To change the world: my years in Cuba

Acknowledgments

Prologue: Some Reflections before I Begin

1. Scarsdale to Havana

A Politically Liberal, Somewhat Adventurous Family

Writing Was Everything to Me

A Cold War Mentality Characterized the National Psyche

With Gregory's Birth We Were Two

Death of One Era, Birth of Another

Mexico Seemed a Welcoming Venue

How to Express an Experience As Subjective As It Was Objective

We Aren't Writing about the Revolution; We Are the Revolution

Visiting Cuba Was a Statement

Justice Was a Logical Choice

I Decided to Stay On for Another Couple of Weeks

2. Transition

Doors Opened and Tens of Thousands of Cuban Children Burst Forth

I Sensed an Authentic and Growing Democracy

Fidel's Speeches Were Never Formulaic or Dull

Arnaldo Orfila Grabbed My Hand and Pulled

That Morning I Dressed Ana in a Tiny Pink One-Piece Cotton Suit

An Emptiness That Numbed Me to the Core

I Would Spend Nineteen Days in Prague

3. Settling In

The Door to Room 506 Stood Open

Our Bodies Remembered One Another, Ana's and Mine

A Socialist Process Was Flourishing in the U.S. Sphere of Influence

Patriotism Is Always Double-Edged

It Was Important That All Children Have Access to Education

Now It Was Time to Enjoy What Was Left of Our Family

Old Values Sometimes Clashed with Those the Revolution Was Working to Instill

Ximena Stood Her Ground

4. Food, Food, Food

Our First Taste of Revolutionary Bureaucracy

An Amazing Collection of Creative Recipes

Production and Consumption Ran an Unbroken Line from Field to Dinner Table

5. Ten Million Tons of Sugar and Eleven Fishermen

I Wanted a Second Opinion

Cuba Wanted Her Fisherman Back

The Ten-Million-Ton Goal Would Not Be Met

6. A Poetry Contest and a Beauty Pageant

A Phone Call from Casa

Another Phone Call from Casa

I Chose You Because I Knew You Would Hate It

Casa Was an Extraordinary Institution

Deeper and More Complex Layers of Deception

7. Women and Difference

I Asked to Remember

I'd Start My Workday Eager to Be of Service

A Project I Wanted to Pursue

I Wanted to Find Out What Life for Cuban Women Was Like

I Was an Incipient Feminist

Cuban Women Now

Piropos

Magin

The Important Thing Is That We Rectify Our Mistakes

8. Information and Consciousness

Lines Outside Bookstores Were Longer Than Lines to Buy Bread

Bad Press

Politics Is Never Separate from Culture

He Asked Me to Go to the Local Precinct

9. Changing Hearts, Minds, and Law

What Is Humanism?

I Am Excited about This Meeting

Big Changes

Referendum on the New Socialist Constitution

The Meat Problem

Up Against the Hard Wall of Convention

A Few of the Lenin Girls

10. "Poetry, Like Bread, Is for Everyone"

Potato Dirt under My Fingernails

That's Where the Poets Came In

Varadero Celebrated Its Ninetieth Anniversary

Promoting the Arts Has Been a Priority

Who's Going to Tell Me I Didn't Understand That Poem!

An Aspirin Big As the Sun

I Had a Lot of Poetry in Me As a Child

Their Male Co-Workers Served Them Lunch

We Are Brothers and Sisters of Africans, and for the Africans We Are Ready to Fight!

Luz Began to Speak about Life in the Concentration Camps

I Did Find and Develop a New Language

And Now for the Cultural Part

One of the Prisoners Would Pick Me Up at the House

11. El Quinquenio Gris

So Familiar, Yet So Eternally Other

Unnecessary and Sad

El Quinquenio Gris

Telephone Calls and Emails Began to Fly Back and Forth

Cuban Intellectuals and Artists Should Not Fear a Change in Cultural Policy

A Language Inhabited by All

Only Friendship and Poetry Can Erase Hatred and Resentments

Loss to the Whole When Some Voices Are Silenced

I Think of Martin Niemoller

12. The Sandinistas

Two, Three, Many Vietnams

I Remember a Childhood Indignation

The Dead Do Not Die Completely

A Catholic Priest Saying Mass for a Communist Poet

"Que Se Rinda Tu Madre!"

Poet in a Nation of Poets

A Poet's Voice

Can Someone Come Over to Use the Ditto?

To the Mother I Loved So Much

I Wanted to Retrace Jose Benito's Last Moments

Today We Feel More Like Equals

The Seeds of Decadence and Power Abuse

A Painful Period in My Life

13. A Question of Power

I Remember

This May Feel Like the Worst of Times

Visual Messages Now Circle the Globe in Seconds

Power in the Hands of People

It Was a Landscape That Inspired

Power Kept Its Own Vigil

The Ability to Manipulate through Coercion and Shame

Feminism Has Taught Us about Power

From Each According to Their Ability, to Each According to Their Need

Which of Socialism's Original Projects Have Survived?

A Tragic Waste

The Human Spirit Requires Freedom

Power As a Political Category

I Long to See Diverse Visions and Unique Talents

14. Epilogue

There Were Some Challenges

The United States Wasn't About to Permit Another Cuba in Latin America

The Shift in Temperature Paralleled My Emotional State

I Believe They Come Up with a Positive Tally

Still Alive, Still Moving and Changing

I Am a Hybrid

Imagination, Curiosity, and Revelation

Notes

Index