Warning: This will be a stream of consciousness vent/rant, read at risk of me sounding insane

My father once told me that the communists in Cuba should ‘Let [him] see [his] island.’ He has never been to Cuba because his gusano mother made him promise to never go. My grandmother was the heiress to a plantation that likely had indentured servants by the way she describes the black workers on the farm and with how racist she was/is to them. They’ve done real good with the Joseph Goebbels book of accusations. Everything they’ve ever accused Cuba of is so hilariously American it’s both comedic and depressing (“[in Cuba] There’s only healthcare for the rich!”). My dad has never stepped foot on the island. He’s only ever heard stories from people, naturally those he was surrounded with from his youth are Miami fuckers to the core. I hope when the US declares war on Cuba, that city gets flattened by drones from Havana.

I wish I was more in touch with my heritage. I wish I was fluent in Spanish, although I can understand it. I wish I had bothered to interface with my heritage instead of allowing myself to be embarrassed about speaking Spanish poorly and retreating from it, being Americanized slowly. I blame the very proud and even elitist culture around learning Spanish that some people have, but it was also my fault from it and now my Spanish sounding a little ‘gringo’ is a bit of an insecurity of mine, although I think I actually sound fine. As I’ve gotten older, and I’ve discovered the true nature of Capitalism and Communism, I’ve reviled my youth even more. I am ashamed of my family, I am disappointed I was never able to celebrate Fidel while he was alive. Granted, he doesn’t need me to celebrate him, but it would have been amazing to have him as a symbol to look up to in my youth. Because of that, I’ve grown up just like the rest of my family, a coward. A boy standing still in his life never willing to actually sieze that moment, but willing to put in just enough efforts to feed the daily addictions of food, lazing about, and endless screentime.

I feel that when I was a liberal I did damage to the image of communist leaders in the eyes of people from my past that I will never be able to repair. And now I wish I could change that.

I’ve found myself recently in tears over the song Que Linda Es Cuba by Carlos Puebla and covered by Bandiera Rossa. It’s such a beautiful tribute to Cuba. It gets me so misty eyed to sing along and imagine the island and the strength of its people and freedom. I don’t know if I can ever consider myself truly Cuban, as I was not born on the island and did not assimilate into the culture as much as I could’ve, something I kick myself for doing now. Additionally, my family are fairly pale-skinned, and in America the color on your skin allows you to be subsumed and adopted into an empire of whiteness, the dream of any gusano. Granted, it’s a second class whiteness, the gusano in Miami will be brown again once it benefits the US. Regardless, this promised anglo-saxon land my family has arrived to perfectly. We have essentially become all-American-white—complete with the rabid racism—save for the literal brown and black skinned memberes of my family. Its funny, because the moment it benefits us we are Cuban/Puerto Rican, but once it goes the other way, we’re whiter than milk.

My heart has begun to bleed so much for Cuba. I am filled with sadness and rage for what is happening to the people on the island. I am moved nearly to tears whenever I think about it, and I am progressively becoming more and more tired of inaction. Of keeping my head down. Of sticking my head in a book and keeping it pushing. Something’s gotta give at some point and I can’t grit my teeth any longer. Look at what they have done to mi patria! Look at how Cuba bleeds! God, I can’t stand it. I can’t stand being here. I can’t stand anything about here. Me and my fiancee are moving to China or Vietnam first chance we get, but I can’t help but feel that is again my cowardice showing. That I am running from this, from doing something yet again. I want to crawl out of my skin. I want to burst out of myself and retreat within myself all at the same time. I am lost and overwhelmed. I am tired and I am indecisive. One part of me wants to finish my schooling, keep my head down, and move away as soon as possible. Another part of me wants to grab that version of me by the head and scream at him. Wants to run away from everything and give my life to this. And another part is able to recognize that both ideas wouldn’t work for my life. I do not know which to listen to and it is exhausting. I feel as though I hate and love myself more every day—it’s as if as my heart grows larger I am incapable of having room in it for myself. I have found myself with a great love for every person I meet, and yet I cannot find it within myself to make something of all this. To work towards that great revolutionary moment in some small piece. And why don’t I do it? Because there are risks. Losing my housing, never finding a job, getting charged with a crime and never being able to flee the nation as a result. But of course there are risks, there’s always been risks. I’m supposed to be willing to lose it all, to throw it all away. Yet I can’t help but feel like I do have more to lose than my chains, and I know that is my deepest, most reviled personal failing.

Whatever happens, I will, by god I will commit something of myself to socialism in some way. Whether I have to pick up a rifle or a wrench, whether I publish that Marxist visual novel I’ve been writing, whether I build rockets to take Chinese astronauts to the moon or god knows what else. I don’t care. This is all that really matters about my life now. I hope that’s enough. That standing in whatever place life gives me some day is enough. “’Tis the final conflict, Let each stand in his place.”

And to my father, and all like him, who insist on seeing ‘their’ island that has been ruined by communists. It is not your island. It has long stopped being yours. One day America shall stop trying to make it yours.

“Oye, tú que dices que mi patria no es tan linda, Oye, tú que dices que lo nuestro no es tan bello, Yo te invito a que busques por el mundo, Otro cielo tan azul como mi cielo. Una luna tan brillante como aquella, Que se pierde la dulzura de la caña. Un Fidel que vibra en las montañas. ¡Un rubí, cinco franjas, y un estrella!”

¡Viva Fidel! ¡Viva la Revolución¡ ¡Viva el Marxismo-Leninismo! ¡Patria o Muerte, Venceremos! Y, por fin: ¡Viva Cuba Libre!🇨🇺🇨🇺🇨🇺🇨🇺

okay I’m done now