Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: The people I'm talking to in Cuba are suffering terribly.
Speaker 2: Blackout's twenty twenty two hours a day. A country can't
Speaker 2: survive like that. People just want to live, right.
Speaker 1: Ada Ferrer, Pulitzer Prize winning historian of Cuba and America.
Speaker 1: It feels like a heavy weight to carry.
Speaker 2: My coming here meant that I had opportunities I would
Speaker 2: have never had had I stayed in Cuba. At the
Speaker 2: heart of the book is a profound sense of guilt
Speaker 2: that my mother brought me with her to this country.
Speaker 2: She left behind my brother. He had trauma. I had
Speaker 2: a loving mother.
Speaker 1: From Bloomberg Weekend, this is the Michelle Hussein Show. I'm
Speaker 1: Michelle Hussein. We're not even halfway through the year, and
Speaker 1: it has been such a dramatic one in world affairs. Venezuela, Greenland,
Speaker 1: Iran Lebanon that I wouldn't blame you if the extent
Speaker 1: of Cuba's crisis hadn't fully registered. But the island really
Speaker 1: is in a deep crisis. The oil that used to
Speaker 1: come in from Venezuela stopped in January after the US
Speaker 1: removed its leader, and then the oil that used to
Speaker 1: come from Mexico, stopped because its government didn't want to
Speaker 1: risk President Trump's wrath. So that means today people in
Speaker 1: Cuba are desperate, and like many Cuban Americans, historian Ada
Speaker 1: Ferrer is worried about family and friends in Cuba. But
Speaker 1: for her, the present is part of a long history
Speaker 1: between Cuba and the United States, one that she's studied,
Speaker 1: one that has shaped her own family, as she reveals
Speaker 1: in a new book called Keeper of My Kin. So
Speaker 1: this conversation is in part personal but also takes in
Speaker 1: the political picture. Marco Rubio, another Cuban American, comes up.
Speaker 1: And when you turn to the written version of this,
Speaker 1: as I hope you do at Bloomberg dot com forward
Speaker 1: slash Michelle, you'll see my notes and reflections. So the
Speaker 1: Bay of Pigs, the Mariel boatlift, Alligator, Alcatraz, Cuba, and
Speaker 1: American politics, it's all there. But here's how we began.
Speaker 1: When Ada Ferrer dialed in from her university studio at Princeton,
Speaker 1: doctor Ferrer, it's Michelle. Can you hear me, Yes, I
Speaker 1: can hear you. Thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 1: I can't tell you how happy I am to be
Speaker 1: speaking to you because I found your book really resonant.
Speaker 1: I learned so much from it, and therefore I just
Speaker 1: want to think, thank you not only for being part
Speaker 1: of this conversation, but really for writing it, because I
Speaker 1: think it's an incredible historical record.
Speaker 3: Well, thank you for reading the book.
Speaker 1: Essentially, Keeper of My Kin was my introduction to your
Speaker 1: earlier book, and I think it's this really unusual combination
Speaker 1: of it being incredibly timely with everything that's happened this year,
Speaker 1: but also kind of timeless, which is I think, in
Speaker 1: a pretty immense achievement.
Speaker 2: You know, there's a part of me that knew that
Speaker 2: I would always have to write this book, that it
Speaker 2: was part of my story, part of my family story,
Speaker 2: part of Cuba's story, part of an American story. I
Speaker 2: didn't know when I started writing it that as I
Speaker 2: wrote it would become more relevant because of basically US
Speaker 2: immigration policy and what's happening with deportations of Cubans. And
Speaker 2: then by the time I had finished the book and
Speaker 2: it was in production, then there's a whole new kind
Speaker 2: of timeliness with what's been happening in Cuba since the
Speaker 2: attack on Venezuela.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think the stage is set for your next book, really,
Speaker 1: and I do want to bring us right up to
Speaker 1: the present day. But i'd love you to start by
Speaker 1: helping us understand your relationship with Cuba. And I think
Speaker 1: you've hinted at it already there. There's a line in
Speaker 1: Keeper of my Kin where you write that Cuba is
Speaker 1: the place that you were taught by your family to
Speaker 1: both love and hate, right, Can you deconstruct that for us?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Well, I was born in Cuba, so that's the beginning
Speaker 2: of the relationship. But I left when I was ten months,
Speaker 2: or I was taken when I was ten months, which
Speaker 2: means that I had no memory of it at all.
Speaker 2: So my introduction to Cuba was via other people, via
Speaker 2: mostly my parents, but also neighbors and community, and in
Speaker 2: that community and in my family, there was an intense
Speaker 2: love for the place and intense nostalgia about the place
Speaker 2: for a long time, and intense desire to return. At
Speaker 2: the same time, there was profound disagreement with the government
Speaker 2: of Cuba, and so that made it a complicated place.
Speaker 2: You know, you could love the place but not the government,
Speaker 2: the people but not the leaders, So that was part
Speaker 2: of it. The other thing is that you know, like
Speaker 2: any American teenager, when your parents keep talking about something
Speaker 2: and keep trying to get you to like it and
Speaker 2: value it, there's a part of you that always resists.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: So, whenever they compared the US to Cuba and oh,
Speaker 2: everything was so much better in Cuba, or in Cuba,
Speaker 2: we didn't do that in Cuba. You would have never
Speaker 2: been able to do that, all my sister and I
Speaker 2: could say was you're not in Cuba anymore. Right, So
Speaker 2: there was as a good American teenager, I kind of
Speaker 2: learned to be a little skeptical of everything my parents said.
Speaker 1: But also it's kind of extraordinary that they're saying that
Speaker 1: to you, because in no way do they want to
Speaker 1: live in the Cuba of Castro. They've made a very
Speaker 1: distinct choice to leave it behind.
Speaker 3: Right exactly.
Speaker 2: So, I think you know, their assumption, as with many
Speaker 2: people who left early on, and it was a plausible
Speaker 2: assumption in that time and place, right the height of
Speaker 2: the Cold War, the US ninety miles away as it
Speaker 2: continues to be now. Their assumption, and also the US
Speaker 2: with a history of a long, long history of intervention
Speaker 2: in Cuba, they really assumed that the Castro government wouldn't last.
Speaker 2: There had been the Bay of Pigs in nineteen sixty one,
Speaker 2: in which the US invaded Cuba using Cuban exiles, and
Speaker 2: the US was defeated. But even then people really thought
Speaker 2: that there would probably be another invasion, that a next
Speaker 2: invasion would not be as badly organized as that one,
Speaker 2: or they just or they thought Fidel would fall of
Speaker 2: his own accord, So their assumption was that they would return.
Speaker 2: When my father left in nineteen sixty two, my mother
Speaker 2: was pregnant with me, so he left a year before
Speaker 2: we did, and he really thought it would be a
Speaker 2: matter of months, maybe a year, And then my mother
Speaker 2: thought the same thing when we left.
Speaker 1: So this journey that defines your life, really leaving as
Speaker 1: a babe in your mother's arms, aged ten months in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty three. I guess you know that story because
Speaker 1: your mother told it to you, right, So how was
Speaker 1: it described to you as a child, and how did
Speaker 1: you fill in the blanks later on?
Speaker 3: Well, my mother was always a storyteller.
Speaker 2: She'd loved telling stories, and she even loved, you know,
Speaker 2: adding music to her stories and snatches of songs and
Speaker 2: so on. So the story she told was a story
Speaker 2: of the two of us making this incredible, irreversible, it
Speaker 2: turns out, journey together and we were partners. She suffered,
Speaker 2: she struggled, she'd never left the country, she was wearing heels. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I was heavy in her arms. She didn't know what
Speaker 2: she was doing. The people who were going to pick
Speaker 2: us up weren't there. It was just one mishap in
Speaker 2: hardship after another. But I was always there and I
Speaker 2: was good and I behaved and we got here, and
Speaker 2: eventually we got to my father in New York on
Speaker 2: July fourth, of all dates, nineteen sixty three. And she
Speaker 2: always said, you recognized him, your arms to him to
Speaker 2: be held by him, even though you hadn't met him yet.
Speaker 2: She always repeated that part. So it was a beautiful
Speaker 2: story in a way of where she struggled, she was scared.
Speaker 2: My presence helped her, and we survived and we made it.
Speaker 2: But when she told that kind of ritual eyed story,
Speaker 2: she left something out, and that was that we had
Speaker 2: left my brother behind. She left behind a nine and
Speaker 2: a half year old son who was her son from
Speaker 2: a first marriage, and my brother, Bully, my half brother.
Speaker 2: His father did not let him leave, would not give
Speaker 2: my mother permission to take him. And so when she
Speaker 2: told the beautiful, ritual eyed story of the two of
Speaker 2: us against the world, she left that part out. You know,
Speaker 2: even then it made no sense because I always knew
Speaker 2: my brother was in Cuba. I always knew he was there.
Speaker 2: I always knew the goal was reunification as soon as possible.
Speaker 2: We talked about him all the time, you know, with
Speaker 2: his picture was in the house. I used to kiss
Speaker 2: his picture at night, you know, that kind of thing.
Speaker 2: So that part of the story was hugely important, but
Speaker 2: not treated quite the same way as the other part
Speaker 2: of the story. And then as I got older, even
Speaker 2: as a teenager, starting to resist kind of the imposition
Speaker 2: of their Cuban nostalgia, I just started to become more
Speaker 2: more interested. And in nineteen seventy seven, the four of us,
Speaker 2: my parents, my sister, and I were sitting in the
Speaker 2: living room watching Barbara Walters interview for Del Castro, and
Speaker 2: before he came on, there were scenes of Havana, you know,
Speaker 2: of the maligon and the lighthouse and the streets and
Speaker 2: the cars and so on, and I looked at it
Speaker 2: and just started crying. And I would have been fifteen
Speaker 2: at the time, and my parents just couldn't believe it.
Speaker 2: You know, the nostalgia and the pain had always been theirs.
Speaker 2: You know, why was I crying? And I remember so
Speaker 2: clearly saying to them, I'm crying because I was born there,
Speaker 2: but I can't remember it. And I think in a
Speaker 2: way that started something. That feeling started something for me,
Speaker 2: and I became more interested in understanding it and in
Speaker 2: understanding it in my own terms as well, not just
Speaker 2: as a place for their nostalgia.
Speaker 1: Your brother, Polly is right there on the cover of
Speaker 1: your book. It's the three of you in a picture
Speaker 1: that's taken just before you leave Cuba, or on his birthday,
Speaker 1: I think, a few months before you leave Cuba with
Speaker 1: your mother. I think the key bit of detail that
Speaker 1: you discovered years later was that he didn't know that
Speaker 1: you and your mother were leaving for the United States.
Speaker 1: That he was out playing with his friends and he
Speaker 1: came back and he was told you were just gone
Speaker 1: for a while.
Speaker 2: So when we left, my mother didn't say goodbye. He
Speaker 2: didn't know that we were leaving. And I blocked out
Speaker 2: when exactly I learned that, But I believe it was
Speaker 2: either in high school or in college, or maybe even
Speaker 2: after college, when I first went back to Cuba in
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety and met my aunt, who was one of
Speaker 2: the ones who raised him. But yeah, my mother, in
Speaker 2: consultation with her own mother and in consultation with her sisters,
Speaker 2: decided that it would be easier on everyone involved for
Speaker 2: us to leave without her saying goodbye. When I learned that,
Speaker 2: it shocked me, It hurt me, It crushed me a
Speaker 2: little bit.
Speaker 3: It was a different moment. They didn't think about.
Speaker 2: Psychology, maybe in the same way we think about it today.
Speaker 2: They didn't think about trauma in the same way we
Speaker 2: think about it today. And above all, they thought it
Speaker 2: would be temporary, so they thought the effect of it
Speaker 2: could be reversed quickly. But it wasn't for a long time. So, yes,
Speaker 2: he was outside playing with friends, and we left, and
Speaker 2: then he came back for dinner, and my grandmother told
Speaker 2: him that we had gone to the countryside to help
Speaker 2: with an ailing relative.
Speaker 3: And I know that he.
Speaker 2: Learned before the week was out that we had left,
Speaker 2: because he sat down and wrote a letter to my
Speaker 2: mother about five days after we left.
Speaker 1: May the fourth, nineteen sixty three, is I think the
Speaker 1: date on that letter, And you have the letters in
Speaker 1: your book, and it's I mean, they are They are heartbreaking,
Speaker 1: worse almost as the years go on as he grows up,
Speaker 1: because I think it's sixteen years until he sees your
Speaker 1: mother again, but he doesn't get to the US until
Speaker 1: he is twenty six.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 2: First of all, let me just say that I didn't
Speaker 2: know those letters existed. I found them after both my
Speaker 2: parents had died, when I was cleaning out their apartment,
Speaker 2: and they begin, as you said, May fourth, nineteen sixty three,
Speaker 2: and they go through nineteen seventy nine. So they are
Speaker 2: chronicle of his life without us, but they're excruciating to read.
Speaker 2: You see him over the years becoming more more traumatized
Speaker 2: as a young man, struggling with staying in school, struggling
Speaker 2: with keeping a job. And then my mother visits him
Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy nine, when Fidel Castro decides that Cubans
Speaker 2: who left can come back and visit family, and so
Speaker 2: my mother went back to see him. By then her
Speaker 2: own mother had already died, and so that was nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy nine, and then the following year, nineteen eighty, you
Speaker 2: get a major historical event, something called the Mariel boat Lift,
Speaker 2: in which one hundred and twenty five thousand Cubans leave
Speaker 2: by sea in the space of a few months. And
Speaker 2: my brother left. My mother actually went to get him.
Speaker 2: She took a bus down to Florida, and we were
Speaker 2: living in New Jersey, and she rented out a space
Speaker 2: on a little boat and paid the captain to take
Speaker 2: her to Mariel. I was about to turn eighteen and
Speaker 2: about to leave for college at the end of that summer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I know he didn't have an easy life
Speaker 1: in the US, and I should say that he has
Speaker 1: passed away, as have both of your parents. So and
Speaker 1: I guess that's part of what allows you to write
Speaker 1: a book as personal as this, Because I was so
Speaker 1: struck by the letters. I'm just going to read a
Speaker 1: few lines out because I think that for anyone yet
Speaker 1: to read your book, they give an idea of the
Speaker 1: depth of the heartache and what it means to be
Speaker 1: separated as a child. So early on that first letter,
Speaker 1: he says, I want to speak with my father so
Speaker 1: he can give me permission to go with you. But
Speaker 1: he's telling your mother that he's being a good boy,
Speaker 1: And then he says how much he wants to go
Speaker 1: to New York, and then by the time he's nineteen twenty,
Speaker 1: he's saying, my heart neither measures nor marks time, and
Speaker 1: later he writes, you have to understand that my life
Speaker 1: is full of the great trauma I've suffered. It's a
Speaker 1: life spent waiting in many ways, right, waiting to arrive
Speaker 1: in the US, like waiting for that country, as much
Speaker 1: as it is to be reunited with your mother, I imagine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that that's such a great way to
Speaker 2: put it. And the thing is, you know, you've you
Speaker 2: can't really live a life waiting. So things didn't matter
Speaker 2: in the present for him because it would all be erased,
Speaker 2: you know, by his reunification with my mother.
Speaker 3: Right, So he didn't work exactly, So.
Speaker 1: These things are not worth doing in Cuba.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they don't count because my real life will begin
Speaker 2: when I'm with my mother in the US.
Speaker 3: And yeah, so it's a terrible, terrible story.
Speaker 1: Ada, tell us how it fits into the wider story
Speaker 1: of Cuban Americans and perhaps even Cuba and the United States,
Speaker 1: because I mean, you're writing from your own personal experience
Speaker 1: in your families, But would there be many stories of
Speaker 1: this kind of separation within families, of this longing to
Speaker 1: get to the US, of this complicated relationship. Oh.
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
Speaker 2: I think that the question of migration to the US
Speaker 2: is central to the history of Cuba. I know it
Speaker 2: was in some sense in the nineteenth century, but especially
Speaker 2: since nineteen fifty nine. You had multiple waves of migration.
Speaker 2: Early on, you had a group of people that history
Speaker 2: has termed the Golden Exiles. They tended to be more elite,
Speaker 2: they tended to think of themselves as exiles who would return,
Speaker 2: and so on. Then later you had something called the
Speaker 2: Freedom Flights, which lasted from you know, mid nineteen sixties
Speaker 2: to early nineteen seventies. You had three hundred thousand people leave.
Speaker 2: Then you had the Mario boat Lift one hundred and
Speaker 2: twenty five thousand people leave. You had the ninety four
Speaker 2: Rafter Crisis, in which about thirty five thousand people leave.
Speaker 2: So there's been multiple, multiple waves of migration, and if anything,
Speaker 2: that's accelerated since the nineteen nineties. So it's a major
Speaker 2: part of the story of Miami, certainly in a Florida,
Speaker 2: but I think it's also a major part of Cuba.
Speaker 2: You know, the idea that one could leave, or the
Speaker 2: idea that a family member would leave, or a friend
Speaker 2: or a neighbor. It just became part of the texture
Speaker 2: of daily life. I remember finding in an archived once
Speaker 2: someone writing a letter to a friend in the US saying,
Speaker 2: I'm just tired. I can't get anything done because my
Speaker 2: day is constantly interrupted by people coming to say goodbye
Speaker 2: because they're leaving. Right, So that becomes a part of
Speaker 2: the story of the Cuban Revolution itself, right, the possibility
Speaker 2: of leaving, the possibility of being left, and right now,
Speaker 2: if we can bring it to the present. Over the
Speaker 2: last five to ten years, Cuba has lost about twenty
Speaker 2: percent of its population. It's a massive exodus, the biggest
Speaker 2: one in Cuban history. There's always pain and heartache there. Right,
Speaker 2: it's not easy leaving family behind, and then they try
Speaker 2: to help as much as they can, which is why
Speaker 2: remittances are one of the major sources of income in Cuba.
Speaker 1: Right, And is this part of your life still that
Speaker 1: you worry about family who remain in Cuba, and people
Speaker 1: like you try and figure out ways to still support them.
Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely, there's no question about that. My mother died
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty, but she was always thinking about what
Speaker 2: would happen when she died. In twenty fourteen, she wrote
Speaker 2: a letter that she hoped my sister and I would
Speaker 2: find after she died. And in that letter, she reminded me,
Speaker 2: be sure to send money to Danina. Send her this
Speaker 2: much money and she will divide it up in this
Speaker 2: way among these three people. You can send it by
Speaker 2: calling this man in Hialia and he will charge you
Speaker 2: this month. So she left specific instructions on what months
Speaker 2: of the year to do it. By the time my
Speaker 2: mother died, my aunt in Cuba, who I was supposed
Speaker 2: to send the money to, had already died, So it
Speaker 2: was kind of a moot point. But even the fact
Speaker 2: that she told me that it stayed with me always.
Speaker 2: So's I'm always calling relatives in Cuba or calling them
Speaker 2: through other relatives here, and yeah, trying to help in
Speaker 2: any way I can. And sometimes that means traveling to
Speaker 2: Cuba and taking things they need. Sometimes that means helping
Speaker 2: them get medicine through pharmacy in Miami, that's in medicine
Speaker 2: to Cuba, or even through connections in other places. Anyway,
Speaker 2: people do all kinds of things to help their relatives
Speaker 2: in Cuba.
Speaker 1: It feels like a heavy weight to carry. Obviously, what
Speaker 1: those in Cuba are going through that's the most immense.
Speaker 1: But for you too to feel that contrast between their
Speaker 1: lives and.
Speaker 3: Yours, yeah, I think that's a lot of it. You know.
Speaker 2: At the heart of the book is a profound sense
Speaker 2: of guilt. Right that my mother brought me with her
Speaker 2: to this country. She left behind my brother. He had trauma.
Speaker 2: I had a loving mother. I had opportunities here that
Speaker 2: he never had. There, even when I became a historian
Speaker 2: of Cuba and began traveling to Cuba, I could do that.
Speaker 2: I could get the visas, I could get the paperwork necessary,
Speaker 2: I could stay in places in Havana where I had
Speaker 2: easy access to food because I had dollars, et cetera,
Speaker 2: et cetera. Meanwhile, he came to the US and ran
Speaker 2: into all kinds of trouble, eventually became undocumented. After the fact,
Speaker 2: he could never return to Cuba. So even in that
Speaker 2: I had privileges that he didn't, So all along there's
Speaker 2: this guilt at what I had that he didn't have.
Speaker 2: But then it's a guilt that transfers in a sense
Speaker 2: to more than just my brother. Right to the place
Speaker 2: in general, to my family in general. So yes, I
Speaker 2: talked to them. I talked to relatives regularly. I think
Speaker 2: about them all the time.
Speaker 1: Do you wake up to messages from them? Is that
Speaker 1: how your day begins? Now?
Speaker 2: I don't wake up to messages every day, but I often,
Speaker 2: and sometimes it's multiple messages from different people. So I'll
Speaker 2: have a cousin who's in the hospital and needs help,
Speaker 2: and his daughter's trying to get the medicine from the
Speaker 2: Dominican Republic. Meanwhile, a relative who is about to leave
Speaker 2: Cuba for Spain because people continue leaving and those it's
Speaker 2: much harder, obviously to come to the US now, but
Speaker 2: there are people who have access to Spain by other means.
Speaker 2: So a message from him about something going on, a
Speaker 2: message from another relative whose nephew is in Alligator Alcatraz
Speaker 2: here in the US.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's just not.
Speaker 2: Every day, and I don't begrudge any of them, right,
Speaker 2: It's what they do.
Speaker 3: And I'm here.
Speaker 2: Part of me thinks that I'm continuing kind of a
Speaker 2: legacy of my mother.
Speaker 3: She always had that role.
Speaker 2: She was working poor and then retired poor in Miami Beach,
Speaker 2: but still with her tiny pension. She sent like one
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty dollars every three months, which is nothing really,
Speaker 2: but it's what she could do. So I think of
Speaker 2: it partly as continuing her legacy and just doing what
Speaker 2: I can.
Speaker 1: So then to the present moment, DA and the situation
Speaker 1: since January when the oil that used to come from
Speaker 1: Venezuela no longer came after Maduro was captured. Amidst all
Speaker 1: of this, there is a process of negotiation that's underway
Speaker 1: with the US. What do you think is going on?
Speaker 2: You know, I wish I could say where it was heading,
Speaker 2: and I wish I could say it was heading somewhere positive.
Speaker 2: I'm not able to do that. With Donald Trump in
Speaker 2: charge of US policy in Cuba, it's hard to predict anything,
Speaker 2: right because he can say something one day and then
Speaker 2: change his mind a week later. So there's that level
Speaker 2: of uncertainty. But also here's what I can say. The
Speaker 2: people I'm talking to in Cuba are suffering terribly right now.
Speaker 2: Even the Cuban government announced that they were completely out
Speaker 2: of oil. That blackouts even in Havanah, where they tend
Speaker 2: to be less severe than in the countryside or in
Speaker 2: the interior. The blackouts are going to be of twenty
Speaker 2: twenty two hours a day, right. A country can't survive
Speaker 2: like that. People can't survive like that. So my sense
Speaker 2: is that something has to change. But the way I
Speaker 2: see it, both sides are just stuck in these old
Speaker 2: scripts they've had for a long time. Cuba basically says
Speaker 2: no negotiation, even though they have to be negotiating, and
Speaker 2: we know that because John Ratcliffe was just there right then. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: Trump speaks in a way that doubles down on a
Speaker 2: kind of really crude American imperialism that's reminiscent of the
Speaker 2: turn of the twentieth century. And what gets lost in
Speaker 2: all that is that people just want to live, right,
Speaker 2: And I don't have any confidence right now that that
Speaker 2: is the priority of either side involved than the negotiations.
Speaker 1: Do you think that Cuba is a threat to the
Speaker 1: national security of the United States? That's the central line
Speaker 1: that's put forward by the Trump administration.
Speaker 3: No, I don't think. No.
Speaker 2: They don't have electricity, they don't have power. What threat
Speaker 2: can a country that's on the verge of collapse be
Speaker 2: to the US? And also, I mean, yes, the relations
Speaker 2: with China, with Russia, but certainly those are not new,
Speaker 2: and they've had those relations at times where it was
Speaker 2: much more dangerous for those relations to exist. So I
Speaker 2: don't think there's any particular threat now, though of course
Speaker 2: I don't have access to all the information they do,
Speaker 2: but I can't imagine it would be a particular threat
Speaker 2: now that would justify the level of hardship being imposed
Speaker 2: on the Cuban people. We haven't told me just say,
Speaker 2: Can I just add categorically that the oil embargo is
Speaker 2: cruel and unjust. It's collective punishment. It's killing people that
Speaker 2: you know, hospitals can't run incubators or dialysis machines, there's
Speaker 2: no fuel for ambulances to get to hospitals. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's just a It's a humanitarian disaster that's very likely
Speaker 2: to get a lot worse very quickly.
Speaker 1: I've read the letter that you put in the New
Speaker 1: York Times, and it's an open letter to the President
Speaker 1: of Cuba, reminiscent of the ones that you saw your
Speaker 1: father right to Fidel Castro, where you point out where
Speaker 1: he also shoulders the blame for the situation in Cuba.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the way the Cuban government responds to all this
Speaker 2: is just and it's the way they've responded to the
Speaker 2: US for more than sixty years, which is to say
Speaker 2: that the troubles in Cuba, the hardships in Cuba, are
Speaker 2: all the fault of the US and the US embargo. Now,
Speaker 2: the US embargo is terrible. I don't support it as policy.
Speaker 2: I don't support the oil embargo as policy. So what
Speaker 2: they're saying is partly true, but it doesn't explain everything
Speaker 2: in Cuba. It doesn't explain the levels of repression, it
Speaker 2: doesn't explain terrible economic decisions that have been made over
Speaker 2: the last decades, and especially over the last two decades.
Speaker 2: So I think it's just insufficient. And in order for
Speaker 2: something to change peacefully in Cuba, which is what I
Speaker 2: most want, right, I want life to get better for
Speaker 2: the Cuban people. So in order for something to change
Speaker 2: in Cuba and to change peacefully, I think they need
Speaker 2: to kind of move beyond that really tired line. They
Speaker 2: need to say, Okay, things are horrible, Yes, the US
Speaker 2: embargo is terrible, but what can we do and what
Speaker 2: do our people want? The thing I called for at
Speaker 2: the end of the letter was a national dialogue, and
Speaker 2: even that the Cuban government can't talk about a national
Speaker 2: dialogue without bringing in the US as an impediment.
Speaker 1: There is one person in the administration who knows the
Speaker 1: story of Cuba in the way you do, and that's
Speaker 1: Marc Rubio, who I grew up hearing stories of Cuba
Speaker 1: from his grandfather. He was filled with a sense of
Speaker 1: the country that his family left behind. He would understand
Speaker 1: your story perfectly, wouldn't he, even if politically his instincts
Speaker 1: are different from yours.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think there's something we share, which
Speaker 2: is having grown up with that sense of pain and
Speaker 2: loss and nostalgia. But I do think our stories are
Speaker 2: different in that I went to Cuba. I've been going
Speaker 2: to Cuba since nineteen ninety. I don't go to Cuba
Speaker 2: as an act of political solidarity with the Cuban government.
Speaker 2: That's never ever been the purpose of my trip. I
Speaker 2: go to do historical research and to produce history books
Speaker 2: about Cuba. I go to see my family, and that
Speaker 2: means that not to insult him or anything, but it
Speaker 2: means that I have an understanding, or more certainly more
Speaker 2: of an understanding, I think, than he does, of what
Speaker 2: it is like to be there and what it is
Speaker 2: like to talk to people, ordinary people who live there.
Speaker 2: And sometimes in Miami people think and talk about Cuba
Speaker 2: in a way that demonizes people there, that imagines that,
Speaker 2: you know, and I've heard this kind of language that
Speaker 2: communism destroys everything, and they don't think about the way
Speaker 2: life goes on, the way that people make their lives,
Speaker 2: the way that people have just ordinary human needs for connection.
Speaker 2: And I think that's what's missing in his perspective, that
Speaker 2: there isn't that firsthand experience of the place. He knows
Speaker 2: the Cuba that his parents and grandparents talked about, and
Speaker 2: he knows the Cuba that he's learned about through his
Speaker 2: research as a senator and then as as Secretary of State.
Speaker 2: But I don't think he has experience on the ground
Speaker 2: that would lead him maybe to be more flexible and
Speaker 2: more realistic.
Speaker 1: Can you deconstruct something first, which is the revolution itself?
Speaker 1: Your book, Cuba and American History, goes back much earlier
Speaker 1: than that to the ways that the US. I mean,
Speaker 1: there was a slogan wasn't there by Cuba, which existed
Speaker 1: way back in the nineteenth century. But the revolution that
Speaker 1: brought Castro to power a few years before your parents
Speaker 1: left Cuba. Was it a communist revolution at the beginning.
Speaker 2: No, it became a communist revolution, but it was not
Speaker 2: in the beginning. In the years leading up to nineteen
Speaker 2: fifty nine and Castro's victory, it was a movement meant
Speaker 2: to oust the dictator for Hinsy Batista. It was a
Speaker 2: movement to restore the nineteen forty constitution which Batista's coup
Speaker 2: had nullified. It was a movement against corruption and government.
Speaker 2: It was all those things. In Castro's public speaking and
Speaker 2: public pronouncements on the revolution before he came to power,
Speaker 2: he talked about things like land reform, giving land to
Speaker 2: landless peasants, increasing opportunities for education, things like that. But
Speaker 2: those things were a part of progressive political discourse in
Speaker 2: Cuba for decades.
Speaker 1: And in many parts of the world at that time,
Speaker 1: exactly in the age of colonialism and empire plans to announce.
Speaker 2: Yes, there was never any mention of a socialist organization
Speaker 2: of the economy. There was not even anything publicly that
Speaker 2: would suggest a major break with the United States. So
Speaker 2: all that developed in the first years of revolution, and
Speaker 2: it was a you know, I think a fascinating dynamic
Speaker 2: in which the revolutionary government would do something, and then
Speaker 2: the US would respond, and with each encounter of US
Speaker 2: and Cuban policy, the stakes got higher and higher. You
Speaker 2: had the Bay of Pigs in April nineteen sixty one,
Speaker 2: and it was on the eve of that that Castro
Speaker 2: first announced the revolution was socialist.
Speaker 1: I'm struck by the intensity of time. Castro comes to
Speaker 1: power in nineteen fifty nine and within three years Cuba
Speaker 1: is a front line in the Cold War, where the
Speaker 1: standoff over the Cuban missile crisis between Kennedy and Krushchov
Speaker 1: makes the world confront the possibility of nuclear war.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it was a real possibility.
Speaker 2: I think, you know, it's been so long since it
Speaker 2: happened that people forget that sometimes that the world did
Speaker 2: almost come to the brink of armageddon. So I think
Speaker 2: the idea of intense time is fantastic. I think that's
Speaker 2: what it was live like at the time. And when
Speaker 2: you read things from nineteen fifty nine, people at the
Speaker 2: time were even saying that, you know, we've wasted a
Speaker 2: lot of time. We have to accelerate time, we have
Speaker 2: to get a lot done. There was a sense of
Speaker 2: euphoria in the beginning. I mean historians sometimes call it
Speaker 2: revolutionary time, something that kind of is a very intense,
Speaker 2: kind of sped up time, and I think that describes
Speaker 2: it perfectly.
Speaker 1: I want to again bring us back to the present
Speaker 1: and two things. One about the recent arrivals from Cuba
Speaker 1: and how they are finding themselves targeted by the administration's
Speaker 1: drive to deport What is the impact of that. How
Speaker 1: much do you think it could change Republican politics in
Speaker 1: a place like Florida.
Speaker 2: This administration's policy regarding immigration, I think has been cruel
Speaker 2: and unjust, and Cubans are not accepted from that. A
Speaker 2: lot of Cubans in Miami and South Florida voted for
Speaker 2: Trump understanding that his intention was to deport people. They
Speaker 2: never thought those deportations would apply to Cubans. They thought
Speaker 2: it would apply to other people because Cubans have always
Speaker 2: had an advantage in the US. There's something passed by
Speaker 2: Lyndon Johnson's administration, the Cuban Adjustment Act, which basically gave
Speaker 2: Cubans a welcome no other immigrants had. It gave them
Speaker 2: a fast track to residency and then to citizenship. That
Speaker 2: is still the law of the land. So Cubans assumed
Speaker 2: that whatever happened generally with deportation would not apply to
Speaker 2: them because of the Cuban Adjustment Act. But in practice,
Speaker 2: the Cuban Adjustment Act is not being observed, so Cubans
Speaker 2: are being detained. They show up for regular immigration check
Speaker 2: ins and they're being detained. They show up for asylum
Speaker 2: hearings and judges dismiss their cases, which means that they're
Speaker 2: eligible for deportation. I think it will change. It may
Speaker 2: change Cuban American attitudes towards Trump. It made him definitely
Speaker 2: less popular. People I talked to in Miami see it,
Speaker 2: you hear it. I know it from relatives who are
Speaker 2: Republicans who voted for him, who are very unhappy with
Speaker 2: the immigration policies. So I do think it has a
Speaker 2: potential to make a real impact in voting practices. The
Speaker 2: question is what will happen in Cuba, Because if something
Speaker 2: were to change in Cuba and the communist government were
Speaker 2: to fall, and people in Miami attribute that to Trump's policy,
Speaker 2: then that might erase some of the fallen popularity.
Speaker 1: You saw, didn't you that moment of hope of a
Speaker 1: reset in relations when President Obama visited Cuba and it
Speaker 1: looked like the US was into a new era. What
Speaker 1: are you looking for now? That does give you hope
Speaker 1: amidst all this, it's.
Speaker 2: A combination of hope and fear at the same time,
Speaker 2: I feel like I can't separate them. The fact that
Speaker 2: things have gotten so bad means that there is maybe
Speaker 2: more opportunity for change right now. But at the same time,
Speaker 2: the reason that exists is because things are absolutely, you know,
Speaker 2: unsustainable in Cuba, which never makes me feel good. Right
Speaker 2: So I hope that both sides can figure out a
Speaker 2: way to negotiate and arrive at a place that makes
Speaker 2: room for Cuban people to live more fully. Right now,
Speaker 2: it doesn't feel like they're living. It feels like they're
Speaker 2: barely hanging on. They're barely surviving, and even survival right
Speaker 2: now is an open question. So if there's a way
Speaker 2: that they can arrive at a peaceful change, that would
Speaker 2: be great. But you know, again, I don't know how
Speaker 2: hopeful I am that that will happen, and I do
Speaker 2: fear all kinds of things.
Speaker 1: And is that the case, especially because you know the history,
Speaker 1: you know how over generations, over two centuries, the question
Speaker 1: of how Cuba should or will relate to the United
Speaker 1: States has been so complicated. Yeah, the USA has wanted
Speaker 1: Cuba in one way or another for so long.
Speaker 2: Right, And US intervention in Cuba has never ended well,
Speaker 2: and it has produced conditions and resentments that then feed
Speaker 2: other movements. So I'm just hoping that people in the
Speaker 2: administration aren't thinking that this will kind of be an
Speaker 2: easy when and then it's over, right, Because for one thing,
Speaker 2: it won't be over. The story continues even when people
Speaker 2: talk about Cuba collapsing that what does that mean? Trump
Speaker 2: will say Cuba will collapse any minute. But when something collapses,
Speaker 2: whatever that is, it still continues to exist, and the
Speaker 2: collapse continues to unfold and get worse and worse perhaps, right.
Speaker 2: And that's the other thing I'm worried about because as
Speaker 2: a scholar of Cuban history, I know that when there
Speaker 2: have been political transitions, when unpopular governments have been deposed,
Speaker 2: there has often been violence, and I do worry about that,
Speaker 2: about reprisals and retribution that may bring really unintended consequences.
Speaker 1: So there are these two countries that are part of
Speaker 1: your life, Cuba and the United States. I want to
Speaker 1: close by talking about you and your life now and
Speaker 1: how you how those two countries coexist in your life,
Speaker 1: because it's clear from reading this book that your daughters
Speaker 1: have inherited this attachment to Cuba, like the way that
Speaker 1: your mother passed it on to you. You've given it
Speaker 1: to your daughters, right, unintentionally intentionally? I don't know, no,
Speaker 1: not really, It wasn't intentional. I mean they grew up
Speaker 1: seeing my mother. They grew up knowing that I worked
Speaker 1: on Cuban history. I would go to Cuba to do research,
Speaker 1: and sometimes I would take them with me. My older
Speaker 1: daughter played Hide and Seek one summer in the provincial
Speaker 1: archive in the city of San Fuego's right, So it's
Speaker 1: always been a part of their life. But I'm surprised
Speaker 1: actually at how much they're interested in it, and I'm
Speaker 1: pleased by it. I don't think it's an obsession with
Speaker 1: them quite in the same way it was with me.
Speaker 1: I don't think they'll make it their life's work, I think,
Speaker 1: but but they are.
Speaker 2: They do feel an emotional attachment to it that I think,
Speaker 2: you know I put there unintentionally, but also that my
Speaker 2: parents did.
Speaker 1: And did it take you a while to call yourself American? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I think you grew up thinking yourself as Cuban, Like,
Speaker 1: how does that transition happen? Because I think you grew
Speaker 1: up in a very Cuban community and college at Vasaiza
Speaker 1: is a key moment of you discovering a wider world.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, Now, everyone I grew up with thought of
Speaker 2: themselves as Cuban and sometimes I'll call myself Cuban American.
Speaker 3: But yeah, no, I think it's it wasn't.
Speaker 2: I think until I had children of my own and
Speaker 2: began traveling with them outside the US that I began
Speaker 2: to think of myself as American. In the last line
Speaker 2: of the book, I call myself an American woman, and
Speaker 2: that's the first time I've ever written it so explicitly, Like.
Speaker 1: That, your father, when he's dying, you thank him, don't you?
Speaker 1: For bringing you to the United States. It was his
Speaker 1: departure that made yours possible. But I felt like you
Speaker 1: hadn't really seen that as a moment to spot gratitude
Speaker 1: until you're there in his last hours and days.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it just felt I wanted to say that to
Speaker 2: him before he died because I realized that my coming
Speaker 2: here or they're bringing me here meant that you know
Speaker 2: that I had opportunities I would have never had had
Speaker 2: I stayed in Cuba. And also there's the idea that
Speaker 2: even if I had stayed in Cuba, maybe I would
Speaker 2: have left later, Maybe I'd be part of this major
Speaker 2: exodus over the last years that ended up coming into
Speaker 2: the at the US Mexico border. Right, Who knows what
Speaker 2: would have happened. I owe everything to them, And it's
Speaker 2: also curious that in some sense it's their having brought
Speaker 2: me here is partly what allowed for my re encounter
Speaker 2: or embraced with Cuba itself. If I had stayed in Cuba,
Speaker 2: I might not be that interested in Cuba.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's true you've had that distance and that connection.
Speaker 1: Do you think that they would have struggled with your
Speaker 1: book if they were still alive to read it, that
Speaker 1: they would have found it too personal or too raw?
Speaker 2: I could have never written it if they were alive. Actually,
Speaker 2: I'm not sure that's true. I could have never written
Speaker 2: the book if my brother was alive. I struggle with
Speaker 2: that question a lot now that it's coming out right,
Speaker 2: what they would think if they were to read it.
Speaker 2: Of course, they couldn't read it unless it was in Spanish,
Speaker 2: So hopefully it'll be in Spanish someday. I think that
Speaker 2: they would understand that the book is a testament of
Speaker 2: love for them, a testament of love for this place
Speaker 2: called Cuba. So I think they would understand that. Would
Speaker 2: they be pleased with every detail I shared? Maybe not,
Speaker 2: But my sister tells me that my mother would love
Speaker 2: the fact that she's on the cover of a.
Speaker 3: Book, and she probably would be.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a gorgeous picture. She's smiling, she's holding you
Speaker 1: in her arms. Her oldest son, Polly is right there
Speaker 1: beside her. Ada Ferrera, thank you, thank you for enlightening me,
Speaker 1: along with so many others.
Speaker 3: Well, thanks thanks for having me, and thanks for reading
Speaker 3: the book.
Speaker 1: And that's where we left things. That book cover picture,
Speaker 1: by the way, is one of the photos in the
Speaker 1: illustrated written version of this conversation, which you'll find at
Speaker 1: Bloomberg dot com. Forward slash Michell. This time, the added
Speaker 1: context in the notes I've put there include how US
Speaker 1: pressure on the Cuban leadership has become even greater since
Speaker 1: Ada Ferer and I spoke with a murder indictment against
Speaker 1: Raoul Castro, and so to the team. The producers are
Speaker 1: Jessica Beck and Chris MARTINU. Guest booking is by Elan Bird.
Speaker 1: Our video producer is Andy Haywood. Social media is by
Speaker 1: Alex Morgan. Audio mixing was by Richard Ward. Our music
Speaker 1: is by Bart Walshaw and Jennifer Seeley is our production assistant.
Speaker 1: Special thanks this week go to John Cappuccino, who looks
Speaker 1: after Princeton's studio. The executive producer is Louisa Lewis and
Speaker 1: at Bloomberg. Thanks also to Brendan Francis Nunam and our
Speaker 1: executive editor Catherine Bell. Till the next time, good bye,