Speaker 1: Ooh, hi there. I'm Tasha Sanload, a producer for this series.
Speaker 1: You might remember me from those long days of reporting
Speaker 1: and eating fasilitos with Penny in Miami.
Speaker 2: So I'm going to try to carlas Facilito writer.
Speaker 1: It's giving toaster Strudel vibes like it has those holes.
Speaker 3: This want is really good, but I really liked more
Speaker 3: than one yesterday, and.
Speaker 1: They're just warm and delicious. I'm going to take the
Speaker 1: mic for this episode to tell you about a very
Speaker 1: critical moment in this story and how it relates to
Speaker 1: my family. Let's start in June two thousand, when Elean
Speaker 1: went back to Cuba. It was just four months before
Speaker 1: the two thousand presidential election. Vice President Al Gore led
Speaker 1: the Democratic ticket.
Speaker 4: I think his point now is to ensure the prosperity
Speaker 4: and riches Allmark families, not just a cute.
Speaker 1: While Texas Governor George W. Bush, the son of a
Speaker 1: former president, led the Republican ticket.
Speaker 5: We should help people live their lives, but not run them.
Speaker 5: I'm asking for your vote.
Speaker 1: The two candidates had different approaches to the usual issues
Speaker 1: foreign policy, social security, energy, and the environment, but there
Speaker 1: was a central question how to restore integrity and honor
Speaker 1: to the White House after Bill Clinton's affair. Every election
Speaker 1: is defining, but this one was seemingly higher stakes. If
Speaker 1: Bush won, the election, results could usher in a new
Speaker 1: era of conservative politics, a foreshadowing even on the overturning
Speaker 1: of Roe v. Wade.
Speaker 4: This is a very important issue because a lot of
Speaker 4: young women in this country take this right for granted,
Speaker 4: and it could be lost. It is on the ballot
Speaker 4: in this election, making no mistake of it.
Speaker 5: I'll tell you what kind of judges he'll put on there.
Speaker 5: He'll put liberal activist judges who will use their bench
Speaker 5: to subvert the legislature. That's what he'll do.
Speaker 1: Kept mounting. For Miami Cubans, the memory of the raid
Speaker 1: and Eleon's return to Cuba was still fresh, and it
Speaker 1: affected the way the community approached the election. They expressed
Speaker 1: outrage they felt betrayed by President Clinton and the Democrats
Speaker 1: who had allowed Eleon to go back to Cuba to
Speaker 1: become a trophy for Fidel Castro's revolution. Influential channels, including
Speaker 1: popular radio station Rajomanbi, called on the Cuban American community
Speaker 1: to turn their anger into action at the voting booth.
Speaker 1: It was called Eloto castigo, the punishment vote. Here's Cuban
Speaker 1: American historian Ada Ferrier.
Speaker 3: They blamed Clinton, they blamed Janet Reno, and Gore was
Speaker 3: Clinton's vice president.
Speaker 1: Gore was reluctant to break with his party's stance on
Speaker 1: the Eleion case, but on the campaign trail he did
Speaker 1: express his for leaving the decision to the family courts.
Speaker 1: Here's Gore in an April campaign speech, reiterating what he
Speaker 1: said during a January Iowa debate.
Speaker 4: This whole thing ought to be decided on the basis
Speaker 4: of that standard, what is in the best entrance of
Speaker 4: the child.
Speaker 1: The media characterized gore stands as inconsistent, and Bush called
Speaker 1: Gore out for foot flopping on the issue.
Speaker 5: I am concerned that Al Gore's sudden change of position
Speaker 5: yesterday may have had more to do with the vice
Speaker 5: president's political interests than with the best interests of Alian Gonzales.
Speaker 1: And the thing is, by election day, people believed that
Speaker 1: the results would come down to the electoral votes in
Speaker 1: the swing state of Florida, where Cuban American voters were
Speaker 1: still fresh off the Elian case. Recently, I was talking
Speaker 1: about that election with my Cuban grandma who lives in Miami.
Speaker 2: Yo, my awlitadab Yes, Mediocon.
Speaker 1: It was like being stabbed in the back, she says.
Speaker 1: He like giving Cuba a precious treasure. Elyen, My grandma
Speaker 1: is part of the first wave of Cuban exiles, the
Speaker 1: Golden Exiles. These are Cubans who left the island between
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty nine and nineteen sixty two, right after the revolution.
Speaker 2: Europian Republicanoctoria Republican Cubans are a Republican, she tells me,
Speaker 2: matter of factly, in an attempt to support staunch opposition
Speaker 2: to communism in Cuba.
Speaker 1: Many exiles que to the American right politically, and in
Speaker 1: my experience, in some liberal and progressive spaces, Cuban Americans
Speaker 1: are sometimes painted as the boogeyman, the exception to a
Speaker 1: perceived democratic Latinian monolith. But Latino Republicanism can be found elsewhere,
Speaker 1: far beyond Cuban Miami. They're actually more Latina Republicans in
Speaker 1: Arizona than there are in Florida. It's specifically Cuban Americans, though,
Speaker 1: who seem to have a reputation as the political odd
Speaker 1: man out. I bet you've seen the memes Selena Kinanida
Speaker 1: as Latins in the US, her murderer sad as Cuban Americans.
Speaker 1: Cuban Americans are vilified internationally too. My dad's side is Colombian,
Speaker 1: so I grew up visiting family in Boada. While visiting
Speaker 1: the Ni Naal in my twenties, I was shocked to
Speaker 1: find a giant mural of Cheguada dominating the central plaza.
Speaker 1: I realized that for most of the Latin American left,
Speaker 1: Cuba is long seen as a kind of utopia. It's
Speaker 1: the revolution that succeeded that seemed to triumph over us imperially. Then,
Speaker 1: when traveling in Europe after college, some French backpackers told
Speaker 1: me my grandparents were the problem. They were the self
Speaker 1: serving land owning elites who had abandoned the revolution. Though
Speaker 1: I defended my grandparents at that moment, these comments done
Speaker 1: because I love my Grandma Morena, and I love Cuban Miami.
Speaker 1: Oh this is when it sends here. I know it's
Speaker 1: not as simple as those who left and those who
Speaker 1: stayed in Cuba as good and bad, right and wrong.
Speaker 1: I also care about the Alian story. I remember staying
Speaker 1: with my grandma one weekend during that time, seeing Cuban
Speaker 1: flags all over the place, wondering what was going on.
Speaker 1: Even though I was only eight years old, I understood
Speaker 1: that something big was happening. So to continue to tell
Speaker 1: you about Elian and about the election that followed, I'm
Speaker 1: going to tell you about my grandma, the story of
Speaker 1: a woman in her eighties from a group I feel
Speaker 1: is often misunderstood. I'm also going to tell you about
Speaker 1: one of the most highly contested presidential elections in US history,
Speaker 1: to clarify and complicate how it's all connected and how
Speaker 1: it's possible that one little boy's bait changed US politics forever.
Speaker 1: I'm Tasha Sanlol and this is Chess Piece. The Ilian
Speaker 1: Gonsale Story a production of Fututo Studios in partnership with
Speaker 1: Iheart's Mike and Guda podcast Network. As we explained in
Speaker 1: episode five, Alan was taken from the Little Havanah home
Speaker 1: through the federal government raid. This was late April two thousand.
Speaker 1: Cuban Americans had until November seventh, election day to coalesce
Speaker 1: against the Democrats. Through El Voto Castigo. Voters expressed their concerns, I.
Speaker 5: Used to be a Democrat up to the time of
Speaker 5: the Lean Gonzalez incident. And I believe that our government,
Speaker 5: the United acting the best interest of all Americans.
Speaker 1: I know. Mayawa Liita Ais said Cuban Americans are typically Republican,
Speaker 1: but that hasn't always been a foregone conclusion. In nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety six, when he was re elected, Bill Clinton won Florida, but.
Speaker 6: He got more Cuban American votes than any other Democrat before.
Speaker 6: He was a Democrat that Cubans supporting.
Speaker 1: Gillermo Grenier Cuban American sociologists who we heard from earlier
Speaker 1: in the series. His area of expertise is Cuban American
Speaker 1: identity and ideology. It's difficult to verify if Clinton got
Speaker 1: more Cuban American votes than any other Democrat ever, but
Speaker 1: he was certainly more popular than Democrats had been among
Speaker 1: Cuban Americans during the Reagan and Bush years. You see,
Speaker 1: Cubans weren't Republicans by default. In a twenty twenty one article,
Speaker 1: Giedmo highlighted a Miami Herald analysis of the nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: eight presidential election. According to Guilledmo, it shows that Cubans
Speaker 1: who had already become citizens were splitting the vote pretty
Speaker 1: evenly between the two parties. Then, in the nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: six presidential election, Jimmy Carter, a Democrat, won about seventy
Speaker 1: five percent of the Cuban vote. But in the eighties,
Speaker 1: the Republican Party started to strategically court Cuban Americans.
Speaker 6: They serviced the community. The Cubans became Republicans because the
Speaker 6: Republican Party nurtured them.
Speaker 1: In the next presidential election, just four years later, eighty
Speaker 1: six percent of Cuban American voters in Dade County voted
Speaker 1: for Republican candidate Ronald Reagan. President Reagan's anti castro and
Speaker 1: anti communist foreign policy initiatives were popular in Miami, but
Speaker 1: some continued to vote for the Democrats.
Speaker 6: Bill Clinton had kind of mended enough of the framework
Speaker 6: so that Cubans were not automatically going to vote Republican.
Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety six, President Clinton signed the Helms Burton Act,
Speaker 1: a piece of legislation that enforced the economic embargo against
Speaker 1: the Cuban government. He ended up winning Miami Dade County
Speaker 1: by a significant margin, so in two thousand there was
Speaker 1: a chance that Gore could do the same.
Speaker 6: Gore turned himself inside out trying to appease the Cuban
Speaker 6: American community on eliankicks.
Speaker 1: But after the raid, those chances of winning the Cuban
Speaker 1: American vote seemed to diminish. The damage was Ellion's great
Speaker 1: uncle in Miami, las Aro Gonzalez, even went on Spanish
Speaker 1: language radio urging his fellow Miami Cubans to vote against Gore.
Speaker 1: With Ilvoto Castigo, the exile community rallied together.
Speaker 2: People blame the Democrat for sending Alien back.
Speaker 6: Even Cuban Democrats that otherwise would have voted for a
Speaker 6: Democratic candidate punished whether vote. They kind of said, all right,
Speaker 6: this was the Democrats doing, and we're going to vote Republican.
Speaker 1: So was Ilboto Castigo successful. It would take not hours,
Speaker 1: not days, not weeks, but over a month after election
Speaker 1: night to find out once and for all, because this
Speaker 1: wasn't just any election. At seven forty nine on election night,
Speaker 1: NBC was the first network to call Florida for Gore.
Speaker 7: We're going to now for check an important win for
Speaker 7: Vice President Al Gore. NBC News for checks that he
Speaker 7: wins the twenty five electoral votes in the state of.
Speaker 1: Florida, but they soon took it back all.
Speaker 7: Right, we're officially saying that Florida is too close to
Speaker 7: call because of a recall.
Speaker 1: In the wee hours on election night, Gore called Bush
Speaker 1: to concede.
Speaker 4: We are told the Vice President will concede the election
Speaker 4: in his brief remarks here tonight.
Speaker 1: But then, in an unprecedented move, Gore recanted his concession
Speaker 1: because he hadn't officially lost.
Speaker 2: People around the country awoke.
Speaker 1: Today to find yesterday's presidential election is still too close
Speaker 1: to call. The world seemed to stop. There was a
Speaker 1: recount in Florida, a recount that would expose faulty ad
Speaker 1: hoc election systems in the United States.
Speaker 8: Vote o medic machines and conflicting rules about ballots and
Speaker 8: fuzzy rules about what is a vote.
Speaker 1: There was no uniform ballot across the country or across
Speaker 1: the state of Florida, and there was a particular problem,
Speaker 1: including in Miami Dade County. Some voting machines had an
Speaker 1: old school punch card system. If the machine didn't punch
Speaker 1: a ballot all the way through, that vote wasn't counted.
Speaker 1: The remaining pieces of paper came to be known as chads.
Speaker 1: You might remember this hanging chads pregnant chads. So to Democrats,
Speaker 1: this seemed to prove that there were many uncounted votes
Speaker 1: for Al Gore.
Speaker 9: The so called pregnant or dimpled ballots. Do they show
Speaker 9: voters intent to select Gore, as Democrats claim, or are
Speaker 9: they simply an indentation on the ballot from an indecisive
Speaker 9: voter as Republicans claim.
Speaker 1: There were also so called butterfly ballots, which led some
Speaker 1: voters to accidentally vote for a third party candidate.
Speaker 4: Thirty five hundred people did not vote.
Speaker 1: If you can it come on this heavily democratic Homage county.
Speaker 1: All eyes were on Florida and especially on Miami Dade County.
Speaker 1: So would Cuban Miami get its revenge?
Speaker 2: M plant?
Speaker 1: My grandma loves her plants American. They're her companions. She
Speaker 1: says they talked to her and say thank you, and
Speaker 1: so she talks to them, help them grow.
Speaker 2: Yaeta.
Speaker 1: When I stay with her, she makes me her expert Cubano.
Speaker 2: It natasa roma mm hmm perfect.
Speaker 1: My grandma's name is Yosada de los Angeles translation God
Speaker 1: Given of the Angels. She goes by Daddy, so I
Speaker 1: call her a Wilita daddi, and she has a nickname
Speaker 1: for me too, Masta no.
Speaker 2: Sashi. Really, come Onita, thatshi.
Speaker 1: Really, it doesn't mean anything, she says, It's just cute,
Speaker 1: like a small Tasha. As she's gotten older, I've noticed
Speaker 1: Mayita really lose her filter.
Speaker 9: She says.
Speaker 1: Whatever she's thinking, wissi ak. As she pointed to our
Speaker 1: family photos in her living room. She described us as
Speaker 1: her zoo. But she still insists that she's quiet and shai.
Speaker 1: She also says she's never been very political. She's just
Speaker 1: gone with the tide.
Speaker 2: Your matava concentra babys.
Speaker 1: When she first got to this country, she was too
Speaker 1: busy raising her family to be political, she says. But
Speaker 1: there was a time when she was more tapped into
Speaker 1: politics in the nineteen fifties in Cuba.
Speaker 2: Is sur.
Speaker 1: Ailita says that by the time Batista, Cuba's dictator before Castro,
Speaker 1: had been in power for five years, she and her
Speaker 1: peers were hoping for a revolution.
Speaker 2: Han Tekhoven she.
Speaker 1: At first they cheered on castro.
Speaker 4: Resign board bloodshed and fled. His departure touched off while
Speaker 4: rejoicing in the capitol.
Speaker 6: As the first element of rebel forces entered nevana.
Speaker 2: Eva abbera kova democratica.
Speaker 1: They hoped that Castro could deliver on the promise of
Speaker 1: a free and democratic Cuba in also sidio, but she
Speaker 1: says that didn't happen. I'd never heard this part of
Speaker 1: the story. It never occurred to me that there was
Speaker 1: a time when my grandma could have had any admiration
Speaker 1: for Castro, because I've only usually heard the second part
Speaker 1: of the story what happened after Fidel Castro took over.
Speaker 1: My grandparents left Cuba in nineteen six two because my
Speaker 1: great grandfather said it was time for them.
Speaker 2: To go initial surhio ye ya kia de Cuba keyota
Speaker 2: a completamenttin.
Speaker 1: So Awalita Lali did as she was told, with my
Speaker 1: grandfather and their one year old baby. She got on
Speaker 1: a flight to Miami, back when there were still commercial
Speaker 1: flights leaving the island. But Davi was sure she'd be
Speaker 1: back and soon in a couple of months.
Speaker 2: Even yode he documente la veta princan.
Speaker 1: And said, missus, she left important documents and paperwork in
Speaker 1: her dust drawer. But Ami Casita am of course, she
Speaker 1: was going to return to Cuba, to her home, to
Speaker 1: her cositas her things, but she would never return home
Speaker 1: ever again. There would be very little to go home too,
Speaker 1: because meanwhile in Cuba, one day, Dali's brother, who had
Speaker 1: stayed behind, drove up to the family dairy farm.
Speaker 2: Well I think Io the Lecheria, and there were men
Speaker 2: guarding the entrance. Gio and Schoeta e aviendoda.
Speaker 7: Hero.
Speaker 1: This isn't yours anymore. You can't come in. The men said,
Speaker 1: this belongs to the revolution, and so her brother wasn't
Speaker 1: allowed in. Remember the revolutionary government confiscated land from Cubans
Speaker 1: who held more than a thousand acres. This fact is
Speaker 1: often brought up in the abstract as something the revolution
Speaker 1: did to redistribute wealth. And I get the principle it
Speaker 1: was part of a plan to create greater economic equality
Speaker 1: on an island that was deeply unequal. But I want
Speaker 1: you to think about what this actually looks like on
Speaker 1: a personal level. A soldier shows up at your door
Speaker 1: and doesn't let you back in ever again. It's something
Speaker 1: that after more than six decades, Mayamita Lali still mourns.
Speaker 2: Maybe that Kei is otos de may know a Santaios.
Speaker 1: At eighty seven, she's been in the US since nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty two.
Speaker 2: Gelo aya mimente aseal or really sal.
Speaker 1: But she says she still hasn't fully realized or accepted
Speaker 1: that her life is here. And so it's this feeling
Speaker 1: of uprootedness, the essence of exile that informs everything in
Speaker 1: her life, from the mundane, a loyalty to a specific
Speaker 1: coffee brand, belong to the consequential, a particular sway in politics.
Speaker 1: Mayamalita seemingly ticks all the boxes expectations of what a
Speaker 1: Cuban American woman in her eighties might think and feel.
Speaker 1: But she would go on to tell me something about
Speaker 1: Ilian that's anything but typical. By early December two thousand,
Speaker 1: the presidential election still hadn't been called. The Florida election
Speaker 1: recount went all the way up to the Supreme Court.
Speaker 10: It is ended the election, literally one of the closest
Speaker 10: elections in American history.
Speaker 1: On December twelfth, the highest court in the US ruled
Speaker 1: to reverse the Florida Supreme Court order for a manual recount,
Speaker 1: effectively ending the recount. It ruled that the recount violated
Speaker 1: the equal Protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. This is
Speaker 1: because there was no set standard for how to properly
Speaker 1: count all ballots. So at last, over a month later,
Speaker 1: there was a winner.
Speaker 10: Six hundred votes approximately separated the Gore and Bush in
Speaker 10: the state of Florida, and now by one vote on
Speaker 10: the Supreme Court, this election is over.
Speaker 2: Remember the vote total was so narrow.
Speaker 1: Kendall Coffee one of the lawyers for Elyon's Miami relatives.
Speaker 1: He also happened to litigate the Supreme Court recount case
Speaker 1: on the Gore side.
Speaker 5: Even if everything else had gone right with the election
Speaker 5: and there are no other problems, the impact on Cuban
Speaker 5: Democratic voters cost Gore the election.
Speaker 1: In the end, George W. Bush officially won by a
Speaker 1: tiny margin in Florida, five hundred and thirty seven votes,
Speaker 1: and that victory in Florida gave Bush the bare majority
Speaker 1: he needed in the Electoral College to win the election,
Speaker 1: even though he lost the national popular vote. Here's GAYD
Speaker 1: Mr Grenier again.
Speaker 6: He probably will not find any smoking gun that says
Speaker 6: that definitely Eleon costs the election. But yeah, Eli uncost
Speaker 6: the election.
Speaker 1: Whatever happened, I Looto Castillo seemed to be a success.
Speaker 1: The Cuban American community had gotten its revenge Gore lost
Speaker 1: and Bush became the forty third president of the United States.
Speaker 5: The presidency is more than an honor, It is more
Speaker 5: than an office. It is a charge to keep, and
Speaker 5: I will give it my all.
Speaker 1: From this election onward, Florida gained a reputation as the
Speaker 1: quintessential swing state and would go on to become more
Speaker 1: and more and more read Over half of Cuban Americans
Speaker 1: in Florida voted Republican in twenty twenty. The two thousand
Speaker 1: election results would have major lasting consequences for US politics
Speaker 1: and for the world.
Speaker 5: The United States military has begun strikes against al Qaeda
Speaker 5: terrorist training camps and military installations of the Taliban regime
Speaker 5: in Afghanistan. These carefully target coalition forces have begun striking
Speaker 5: selected targets of military importance to undermine Saddam Hussein's ability
Speaker 5: to wage war. These rogans to abandon the Patriot Act
Speaker 5: would deprive law enforcement and intelligence officers of needed tools
Speaker 5: in the war on Terror and demonstrate willful blindness to
Speaker 5: a continuing threat.
Speaker 1: So Alion's fate may have influenced years of American foreign
Speaker 1: policy and political history, but as us back in Miami
Speaker 1: this past spring, after Mayaulita watered her plants.
Speaker 2: Flora Flora.
Speaker 1: I asked her about Alien, how does she think about
Speaker 1: him now, so many years later. She would have liked
Speaker 1: to see him grow up in the US, she said.
Speaker 1: But then when I asked her about the issue about
Speaker 1: Elian's return to Cuba, she really surprised me. She said
Speaker 1: she thinks it was the right thing for him to
Speaker 1: go with his father Ke, even if it meant going
Speaker 1: back to Cuba. I was shocked. It has two sides.
Speaker 2: Alian's mom died.
Speaker 1: She couldn't make choices about the.
Speaker 2: Boy kiprox Superbarlo.
Speaker 1: So the dad was next in line, and he didn't
Speaker 1: do anything wrong. He had every right as a father.
Speaker 2: She told me better.
Speaker 1: I wasn't expecting my grandma to say all of this
Speaker 1: as a first wave of Miami Cuban. I didn't think
Speaker 1: she would move past the emotion of it all, that
Speaker 1: she would be so clear eyed. It felt antithetical to
Speaker 1: the hard lined exile way of thinking. Afterwards, I shared
Speaker 1: this with my mom. She thought that him going back
Speaker 1: to his dad was like the correct thing. I was
Speaker 1: really surprised.
Speaker 3: I think that's interesting because that's not what she expressed
Speaker 3: in the moment in the crisis, it was always, oh,
Speaker 3: they should let him stay because his mom died trying
Speaker 3: to bring him to freedom. But you know, as you
Speaker 3: get older, you see things differently. Your perceptions kind of
Speaker 3: change and soften and begin to see like the bigger
Speaker 3: picture beyond.
Speaker 1: When I finally visited Cuba for the first time, I
Speaker 1: began to understand the bigger picture too. At fifty six.
Speaker 1: My mom had never been to Cuba either. She was
Speaker 1: born in Miami less than a year after my grandma arrived,
Speaker 1: and travel to Cuba used to be much more difficult
Speaker 1: until twenty sixteen when President Obama loosened some travel restrictions
Speaker 1: and I wanted to go, but the idea of going
Speaker 1: to Cuba is so fraught for many Cuban Americans. For us,
Speaker 1: it was weighed down by all this family history, and
Speaker 1: so we waited. We waited so long we thought we
Speaker 1: had missed our chance because under President Trump, many of
Speaker 1: Obama's Cuba policies were reversed. But luckily we realized we
Speaker 1: could still go on a quote family visit. So finally
Speaker 1: in twenty nineteen, I found myself in Havana with my
Speaker 1: mom and Sisterawita Lavi could have joined us on the
Speaker 1: trip too, she decided.
Speaker 2: Not to Joash.
Speaker 1: She wasn't ready and she still doesn't feel ready to
Speaker 1: go back to have her memories be replaced by the
Speaker 1: current reality. But she's glad we went.
Speaker 2: Eropian Saparte the me Historia.
Speaker 1: It was a good experience for us because it helped
Speaker 1: us understand that part of her story. She says. On
Speaker 1: our trip to Cuba, we were able to meet the
Speaker 1: family we have on the island, Maya Alita's cousins. We
Speaker 1: spent Christmas with them on Baradedo Beach. This is the
Speaker 1: resort town about fifteen miles from Gardanas, where both Alien
Speaker 1: and Maya Alita Lai are from. One of the many
Speaker 1: coincidences we've come across in reporting this story. The trip
Speaker 1: was beautiful and magical and surreal. When we were saying
Speaker 1: our goodbyes, I hugged and thanked one of our cousins
Speaker 1: who I had grown close to. I told her how
Speaker 1: much I envied her stunning ocean front view. I shared
Speaker 1: this story with my grandma.
Speaker 2: Si per Oh.
Speaker 1: My cousin's response, I would give it all up for
Speaker 1: what you have. She went on to say that I
Speaker 1: was lucky. I could visit Cuba, live in the US, Colombia,
Speaker 1: anywhere I was free to choose, free to ask difficult questions,
Speaker 1: even about my own family.
Speaker 2: Ai Yo.
Speaker 1: Sometimes wonders what would have happened if she had stayed
Speaker 1: in Cuba. What would have become of her.
Speaker 2: Daughters sevan revolution.
Speaker 1: Would they have worked for the government or been counter revolutionaries,
Speaker 1: or would they have drowned in the Florida streets trying
Speaker 1: to get to Miamimilianilian, like Alian's mom who died with
Speaker 1: her convictions. My grandma says.
Speaker 2: You suba.
Speaker 1: Alita that he tells me she travels to Cuba too,
Speaker 1: in her own way, in her sleep.
Speaker 2: Concenando.
Speaker 1: She's in her old kitchen in Cuba, cooking. No time
Speaker 1: has passed since she told me that. I've been wondering
Speaker 1: about her dreams for me. I wonder if she's surprised
Speaker 1: by how I turned out non traditional, a bit nomadic queer,
Speaker 1: and tattooed someone with a pretty different worldview. But if
Speaker 1: these things have surprised her, She's never expressed it. Instead,
Speaker 1: she tells me how proud she is.
Speaker 2: Tu tere jum futuro Briti.
Speaker 1: She may belong to a group that stereotyped, blamed, and vilified,
Speaker 1: in particular for potentially swaying the two thousand election results.
Speaker 1: But Mayamalita Lali and others like her are so much
Speaker 1: more complex than that. She's someone who was uprooted and
Speaker 1: had to start over from nothing, someone who loves her community,
Speaker 1: but who, as she's gotten older, has formed her own opinions.
Speaker 1: Someone who will always talk to her plants and call
Speaker 1: me Dashi Duli.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but get to hear the characle ahorn me beating
Speaker 2: your shuyne.
Speaker 1: Someone who would rather keep returning to Cuba in her dreams.
Speaker 1: Next week, Honey takes back the mic Elean receives a
Speaker 1: heroes welcome in Cuba and he meets Fidel Castro for
Speaker 1: the first time and through the years they become quite close.
Speaker 3: The only god he believed in it was Fidel.
Speaker 1: Chess Piece. The Inian Gonzale Story is a production of
Speaker 1: Futuro Studios in partnership with Iheart's Make Ultura podcast network.
Speaker 1: This show is written and reported by me Tasha san
Speaker 1: Looa with Benide Remidez, Maria Garcia, and Nicole Rothwell. Our
Speaker 1: editor is Maria Garcia. Additional editing by Marlon Visha. Our
Speaker 1: senior producer is Nicole Rothwell. Our associate producers are Me
Speaker 1: Tasha Sanloan and Elizabeth Lowenthal Thorers. Sound designed by Jacob
Speaker 1: Rizzatti with help from JJ Carubin. Our intern is Evelyn
Speaker 1: Fajardo Albrees. Our senior production manager is Jessica Ellis, with
Speaker 1: production support from Nancy Trujuijo and Francis Poun. Mixing by
Speaker 1: Stephanie LeBeau, Julia Carriso and JJ Carubin. Back checking by
Speaker 1: Media about Gista, scoring, a musical curation by Jacob Rizzotti
Speaker 1: and Stephanie Lebau, and credits music from Rosa Chios. Our
Speaker 1: executive producers are Marlon Bishop and Maria Garcia. Legal review
Speaker 1: by Neil Rossini. Futuro Media was founded by Maria Ininojosa.
Speaker 1: This episode was recorded at White Lemon Studios in Bogota, Colombia.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts, listen to the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. I'm Pasha Sandled.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.