Just over a year ago, on August 14, 2015, I sat in the blazing sun outside the newly baptized United States Embassy in Havana applauding my friend, the poet Richard Blanco, for his stunning poem, “Matters of the Sea.” I knew every word he recited that day. Richard had asked me to translate his poem into Spanish, saying we’d go down in history together. The endless sea, those vast waters where Yemayá resides, seemed to embrace Richard as he spoke of it. The poem ended on an evocative note:
Yet we’ve all cupped seashells to our ears. Listen
again to the echo—the sea still telling us the end
to our doubts and fears is to gaze into the lucid blues
of our shared horizon, breathe together, heal together.
It was a moment of huge optimism. I am glad to have witnessed it.
For over two decades I’ve spoken about the need for bridges to and from Cuba. My anthology of personal essays, poetry, and art, Bridges to Cuba/Puentes a Cuba, which brought together voices from the island and the diaspora before that was a commonplace thing to do, has just been reissued in a twentieth-anniversary edition. It is heartening to observe the ambitious bridges being created by those who are one or two generations younger than me. Ties between Cubans on the island and the diaspora are now so close that it’s not always obvious from what “side” of the ocean a person hails. These new relationships continue to expand in ways that were unimaginable before the restoration of relations between Cuba and the United States.
I got a taste of the new fluidity of the border in Liz Cerejido’s project on “Dialogues in Cuban Art,” which brought together Cuban-American artists from Miami and Cuban artists living on the island. Liz shuttled the participants between Havana and Miami, so they could talk informally and get to know each other’s work. At the closing dialogue at the Pérez Art Museum, an additional set of successful Cuban artists who live both in Miami and Havana, with homes and galleries in both cities, were also invited. There were Cuban-American artists present in the audience who are fiercely critical of the Cuban government and made their voices heard, but the atmosphere still remained mellow, reflecting the new Miami, a globalized city where talk about Cuba has moved beyond the coffee window at the Versailles restaurant.
Another kind of bridge-building project is being carried out by the Cuba One Foundation, an organization founded and run by young Cuban-Americans who have come to feel connected to their Cuban roots and want to make it possible for other young Cuban-Americans (ages 22-35) who have never been to Cuba to go on an all-expense paid cultural heritage trip. Cuba One is explicitly modeled on “Birthright Israel,” which seeks to give young Jews an opportunity to travel to Israel to get to know Jewish culture and build emotional bonds between Jews in Israel and the diaspora. Cuba One receives numerous applications for the coveted ten spots per trip. Those chosen hobnob with artists, graphic designers, and cultural entrepreneurs in Cuba, dine at the hippest paladares in Havana, visit organic farms, and if they have family on the island, they often will meet them for the first time during the trip. By helping participants form a bond with Cuba and Cubans, the aim is to inspire them to “give back” to Cuba, supporting the betterment of life on the island.
Much as I admire projects supporting dialogue and reconciliation, I recognize that these bridges are for relatively privileged Cubans on both sides of the ocean, who have the talent and the resources to be able to move back and forth and enjoy the best that Cuba has to offer. Years ago, in the fall of 1994, when I held a conference at the University of Michigan with participants in the Bridges to Cuba anthology, we were aware that our bridges were taking place in the aftermath of the balsero crisis that led thousands of Cubans to take to the sea in flimsy rafts in hopes of reaching the coast of Florida. In much the same way today, as dialogues about Cuban art take place, and young Cuban-Americans find their roots on the island, there are Cuban migrants stranded in Central America who are desperate to make their way across the border before immigration laws change.
Even the most superficial traveler to Cuba will notice the social and economic disparities on the island, often edged with racial tensions.
The whitening of privilege is visible in the ritzier paladares, boutiques, nightclubs, casas particulares, and in the entire private enterprise sector that supports tourism. Vast numbers of Cubans on the island still depend on government salaries and libreta rations; they haven’t found a way to break into the privileged realm of fluid borders and romantic hopes for more bridges.
If only the reconciliation between Cubans was all that was needed to help Cuba address its looming conflicts. But Cuba is one of those rare places that everyone seems to want to claim. It doesn’t only belong to those for whom it is a native land or a heritage. It is a place that has come to belong to the world.
There was great excitement about President Obama’s visit in March. Afro-Cubans felt a strong sense of black pride that it was the first African-American president who had the courage to make peace with Cuba, even offering a nod to José Martí’s famous lines about forgiveness. But already as he was departing, Obama’s brief moment in Cuba seemed like a dream. People said, “Se fué la esperanza y queda la fe” (Hope left and Faith remains).
Following in the steps of this historic visit, Cuba became a hot destination for publicity stopovers by the Rolling Stones, Karl Lagerfeld and the Chanel models, and Madonna celebrating her 58th birthday. This parade of celebrities is so constant on the island it doesn’t faze Cubans. They shrug and say, “Cuba is in fashion. Who knows who’s coming next?” They realize all too well that photo-shoots aren’t going to change their lives.
A year after the Embassy ceremony, I feel as if my actions in Cuba are part of a complex reckoning. I see myself as complicit with the good and the bad that is unfolding in Cuba, the bridges and the growing inequalities.
On March 22nd, the day after Obama strolled through La Habana Vieja in the pouring rain, I took a stroll with an old friend through the same streets. The sun was out. At the Plaza de Armas, we stopped at El Templete to pay homage to a ceiba tree, which had replaced the old ceiba that had become sick and termite-ridden. The ceiba has a spiritual meaning for African-based religions in Cuba. Offerings are left at the foot of this tree, requesting luck and prosperity. The ceiba at El Templete has always had special significance for habaneros, and for cubanos generally. It is located at the site of the founding of the city of Havana. Every year, on November 16, the day when Havana was founded in its current site, people line up and wait hours to make a circle around the tree and offer their prayers. Over the centuries, different ceibas have been planted there. And as if destiny decreed it, the last ceiba in that location had been planted in the year 1959, when the new revolutionary social order began. Its decline, the foliage withered, the trunk deteriorated, had made many people sad. But a week before Obama arrived, as the government rushed to beautify as much of Havana as possible, the new ceiba was planted. A new era, a new ceiba.
I couldn’t get close to the ceiba. The gate was closed.
But I came as near as I could and quietly uttered a prayer.
A prayer for the city of my birth and the land that saw me born.
A prayer for my Cuban compatriots.
May we find the luck to make the right choices in the uncertain days awaiting us.
All photos by Ruth Behar, taken on August 14, 2015.