year before 0:06:42.600 --> 0:06:44.359 we did, and he really thought it would be a 0:06:44.400 --> 0:06:47.120 matter of months, maybe a year, And then my mother 0:06:47.200 --> 0:06:48.880 thought the same thing when we left. 0:06:49.040 --> 0:06:53.039 So this journey that defines your life, really leaving as 0:06:53.279 --> 0:06:56.960 a babe in your mother's arms, aged ten months in 0:06:57.120 --> 0:07:01.720 nineteen sixty three. I guess you know that story because 0:07:01.760 --> 0:07:05.359 your mother told it to you, right, So how was 0:07:05.400 --> 0:07:07.960 it described to you as a child, and how did 0:07:08.000 --> 0:07:09.359 you fill in the blanks later on? 0:07:10.440 --> 0:07:13.120 Well, my mother was always a storyteller. 0:07:13.280 --> 0:07:16.720 She'd loved telling stories, and she even loved, you know, 0:07:18.080 --> 0:07:21.480 adding music to her stories and snatches of songs and 0:07:21.520 --> 0:07:24.040 so on. So the story she told was a story 0:07:23.800 --> 0:07:29.120 of the two of us making this incredible, irreversible, it 0:07:29.160 --> 0:07:33.880 turns out, journey together and we were partners. She suffered, 0:07:33.920 --> 0:07:37.880 she struggled, she'd never left the country, she was wearing heels. Yeah, 0:07:37.960 --> 0:07:40.240 I was heavy in her arms. She didn't know what 0:07:40.320 --> 0:07:42.040 she was doing. The people who were going to pick 0:07:42.120 --> 0:07:44.240 us up weren't there. It was just one mishap in 0:07:44.320 --> 0:07:47.840 hardship after another. But I was always there and I 0:07:47.960 --> 0:07:50.800 was good and I behaved and we got here, and 0:07:50.840 --> 0:07:53.840 eventually we got to my father in New York on 0:07:53.960 --> 0:07:58.080 July fourth, of all dates, nineteen sixty three. And she 0:07:58.200 --> 0:08:01.440 always said, you recognized him, your arms to him to 0:08:01.520 --> 0:08:03.600 be held by him, even though you hadn't met him yet. 0:08:03.600 --> 0:08:06.840 She always repeated that part. So it was a beautiful 0:08:06.960 --> 0:08:09.840 story in a way of where she struggled, she was scared. 0:08:10.040 --> 0:08:12.880 My presence helped her, and we survived and we made it. 0:08:13.400 --> 0:08:16.760 But when she told that kind of ritual eyed story, 0:08:16.880 --> 0:08:19.320 she left something out, and that was that we had 0:08:19.400 --> 0:08:22.760 left my brother behind. She left behind a nine and 0:08:22.760 --> 0:08:25.360 a half year old son who was her son from 0:08:25.360 --> 0:08:29.559 a first marriage, and my brother, Bully, my half brother. 0:08:30.000 --> 0:08:32.480 His father did not let him leave, would not give 0:08:32.520 --> 0:08:35.880 my mother permission to take him. And so when she 0:08:36.040 --> 0:08:39.560 told the beautiful, ritual eyed story of the two of 0:08:39.640 --> 0:08:43.280 us against the world, she left that part out. You know, 0:08:43.400 --> 0:08:45.600 even then it made no sense because I always knew 0:08:45.640 --> 0:08:48.560 my brother was in Cuba. I always knew he was there. 0:08:48.640 --> 0:08:52.120 I always knew the goal was reunification as soon as possible. 0:08:52.679 --> 0:08:55.160 We talked about him all the time, you know, with 0:08:55.200 --> 0:08:57.720 his picture was in the house. I used to kiss 0:08:57.760 --> 0:08:59.840 his picture at night, you know, that kind of thing. 0:09:00.440 --> 0:09:04.800 So that part of the story was hugely important, but 0:09:05.280 --> 0:09:07.720 not treated quite the same way as the other part 0:09:07.720 --> 0:09:12.079 of the story. And then as I got older, even 0:09:12.080 --> 0:09:15.400 as a teenager, starting to resist kind of the imposition 0:09:15.480 --> 0:09:19.280 of their Cuban nostalgia, I just started to become more 0:09:19.720 --> 0:09:25.040 more interested. And in nineteen seventy seven, the four of us, 0:09:25.120 --> 0:09:27.760 my parents, my sister, and I were sitting in the 0:09:27.800 --> 0:09:32.040 living room watching Barbara Walters interview for Del Castro, and 0:09:32.200 --> 0:09:34.840 before he came on, there were scenes of Havana, you know, 0:09:34.880 --> 0:09:37.400 of the maligon and the lighthouse and the streets and 0:09:37.400 --> 0:09:40.000 the cars and so on, and I looked at it 0:09:40.040 --> 0:09:43.319 and just started crying. And I would have been fifteen 0:09:43.400 --> 0:09:46.440 at the time, and my parents just couldn't believe it. 0:09:46.520 --> 0:09:49.600 You know, the nostalgia and the pain had always been theirs. 0:09:49.800 --> 0:09:52.280 You know, why was I crying? And I remember so 0:09:52.480 --> 0:09:57.160 clearly saying to them, I'm crying because I was born there, 0:09:58.040 --> 0:10:01.800 but I can't remember it. And I think in a 0:10:01.840 --> 0:10:05.960 way that started something. That feeling started something for me, 0:10:06.000 --> 0:10:09.040 and I became more interested in understanding it and in 0:10:09.200 --> 0:10:11.960 understanding it in my own terms as well, not just 0:10:12.000 --> 0:10:15.160 as a place for their nostalgia. 0:10:15.240 --> 0:10:18.600 Your brother, Polly is right there on the cover of 0:10:18.640 --> 0:10:20.960 your book. It's the three of you in a picture 0:10:21.040 --> 0:10:25.320 that's taken just before you leave Cuba, or on his birthday, 0:10:25.320 --> 0:10:27.720 I think, a few months before you leave Cuba with 0:10:27.760 --> 0:10:31.400 your mother. I think the key bit of detail that 0:10:31.440 --> 0:10:35.800 you discovered years later was that he didn't know that 0:10:35.840 --> 0:10:38.560 you and your mother were leaving for the United States. 0:10:38.559 --> 0:10:41.520 That he was out playing with his friends and he 0:10:41.600 --> 0:10:44.800 came back and he was told you were just gone 0:10:44.800 --> 0:10:45.440 for a while. 0:10:45.760 --> 0:10:49.040 So when we left, my mother didn't say goodbye. He 0:10:49.080 --> 0:10:53.080 didn't know that we were leaving. And I blocked out 0:10:53.240 --> 0:10:56.560 when exactly I learned that, But I believe it was 0:10:56.640 --> 0:10:59.320 either in high school or in college, or maybe even 0:10:59.360 --> 0:11:01.480 after college, when I first went back to Cuba in 0:11:01.559 --> 0:11:04.360 nineteen ninety and met my aunt, who was one of 0:11:04.360 --> 0:11:07.760 the ones who raised him. But yeah, my mother, in 0:11:07.840 --> 0:11:12.280 consultation with her own mother and in consultation with her sisters, 0:11:12.320 --> 0:11:17.240 decided that it would be easier on everyone involved for 0:11:17.400 --> 0:11:21.200 us to leave without her saying goodbye. When I learned that, 0:11:21.600 --> 0:11:24.040 it shocked me, It hurt me, It crushed me a 0:11:24.040 --> 0:11:24.439 little bit. 0:11:26.360 --> 0:11:30.079 It was a different moment. They didn't think about. 0:11:31.240 --> 0:11:34.360 Psychology, maybe in the same way we think about it today. 0:11:34.400 --> 0:11:36.360 They didn't think about trauma in the same way we 0:11:36.360 --> 0:11:38.959 think about it today. And above all, they thought it 0:11:39.000 --> 0:11:41.560 would be temporary, so they thought the effect of it 0:11:41.600 --> 0:11:45.600 could be reversed quickly. But it wasn't for a long time. So, yes, 0:11:45.640 --> 0:11:48.760 he was outside playing with friends, and we left, and 0:11:48.800 --> 0:11:52.800 then he came back for dinner, and my grandmother told 0:11:52.840 --> 0:11:54.920 him that we had gone to the countryside to help 0:11:54.960 --> 0:11:56.120 with an ailing relative. 0:11:57.040 --> 0:11:58.719 And I know that he. 0:11:58.840 --> 0:12:02.160 Learned before the week was out that we had left, 0:12:02.840 --> 0:12:05.000 because he sat down and wrote a letter to my 0:12:05.080 --> 0:12:08.120 mother about five days after we left. 0:12:08.280 --> 0:12:10.640 May the fourth, nineteen sixty three, is I think the 0:12:10.720 --> 0:12:13.400 date on that letter, And you have the letters in 0:12:13.440 --> 0:12:17.680 your book, and it's I mean, they are They are heartbreaking, 0:12:18.160 --> 0:12:22.400 worse almost as the years go on as he grows up, 0:12:22.520 --> 0:12:27.400 because I think it's sixteen years until he sees your 0:12:27.440 --> 0:12:32.400 mother again, but he doesn't get to the US until 0:12:32.440 --> 0:12:34.040 he is twenty six. 0:12:34.240 --> 0:12:34.760 That's right. 0:12:35.679 --> 0:12:37.559 First of all, let me just say that I didn't 0:12:37.600 --> 0:12:40.960 know those letters existed. I found them after both my 0:12:41.080 --> 0:12:43.360 parents had died, when I was cleaning out their apartment, 0:12:44.080 --> 0:12:47.960 and they begin, as you said, May fourth, nineteen sixty three, 0:12:48.640 --> 0:12:51.240 and they go through nineteen seventy nine. So they are 0:12:51.400 --> 0:12:56.880 chronicle of his life without us, but they're excruciating to read. 0:12:57.280 --> 0:13:01.000 You see him over the years becoming more more traumatized 0:13:01.000 --> 0:13:04.680 as a young man, struggling with staying in school, struggling 0:13:04.720 --> 0:13:08.520 with keeping a job. And then my mother visits him 0:13:08.679 --> 0:13:12.880 in nineteen seventy nine, when Fidel Castro decides that Cubans 0:13:12.880 --> 0:13:14.960 who left can come back and visit family, and so 0:13:15.040 --> 0:13:17.280 my mother went back to see him. By then her 0:13:17.320 --> 0:13:20.559 own mother had already died, and so that was nineteen 0:13:20.640 --> 0:13:23.680 seventy nine, and then the following year, nineteen eighty, you 0:13:23.760 --> 0:13:27.640 get a major historical event, something called the Mariel boat Lift, 0:13:27.679 --> 0:13:30.120 in which one hundred and twenty five thousand Cubans leave 0:13:30.240 --> 0:13:32.920 by sea in the space of a few months. And 0:13:33.040 --> 0:13:35.320 my brother left. My mother actually went to get him. 0:13:35.360 --> 0:13:38.320 She took a bus down to Florida, and we were 0:13:38.360 --> 0:13:41.600 living in New Jersey, and she rented out a space 0:13:41.760 --> 0:13:44.760 on a little boat and paid the captain to take 0:13:44.800 --> 0:13:48.920 her to Mariel. I was about to turn eighteen and 0:13:49.040 --> 0:13:51.880 about to leave for college at the end of that summer. 0:13:52.559 --> 0:13:54.960 Yeah, and I know he didn't have an easy life 0:13:55.000 --> 0:13:57.679 in the US, and I should say that he has 0:13:57.720 --> 0:14:00.240 passed away, as have both of your parents. So and 0:14:00.280 --> 0:14:03.200 I guess that's part of what allows you to write 0:14:03.240 --> 0:14:06.040 a book as personal as this, Because I was so 0:14:06.080 --> 0:14:08.400 struck by the letters. I'm just going to read a 0:14:08.440 --> 0:14:12.720 few lines out because I think that for anyone yet 0:14:12.760 --> 0:14:15.559 to read your book, they give an idea of the 0:14:15.600 --> 0:14:18.360 depth of the heartache and what it means to be 0:14:18.400 --> 0:14:22.160 separated as a child. So early on that first letter, 0:14:22.240 --> 0:14:24.520 he says, I want to speak with my father so 0:14:24.600 --> 0:14:26.400 he can give me permission to go with you. But 0:14:26.440 --> 0:14:28.440 he's telling your mother that he's being a good boy, 0:14:29.160 --> 0:14:31.520 And then he says how much he wants to go 0:14:31.560 --> 0:14:34.400 to New York, and then by the time he's nineteen twenty, 0:14:34.480 --> 0:14:39.480 he's saying, my heart neither measures nor marks time, and 0:14:39.600 --> 0:14:41.840 later he writes, you have to understand that my life 0:14:41.880 --> 0:14:45.200 is full of the great trauma I've suffered. It's a 0:14:45.240 --> 0:14:48.920 life spent waiting in many ways, right, waiting to arrive 0:14:49.040 --> 0:14:52.400 in the US, like waiting for that country, as much 0:14:52.480 --> 0:14:55.880 as it is to be reunited with your mother, I imagine. 0:14:55.880 --> 0:14:58.280 Yeah, I think that that's such a great way to 0:14:58.320 --> 0:15:00.040 put it. And the thing is, you know, you've you 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:04.760 can't really live a life waiting. So things didn't matter 0:15:04.840 --> 0:15:08.280 in the present for him because it would all be erased, 0:15:08.480 --> 0:15:10.800 you know, by his reunification with my mother. 0:15:11.080 --> 0:15:14.160 Right, So he didn't work exactly, So. 0:15:14.120 --> 0:15:16.360 These things are not worth doing in Cuba. 0:15:16.520 --> 0:15:19.160 Yeah, they don't count because my real life will begin 0:15:19.240 --> 0:15:20.760 when I'm with my mother in the US. 0:15:21.520 --> 0:15:24.360 And yeah, so it's a terrible, terrible story. 0:15:25.000 --> 0:15:28.520 Ada, tell us how it fits into the wider story 0:15:28.560 --> 0:15:32.080 of Cuban Americans and perhaps even Cuba and the United States, 0:15:32.160 --> 0:15:35.960 because I mean, you're writing from your own personal experience 0:15:35.960 --> 0:15:38.960 in your families, But would there be many stories of 0:15:38.960 --> 0:15:43.480 this kind of separation within families, of this longing to 0:15:43.480 --> 0:15:46.880 get to the US, of this complicated relationship. Oh. 0:15:46.920 --> 0:15:47.600 Absolutely. 0:15:48.000 --> 0:15:51.520 I think that the question of migration to the US 0:15:51.960 --> 0:15:55.800 is central to the history of Cuba. I know it 0:15:55.920 --> 0:15:58.280 was in some sense in the nineteenth century, but especially 0:15:58.320 --> 0:16:02.520 since nineteen fifty nine. You had multiple waves of migration. 0:16:02.880 --> 0:16:05.320 Early on, you had a group of people that history 0:16:05.360 --> 0:16:08.120 has termed the Golden Exiles. They tended to be more elite, 0:16:08.680 --> 0:16:11.720 they tended to think of themselves as exiles who would return, 0:16:11.840 --> 0:16:14.200 and so on. Then later you had something called the 0:16:14.240 --> 0:16:17.640 Freedom Flights, which lasted from you know, mid nineteen sixties 0:16:17.640 --> 0:16:20.640 to early nineteen seventies. You had three hundred thousand people leave. 0:16:21.360 --> 0:16:23.440 Then you had the Mario boat Lift one hundred and 0:16:23.440 --> 0:16:27.280 twenty five thousand people leave. You had the ninety four 0:16:27.440 --> 0:16:30.120 Rafter Crisis, in which about thirty five thousand people leave. 0:16:30.200 --> 0:16:34.840 So there's been multiple, multiple waves of migration, and if anything, 0:16:35.200 --> 0:16:39.440 that's accelerated since the nineteen nineties. So it's a major 0:16:39.480 --> 0:16:42.480 part of the story of Miami, certainly in a Florida, 0:16:42.520 --> 0:16:44.440 but I think it's also a major part of Cuba. 0:16:44.560 --> 0:16:49.240 You know, the idea that one could leave, or the 0:16:49.360 --> 0:16:52.680 idea that a family member would leave, or a friend 0:16:52.920 --> 0:16:55.920 or a neighbor. It just became part of the texture 0:16:55.960 --> 0:16:58.640 of daily life. I remember finding in an archived once 0:16:58.720 --> 0:17:02.160 someone writing a letter to a friend in the US saying, 0:17:02.240 --> 0:17:05.119 I'm just tired. I can't get anything done because my 0:17:05.280 --> 0:17:08.320 day is constantly interrupted by people coming to say goodbye 0:17:08.400 --> 0:17:12.119 because they're leaving. Right, So that becomes a part of 0:17:12.160 --> 0:17:15.240 the story of the Cuban Revolution itself, right, the possibility 0:17:15.240 --> 0:17:19.040 of leaving, the possibility of being left, and right now, 0:17:19.160 --> 0:17:21.720 if we can bring it to the present. Over the 0:17:21.800 --> 0:17:25.200 last five to ten years, Cuba has lost about twenty 0:17:25.200 --> 0:17:28.479 percent of its population. It's a massive exodus, the biggest 0:17:28.480 --> 0:17:32.520 one in Cuban history. There's always pain and heartache there. Right, 0:17:32.680 --> 0:17:36.120 it's not easy leaving family behind, and then they try 0:17:36.119 --> 0:17:37.880 to help as much as they can, which is why 0:17:38.000 --> 0:17:42.920 remittances are one of the major sources of income in Cuba. 0:17:43.000 --> 0:17:45.399 Right, And is this part of your life still that 0:17:45.520 --> 0:17:51.920 you worry about family who remain in Cuba, and people 0:17:52.080 --> 0:17:55.200 like you try and figure out ways to still support them. 0:17:55.560 --> 0:17:58.920 Oh, absolutely, there's no question about that. My mother died 0:17:58.960 --> 0:18:01.800 in twenty twenty, but she was always thinking about what 0:18:01.800 --> 0:18:04.520 would happen when she died. In twenty fourteen, she wrote 0:18:04.560 --> 0:18:07.520 a letter that she hoped my sister and I would 0:18:07.520 --> 0:18:10.960 find after she died. And in that letter, she reminded me, 0:18:11.640 --> 0:18:16.080 be sure to send money to Danina. Send her this 0:18:16.240 --> 0:18:19.400 much money and she will divide it up in this 0:18:19.480 --> 0:18:22.440 way among these three people. You can send it by 0:18:22.640 --> 0:18:25.679 calling this man in Hialia and he will charge you 0:18:25.680 --> 0:18:28.840 this month. So she left specific instructions on what months 0:18:28.840 --> 0:18:30.719 of the year to do it. By the time my 0:18:30.760 --> 0:18:33.320 mother died, my aunt in Cuba, who I was supposed 0:18:33.359 --> 0:18:35.000 to send the money to, had already died, So it 0:18:35.080 --> 0:18:37.440 was kind of a moot point. But even the fact 0:18:37.440 --> 0:18:39.680 that she told me that it stayed with me always. 0:18:39.720 --> 0:18:43.879 So's I'm always calling relatives in Cuba or calling them 0:18:43.920 --> 0:18:48.560 through other relatives here, and yeah, trying to help in 0:18:48.600 --> 0:18:52.480 any way I can. And sometimes that means traveling to 0:18:52.560 --> 0:18:57.320 Cuba and taking things they need. Sometimes that means helping 0:18:57.359 --> 0:19:01.560 them get medicine through pharmacy in Miami, that's in medicine 0:19:01.560 --> 0:19:05.080 to Cuba, or even through connections in other places. Anyway, 0:19:05.480 --> 0:19:08.120 people do all kinds of things to help their relatives 0:19:08.359 --> 0:19:09.080 in Cuba. 0:19:09.160 --> 0:19:13.040 It feels like a heavy weight to carry. Obviously, what 0:19:13.440 --> 0:19:16.200 those in Cuba are going through that's the most immense. 0:19:16.280 --> 0:19:21.680 But for you too to feel that contrast between their 0:19:21.720 --> 0:19:22.200 lives and. 0:19:22.160 --> 0:19:26.320 Yours, yeah, I think that's a lot of it. You know. 0:19:26.400 --> 0:19:29.280 At the heart of the book is a profound sense 0:19:29.280 --> 0:19:33.640 of guilt. Right that my mother brought me with her 0:19:33.680 --> 0:19:38.160 to this country. She left behind my brother. He had trauma. 0:19:38.400 --> 0:19:42.399 I had a loving mother. I had opportunities here that 0:19:42.440 --> 0:19:47.000 he never had. There, even when I became a historian 0:19:47.040 --> 0:19:50.199 of Cuba and began traveling to Cuba, I could do that. 0:19:51.040 --> 0:19:54.119 I could get the visas, I could get the paperwork necessary, 0:19:54.200 --> 0:19:57.640 I could stay in places in Havana where I had 0:19:57.760 --> 0:20:00.440 easy access to food because I had dollars, et cetera, 0:20:00.480 --> 0:20:04.160 et cetera. Meanwhile, he came to the US and ran 0:20:04.200 --> 0:20:08.760 into all kinds of trouble, eventually became undocumented. After the fact, 0:20:08.800 --> 0:20:11.000 he could never return to Cuba. So even in that 0:20:11.200 --> 0:20:14.600 I had privileges that he didn't, So all along there's 0:20:14.640 --> 0:20:16.960 this guilt at what I had that he didn't have. 0:20:17.400 --> 0:20:19.560 But then it's a guilt that transfers in a sense 0:20:19.640 --> 0:20:22.399 to more than just my brother. Right to the place 0:20:22.440 --> 0:20:26.600 in general, to my family in general. So yes, I 0:20:26.720 --> 0:20:31.280 talked to them. I talked to relatives regularly. I think 0:20:31.320 --> 0:20:32.600 about them all the time. 0:20:33.560 --> 0:20:35.960 Do you wake up to messages from them? Is that 0:20:36.000 --> 0:20:37.399 how your day begins? Now? 0:20:37.480 --> 0:20:39.919 I don't wake up to messages every day, but I often, 0:20:40.040 --> 0:20:43.600 and sometimes it's multiple messages from different people. So I'll 0:20:43.600 --> 0:20:46.480 have a cousin who's in the hospital and needs help, 0:20:46.520 --> 0:20:49.159 and his daughter's trying to get the medicine from the 0:20:49.160 --> 0:20:53.640 Dominican Republic. Meanwhile, a relative who is about to leave 0:20:53.720 --> 0:20:57.240 Cuba for Spain because people continue leaving and those it's 0:20:57.320 --> 0:20:59.560 much harder, obviously to come to the US now, but 0:21:00.119 --> 0:21:03.760 there are people who have access to Spain by other means. 0:21:03.800 --> 0:21:07.240 So a message from him about something going on, a 0:21:07.280 --> 0:21:13.760 message from another relative whose nephew is in Alligator Alcatraz 0:21:13.760 --> 0:21:14.520 here in the US. 0:21:14.600 --> 0:21:16.400 I mean, it's just not. 0:21:16.440 --> 0:21:21.480 Every day, and I don't begrudge any of them, right, 0:21:21.560 --> 0:21:22.400 It's what they do. 0:21:22.560 --> 0:21:23.240 And I'm here. 0:21:23.480 --> 0:21:25.840 Part of me thinks that I'm continuing kind of a 0:21:25.920 --> 0:21:26.960 legacy of my mother. 0:21:27.640 --> 0:21:28.960 She always had that role. 0:21:29.080 --> 0:21:32.320 She was working poor and then retired poor in Miami Beach, 0:21:32.400 --> 0:21:35.439 but still with her tiny pension. She sent like one 0:21:35.520 --> 0:21:38.679 hundred and fifty dollars every three months, which is nothing really, 0:21:38.760 --> 0:21:40.919 but it's what she could do. So I think of 0:21:40.960 --> 0:21:44.719 it partly as continuing her legacy and just doing what 0:21:44.760 --> 0:22:01.960 I can. 0:22:03.720 --> 0:22:08.480 So then to the present moment, DA and the situation 0:22:08.600 --> 0:22:12.679 since January when the oil that used to come from 0:22:12.760 --> 0:22:17.680 Venezuela no longer came after Maduro was captured. Amidst all 0:22:17.680 --> 0:22:21.080 of this, there is a process of negotiation that's underway 0:22:21.200 --> 0:22:23.560 with the US. What do you think is going on? 0:22:25.880 --> 0:22:28.639