Announcing FR's "Columnist's Corner" on the Free Republic Network!

Free Republic Network ^ | 7-14-03 | Bob J

[Bob J]

From the Free Republic Network

ANNOUNCING!

The Free Republic
"Columnist's Corner"

In an effort to gain greater recognition and exposure for some of FR's best writers, The Free Republic Network is proud to roll out our "Columnist's Corner" feature!

Regular contributors so far include...

Luis Gonzalez
Tom Adkins
JohnHuang2
Jeff Head
Congressman Billybob
IronJack

...with more on the way! Additionally, soon we will be adding additional features such as Book Reviews (headed up by SamAdams76 and PJComix), Movie Reviews and the Poetry Corner!

(Note - Columnist's Corner accepts unsolicited pieces. If you are interested in becoming a regular contributor or just contributing an occasional item, freepmail Bob J or The Shrew!)

********

Columnist's Corner Inaugural article is from non other than RadioFR's own "Banana Republican", LUIS GONZALEZ!

Without Saying Goodbye.
Conversations with “El Yuca”
Luis Gonzalez

Adiós.

I really believe that word is one of the least-used words in my vocabulary, maybe in the entire language of people like myself - Cuban-born people that is.

A-Diós.

“To God.”

To me, that says that we shall never meet again, so go with God then, if not myself.

Vaya con Diós.

That is so “Hollywood does Mexico.” I can say with authority that Vaya con Diós has never been the choice farewell exclamation of anyone east of the Texas-Louisiana State line, especially of anyone from the Caribbean.

I was driving to a Cuban restaurant in Plantation to meet a total stranger as I worked these thoughts out, eager to get my laptop out. I wanted to write about an idiosyncrasy I noticed among the members of my family. It must be a quirk peculiar to mi gente, my people - we don’t like to say good-bye.

That’s when it started to rain.

I hate noon rain showers in the summer.

Mind you, I love a good rain with lots of lightning. I love the kind of rain that cools the day off, leaving behind that funny smell, kind of like what electricity would smell like, if it had a smell. The kind of rain that washes away the unrelenting sun, and in whose aftermath, the earth seems to wake up, slowly, and reluctantly, from an afternoon slumber, the kind of rain whose memory lingers on into the night.

But not this rain, this was the kind of short shower that lasts long enough to soak you in the few seconds it takes to run through a parking lot, and leaves behind steam you can see rising from the hot asphalt as you drive down the street.

Normally, I would have pulled in anywhere in the parking lot, and sat there with the engine on and the A/C running, maybe a little Big Head Todd and the Monsters in the CD player. But I had agreed to this lunch thing with a stranger, and it would be very rude to just not show up. So I parked as close to the walkway on the strip mall as I could, and made a dash for cover.

I walked into the familiar lobby at Padrino’s Restaurant almost an hour early for the appointment and gave my name to the hostess. As usual, the place was bustling with activity. Padrino’s is one of the new wave of Cuban restaurant springing up all over South Florida. Catering to a mixed clientele, it’s a far throw from the old days of crowded eateries and waitresses that looked like your grandmother and treated you like a grandchild.

I remember going to those places when I first arrived in the US - little store front restaurants where more often than not, the menu consisted of maybe three or four entrees, which varied each day according to the cook’s mood and the available ingredients. You’d come in and, with a little luck, find an open table, the grandmother waitress would stand next to you and announce the menu.

“Today we have ropa vieja, boliche, pechuga de pollo a la parilla y bistec empanizado.”

Spanish-speakers at the table would spend the next fifteen minutes carefully describing each item for the occasional adventurous mono-linguist in the group. The befuddled native would invariably settle for a Cuban sandwich and a Coke. I never could get one to try an Ironbeer, or the boliche for that matter.

Then the next wave of restaurants came: Lila’s Steak house, where the palomilla steak, cooked to perfection, was buried under a huge mound of shoestring French fries. Rancho Luna with their out-of-this-world Cuban-style fried rice. Morro Castle and late-night fritas. The Latin-American cafeteria with the long counter and the unbelievable sandwiches. And finally Versailles, with mirrored walls and beautiful women, dark-eyed, tanned, sultry beauties with long, black hair, drinking café con leche after dark. In a few of these places, after a long search by the waiter, the hostess and the manager/owner, English language menus could be provided for the more frequent mono-linguistic diners. These places all had one thing in common: they served food to comfort the exile soul.

I heard my name called and snapped out of my daydream. I waved at the hostess (a dark-eyed, tanned, sultry beauty with long, black hair) and followed her to my table where I promptly ordered an iced tea (my Ironbeer days are long gone now), opened my laptop and began to type.

I was deep into my rambling dissertation on the lack of usage of the word “adiós” by Cubans when I noticed the figure approach my table. I suffered a short panic attack, realizing that I had put my lunch meeting out of my mind, and that the stranger had arrived.

El Yuca

There are people who, no matter how long you know them, you’re never at ease around, and there are those who one is immediately at home with. Meeting the latter reminds you of re-uniting with an old and trusted friend that you’ve lost contact with, or maybe a close relative - a cousin who shared your childhood - then moved away.

That’s what I felt within minutes of shaking El Yuca’s hand. Maybe I better explain the name before I continue.

His nickname is a left over from his days hosting a radio show on a local FM station, El Yuca being the character who provided political and societal commentary from the perspective of an American of Cuban descent. Why does that sound familiar?

I “met” him through e-mail. He responded to one of my articles, eventually telling me that he wanted to meet me and discuss some story ideas for the Banana Republican. Never one to turn down lunch at a Cuban restaurant, I picked the meeting place and time. Even though I had not actively sought new ideas for my stories, I was open to listen to them. I thought that by picking the meeting place I had some control over the situation. After all, I really didn’t know anything about this person, outside of what he himself had told me. He could be a stalker, a deranged fan straight out of a Stephen King novel, or maybe even a Liberal.

We talked about our lives and what it meant to be a child of exile, to have a future but no past. I talked about my desire to be a bridge spanning the generations, connecting the ones who remember to the ones who never knew Cuba, but would be the left to carry the memories into the future.

El Yuca got excited and his head was shaking “yes” rapidly.

“We have to remember, we have to make sure that our stories never die,” he said to me. “The old ones are almost gone, an entire generation dead, their stories buried with them. We have to tell their stories for them, their struggles, and their heartbreak before they are lost forever.”

El Yuca may be right. No, he IS right, my bridge needs to be built one brick at a time, which are the stories and memories of mi gente, the funny and bittersweet memories of my people’s joy and sorrow. With the hope that someday, that bridge will help two people become one people again. So that one day, we will share the stories of our undying love for the homeland left behind with our brothers and sisters in a free Cuba, while we listen to their stories of hardship and struggle, suffering and hope.

I decided right there that I would begin by telling El Yuca’s story. His anecdotes made me laugh, and his memories of Miami in the early days of the Cuban Diaspora were better than mine. El Yuca promised to send me his story soon and write about the things he remembered.

The waiter was busy taking away the remains of Padrino’s excellent lunch from our table and we ordered the obligatory cup of Cuban coffee. We drank the bitter brew, bitter in spite of the sweet crystals from the sugar cane, a constant reminder of the bitterness of losing one’s home and one’s past, and we drink it often.

The rain had let up outside and the steam was rising from the asphalt. The clouds had moved on and the unrelenting sun beat down on the metal on my car’s roof. I knew that the A/C in my car would take forever to cool the interior, and by that time, I would be at my next stop, it was the never-ending routine, the car cooled off just in time to park it in the sun again.

I turned and shook El Yuca’s hand, and reminded him to send me his story while exchanging cellular numbers and farewells.

In the heat of the car, while actively fighting the overwhelming urge to pull off the road and take a nap (did I mention that Padrino’s food is excellent?) I went back to my obsession with the word adiós, and was struck by the fact that El Yuca and I had maintained the tradition, neither one used it. Further proof that my suspicion is correct.

In the car, Big Head Todd wanted to be my “Broken Hearted Savior”, but Todd couldn’t save me this day, so I took his CD out, replacing it with the perfect music for the occasion. Willy Chirino promised that nuestro dia ya viene llegando, our day would soon arrive. I whispered “Viva Cuba Libre” and joined the after lunch traffic jam on the hot and steamy highway.

Without saying goodbye

I received El Yuca’s e-mail a few days ago and a smile danced across my face. I had been looking forward to this communiqué all week long; now I could get the article started. I had a few funny anecdotes of my own to share. I left the e-mail unopened, wanting to enjoy it at my own leisure at home where I could laugh at my new friend’s wit at will.

I decided that perhaps the real problem with Cubans and adiós was that we weren’t ready for the finality the word conveys, that perhaps as a people, we are a little too casual for such a formal sentiment. I had also come to realize that there really wasn’t much to write about concerning the word, and moved on to other ideas for my column.

It was hours later, with the family in bed and the house quiet, that I sat down to my “treat” for the day. It was many hours later that I fell asleep; the memory of the letter haunting me, it haunts me still.

Luis,

I became a member of the fabled Miami Mafia upon the second of my arrival in Miami at the tender age of twelve. I came as one of the thousands of children escaping communist Cuba, sent by their desperate parents, knowing that they may never see their children again, an option preferred over having their kids grow up as the property of the State, indoctrinated in the ways of hate . . . Castro’s way.

In my case, not unique by any means, I was running the risk of ending up in Castro’s jails for the mere fact that I disagreed with the regime, and my father knew that my outspoken behavior would place me at high risk sooner than later. My father’s friends urged him to get me out of the Island; jail was not the worst-case scenario for those who wouldn’t toe Fidel’s line.

Through the Protestant version of the “Pedro Pan” program, where fourteen thousand children migrated to the US without their parents; I left my hometown in the middle of the night, hidden by my parents under a blanket on the floor of a school bus.

In Havana, we visited the Dutch Consulate daily for several days, waiting for a “contact” that would provide me with an exit visa; the visa finally arrived and, eventually, so did my departure date.

My parents came to see me off at Havana International Airport, from where I and many other kids were leaving the Island that day, not knowing whether they would ever see me again, and watching helplessly as we endured the final cruelties bestowed upon us by the regime.

The children were taken from their parents and held in what was called “La Pescera”, the fishbowl, a holding room with thick glass walls where the children stayed for hours before their departure, this was done to increase the pain of separation, and to frighten the littlest ones.

At one point I, along with a few others, got called into a small interrogation room, where I was stripped of my clothing and asked questions like “why are you leaving and betraying the revolution?” I was also told that if I left, my parents would go to jail, but I was well prepared for their tactics.

The State security forces examined all my belongings, reading some letters from my girlfriend (my most prized possession) making obscene comments about her as they read. Eventually, I was told to get dressed and go back to the glass-enclosed waiting room. On the way out, I saw a “miliciano”, wearing his green fatigues, rip a little girl’s doll apart with his knife, accusing her of trying to transport jewels inside, contraband. There was nothing there, leaving behind him a little girl, crying, scared, alone, confused, wanting to be held by her Mommy or her Daddy.

I walked to her and told her that the dolls in Miami were much prettier, and that I would buy her one when we got there, this brought the butt of a rifle down on my shoulder. I somehow didn’t feel the pain, just rage, anger, frustration, and an immense hatred for the filthy regime and its minions.

My last image of Cuba, was that of my mother, behind the thick, glass wall, holding a tear-filled handkerchief, my father standing behind her, stoic and full of courage, both watching their only son being forced into exile at the age of twelve.

Finally, we departed in silence and in fear, the KLM flight making a slow turn north, to the Florida Straits. Fifteen minutes into the flight, the pilot came over the loud speakers, and in almost perfect Spanish said: “You are now over International waters, you are in free territory.”

What happened next is almost impossible to describe. I saw old men crying, women praying, kids cried while adults hugged them and told them that everything was OK now.

I stared out the window and smiled, for I knew that the United States of America would never allow the system that I had left behind to exist barely ninety miles from their shores, and that it would certainly be just a matter of months before Castro would fall, and we would all be back in Cuba.”

August 6, 1961.

Fred Valdes
Banana Republican
P.S. Cuba sera libre! Soon…

I read Fred’s e-mail through eyes brimming with tears. It was a familiar story; it was my story. Maybe it is all of our stories.

I read the letter over and over, some instinct telling me that I was missing something, there was something in that e-mail I wasn’t seeing. It bothered me to the point of sleeplessness.

Then it came to me and I rushed to my laptop to read El Yuca’s letter one more time, and there it was. Or rather, there it wasn’t - El Yuca never said the word, he left without saying goodbye.

But then again, I don’t recall saying goodbye either, and I know that my father didn’t say adiós to my grandfather as he watched him walk away to the airplane that would carry him to Mexico first, then to the US; where he would die just hours after hugging his daughter and granddaughters for the first time in ten years.

I know that my parents didn’t say adios to Alberto, the great one, the one person that they could always count on when things got rough in Cuba. Before we left, they said “see you soon” and hugged a man who died alone in a ditch on a dark highway in Cuba.

I have never said goodbye to the grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins that I’ve buried here on the good earth of this magnificent land, the land that welcomed us and allowed a part of my island nation to remain free, and defiant. I always say “see you soon”.

We refuse to say goodbye, El Yuca and I, and so many like us.

We refuse to say goodbye, because we know that one day, we will walk on a free Cuba again. Even if only as children of children of children of exiles, we will one day raise our voices as a people, lift our flag high, and shout at the heavens, at the spirits of those that are gone, fathers and mothers and grandparents, and siblings.

“Ya!”

“Se acabó!”

“Rest easy, rest now, it’s over…………”

“Adiós.”

Editors Note - The writings of Luis Gonzalez remind us that our strength lies not in our diversity, but that out of diversity we have descended into one people, sharing a common belief in ourselves as free individuals. Hispanics, as others of our time, follow in the footsteps of yesterdays Irish, Italians, Poles and Jews. America will always stand as a beacon to the world's oppressed...gathering unto our shores the wretched masses of humanity and making them free.

Long live America. Long live the Free Republic.

[afraidfortherepublic]

Luis should post ALL his columsn, even the ones that make me cry.

In my case, that would be all of them! Good to read this column again, Luis. This was one of my favorites.

[PJ-Comix]

Don't forget that Al Gore regularly has his movie reviews posted on the FR.

[Fawnn]

Tears here as well. Beautifully written and inspiring piece.

[fatima]

Great idea bump.

[Fawnn]

An "I think you'll enjoy this column as much as I did" ping!

[MHGinTN]

Luis, you are that most rare combination of a soul with insight and feeling AND the talent to put it into words so that others may feel what you feel also.

[Bob J]

Which post?

[PhilDragoo]

To bring them all out, or bring freedom there.

My high school Spanish teacher Sra. Mercedes Portilla was a graduate of University of Havana and taught me in 61--your date was a double-take.

She so upbeat, so animated, and a shadow passed over all that when she intoned, "Ah, Felipe, Fidel es muy malo, muy malo, es very, very bad man."

We will never say goodbye to freedom and we will live to piss on Fidel's grave.

[The lines at Disney will be as nothing compared to that day.]

[Republic]

WOW! Best damn read I've had on FR in a long time! Luis is sensational! Love him!!! Love this new feature!

Elian awaits!

[Luis Gonzalez]

[Republic]

That picture hits me-always. The passion I have for that child and the fate his mommy suffered lives just below the surface. I will always dispise the klintons and their corrupt administration, along with slimeballs Criag and Meissner and Campbell for this incredible failure of our country to protect an innocent. Always.

[MS.BEHAVIN]

Luis, beautiful, just beautiful..thank you so much..

I love the stories told by my Grandparents who came here from Quebec, I have a picture of my Grandmother standing on a box in a woolen mill, because she was too tiny to reach the machines otherwise..she was 13 years old..she lied about her age to get work to help her parents earn money..

Thanks for the PING Fawnn..I really enjoyed it!

John, jump in with both feet!!

You too, are one of my favorite writers..I can't wait!!

Ms.B

[Luis Gonzalez]

"I have a picture of my Grandmother standing on a box in a woolen mill, because she was too tiny to reach the machines otherwise..she was 13 years old..she lied about her age to get work to help her parents earn money..."

Ain't that America?

[Luis Gonzalez]

I worked all the time after we got here.

My parents did not take the money I earned, but I earned money so that I could buy my own things, and not place the burden on our family's budget.

People like your grandmother represent to me the true spirit of this nation, work hard to provide a better life for the ones coming up behind, and doing it in a place where freedom is a guarantee.

Thanks for sharing.

[Luis Gonzalez]

Thank you Marvin.

[Alamo-Girl]

Beautiful! Thank you so very, very much! Hugs!!!

[Luis Gonzalez]

I know some Portillas here in SoFla, very political family.

I wonder if they are related to your teacher.

[MS.BEHAVIN]

Yes, it is..

You know, it's funny/sad..that we were taught to be ashamed of our heritage..we were always told we were dirty and stupid, and inferior..

It took me a long time to learn, that the only power one has over you, is the power you give them..

I traced my ancestors path from Chateau Richer, PQ..where they landed in the late 1600's, and followed that path back here to Maine..by that I mean, I went there in pesron, and followed their trek to here.

It was one of the richest, and most rewarding experiences I have ever had..

I am proud of who I am!

Your lovely writing reminded me of that..

Toujours a Vous..

Ms.B

[Luis Gonzalez]

Thanks A-G, glad you liked it.

[MS.BEHAVIN]

She instilled in us, a very strong work ethic, one that has richly rewarded me to this day..

I miss her terribly..Thank you so much for your kind words..

Memere Eva would be so pleased to hear that...

Take Care..

Ms.B