The Best of Both Worlds

I grew up in Cuba until I was 11 years old. Although the Castro regime has oppressed my people for over five decades, Cuba is still a beautiful island. Havana is one of those cities, like Paris, that you fall in love with and can never get out of your head.

When I left Cuba, I lived in Miami, Florida. South Florida is very different from most parts of the United States. Over half of the population is Hispanic, with Cubans making the majority of it. With that said, I never lost my first language. I speak and write Spanish as well as I speak and write English.

I can speak to my wife in English and then seamlessly speak to my mother in Spanish. I like living in these two worlds. I am fully Cuban, but I am also fully American. I love and hate things from both cultures. I can eat rice and beans one day and chicken pot pie the next. And I wouldn't have it any othe way.

The Embargo

The embargo of the United States against Cuba has been in place since 1960. There are many and very vocal opponents of the embargo who claim that it should be lifted. They support their claim with the fallacy that by lifting the embargo, the people of Cuba would know what they are missing out on. In other words, if the United States allows an influx of cash to flow to Cuba, then the people would want democracy.

This is ridiculous because the real embargo is that of Castro's regime against the people of Cuba. For over 50 years, top government officials have lived lives of kings and movie stars, while the population has starved. The people don't need the embargo lifted to know the things they already know. The lifting of the embargo would only serve to support and strengthen the Cuban economy, which would only prolong the length of the regime.

The embargo should only be lifted the day Cuba holds open and pluralistic elections. Until then, there's nothing else to talk about.

Waters of Grace (Podcast)

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Here's the script, to read along if you wish. Thanks!

"Welcome to the Israel Sanchez Podcast. My name is Israel Sanchez. Today I'll be reading from my autobiography, Waters of Grace.

Chapter 1 - Beginnings


"Growing up in Cuba, you either belonged to the Communist Party or the Catholic Church. The entire island seemed to be divided in those two camps. Both institutions have their saints and rituals and both have their fervent believers. Before I could even remember or form my first words, my mother decided that I was going to be part of the Roman Catholic clan. My father objected, since he didn’t believe in God, but mainly because he was part of the Union of Young Communists and a baptized son could mean trouble for him. Despite his protests and absence from the ceremony, my mother persevered and a priest sprinkled water made holy over my head.

My parents didn’t stay together long after that, due to my father’s wondering eye, and hands and body I suppose. I don’t have a single memory of them together, no strolls in the park, no holding hands, and no Hallmark or Kodak moments. Probably because of this, the idea of God as Father was foreign to me. God seemed to be someone who visited on weekends and bought you nice things whenever he could, but stayed away during the week. This was fine with me, especially since serving God had become a chore. When I was around 9-years-old, I started attending catechism every Sunday and all I remember learning was what not to do. There were rules at home, rules at school and rules at church. Of course, at this young age I had no idea that when God gave us His commandments it was meant to warn us of sin and alert us to the fact that we were all guilty in need of a Savior. Back then, however, these commandments seemed obscure and confusing. What was a graven image? If we are not supposed to bow down to them, why was everyone at church praying to statutes of saints? I would think about those things at times and ask questions, but no one ever gave me a satisfying answer. Of course, the most horrifying commandment was honoring your father and mother. I had no idea what 'honoring' meant exactly, but I knew I was guilty and it felt like the sting of a bee on my soul.

My Sunday school teacher was a handsome young priest still in seminary school and a lot of the church ladies had a crush on him. One of my mother’s friends was completely in love with the young priest. He seemed to be taken with her too and would openly flirt with her. I imagine that would have been an awkward and tense confession time between those two. Years later, I found out that the priest left seminary school because he fell in love with a woman. My mother’s friend was saddened that she had not been the one to “turn him.”

Once, I asked my aunt, "how can I talk to God? How do I ask Him for prayer?"

“You need to pray,” she said.

“Well, how do I do that?”

“Our father who art in heaven…”

And she would continue with the Apostles Creed and a prayer to the Virgin Mary. I did this every night, hoping that God would hear me, but somehow I thought he would be bored of hearing my repetitions. I don’t know if God was bored or not, but I certainly was. By the time I finished my ritual prayers and was allowed to finally speak to God using my own words, I was sleepy or had forgotten my petitions. There was a chasm between God and me and religion was the cause of it. I didn’t think of Him as Father. God was a distant being who wanted me to not lie or use cuss words and that was all. He lived up in heaven above, way up high, far away from me, far from the misery surrounding my country. He probably lived closer to the United States where kids my age had brand new toys and expensive shoes, and they could eat whatever they wanted for lunch.

Overall, I did enjoy going to church. There was a peace and an otherness that I couldn’t put into words. Perhaps it was the silence. I lived in a tiny house with over seven people, so silence was a rare thing. But there was something else drawing me to church and that was reading.

That's all the time we have today. Thank you for listening and don't forget to checkout Amazon.com for Waters of Grace. "

Cuban National Symbols

These are some of the national symbols of Cuba. The pictures are courtesy of Wikipedia.

The Coat of arms:

The Trogon, national bird:

The Royal Palm:



A look at Havana

These photos are property of Nathan Laurell and I'm using them with full attribution to the photographer and for educational purposes. Please, enjoy!

Announcement!

Hello, all! Later this week I will be posting my latest Podcast. I will read part of Chapter 1 of my autobiography, so please, stay tuned!

Waters of Grace (An Autobiography)

I just self-published a brief spiritual autobiography. It's brief, well, basically because I'm still young. However, in my 28 years, I have experienced events and things that most people my age can't even imagine. From being born in Cuba under a totalitarian government, to fleeing Cuba without either of my parents, to learning a new language, to nearly losing my life in a car crash at 16, to leaving the Roman Catholic Church and becoming an Evangelical Christian.

All these events and more, are viewed through the lens of the Christian faith. As C.S. Lewis once said, "I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else."

You can preview and buy the Kindle version below!

Waters of Grace: Thoughts on Christianity, Communism and Cuba

The Water Gun Thief

I was around 10 years old when I became the victim of a crime. A few days earlier I had been given a lime-green water gun as gift. I wasn't allowed to spray anything or anyone in the apartment, so I was told to use it only at the park. The park was right beneath the building were I lived, so one day I went there to use the water gun for the first time.

After only a few minutes of using my water gun to spray some bushes near the building, I sensed trouble coming my way. A gang of five boys approached and encircled me. There were a little older than I was and their ragged clothes and filth made them intimidating.

"Can I see your gun?" asked one of them.

"You can see it well from there," I said.

I noticed the circle tightening and the faces becoming more menacing.

"I just want to see it," he said.

Although I was used to fighting bullies at school, I was outnumbered this time. I handed the water gun to the kid. He looked at it for a few seconds and then, in a flash, they all took off. I chased them briefly, but they crossed a very dangerous intersection, one that I was prohibited from crossing. Still, I felt really angry so I grabbed a rock I found nearby and threw in their direction. I hit the water gun thief in the ankle, and although I had lost my gun forever, I felt a bit vindicated.

The Good Night

There's no Thanksgiving celebration in Cuba, which would make sense since there were no Pilgrims. The original Cuban natives were almost completely annihilated by the Spanish colonialists. But since the holidays are coming up, I'll write about another celebration, and that is Christmas Eve, or Noche Buena. Noche Buena translates to "The Good Night," and it sure is good.

First, I must clarify that Christmas was not recognized as a holiday by the Castro regime until the year 1998. This didn't stop people from celebrating in their own homes, though. In my house, we owned a small Christmas tree. It was scantily decorated with often faulty lights and with empty boxes wrapped up to look like presents. And of course, there was always a nativity scene decoration.

The day before Christmas, or Noche Buena, is when the real party begins in a Cuban home. One of the main traditions is having roasted pork loin. I remember once when my grandfather stabbed a pig in the heart and the creature started squealing and running around until it dropped dead. I don't remember if I felt sad or not, but I do remember enjoying the food later. There's always rice and black beans accompanying the meat, as well as salad and yuca (cassava). There's usually beer for the adults, and if the kids are lucky, a cheap imitation of Koo-laid. Every once in a great while a Pepsi bottle would pop up, but that was a rarity.

Pork was not always easy to find, especially during Cuba's "special period," but families always managed to make their Noche Buena a good night.

In the Darkness

After the Soviet bloc fell, Cuba lost its main source of oil and other imports. This drastic elimination of the main source of economic influx plunged the island of Cuba into what the government called "the special period." There was nothing special about it. What it meant was scarcity of food, water and other basic supplies, as well as power outages.

If you think New York had it bad with power outages lasting a few weeks, imagine going months with only two hours of electricity. Then imagine years of daily outages lasting more than 16 hours every single day. That's what happened in Cuba in the mid 90s.

I was a young boy when this happened, but I clearly remember those interminable nights when the entire city of Havana was covered in darkness. I lived on the 10th floor of an apartment building, so I would look out in the distance and see the darkness all around the city. On some days when the lights would be turned on before midnight, one could hear claps and cheering all around the building, and I'm sure all around Havana. Having electricity was a luxury then.

Looking back now, I can see this darkness was the perfect metaphor for the oppressive regime.

Being Catholic in Cuba, part 2

My cousin Yinet and I were selected to represent Joseph and Mary for a Christmas show at church. All we had to was carry a ceramic baby Jesus to the makeshift manger and stand there. The baby Jesus doll didn't look heavy, but when my underweight and malnourished hands got a hold of it, I almost dropped it. I didn't know much theology then, I was only 7 or 8, but I figured that dropping baby Jesus wasn't the best way to make a good impression.

All along while this was going on, many of the opposition leaders were meeting in the church. Cuba's opposition to the totalitarian communist regime has grown in the past couple of years, but back then, in the early 90s, it was nearly unheard of. Regardless, they were at the church, many of the important leaders sat at the front. Meanwhile, in the middle of the procession, about seven or eight guys came in through the church doors and just stood at the back. Although they weren't dressed as police officers, everyone at church knew who they were. The way the stood, their posture, and even their intense gaze spoke more than an uniform.

For whatever revolutionary reason they gave, the confetti was prohibited. I don't know in what way confetti can be harmful to the Cuban Revolution, but apparently those festive pieces of paper had some subversive value.

After my exhausted and trembling hands were relaxed and the event was over, I witnessed as those same government thugs pushed those opposition leaders into cars. The members of the opposition had done nothing wrong. There was no violence from their part. All they did was shout "Freedom!" as they were taken away in cars to be imprisoned for the simple crime of speaking their minds. At that moment, I remember wishing that baby Jesus would be with them.

Cannons

Part 2 of the previous blog post coming soon, but before that, read this short (short) story I wrote for my Beginning Fiction Writing class. Although it is a story, it is closely based on a friend's experience when leaving Cuba.

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The swamp kept trying to swallow our bodies, but this wasn't the kind of freedom we were looking for. When we pulled Miguel out of one of those infernal sinking holes, his left shoe was gone, drowned, forgotten, like many of our dreams and hopes until six months ago when Fernando told us the plan.

Many of us worked on the same fishing boat as Fernando, but his ingenious plan never crossed our minds. Every day we longingly stared at the horizon, daydreaming and imagining what that hamburger on the clandestine American channel tasted like. Freedom, we hoped, but we never thought about actually leaving our lives as fishermen. The plan was to kidnap the captain at knifepoint, since the government had outlawed guns a long time ago, and to gather our families by the shore near the military base. A couple of us would take care of the mutiny, while the rest of us would collect the families and lead them to the beach.

We were close to the beach when we heard a sound that seemed to have come from Thor himself. "Cannons," someone in the back of the group whispered. The military base used this field for their ballistics exercises, which meant that at any moment our heads could be blown up by a cannon ball. For a moment it felt like we had travelled back in time and the Spanish were ready to ransack our island. In a way, they were doing that even today, when they came and spent their euros in places where we the natives weren't allowed to go in. Fortunately, the base was so far away that we would be invisible in the middle of the night, but of course we weren't immune to the constant and loud artillery. Despite this startling event, we kept the same pace and reached the beach at the accorded time. The children in the group were tired and dehydrated, but we kept promising milk, juice and those hamburgers they saw on TV. All that would be ours in a few hours.

Waiting by the beach was definitely the hardest part, since we were more exposed to the military and their cannons and because we were so close to the ocean that the reality of our actions sunk in. By kidnapping a government ship, we were going to be declared as terrorists, but our consciences were clear because we knew that the people, the oppressed millions, would be on our side. Many had already left the island on small vessels or on anything that could possibly float. The horror stories were widely known. There were stories of government helicopters dropping bags of sand onto small boats until there was nothing left. And there were other stories of mothers holding their children, while the national coast guards used their hoses to drown them all. Of course, we also heard about sharks devouring nearly half of those who set out into the sea, into that great blue unknown. We were aware of all this, but our quest for freedom was stronger than our fear of death. As we were waiting by the beach, hoping that the kidnapping went without any bloodshed, or worse, government interference, one person in the group lit a cigarette. Immediately, a bunch of us nearly tackled that person. In such vast darkness, a small light can be seen for miles. We didn't want the cannons aimed at us.

A couple of hours later, a small boat approached the shore and we knew that everything had gone as planned. Silently, we boarded the boat and headed for the main ship, which would be our ticket to a land of opportunities. Once we got on, we noticed that the captain was tied up to a chair but he seemed to be okay, given the circumstances. We promised that once we were near international waters, we would release him in the small boat with provisions so that he could make it back to shore. After ignoring radio contact from the local coast guard, we set sail into that blue horizon that we had daydreamed about for many years. Our fears slowly dissipated and those commercials about cars, homes, and hamburgers kept replaying in our heads. Those dangerous ideas about freedom of speech, assembly, and the press were our beacon in the massive ocean ahead of us. Even the air tasted different. Our lungs and minds expanded and we could sense that we were becoming different people. We didn't have to be fishermen, we could be anything, and our children could gain the whole world.

The island seemed distant now and we knew that our hearts would never forget such an image. We heard the sound of a cannon in the distance and we knew that this was our island saying goodbye, our home telling us that there were no hard feelings. When the American coast guard finally intercepted our rusty ship with their bubble gum and their pristine clothes, our hearts were overjoyed. These gentle soldiers saved our lives, but what's more, they signified hope; they stood for freedom. The smell of gunpowder and cannons was quickly replaced with the alluring smell of a juicy hamburger.

Tales of Being Catholic in Cuba, part 1

Living under a communist regime is not optimal for Catholics. At home, my family would openly criticize the government and even make fun of our leader, but this was done in secret and in whispers.

 My mother would warn me. “Whatever you hear, don’t repeat it at school. Okay?”

“Okay,” I would reply.

“Good, you don’t want me going to jail.”

My father was already living far away; so losing my mother was not an option. Whenever a teacher would ask me something about the Revolution or about Fidel Castro, I would always reply with the schoolbook answer; the Revolution was great, everything was perfect! I knew this was a lie from firsthand experience. One of my classmates, Michael, had a parent who worked with tourists. His father was a scuba instructor and he received tips and gifts from tourists. In the 1990s, the dollar was king. The Cuban peso, and still to this day, was worth nothing. The Revolution had created a caste system where top government employees had an abundance of everything; the few who worked in tourism came next in line and then came the rest of the nation. There weren’t many options available and it was hard to move from one step to another.

One could always join the government, but for that, one would have to betray family, conscience and even belief in God. On top of all this, I would hear my family talk about how awful things were in the country. They didn’t make it a point to talk about it openly in front of us kids, but my two cousins and I would hear their conversations or sometimes a remark would escape their lips because of anger and frustration.

The Lost City

If you want to watch a movie that deals with the Cuban Revolution in a truthful way, then please check out The Lost City. Andy Garcia plays the lead role, but Bill Murray and Dustin Hoffman have also important characters. It's a wonderful movie, one that is beautiful and sad, just like Cuba's history. Please, check it out.

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

One Side

Being a journalist in Cuba is no more than being a puppet in the hands of a puppeteer. The government controls all the information, thus it controls newspapers and TV stations. Whatever little information the people actually receive, its been filtered and diluted. Journalists, then are no more than parrots.

This class would be very different in Cuba. All our Internet searches, for those lucky to access it, would be controlled and limited. If anyone searches or expresses an opinion other than that of the government, their careers is not the only thing at stake.

The official Cuban newspaper is called Granma. The link is below:

http://www.granma.cubaweb.cu/

The Bias of History

The Cuban education system is without a doubt very successful. While their counterparts in many parts of the world are barely learning the basics of language and arithmetic, Cuban children are taught advanced concepts early on. Cuba is one of the most literate nations in the world.

When it comes to math, reading, writing and science, Cuba is no doubt ahead. However, when it comes to history, the textbooks are undoubtedly biased. History textbooks in Cuba are mere propaganda for the Cuban Revolution. One clear example is the unabashed linking of one of Cuba's greatest patriots, José Martí with the Revolution and Communism. Not only was Martí born over a hundred years before Fidel ever entered Havana with his troops, but he was also completely and totally anti-Communist. But alas, Martí is long gone and dead men can't defend themselves. Sadly his legacy has been used by Fidel, as he has used many other heroes of the past.

While the education in Cuba is wonderful overall, it has its obvious and glaring biases.

Old Havana

Wonderful video of Old Havana (Habana Vieja), where my family used to take me to the bookseller's market. Please, ignore the cheesy narration.



This video appears here courtesy of Code Cuba

Where I Grew Up

This is the place where I grew up part of my life. I have wonderful memories of playing with my friends in the park beneath the buildings of "La Esquina de Tejas."




The following link will take you to a picture of the building where I grew up, which would be the one to the right of your screen. You can see it here


View Larger Map

Being Catholic in Cuba

When the Cuban Revolution took place in 1959, the lives of millions of Cubans were forever altered. Many reforms were implemented: seizing of private property, control of the press, one party government and religious persecution. Christmas wasn't a recognized holiday until 1998, after Pope John Paul II asked the communist, therefore godless state, to allow Cuban believers to freely celebrate their savior's birth day.

Like many Cubans, I grew up Catholic, which is of course thanks to the influence of the Spanish conquistadors. Once, I was asked to take part of a procession composed of children, where I would be playing the role of Joseph. My cousin, Yinet, was to play Mary. All we had to do was carry the ceramic, and very heavy, representation of baby Jesus to a make-shift manger that was set up near the altar. Then we would stand there for a couple of minutes, until the priest would give us a signal to carry on. I was too worried about not dropping baby Jesus, and too young, to notice something else going on.

On that same day, many leaders of a clandestine and peaceful opposition were congregated at the church. For centuries, and in many different locations around the world, churches have been a safe haven for people with differing opinions, but not in communist Cuba. In the middle of the ceremony, government officials entered the church and stood at the back. They hadn't come to see me act out my role of Joseph, but they were there to coerce the opposition leaders.

As soon as the procession was over, and the opposition leaders stepped outside the church, they were forcefully placed in police cars and driven away. None of them resisted, but they did shout "Freedom! Freedom!" Their crimes? Wanting to have free and pluralistic elections and being pro-life.

Cuba; Like You've Never Seen It Before

Cuba has always been a mystery to people who have never visited the beautiful island. Being born there, under the rule of Communism, I have many interesting stories to share with you all. Living and growing up there is like being torn between two worlds, first, there's the Communist dogma and propaganda, and second, there's what your parents secretly whisper at home. In the following weeks I will be sharing stories of my experiences growing up there, some sad, some funny, but all true.