Salt Water
(Or the thoughts of one Cuban-American on what’s going on in Cuba)
I’m going to do my best to express what it’s like to see the people in Cuba gathering to make their voices heard. Bare with me. This is going to be… long. And keep in mind, this is just one person’s thoughts. One person’s point of view. Please and thank you.
Proud. Hopeful. Helpless. Terrified… for the people back on the island.
Our history is steeped in betrayal wearing hope’s clothing. Ropa mentirosa.
To the point when a politician speaks of hope, most exiled immediately grow suspicious and rightfully so.
And I find myself wanting to hope but pausing, reining myself in, and remembering what that has looked like on the island before.
Here is the thing about growing up Cuban American and this is likely true for other children of immigrants who left their entire lives behind and can’t easily go back home…
There is an ever-longing that’s present. A permanent sense that something is missing or misplaced or maybe… forgotten.
A feeling of limbo. Of not being of there but not fully being of here either.
Stuck in a purgatory of identity. “Am I Cuban enough? Am I American enough? Am I white? Or am I brown? Am I even Latin enough? What *am* I?”
Tears.
Salt water.
We carry memories of a place we’ve never been before, memories that were passed down to us by those who left.
Of las playas que son the most beautiful in the world. Of the farms our tios used to sneak into to cause un tremendo ruckus. Of our families who stayed behind.
“Communistas” my bisabuela Juana would say of her siblings who stayed behind. Communistas” her daughter would say of Buena Vista Social Club when I’d play their music.
“Communista” you’d be called if you ever showed a penchant for progressive ideals. Because anything to the left is too far left. Too close to what drove them to flee and they aren’t going to make that mistake again.
And we fled. By boat, by air, by anything we could put together that could possibly float in the ocean.
Salt water.
And we heard stories. Stories of the countless people who fled and who didn’t make it. But we also heard of miracles. Like the one of a boy who was protected by dolphins on a trek where most of the people he was with drowned. Including his mother.
Elián.
Hope.
And then he was ripped from his mother’s family in the middle of the night and sent back. Back to the place his mother tried saving him from. Back to the place his mother died trying to leave.
Betrayal.
Salt water.
And then two weeks ago, the Cuban people burst forth from their homes and onto the streets shouting LIBERTAD.
Patria y Vida.
Ya. That’s it.
Enough is enough.
They marched in summer. With a pandemic ravaging towns. They marched in the heat with sweat dripping down their backs.
Salt water.
They marched with the knowledge that the police state would have none of that. Sweat dripping off their brow and they went on anyway.
Salt water.
And then they came. The state took anyone who protested and anyone they suspected of protesting. They shot unarmed civilians in front of their families. Yelling. Horror. Tears.
Salt water.
And in watching the videos, that sense of longing became a summoning. A pull that I need to be there. With them. On the streets. With mi gente, with mi familia.
And I wasn’t the only one either.
Si están en las calles, nosotros también.
(If they’re in the streets, we are too)
Miami exiles got the desperate urge to do SOMETHING. Collect canned goods, water, supplies…
“Oye, coje el barco. Vamos a Cuba”
(Yo, get the boat. We’re going to Cuba)
We are ready to fight!
But wait. I can’t. I shouldn’t. We can’t. We shouldn’t. Or…
“This is my fight too right? Is this my fight too?”
No.
And the frustration and anger gets so strong that all I can manage to do is cry.
Salt water.
It’s still here. That pull.
So, I reach out to the sea. To the tides.
Pull.
Salt water.
I can’t be too far from it. I know that about me. I need to be able to feel it. To smell it.
Salt water.
My abuela Marta once told me that whenever we don’t feel well we should visit the sea and let the tide take it away. It’s healing.
Salt water.
Remembering her advice gets me thinking of mi abuelos and I start to cry.
Salt water.
My abuelo Rafael, her husband, was a charismatic man back on the island or so I hear, but what I knew of him was a deep bitterness soaked in nostalgia. Of tears that never shed but stewed in anger instead.
Salt water.
And what does salt water do when it’s allowed to sit? When you don’t tend to what is sitting in it? That thing gets eaten away.
That’s what happened to him.
Tears thinking of that.
Salt water.
Something I’m hearing from so many of us here in the States is how we wish some of our families could have seen the day when the island shook.
I wish that too…
Here come the tears again.
Salt water.
But now our job is to unite with the freedom fighters and the freedom seekers in Cuba. Our job is to get them internet access so that they can broadcast and organize. Our job is to make it easy for others to see the real Cuba.
To amplify. To translate. To pressure the government to release the artists and protestors. To pressure them to stop starving their people.
Then again, it’s hard to protest and fight when you’re faint. When you’re weak.
But watch out Regime because we’re a crafty and resourceful bunch.
Sweat.
And we will be fueled by our anger and frustration and the grief and the hope for what could have been and what can be.
Tears.
And we will reach out to each other from one end of tierra to another with just a sliver of water in between.
The sea.
And we will not give up on the people of Cuba who demand freedom.
Patria y Vida.
Viva Cuba Libre! ✊
