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Reflections

As a thirteen year old, I never really thought much about the stories that my friends Cuban born mother told me.  I just loved hearing them because they were from a different place and a time that seemed so long ago to me.  Looking back now, I have mixed feelings, especially after reading The Book of Embraces.  Being raised in the United States, you are sort of brain washed from birth that your country is the best in the world, no other country can touch yours, and everything your government does is for a damn good reason.  You begin to wonder, if we are so great why aren’t we helping the other people in the world?  As you get older, you begin to realize how the world works.  Many things that the US government does are for monetary reasons or public policy and the reason the US looks good and helpful in history books is because whoever wins the wars writes the history.  We are not as great as we think. 

In Cuba, there were "worms” that turned people in for speaking a word against the government.  If the Cuban government took a person, they would be released if they ratted out one of their neighbors or friends.  This is not much different from the witch-hunts that occurred in Salem in 1692, nor is it much different from the McCarthy-led Communist scare that also occurred in our country in the 1950s.  All of these situations, including the “Cuban worms,” are caused by fear-driven reactions.  In all of these instances, the people involved are so frightened that they will do anything to cast negative attention onto someone else, including pointing the finger.  This seems ridiculous to me because the one thing that I never do is “tattle-tale,” but in this instance I’ve come to an understanding.  I can’t say that I would be the noble one and die before ratting out an innocent neighbor.  It is in instances such as these that the ugly parts of human nature come out.  We tend to twist our rationalizations and say, “Well, better him than me, after all I’m a better person.”  It is an ugly thing, but it is hard to get past human nature.  After all, most people really aren’t that different.     

Another thing that always intrigues me about Lillian Gulacy’s experiences is that she says that she wouldn’t want to grow up anywhere else.  I can’t imagine what it would be like to be sitting in my living room talking to my friends and have a military officer come into my house, load us into a truck, and ship us away to pick vegetables while our brothers and boyfriends get to stay home.  The whole idea reminds me of the way the Germans loaded Jews up onto trains and either killed them or sent them to concentration camps during the Holocaust.  If it had been me who got loaded up onto an army truck that day, I would have thought that I was going to be killed.  What could you have done if those Cuban military men were going to kill you? Nothing.  I can only imagine what that would have felt like.  The fact that she survived such a horrible thing, says something for the human spirit that can endure so much.

You would think that Lil lived every day in fear for her life, especially in the years right before her family left Cuba.  This was not so.  I have relayed to you of my favorite stories from Lil's childhood but I left out her favorite one.  She loved to tell us about a race she had with a boy in her neighborhood when she was nine years old.  She always told it something like this.  “It was a hot summer day in Cuba when I had had enough of Juan’s bragging.  Juan was a neighbor boy who could run faster than anyone else on the block.  We always had races on the sidewalks in those days.  We were young and we were content with racing around everywhere.  Well, one day Juan was bragging as usual and everyone was sick of it.  No one wanted to race him anymore and he was getting angry because he wanted to beat everyone there. Finally, I stood up and said, ‘I’ll race against you.’  All the other kids cheered in fun but they didn’t think that I could win, even though deep down they hoped that somehow I would.  We lined up and one of the girls said, ‘GO!’”  Juan and I started running and I was just a little bit behind him when a guy walked out form a side alley in front of us.  We tried to go around him and in the process I tripped and hit my face on a telephone pole.  (Then she would always laugh really loud.)  HA HA HA HA!!!  I had the worst black eye and my mother was so angry with me.  What an ass, I was!”  This is her favorite story because it reflects the happy days of her childhood when she didn't have responsibilities and she could make mistakes or be clumsy.  All in all Lil loved her childhood.  I believe that Lil has fond memories because she had a loving family and a relatively affluent life compared to her neighbors.  Also, Memories become fonder after time.  

I told Lilian that she should write a book about her experiences but all she said was maybe. 

I hope that this page has provided you with some good background information and some insight into what it was like living in Cuba during the beginning of Castro’s reign.  Take from it what you will. 

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