How A Young Child Witnessed Exile And Turned Pain Into Power: Ana Hebra Flaster's Story Part 2

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An Interview with Author of Property of the Revolution! This is part 2! 

A Cuban family escapes with 48 hours’ notice and rebuilds a life defined by work, honor and love, seen through the eyes of a six-year-old who learns to turn pain into power. We trace culture, politics, and identity across borders, and why telling the truth preserves dignity.

• culture clash between performance and belonging 
• abuela’s wisdom and loud, loving households 
• tía’s hidden diploma and the right to keep education 
• father’s honor, hard work and unexpected tenderness 
• political rifts, CDR pressure and family fights 
• racism, lost shifts and choosing dignity 
• shame to pride in language, food and music 
• citizenship, commitment and becoming American 
• speaking up at college against stereotypes 
• trauma resurfacing in motherhood and healing 
• returning to the old house and reclaiming memory 
• Cuba’s current crisis, exodus and silenced voices

Please get Ana's book, Property of the Revolution. It is a must-read. Visit anacubana.com — the audiobook is narrated by Ana.

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Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_00 (00:08):
Welcome back to Real Talk with Tina and Ann.
I am Ann.
Last week we began anunforgettable conversation with
Anna Hebrew Flaster, author,journalist, and storyteller.
Her family left Cuba and had 48hours to get out.
And they had to and they went tothe United States.

(00:30):
They were not safe.
They were scared for theirlives.
And they ended up on our shoresin the United States.
It's really an amazing story.
It's one that I think everybodyneeds to hear.
When I think of their story, Ithink of courage and bravery.
And it's a level of fear that Ithink most of us don't even

(00:51):
understand.
Last week we talked about thereasons that brought them and we
told some stories.
We we told some horrifyingstories in Cuba.
And part two, we pick up rightwhere we left off with her
mother and her sister's story instrength.
And we talk more about herabuela, and we learn more about

(01:14):
her dad, her actual tender dad.
It's really a great story.
We dive deeper into what itmeans to rebuild, to reclaim
your voice and to carry yourfamily's legacy forward.
This is a story that touched me.

(01:36):
I learned more about thehistorical aspect of it.
And I learned it from asix-year-old's perspective
because she was six when thishappened.
So let's return to their story.
Thank you for listening.
And this is part two.

SPEAKER_01 (01:53):
We arrived right around Christmas time and she
said asked us kids to translateRudolph the Red Nose Reindeer.
And we explained what it was.
And she said, So, so wait aminute, you mean so this this
reindeer has no friends becausehe's different, but then because
he can get them out of this jam,because he can do something that

(02:16):
they can't do, everybody loveshim.
And uh we're like, yep, that'smakes sense to us.
That's what we're seeing outthere in the world, in this new
world.
And she said, Caballeros,gentlemen, I think this country
is going to be all aboutperformance.
And I remember her saying that.
I wasn't sure what she meant.

(02:36):
Later on, I understood.
And in in a way, it's a veryaccurate distinction in the way
that those two the two culturesview the world.
You know, Americans, show mewhat you got, show me what you
can do.
Cuba, Cubans, Latinos are moreabout who who are you, what have
you done for your family?

(02:57):
Um, are you a decent person?
Interior emotions and dedicationto your family, I think.
So performance just wasn't atthe top of the value uh scale.
Like independence, beingindependent is so important here
in the United States, and it'sjust that wasn't valued in our
culture in the same way.

(03:19):
And in fact, when you werecalled Tueres muy independiente,
you're very independent.
That was a negative thing.

SPEAKER_00 (03:26):
Yeah, well, she was very wise um before her time.
And I think that uh she sawthings that I don't even think
that US born people saw.

SPEAKER_01 (03:35):
No, I uh I she just had that.
I used to think of that that itwas just because she was my
mother that I saw so manyamazing things in her
personality, and but now I knowthat she just was truly
exceptional in as a human beingand as and her her natural
intelligence and her interest indoing being a good human being,

(03:59):
speaking the truth and andtelling her truth.
I felt I feel very lucky to havehad her as my mom.
Yeah, she seemed like a reallygreat lady.

SPEAKER_00 (04:08):
And your Aunt Tia, she was very fascinating to me.
She was a very complex woman,and I liked her story a lot, how
she wanted to get her master'sdegree in math, but faced
expulsion when she refused tojoin the militia.
And she did have a degree,though.

(04:28):
And in your country, from what Iunderstand in Cuba, you weren't
allowed to take anything forgain.
So what did she do?
Because I love this.

SPEAKER_01 (04:37):
So she and this is another example that I think
Americans that resonate withAmericans, you know, we're
talking about performance,right?
Right, right.
She performed and she hadevidence of what she had earned,
her her diploma.
Yeah.
And what I'm getting fromAmerican readers is store her
story really gets to thembecause when we earn something,

(04:59):
that's ours.
And education really is one ofthose things that when you earn
it, no, nobody should be able totake it away from you.
And as with your home, as withprivate property, when you left,
you couldn't take anything ofvalue with you.
And a document like that wasvaluable, therefore it could not
go out.
So she decided she would risk itall.
And uh a neighbor who was aseamstress helped her tear it

(05:21):
into it, it was a PhD ineducation.
She wanted to teach in theUnited States, needed
documentation, she knew.
They they cut it into strips andcreated a full panel bra, and
that's how she snuck it out.
But my mother was vehementlyopposed to the plan.
Said they're gonna if they catchyou, you'll end up in jail,

(05:42):
you'll never be able to leave,don't do that.
My aunt was adamant.
And once my aunt decidedsomething that was not was gonna
get in her way.
And she made it, she she wasable to teach in the United
States because of that document,proving what she could do.
And she taught Spanish atNashville High School for 30
years.

SPEAKER_00 (06:03):
When she told, I think it was the superintendent,
her whoever she was across from,when she was trying to get the
teaching job and they wantedproof of her credentials, you
know, that she had gotten adiploma.
She's like that she had it, butthey were in pieces.
I mean, I laughed out loud.
I mean, it was just so funny toread her story because I mean,

(06:25):
she read, she learned Englishfrom a dictionary, you know?
And yeah, she and she talked herway into the job.
You were so surrounded by strongwomen, and all three of them
were very different.
And your mommy and your uh aunthad very different opinions on

(06:46):
things.
They they were it was a verydivisive environment, I would
say, in some ways.
So can can you talk about whatthe politic political
differences did to your familyand what it did to you as you
heard all these opinions aroundyou?
It must have been hard to sort.

SPEAKER_01 (07:05):
Yeah, uh, but it showed us that you could
disagree passionately and thenlove each other.
Okay.
That's great.
That's one's one thing I saw.
Yeah.
And you spoke your mind.
And in our house, as loud andcomplicated as it was, you
always knew what any anyone wasthinking, what anybody was

(07:26):
feeling.
It was there.
And with politics, I mean, in inCuba, my mother had been the the
one who had risked her life forthe revolution.
But after the revolution, myaunt became passionate about the
revolution and my uncle too.
And they took a lot longer tosee what was happening than my
mother.
And so the two of them wouldfight then too.

(07:47):
Um, my aunt wanted my mother toshe she was the lead volunteer
getter in the name in thebarrio.
And she was always pursuingpeople to volunteer them for
work after the revolutionbecause every barrio had a
defense committee for thedefense of the revolution, a
building with a a president, andthe president spied, you know,

(08:08):
it was a way of the c of therevolution keeping tabs on what
was happening in theneighborhood.
But one of the things that hadto happen was you had to
volunteer to clean the streets,um, do night watch duty.
And my aunt rounded people upfor that.
My mother wanted nothing to dowith it, and they would fight
even back then.
And then when they got here, oneof the struggles was that my
father didn't want us sendingmoney to family in Cuba.

(08:33):
Not his family, his family hadall come out, but my mother and
my aunt's family was stillthere.
He felt that sending money wasfirst of all, we didn't have any
money to send.
Second, it was going into thedictatorship's hands by sending
money back.
And when when my aunt andgrandmother were able to go back
for the first time during thepresident the Carter presidency,

(08:56):
my father was vehemently opposedbecause they were they were
paying the Cuban government togo back.
And that was right into thedictatorship's hands and
empowering the dictatorship.
My mother had to runinterference between my aunt and
my mu grandmother and my fatherall day, every day until they
left and then they came back andthings calmed down.

(09:17):
But those are examples of justour family it wasn't a picnic in
that house.
I mean, it's not like everybodywas of the same mind.
You had a lot of strongopinions, um, lots of arguing.
My parents were never even thatafter my grandmother died, after
my aunt and uncle moved into mycousin's home, my parents lived

(09:38):
alone for the first time as amarried couple.
They had been married 45 years,they had never lived alone
together.
Oh my um, and that's in towardthe end of the book.
And I I do describe how it wasthey were acting like newlyweds.

SPEAKER_02 (09:53):
Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 (09:54):
They've been together for 45 years, but with
all those other people in thesame house.
And that's a that's kind ofthing like an American couple,
they're not gonna put up withthat.
Right.
Um that's that's a lot of lossof privacy and dependence, all
those things that don't matterin the same way in in other
cultures.

SPEAKER_00 (10:13):
Right.
And it was really interesting.
There were a lot of things aboutyour dad that I really liked,
and hard work was one.
And he really that meant so muchto him.
He would work 16-hour days andthen get up and do it again the
next day.
And your mom, too.
I mean, she became a manager ofthe CBS that you talked about in
New England, and your dad saidthat um hard work doesn't kill

(10:36):
you, but bitterness grows whenyou see other families together,
walking together, playing.
And it seemed to be that therewas such a trade for your dad
of, you know, this providing andmaking it in the United States.
Uh, financially, the trade was,you know, giving up the time
with the family.
I mean, it just seemed like itwas so hard for him.

(10:58):
Did it really add to who he was?
Yeah.
Uh, you know, he macho guy,right?

SPEAKER_01 (11:05):
So strong jock.
He played baseball in the UnitedStates professionally.
That was what he could do forhis family.
He wasn't educated.
He'd only gone to, I think,sixth grade.
He wasn't educated, but he couldwork as a soft, and he did.
You know, he he made thatcomment to me years later when
we were talking about what itwas like to work that hard every

(11:25):
day that hard, just sleeping inorder to go back to work.
But he was so happy, he said, tobe able to work, to make life
better for us, which he couldn'tdo in Cuba.
Right.
Right.
There was t there were tangibleresults for his efforts.
So he was seeing us in in in newclothes.
He was, you know, we were out ofSalvation Army clothes.

(11:47):
Now we now we could buy clothes.
Um, he was being able to, youknow, we could have cookies
every now and then.
Uh we could have a Coke in thehouse every now and then.
And those things really matteredto him to be able to provide.
It's that's freedom too.

SPEAKER_00 (12:03):
And your dad was also, he had a gentle side to
him, who not only provided, buthe protected his family and he
supported the strong women inhis life, which I thought that
was really an amazing part ofwho he was and allowed them to
be who they were.
You know, your mom, like youmentioned earlier, and people
just have to read this part ofthe story because it's just so I

(12:26):
just pictured your mom, youknow, just leaving the house
and, you know, like she was justso strong, and she went up to
that microphone and she saidwhat she had to say.
And then she gets back into thehouse and your dad just says,
you know, only you could insulta hundred people and get them to
applaud.
You know, I mean your dad's sotrue.

(12:46):
It that was so cool that hewouldn't have done that, but he
respected and that she wanted todo it and that um he supported
her and he was so reserved.
And he even built an aviary forall of his canaries.
I mean, what the heck?
I mean, he was just uh he hadsuch a tenderness to him.

(13:07):
Uh, what was it like to see thatin your dad and in a man?

SPEAKER_01 (13:10):
Uh first, thank you for for getting what I was
laying down there, you know, forseeing him the way that I saw
him.
And, you know, this is what Iwant readers to feel is that
love and that that appreciationfor who these people were as
human beings and and sharingthese people with my with my

(13:30):
readers.
I want them to have toexperience these personalities.
Poppy was so confusing becausehe was so hard and tough and
macho.
And then you'd see him in thebasement with this little bird
in his in his gnarled hands.
And I I I describe how one day,you know, I saw him carrying

(13:51):
this bird that had died.
I could see he he was coming totears and and he stroked the
bird and the feathers, and hesaid, Don't you see this this
was a very innocent creature andand he was depending on me and
and I was taking care of him.
And that summed up how he livedhis life.
You know, we were depending onhim, and he was going to take

(14:14):
care of us, and he was if thatmeant that he couldn't see us
and be with us as much as hewanted to, that's what he was
going to do.
Um, but he he he loved animalsand birds in particular, and
everybody would bring in birds,you know.
The kid, you know, kids findbirds everywhere everywhere out
of something that fell out ofits nest, and he would help
birds recuperate in our house.

(14:35):
There was always some birdrecuperating in our house.

SPEAKER_00 (14:40):
That's just so precious.

SPEAKER_01 (14:42):
Yeah, and that's so yeah, he was this really tough
guy, and and I loved that Icould see that that he could
show me that vulnerability, andhe he he would show that
vulnerability to anybody, Ithink, if they were willing to
look for it.

SPEAKER_00 (14:57):
Well, you said, you know, you mentioned how he was a
professional baseball player andhe did play in the US too, and
he always proved himself withbrawn and determination.
And I love the story that youshared about him getting into a
fight at work and your momreminding him that fists don't
work in America, but hisresponse was, I can get another
job, but I can't buy honor.

(15:19):
And to me, that was just sopowerful.
Do you think that that was whatdrove your dad honor?

SPEAKER_01 (15:26):
Yes, yes, and it's it's a perfect example of he
never got it, by the way, Anne.
He never got that that machothing doesn't work here, right
up until the very end of hislife.
He lived to be 91.
But that was his in the barrio,you proved yourself with your
fists.
And that's what he did when aracist coworker insulted us to

(15:49):
his face and and you know,called called our family all
kinds of things, and he couldn'ttake it.
And he lost this very valuableshift that he had had because of
that altercation, becausemanagement sided with the
American worker.
But uh, but if you remember inthat scene, the American worker
in the hearing says that he wasthe one who started the fight.

(16:12):
And he, when my father wastelling me the story, he said, I
gave him a lot of credit forsaying that because he could
have lied and he didn't.
And that's the kind of thingthat I saw these viejos doing
all the time was the seeing thehumanity and the goodness, even
in a hard situation like that,which I I find helps you get

(16:34):
through life because it's a wayof staying connected to people.
You know that even bad peoplehave that potential within them.
And he he that was a moment oftotal grace.
Yeah, he never really acceptedmy mother's interpretation and
and advice about holding back onyour physical reaction.

(16:54):
Uh, there were other fights.
He had other fights.
It was a problem.
It was a problem for my mother.
My mother had to runinterference there.
Poppy just thought that he couldfix things.
I'll tell you a story.
He uh my nephew, my sister'sson, was 13.
He was working at a grocerystore.
He complained to my father thathe wasn't getting enough hours
at the grocery store.
And my father went to thegrocery store and asked to speak

(17:16):
to the manager and said, youknow, uh, why why you know give
Nick more hours?
And the manager said, Oh, I Idon't I didn't know that Nick
needed more hours.
I'm happy to give Nick morehours.
So Poppy went home and he calledmy sister, so proud of himself
because he had solved Nicholas'sproblem.
And my sister was irate.
Poppy, don't you understand?

(17:37):
You you you're you're meddlingin his issues, and and then he
called me.
They both called me that day,mad at each other.
And um, I I explained to myfather, Poppy, in the United
States, you don't do thatbecause that's Nicholas's
independence.
He's learning and he's supposedto fix his own problems.
And Poppy said, Stupid, I'm I'mhis grandfather.

(18:00):
I can if I can help, why am Inot?
Why can't I help?
Yeah.
So it's a way that was when hewas probably 80.
No, no, sorry, sorry, close to90.

SPEAKER_00 (18:09):
Yeah.
Well, his protection for hisfamily resonated in every part
of who he absolutely was.
And he also believed in that forother people, you know.
I mean, even that person that hewalked off the ball field
because in protest for thatperson who was being had racial
and in protest, you know, he uhhe really stood up for what he

(18:29):
believed in.
Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 (18:31):
Uh and you know, you're right, as different as
they were, all of them had thatin common.
The dis the incident you'redescribing happened in the 50s
when my father was playing forthe farm leagues in in the
south, and Felipe Alu, whobecame a very famous ball
player, was Papi was pitching toFelipe on the other team.

(18:53):
And Felipe, as he approached theplate, was pelted with rotten
tomatoes and jeers.
He was black, a black Dominican,and it was from his own team.
And my father couldn't handlethat.
And my father complained, andthe manager, my father said, I
this is wrong.
I'm not gonna pitch if this iswhat pitch you're done on the

(19:14):
team.
And Poppy said, Okay, I'm done.

SPEAKER_00 (19:17):
That's really something there were there were
so many stories like that thatwere woven throughout the book.
I wanted to touch on somethingthat really is an ugly truth in
our country, and it could havehappened in the 70s and it can
happen in 2025.
But, you know, your mom hadlegitimately earned her way to
into that job at CPS, and a manyelled at her that his wife had

(19:38):
applied for the job and and yourmom stole it from her.
That's what he was just saying,and you stole it from her.
So, you know, she didn't let itstop her, and of course, she
ended up getting a managerposition and the biggest CBS in
that area.
But, you know, I would love tohear what has life been like for
you with that kind of hate, andyou've experienced some of it

(20:01):
yourself.

SPEAKER_01 (20:01):
Yeah, uh, not as much as my my um mother, father,
the elders, because one, theyalways had their accent.
Two, uh, my father was adark-skinned Cuban.
So, and he worked with uh oftenless educated people who weren't
gonna hide their their bigotry,you know, or they weren't gonna

(20:25):
they didn't have to hideanything.
So for me, um, it snuck up on meoften, you know.
I so people look at me now and Iappear completely American.
I I could I could just beItalian American or whatever,
but when I was growing up, I wasoutside all the time.
I was very dark.
I was uh often with my father,and so and and my name sounded

(20:45):
weird to people and I had anaccent at the beginning.
And so people we encounteredsituations where people reminded
us.
We we I would think that I wastotally American, and then
somebody would remind me thatI'm not like them.
Um I had I once made um what wasit?
It was it was all state corpse,and a friend's mother took me

(21:08):
aside and said, You only gotthat because you're a minority.
And uh there were things like mybrother was kicked out of
somebody's pool once.
Nobody else got kicked out.
And things like that wouldhappen.
Things like that would happen.
And I remembered just as mymother, when that thing happened
to her that day, when that guycalled her a spick in front of

(21:29):
everybody at the store, she camehome and she said what happened
to her little family thatgathered around her and
supported her.
And I I I know that we had thatat home, and that's the beauty
of that immigrant familystructure is generally you can
come home and compare notes andshore each other up.

(21:49):
I I pity the poor immigrant,refugee, migrant, whatever who's
alone.

SPEAKER_00 (21:54):
That makes a lot of sense.
Um, and you know, I wanted totell this, yeah, you tell this
great story about being in thirdgrade at Christmas Eve and your
family was all eating together,and it actually was making me
laugh while I was reading this.
You said everything about thatmoment screamed that you were
different.
That part what really hurt me toread that part, that you weren't

(22:19):
from here.
And there weren't many Latinosin New Hampshire, and no, your
house was a whirlwind ofculture.
I mean, let's, you know, it itwas.
And at some point, you even saidthat you even felt ashamed of
your heritage.
Can you talk about what led youto that feeling?

SPEAKER_01 (22:38):
I wanted to be like everybody else.
I wanted, I wanted physically tobe whiter, to have little
freckles on my nose, like all mymy friends who I thought were
just so beautiful.
I wanted everywhere we went, wewent in a huge crowd.
We were always to like together.
There were too many of us whenwe went somewhere out somewhere.

(22:58):
We were speaking Spanish andpeople would look and some
people would look and say thingsthat weren't nice.
And so, of course, I didn't wantthat.
I wanted to be like everybodyelse.
I think that there's a a stagein your life when when you are
embarrassed by those differencesis of course later on they
became badges of honor for me,that I could have two cultures,

(23:20):
that I could have speak twolanguages.
You know, my the vehicles werefunny about that.
If they knew that you wereembarrassed, they would speak
more loudly.
They wanted you to deal with it.
Okay.
And my mother would my mother,if there's a scene in the in
Property of the Revolution wheremy mother is blaring her her
Cuban albums, and the windowsare open, and I'm mortified, and

(23:43):
I'm going around closing them sothat people won't hear the
strange music coming from ourhouse.
And she goes around and opensthem all and says, Don't tell me
you're ashamed of this.
And as she's as she's sayingthat, she's, you know, of course
I couldn't tell her that.
She knew that I was ashamed ofit.
That's why I was all thewindows.
And it was only much later thatI I realized that we had

(24:05):
something in that house that wasso different, yes, but it was so
different that it was attractinga lot of people.
Our house was full ofamericanitos all the time.
They were they were curiousabout what was going on and the
food that we were eating and themusic and how you know how many
mothers are there in this house.

SPEAKER_00 (24:21):
Yeah, they wanted to know if you always had a party
at your house, but you werelike, No, it's just four Cubans
talking.
I mean, I just I laughed.

SPEAKER_01 (24:29):
That you know what?
That should have been the thethe um title of that chapter,
four Cubans Talking, becauseeverybody would say, I can't
tell you how many times Ianswered the phone in those days
we had the landline.
Is is there a party at yourhouse?
Well, just the four VMs sittingaround the table talking in
their normal tone, but they alltalked at the same time.
So it sounded like there wereeight people or 12 people.

SPEAKER_00 (24:49):
Well, I grew up in an Italian family, so I I
relate, nobody ever just talked.
They would yell.

SPEAKER_01 (24:57):
Yes.
Yeah.
I wonder, you know, I've oftenthought, I wonder if there's
deafness in our our culture orsomething, and that's why we all
speak so loudly, because we do.
Oh my gosh, it's just a culturalthing.

SPEAKER_00 (25:09):
It is a cultural thing, because I know because of
my Italian elders, I guess.
I mean, you went into I went tomy 90th um aunt's birthday, and
uh it everybody, there were somany people, and they were all
yelling at each other, butnobody was mad.
They were no.
So don't be afraid.
Yeah.

(25:29):
Oh my gosh.
Now I do want to uh you became aU.S.
citizen five years after youarrived in this country.
What did it mean to your family?

SPEAKER_01 (25:39):
You know, Cubans had at the time, because the
American administrationrecognized that Cuba's people
who were leaving were reallyfleeing a political disaster and
and oppression, politicaloppression.
Um, and so they had a what wascalled the Cuban Adjustment Act,
and it allowed you to a fasterway to citizenship and still

(26:01):
exists today, actually.
Um, and my aunt was on thatschedule.
So there are mo there aremilestones and things you have
to do during that uh process.
And she made sure that all of uswere doing, you know, all of the
paperwork was in place.
The day that we could apply forcitizenship, we all applied.

(26:22):
And um what it meant was that Imean, my my mother and my aunt,
my father less so maybe, myuncle maybe less so.
When they came, unlike someexiles, they said, if we're
coming, we're coming forever.
We're we're not going back.
We're going to become Americans,and that means we're committed.

(26:45):
And that was part of theircommitment to becoming America.
Americans.
That didn't mean that theyaccepted and loved every part of
America, every every value inAmerica, but they held on to
what they loved about theirculture and and appreciated and
loved and were so patriotic.
No, I don't know if youremember, I think this is still

(27:06):
in was still in the book becauseI had to I had to the publisher,
you know, we were trying to cutback things in the book in order
to have a slim memoir.
And there was a scene the daythat we were finally allowed to
go and and and we had a courthearing, the whole family was
there.
They had dressed my in our bestclothes.
My brother was in a suit.

(27:27):
So imagine a an eight-year-oldkid in a suit.
He was miserable, and he heyelled out, I don't want to be
an American, I don't want to behere, you know, and my because
he was in a suit and my auntgrogged him gagged him and said,
You sit still, you will be anAmerican an American soon,

(27:48):
whether you like it or not.

SPEAKER_00 (27:51):
Oh my goodness.
No, I don't think that's in thebook, but that's really funny.
Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (27:56):
It's the same thing.
Actually, when we were in theairport being interrogated on
the way out of Cuba, and uh,because they made it really hard
for you and you had to sleepthere, he was screaming, I want
to go home.
I want I don't want to leave, Iwant to go home, I want my
house.
And my mother and father werepetrified that they were going
to use that as an excuse becausethey would use whatever excuse

(28:17):
they felt like using to keeppeople.

SPEAKER_00 (28:19):
I want to touch on some other things that were
going on in Cuba at that time.
Um, you lived your, you know, itwas a history lesson for me.
This was really a historylesson.
And in a different way, becauseI knew a lot of it, but you
know, reading it from yourperspective and what was going
on with hiding under tables andliving through the Cuban Missile

(28:41):
Crisis and fighter jets overheadand your father realizing that
Cuba had become the center ofglobal nuclear standoff, you
talk about neighbors turning onone another, civil rights
unrest.
You talk about starvation andrationing books, all of that
made your parents veryprotective over you and the

(29:01):
things that changed you.
And then you moved, and then italso, you know, they became
protective over your heritage.
And as you aged and reached thepoint of independence, dating
college, it was such a hugeadjustment for both of your
parents and you.
And your dad especially heldtight to tradition.
A girl doesn't date like that,you know?

(29:23):
And there wasn't even a word forboyfriend, you say.
And I I mean, I laughed at that,but it showed how much he cared.
But I can imagine it made thingstricky.
What was it like trying tobalance your desire your desire
for independence with their moretraditional expectations?

SPEAKER_01 (29:41):
It was a daily battle front, a daily daily
battle, a daily um pushingagainst the the barriers that
they wanted to keep in place.
Although, when it came toeducation, as you know, my my my
aunt, my grandmother, my Motherwere all teachers.

(30:02):
And they they understood that Iwanted to leave for college.
And my father didn't.
So they became a united frontagainst my father.
And that's how I was able to goto Smith College because that
was two hours away.
My father was like, I how canschool when you're not even
married?
My unmarried daughter leave myhouse for months at a time.

(30:23):
And my grandmother, my mother,and my aunt worked on him,
worked on him until he finallyagreed.
But it was all the time.
It was, you know, it was, itcame down even for um
sleepovers, they couldn'tunderstand.
Why would Americans send theirchildren to sleep at other
people's houses?
What was that all?
Why was that was why would Ameran American send their little

(30:47):
five-year-old girl sleep at ahouse with who knows how many
older brothers and brothers andcousins?
And do we even know thosepeople?
They would do that maybe to fora relative.
Right.
Things like that that just don'tadd up.
And then you get you you end upbeing the interpreter of
cultures, you know.
Right.

(31:07):
So I'd have to interpret for myboyfriend what it would mean if
he did this or that at home whenhe came to pick me up, and and
why he had to, you know, abideby whatever the expectations
were.
Yeah.
And why I had to have to talk tomy father about how this
boyfriend was behaving.
And so always interpreting,always interpreting and hot in

(31:28):
the middle.

SPEAKER_00 (31:28):
Well, speaking of having a voice, I mean, you were
starting to find your voice as ayoung adult, you know, and you
went to Smith College.
You worked incredibly hard toget there.
And you were in a class wherethey were misrepresenting women
and everything, basically, thathappened in Cuba.
And the professor actually saidthat women only had two jobs,

(31:51):
seamstresses or being aseamstress or a prostitute.
And of course, you know, yourmom and your aunt were neither
of those.
So you know that it wasn't, youknew that it wasn't true.
You kept trying to correct.
And he didn't want to have theconversation in front of the
other students, but was willingto talk about it in his office.

(32:12):
But this was a higher educationinstitution that bragged about
critical thinking that wouldn'tlet you speak.
Even in even the head of thedepartment dismissed you.
What was that like for you asyou were just really starting to
find your voice out there?

SPEAKER_01 (32:27):
Well, I felt like I had lost that little battle.
I felt like I was really toughto go in and make my points.
And as you know, uh he said, Iwas basically trying to get
attention on the professor.
It was a different person, thechair was a different person
than the professor who had madethose statements.
And I was trying to get hisattention on that and and to

(32:49):
correct the professor and getthe professor to say these
things more carefully, moreaccurately.
And he basically said, um, youknow, you shouldn't worry about
Smithy's being corrupted in a48-minute lecture.
They've lived 21 years ofprivilege, they can handle this.
And um, I I knew that I wasn'tgoing to get anywhere and I

(33:11):
left.
And I felt, well, I got my buttkicked, you know.
I I didn't do what I wanted todo.
I didn't convey my my truth wellenough.
And then I realized years laterthat that they were just and I
still run into this where thereare people who don't want to
see, hear, think about thatother story about Cuba, you

(33:35):
know, that that they theybelieve that the revolution of
freed oppressed people, thatthis is a Marxist revolution,
that was a great thing for Cuba.
And and and if I tell my versionof Cuba before the revolution,
and they don't want to know it.
They don't want to know it.
So then I realized I hadn'treally lost.

(33:57):
I had done what I needed to do.
Yeah.
And it it was an unwinnablething, but I had at least made
him listen and said, that'swrong.
The least we can do is say thatthat's wrong.
That's not true.
And that by the way, there wereall other facts or other points
in that lecture that weretotally off the mark, totally
inaccurate, and perpetuating theversion of their truth that they

(34:22):
wanted to and and and all thesesmithies were sitting there
writing down everything.

SPEAKER_00 (34:26):
And I knew that that they were being fed a an
incomplete story.
Yeah, it must have been so hardfor people to watch people
around you taking notes andwriting things down of this man
that was saying things that wereso untrue about your own
culture, and you weren't evenable to speak about what really
happened.
I mean, you did live through it,you knew what happened.

SPEAKER_01 (34:48):
I knew there were women, there were lots of
entrepreneurial women in ourbarrio.
There were women who had littlebusinesses.
There was a woman who had alittle um, she made bags, just
um paper bags.
And she had her whole familyworking for her.
And there there were other womenin the neighborhood.
There was a towel factorynearby, and they worked at the
towel factory.

(35:09):
There were women who worked atthe cannery where my father
worked.
There were teachers, there wereprofessors, female professors,
there were female uh doctors.
So don't tell me and don't tellthis entire group of students
that women could be seamstressesor prostitutes and think that
that that is acceptable.

(35:31):
Right.
That's so belittling of who thewomen were.
Yeah, I wasn't I I wasn't gonnasit through that and and I I was
just irate about that.

SPEAKER_00 (35:41):
Did you go back to his class?

SPEAKER_01 (35:43):
Well, for I wasn't in that that professor's class.
The reason I got invited to thatthat that I went to that class
is because this is my senioryear.
Friends of mine had were in theclass and had already listened
to this professor's I guess Imissed that class.
Yeah, and she and they said twofriends, they said, come to the
lecture.

(36:04):
You're not gonna believe,because they had heard my
stories.
They're not gonna believe the ofCuba that they're that we're
getting.

SPEAKER_00 (36:11):
And your brother had a very similar experience in
school where your brother had auh teacher who was doing a
lesson on racial discrimination,actually pointed at him and
another Latino student and usedracial slurs, which we will
never say on this show, and thentold them to just lighten up,

(36:32):
you know, and but your mom, talkabout Mama Bear.
I mean, forgot about that one.
She went straight to theprincipal's office, took the day
from work, you know, went thereand demanded that the teacher
apologize in front of the entireclass.
And he did the moment that yourmom stood up, not just for your

(36:52):
son, his son, uh, not just forher son, but for every kid who's
ever been made to feel small orunseen, was such a defining
example of courage and pride.
I thought that that was reallysomething.
And then, you know, I saw thatsame strength in you.

(37:12):
You were a tennis player whoonce cut your hand before a
really big match.
And instead of sitting out, afriend told you to use that pain
to win, and you did.
I mean, you wrote all along, I'dbeen using the pain of being
different, of being the outsiderto fuel my determination to
prove myself.

(37:33):
Can you talk about that?
How you learned to turn paininto power and how that connects
to the courage that you saw inyour mom?

SPEAKER_01 (37:40):
Yeah, I I we were rounded with these examples of
courage every day, even thoughwe didn't couldn't have
articulated that.
And so, what was the couragethey were showing?
They were showing a courage ofbeing foreigners and just
forging forward, making a newlife, and it was never easy for

(38:01):
them.
And so when I would counterdifficulties, I dug into what I
felt was part of my soul, myheritage, my blood, my flesh and
blood.
I mean, I was seeing that everyday.
It was impossible not to beinspired by that.
And that day, that example wasjust one that really stuck out

(38:23):
because if you remember, wherewe were playing was a very
wealthy town, or to me, it was avery wealthy, fancy town.
And I always thought of myselfas very working class.
And and I I want a while Iwanted to be part of that
wealthy American world and findmy way into whatever I saw as
this middle class Americanworld.

(38:46):
And that was part of the win tosay that I could be this girl
who goes to the tennis club allwinter long and is in perfectly
white, you know, tennis outfitsand and I can do it.
Yeah, the blue the racket wasfull of blood.
My my skirt was full of blood.

SPEAKER_00 (39:06):
But but he didn't tell you to just he didn't tell
you to just, you know, wrap itup and go sit down on the bench
and you know, it was get backout there and go through the
pain.
I I thought that that wasperfect.

SPEAKER_01 (39:19):
Yeah, he he he was a hockey player and that was what
he did.
And so he Yeah.
And you have to do that in life,right?
You have to it has it's gonnahurt, but we just keep going,
going, we're gonna, we're gonnalick our wounds and we're gonna,
you know, recover.
But sometimes you have to get inthere and fight.

SPEAKER_00 (39:36):
I wanted to touch on a story that I don't I can't
even tell you what it did to mewhen I read about how there was
a woman.
Your mom was in the food line orsomething, and there was a woman
that had thrown lentils on theground that she had been given
because they were full of worms,and your mom was just picking
them up and she boiled the bugsand the worms out to serve your

(39:59):
family.
And it just said so much to meabout the hunger that your
family must have endured.
And I wondered if that didanything to you emotionally.

SPEAKER_01 (40:13):
When that happened, I was too young.
I didn't have a memory of that.
I did I did have memories of umstanding in line and or sitting
at the curb with all these womenand children, right?
Those are things that were newafter the revolution.
Nobody stood in line before therevolution.
Nobody had a a ration book umbefore the revolution.

(40:34):
Um so all of that was new.
And I didn't experience hunger.
I don't remember hunger thatway.
Okay.
I never I know when we c came tothe United States, we were
hungry too.
And we well, hungry for nothungry the because we had no
food, but we couldn't eat justanything.

(40:55):
So my there's a scene where mymy cousin and I are making a
game out of eating bread withsugar on it after dinner because
we we were still hungry, and weplayed he played so see how many
bites, the most number of bitesyou could take out of that
little piece of bread to make itlast.
That was our competition.

(41:15):
We each had a piece.
In Cuba, my parents enduredhunger, and I know that my
brother endured hunger becausethere's a scene at the beach
where his binky was all chewedup because they would put the
binky in his mouth to keep himfrom crying because he was
hungry.
Right and they didn't haveanything to eat, so he would

(41:35):
chew on the binky, and and theonly way and then when they
would feed him, if they tookwhen they took the spoon out, he
would start screaming againbecause he was so hungry.
So they'd stick the the binkyback in.
So there were plenty of signsand plenty of ways where not
having material needs affectedus later on.

(41:59):
But you know, you didn't wasteanything, you appreciated
everything, and you uh you yousavored the treats and you you s
you savored the the fruits ofthe labor of your elders that
were giving you these thesematerial benefits.
And you know, there's a lotpeople say, Oh, who cares, you
know, whether a person's gettingcook a kid's getting cookies or

(42:22):
well, you know, that's freedomtoo, right?
To be able to work for yourfamily and and be able to take
them for an ice cream and earnenough that you can buy your
family an ice cream and not betold you can't earn any more
than this.
This is this is what you get.
You can't work any harder, youcan't earn any more.

(42:42):
Everybody's gonna be the same.

SPEAKER_00 (42:44):
And you took um I'm sure you took what you learned
from your childhood witheverything, and now you you end
up getting married to Andy.
Uh and Andy was not probablywhat your parents expected for
you to marry, but uh they reallyembraced him and your abuela

(43:06):
too.
I mean, I just thought that thatwas such a beautiful part of
this story that they how muchthat they accepted him.
And your abuela even changed herroom for you.
Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_01 (43:20):
So Andy's Jewish.
Yeah.
And we were raised Catholic.
And uh when Andy would come tovisit, uh, my he would stay in
my grandmother's room, and mygrandmother would sleep in my
room with me.
And she had crucifixes on herwall and palm fronds from the
previous Tom Sunday, and apicture of a bleeding heart, you

(43:43):
know, very Catholic images.
And and Andy would sleep inthere.
And one day she said, You know,why why aren't you guys getting
married?
You've been dating long enough.
And I explained, you know, hehas a different point of view on
religion.
We're trying to figure that out.
You know, for example, Jewsdon't really feel comfortable
with a cross.
When we see a cross, we're verycomfortable.

(44:04):
We feel protected and soothed.
That's not what Jews feel whenthey see a cross, because it's a
symbol of a group thatpersecuted them.
So the next time Andy came, hehe we met at breakfast the next
morning and he said, Anna, yourgrandmother's room, there's no
crucifix.
The picture of hippie Jesus isgone, the the bleeding heart

(44:26):
thing with the thorns in it,everything's gone.
And I realized what she haddone.
And when I asked her, she said,I Chica, you know, I I don't
want him to feel uncomfortable.
I'm gonna put all of that stuffback, but I don't want him to
feel uncomfortable.
And I realized that he had beenthis is a woman who read the her
Bible, the Bible was open everyday in in the little dining area

(44:49):
that we had.
And she read, she was veryspiritual, very religious.
But somehow her Catholicdaughter marrying a Jewish guy
in this foreign land wherenothing made sense to her.
That was just one more thingthat didn't make sense.
But she was gonna work with it,she was gonna roll with it.

SPEAKER_00 (45:05):
I think that that's awesome.
That is so awesome that she wasable to do that.
She was really something, yourobuila.
Yeah, she really, she reallydid.
She she always had a specialplace for Andy, that's for sure.
I want to move into somethingthat when you became a mother,
life suddenly grew quiet foryou.
And you'd been raised in a worldfilled with sound, family

(45:29):
voices, your boila, your mommy,and your tia.
And now there was stillness, andsometimes, you know, that quiet
can feel peaceful, but it canalso echo with memories that we
haven't yet faced.
And you've shared that when yourdaughter reached the same age
that you did when you when thetrauma began, depression

(45:51):
surfaced and some of thattrauma, I think, really started
coming up.
What did that season teach youabout how the past continues to
live within us?

SPEAKER_01 (46:00):
Well, there are two aspects to that answer because
when I was first mar when Ifirst became a mother, the past
came calling for me when I sawthat my household had no
resemblance to what I knew to bea household.
It was a mother, a father, and ababy.
What did I know?
I mean, I needed all these womenwith me.

(46:22):
So the past was saying, this iswhat I was.
Now this is what you are.
What are you gonna do aboutthat?
How are you gonna, you know, Ithought, I thought everything
was fine.
Turns out it wasn't fine becausenow I had to redefine what
family meant.
Could I make family here?
Could this be what I loved?
What could that could I ever dothat?
And then years later, when mydaughter was my age, the age

(46:45):
I've been, she was six.
So I I had postpartum depressionthen.
And I I rolled with it.
I remember telling my mother, Idon't feel right.
She said, You'll be fine.
You've got me, you don't need apsychiatrist.
And that's very much at thetime, especially the Cuban
approach to things, and maybehere in the United States too,
but even more so in in ourculture, I think.

(47:07):
That that when I when Nataliawas about to go to kindergarten,
I was I didn't know I wasdepressed.
I thought I was just worriedabout her readiness for
kindergarten.
I other people were gettingtheir kids evaluated.
I said, Well, I'll get my kidevaluated too.
And and um the psychiatristsaid, Your daughter's bright,

(47:28):
she's fine, she's ready to go,but I'm worried about you.
I've given her my whole history.
And Andy and I were talking withher, and she said, Explain to me
what it is that that has you soconcerned.
And I started describing howlife could be so hard at that
age, how the world is so hard,and and I broke down in
hysterical sobs, which is so notme.

(47:51):
And she said, I think this hasto do with the same trauma you
experienced when you were yourdaughter's age.
I said, What trauma?
And she said, Well, when youlose your house, your family,
your world, your culture, yourlanguage, all overnight, as you
described, happened when youwere that age.

(48:11):
That's trauma.
And I said, No, that's not thatthat's ridiculous.
That's that's another time thatthe past comes and sits in your
lap and says, I'm here.
Yeah.
You know, this, this, that,these two things don't add up.
What are you going to do aboutit?
And if you don't have that inyour past, you're not going to
have that uh kind of moment.
And it's it, they are reminders.

(48:32):
Remember, we were talkingearlier about how you can feel
really American, right?
I came when I was six.
I feel so American.
And then every now and then oneof these things happens and it
says, uh one of these thingshappens, and it says, you're
not, you aren't from here.
You have a different history,you have a different, and it
just makes you in a way go backto that.

(48:54):
And and and yes, you have tokind of look at that injustice
that happened and what it cost,and and then you have to come
out on the other side of it.
It's gonna be a process.
You might feel bad and andscared and anxious, and on the
other side of it, what you getis wow.
Yeah look what you look whathuman beings can do for
themselves and for each otherand their children and the next

(49:17):
generation.
And look what freedom and theneed for freedom can do.

SPEAKER_00 (49:22):
You said so much there.
Oh my gosh.
And I think that one of theother things, because I I mean,
you had a hard time surrenderingto all of that.
It it really felt like, but whenyou went to Cuba to visit, uh,
you picked weeds and pebblesfrom your front yard when your
house had been claimed asproperty of the revolution, and

(49:45):
it had that had when you left,it had had that banner, you
know, across houses where thatwould happen.
So you went back to that houseand you even went in that house.
I was really wondering how thatchanged you.

SPEAKER_01 (50:00):
Yeah, you know, you you had asked the four about the
past, the past and the present,and and that was a moment where
the past was the present.
So I went back, as you said,okay.
That's great way to the thing tothe barrio.
I went back to the barrio, and Ihad brought this is how much I
had been thinking about what itwould be like to go back to my

(50:23):
house and and reclaim somethingabout what had been lost.
And like you said, you know, thethe title of the book, Property
of the Revolution, therevolution took our house,
kicked us out of our house, andput that banner across our door,
sealing it shut.
Property of the revolution.
That was the last time I'd beenthere.
But I had my little baggie and Ipicked up the little rocks and

(50:45):
pieces of grass and put it intothe baggie because I was going
to bring that home, a piece ofof my my past.
And the woman saw me and shesaid, What are you doing?
Now, this is a woman who's whohad been given our house because
what the revolution did is whenpeople left, they gave loyalists
your house and everything thatwas in it.
Well, the guards took whateverthey wanted and then whatever so

(51:09):
she had really no connections tothe neighborhood and still
didn't really have, but she wasa human being and kind.
And rather than thinking, whatdoes this Cuban American woman
want here?
I'm not gonna be nice to her,she let me into the house.
She invited the house.

SPEAKER_00 (51:27):
That was amazing.

SPEAKER_01 (51:29):
And to be in that room and see the old kitchen
where our dog used to I rememberour dog was always under that
stove, and and and that littleit was just like three little
rooms.
And to be in there was amazing.
And I I she had it was such aclean house.

(51:49):
It was a tiny poor, but it wasso clean.
She had she it made me veryhappy to see how much she loved
being there.
She had little curtains attackedto the wall around this one
little window, and it just mademe happy to but but that was the
past all and the present all atonce.

(52:12):
That that horrible night andthen this wonderful day all
together.

SPEAKER_00 (52:17):
Yeah, that was I could picture you just feeling
everything from that when youwalked into that house.
Did you walk back into theUnited States different?

SPEAKER_01 (52:29):
Yes.
I walked back into the UnitedStates deep, more appreciative
of what my parents had done forus than ever.
Because I ran into one of myfriends on that visit, and I
asked, I I I don't write aboutthis in the book, but I said to
her, um, you know, we were justchatting, and she looked around

(52:49):
the barrio and she said, youknow, I'm glad that that
everything went that way for youbecause this isn't living.
This is not life.
This isn't a life, but we'rewhat that was in 1999.
Okay.
And and Cubans are living theirworst crisis in history right
now.
Everybody wants to blame me andthe Americans want to say it's

(53:10):
still the embargo, it's not theembargo.
And no Cuban believes that it'sthe embargo.
It's a system that doesn't workand that makes you stay silent
the whole time and not criticizeand not even hope or dream.
And that's what she wasconveying to me and and what I
knew my parents had given us bygiving everything up.

(53:31):
They'd given us hope, they'dgiven us freedom, a dream to
study what we wanted to study,think what we wanted to think.
Uh that those things arepriceless and you don't
appreciate it.
You you you might think you'reappreciating it, you don't
appreciate it the same way,cannot appreciate it the same
way as someone who's lost it, orwhen you've seen it up close and

(53:55):
someone who's lost it.

SPEAKER_00 (53:56):
Yeah, you went back and you saw what your life could
have been like if you would havestayed.

SPEAKER_01 (54:00):
Exactly.
And I'm I'm reading about itbecause I I uh write Cuba
Curious, which is a newsletteron Substack that covers I cover
human rights situations in Cubaand and the movement, the
freedom movement, thepro-democracy movement in Cuba.
So I'm reading about it all daylong.
And I'm I'm reminded all daylong.
And I actually have to take astep back because it's too much.

(54:22):
Okay.
I just wrote a a week or two agothat I needed to cover more
uplifting news because it is toodifficult for me to live in
this.

SPEAKER_00 (54:33):
It was too heavy.
Yeah.
I wanted to tell you that I wassorry about the loss of your
abuela and your other familymembers.
Thank you.
And, you know, I I felt like Igot to know them.
And so I I wanted to say that toyou.
And reading those chapters wasreally hard, you know, as they

(54:56):
had passed away, because it'smore than just losing the
person, I think.
And it's losing their stories,their voice, the way that they
told it, and so much historydisappears with people when they
pass away.
But I love that you've becomethe one who is carrying those
stories forward.
You know, stories are soimportant.

(55:19):
And I remember the story oflittle Alien Gonzalez that you
wrote about and thatfive-year-old.
I mean, I remember being gluedto the television when that was
going on and watching theexchange between the United
States and Cuba as they tried tomake the decision over this
little boy and where he wasgoing to live and go back to his

(55:40):
father to who really probablydidn't even care about him.
And uh he had lost his mom, andthose other people had drowned
as well.
I mean, it was such a sadsituation.
And you talk about the uh exodusof Cuba, the people that are
leaving Cuba now, millions ofpeople are leaving.

(56:02):
How many have left in just twoyears?
I mean, there's been so manythat have left.

SPEAKER_01 (56:08):
In in from 21 to 23, Cuba lost 10% of the population.
Oh my.
I think it was about uh two, twomillion, I believe.
Well, between one and twomillion, who knows how many?
Most have come to the UnitedStates, but they're doing it
because the government's makingit easier to do.
Uh, the government benefits frompeople leaving and then sending

(56:30):
money back and bringing goodsback because the system doesn't
work.
There are no consumer goods, thethe economic model just doesn't
work.
So they're leaving because it'seasier to leave.
They're leaving because there'sno hope.
One of the things that happensin Cuba is mothers often tell
their children, you need tolearn English or French or some
other language, because there'sno future here.

(56:53):
Imagine raising a child knowingthat for that child to have a
life, that's that's where it'sit can't happen there because
the system doesn't change, thesystem doesn't grow.
But um, yeah, uh they theywhat's happening in Cuba today
is absolutely heartbreaking.
And knowing that they arepunished severely for trying to,

(57:17):
for even expressing their angerand their why don't we have
water?
Why don't we have electricity?
Why do the military's luxuryhotels for foreign tourists have
food and water and and umelectricity, uh, and not being
able to scream about thatinjustice adds to the day-to-day

(57:41):
hardship when you have no voice.

SPEAKER_00 (57:44):
The desperation that I feel from the people in Cuba
and when I the rafters, thepeople that you refer to as the
rafters.
I mean, the level of desperationthat must, and you even had a
family member get on, I think itwas a boat, but they people
would get on boats and raftsthat could barely get them very

(58:07):
far, and they were hoping to getclear across the ocean with
sugar water and hope just youknow that they might be able to
reach soil, US soil.
And that level of desperation islike it's just a whole nother
level of fear, I think.

SPEAKER_01 (58:26):
Yeah, what would drive you to put your kids on a
raft that threw one of the mosttreacherous stretches of water?
Because the whole of Gulf theGulf of Mexico is rushing
through that, those 90 miles.
A very treacherous stretch.
And uh, I remember criticizingwomen who were doing that, and
my aunt said, Don't don'tcriticize.

(58:49):
You don't you don't know, andyou cannot know until you're in
their shoes at that moment whatwhat is driving them.
You don't know what they'refleeing, you don't know what
they've suffered, and and it'sso true.
I mean, these are the moraldilemmas that change us and that
are horrible and force us tomake these horrible decisions,

(59:10):
and not none of them are easy,and none of the the who knows
what the right answers are, butit they happen, and those
moments, it's worth going backand thinking about it.
You know, I think about would Iever and what my parents did,
what my viejos did, would I everbe able to do that?
And I don't know that I would atthe age of you know 25 with two

(59:31):
little kids, going my husbandand my mother leaving a my
country, knowing I'd never seethose people again forever,
having nothing, knowing no one,ending up in a iced in, snowed
in place without any sense ofthe language, the culture, and
and why would I be able to dothat?
I don't know.

(59:52):
I I think I would have stuck itout longer.
And then it would have been toolate because that's what
happened.
People some people never gotout.
They're Their permiso nevercame, or they never applied in
time to even have a permiso.
But what amazing human beingswho can do this, these
immigrants who can do this,these refugees, what what it

(01:00:13):
takes to succeed, and and thecourage and the humanity of that
journey is worth thinking aboutand worth appreciating,
regardless of the politics ofwhere you stand on any of it.
Think about the humanity andwhat that is costing them and at
least acknowledge it andcelebrate.

(01:00:35):
That's what human beings can do.
Amazing.

SPEAKER_00 (01:00:37):
I so want to thank you for telling your story.
Thank you for taking theirstories and making it yours and
then putting it on paper so wecan all read it.
Because I mean, I really got somuch out of it, and I know that
everybody else will too.
Do you have a website that ourlisteners can go to?

SPEAKER_01 (01:00:56):
Yes, anakubana.com.
Anna A-N-A Kubana C U B as inboy a n-a dot com.
And um you can buy the bookthere.
It's an audio too, by the way.
I narrate in the audio book.
And people really love the audiobook because they really get to

(01:01:17):
hear the voices of I I wasn'tsure I'd be able to convey the
their voices.
Um I'm not a voice actor.
It turns out I could do it justfine.
Because if you think about it,we've all made fun of our
parents all over life, mimickinghow they speak.
And so I was able to do itpretty easily.
And I'll tell you, Ann, I didnot want to leave that sound

(01:01:38):
booth.
It it's a little space.
And their voices were there andthey were alive and they were
telling, they were telling theirstories, and they were they were
so powerful.
It it felt like they were inthere.
I didn't want to leave.
I did it in Vermont.
I didn't want to leave thestudio, I didn't want to leave
that town, I didn't want toleave that state.

(01:01:59):
Um, but in the audiobook,they're alive.

SPEAKER_00 (01:02:03):
They are there.
Okay, well, now I have to getthe audiobook.
I already read the book.
Now I'm gonna have to be a goodidea.

SPEAKER_01 (01:02:09):
People have said that it's it's a different
experience.
You're gonna hear differentthings.
Um certain things will s bestressed more in the audiobook.
My husband really likes it.
Like how it came out.
I will absolutely get it.
And can I just say no one elsewho has interviewed me has

(01:02:29):
understood this story as well asyou have.
I mean, you I I am so gratefulto you for appreciating this
family and uh their journey, ourjourney, and especially the
human beings at the viejos,because I know that you got what
I was what I wanted to share.
I think that you got toexperience the household, you

(01:02:51):
got to experience those people,and it makes me so happy to know
that.
Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 (01:02:57):
Oh, you're welcome.
I mean, some I was grieving withyou, I was laughing, you know,
knowing that you learned Englishsomewhat from Gilligan's Island.
I mean, there was like so muchin there.
I mean, we have it sounds likewe've talked about a lot, but
there is so much more in thatbook, and I really enjoyed every

(01:03:19):
word of it.
Well, enjoyed really isn't it?
It took me on a journey, like Isaid earlier, and it gave me a
history lesson in a differentway.
And I think that people reallyneed to read it.
Thank you for this opportunity.
It's been a total pleasure tospeak with you.
Please get Anna's book, Propertyof the Revolution.

(01:03:40):
It is a must-read.
Anna's story reminds us thatfreedom isn't just about
borders, it's about people, it'sabout belonging, it's about
finding your voice aftergenerations of silence.
Her journey from fear tofreedom, from exile to
empowerment is a reminder thatit is okay to be proud of where
you come from and ourconnections to our past and to

(01:04:03):
our pain does matter.
Even after loss, even afterdisplacement, we can still find
home wherever we feel safe toplan ourselves.
To our listeners, may you keeptelling your stories, even the
hard ones, because when you do,you don't just heal yourself,
you help others find their wayhome too.
Anna showed us that healingisn't about choosing where we

(01:04:25):
live.
It is about fully living in yourown story.
For everyone out there, may youfind the courage to speak your
story, may you find the strengthto hold your roots close and the
hope to believe that freedom inevery sense of the word begins
from within, not control, notpower.

(01:04:45):
It's about acceptance and love.
I'm Anne from Real Talk withTina and Anne, and keep finding
purpose in the pain and hope inthe journey.
And we will see you next time.