Nancy San Martin is an assistant world editor of The Miami Herald
in charge of
coverage from the Americas. She has written extensively about Cuba
and elsewhere
across Latin America. Among the award-winning Miami Herald projects
she has been
involved with are ''Children of the Americas'' and ``A Rising
Voice: Afro-Latin
Americans.''
She asked these questions of Carlos Moore, author of Pichón: A
Memoir, Race and
Revolution in Castro's Cuba. (2008: Lawrence Hill Books, $26.95)
Question. In the 1990s, when you obtained surveillance files from
the FBI
documenting activities you carried out in New York as an idealistic
young adult
three decades earlier, were you taken aback by the description of
yourself in those
files? Were they an accurate portrayal of the young, black Cuban
immigrant you were
in 1960?
Answer: The description of me and the quotes of the things I was
saying at the epoch
were not inaccurate. However, some of the ''facts'' adduced by the
FBI were indeed
inaccurate. I sincerely believed in Socialism at the time, and I
was resolutely
opposed to what I perceived then as an imperial policy by the
United States toward
Cuba. The fact that I turned, eventually, against Communism and the
Castro regime
does not make the U.S. policy toward Cuba any less objectionable.
Now, however, I do
believe sincerely that the time has come to write a new page.
America is changing
profoundly, and so is Cuba. I am on the side of change.
Question: You left Cuba just a year before the revolution and
returned in 1961 full
of hope that under Fidel Castro, whom you had met in Harlem a year
earlier, your
homeland would be free of the racism you experienced as a child.
Yet you were jailed
within three months of arrival in Havana and later sent to a work
camp on charges of
''racial subversion'' after complaining that racism was still
prevalent in Cuba.
Your jailer, revolutionary commander Ramiro Valdez, is again at the
upper echelons
of the Cuban government, now under Raúl Castro. What are your
impressions of Ramiro
Valdez then and now?
Answer: Back then, Ramiro Valdez was an inflexible, totalitarian
and brutal person.
He was the most feared man in Cuba. The repressive policies of the
regime were
crafted by him. Valdez struck fear into the hearts of Cubans (even
revolutionary
ones). Today, he apparently continues to be the same dogmatic,
sectarian and brutal
person he was at the height of his power, but he is no longer the
powerful figure
that he used to be. None is afraid of him anymore, in or outside
the circles of
government. He is no longer a decisive player in Cuban politics. He
certainly does
not belong to the Cuba that is in the making.
Question: When you came to teach in Miami in 1986, you again faced
the wrath of
Cuban anger -- this time from the exile community for some of your
lectures at
Florida International University in which you stated, among other
things, that Cuban
icons such as independence war hero José Martí and Carlos Manuel de
Céspedes, leader
of an unsuccessful 1868 uprising against Spain, were racists or
slave owners who
exploited black nationalism for political or economic purposes and
to ensure that
blacks never took power. In your book, you describe your experience
with Miami's
''anti-Castro establishment'' as a ''no-win situation. . . It was
the turf of the
fanatical, crypto-racist white exiles.'' Now that you've returned
to Miami, have
your impressions changed?
Answer: Two decades ago, I was attacked and demonized by the
Cuban-American
community of Miami because I was saying a truth that few wanted to
hear at that time
or were prepared to hear. But in the meantime, what has changed is
the
Cuban-American community itself. A new, younger and more liberal
generation is on
the scene. I would not even be surprised if most of these young
Cuban-Americans
voted for Barack Obama in the presidential elections. This
generation has been
socialized in American values of racial fair play, affirmative
action and
multiethnic politics. That is the exact opposite of the
socialization that their
parents -- who arrived in South Florida from Cuba, in the '60s and
'70s -- had
received. Their parents were socialized in a thoroughly racist,
authoritarian,
chauvinistic, sexist and homophobic society; and it was with the
latter people that
I clashed in the 1980s when I taught at FIU. But two decades later,
perhaps 50-60
percent of the Cuban Americans that I am bound to meet were born in
the U.S., went
to school at some point with blacks and with people of various
national origins, and
were exposed to an extensive bath of multiculturalism. As a
consequence, these
neo-Cuban-Americans -- if I may so call them -- espouse liberal and
moderate social
views. They are more interested in leading meaningful lives in
America, than
residing in the myths of a past that will never return, anyhow. I
feel at ease with
this neo-Cuban-American generation. I believe that this new crop of
Cuban-Americans
can contribute much to the new Cuba that is in the making.
Question: On your third visit to Cuba in 1999, you write that you
were ''saddened to
bear witness to the death of a revolution.'' You also state that
''the architect of
the Cuban Revolution was an authentic social reformer, a sincere
nationalist, a man
of courage, integrity and political talent. . . My critique of
Fidel Castro's
governing style, my bitter opposition to his regime's despotic
policies had never
made me overlook his political merits.'' Could you elaborate on
this point: If
Castro was an authentic social reformer -- and presumably
completely in charge --
then who is to blame for the ''rampant prejudices of Cuban
society'' you outline in
your book?
Answer: I stand by my statements regarding Fidel Castro and his
importance in Cuba's
history. I have never demonized the Cuban leader, nor his
opponents. I have a
legitimate fight with the Cuban regime, but that does not blind me
from seeing the
merits of the revolution or the merits of the man who ushered that
change in Cuban
society. I have never made the mistake of blaming Fidel Castro for
the rampant
racism of Cuban society. He inherited that racism! What I do blame
Fidel Castro and
his regime for is for having obstructed the actions of those who
sincerely wanted to
rid Cuba of that form of consciousness. Anti-racist black Cubans
were destroyed by
the regime -- imprisoned, sent to hard labor camps, to insane
asylums, or driven to
a life of exile and banishment from their country. It is untrue,
and very
simplistic, or convenient, to affirm or imply that Fidel Castro
''invented'' Cuba's
racism. Cuban society was founded on black enslavement and racism.
Racial slavery
was the womb of Cuban idiosyncrasy and what is called ''Cuban
culture.'' Cuban
society was -- before Fidel Castro, and continues to be today -- a
profoundly racist
society. The problem I had with the revolutionary regime was that
it pretended that
this was not so, and that it declared, falsely, to the world that
it had abolished
racism in Cuba. Logically, all of those who said the contrary were
simply
denigrating the revolution and socialism and were ''agents of
American
imperialism.'' However, by denying the existence of racism in Cuba
for 50 years, and
by brutally preventing those who wanted to confront that reality
from doing so, the
revolutionary regime guaranteed a safe haven for the unfettered
perpetuation and
growth of a racist consciousness in Cuba. A great opportunity to at
least disable
that monstrosity of history was therefore lost. Fidel Castro did
not invent racism;
rather, his policies! were a product of it.