Rediscovering Latinidad Season 6 Episode 11 Cuba: La Perla de Las Antillas

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:13):
Dear listeners, we are excited to have you join us
for another season of Rediscovering Latini.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Dan.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
We hope you enjoy this sixth season as we port
a tremendous amount of time, research, and loyalty into our episodes.
We also know that these are unprecedented times, and then
many of our listeners or their family members may be
living in fear and certainly anger about the recent developments
with immigration, deportation, and birthright citizenship. We hold space for
all of the emotions here, and we hope the information

(00:40):
we provide you will help you not only in your
journey to discovering your ancestors, but also leading you to
documentation that may secure your safety. We will list all
resources in the show notes and update them as we
uncover more. Now, we hope you enjoy this episode.

Speaker 3 (01:02):
Welcome back to Readdiscovering Latini that season six, episode eleven.

Speaker 4 (01:08):
And this is a real treat.

Speaker 3 (01:09):
We are going to talk about the island of Cuba.
I said last season, if you are Latino in the US,
you have to thank Chicanos. You have to thank Bariquez
and I forgot to mention Cubanos have had a long
history both with the United States. If you've lived in
South Florida or if you've ever been there, you know

(01:31):
Gubanos have made South Florida what it is today. So
I am, I am very excited. Let's let's introduce all
of ourselves.

Speaker 5 (01:39):
I'm Edward, I'm Fausto, I'm Jelsa, and I'm Briar Rose.

Speaker 3 (01:44):
And we have two wonderful guests here. We have historians. First,
we have doctor Jane Landers. You can introduce yourself and
tell us about yourself.

Speaker 6 (01:54):
I'm Jane Landers from Andanderbilt University and I'm actually not
of Cube and just said I grew up in the
Dominican Republic and lived in Florida for when we came
back to the States, and so I've been part of
that Cuban community forever and ended up doing all my
research also in Cuba.

Speaker 4 (02:12):
Very good.

Speaker 3 (02:13):
And we also have ra who went to Columbia with
with with Foso and myself. Raquel, please please introduce yourself.

Speaker 7 (02:22):
I ask you us. Thank you.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
I'm honored that you remembered how to pronounce my last name.
My name is richell Otegi. I am a associate professor
of history at rox Community College at the City University
of New York and I'm a historian of Cuba and
an alumna of Columbia along with also and Edward.

Speaker 4 (02:45):
Way back in the day, way back. We won't tell
y'all what.

Speaker 5 (02:51):
And I just wanted to let our audience know that
today's episode is actually airing on the anniversary of the
Bay of Pigs invasion, which is a fit, a big
part of this big part of American and Cuban history.
But I just wanted to tie that in because a
lot of US atrocities in Cuba get overlooked and we're
not going over with that.

Speaker 4 (03:12):
Yeah, So yeah, let's get started.

Speaker 3 (03:16):
So, Jane, what got you interested in studying Cuban history?

Speaker 6 (03:20):
Well, actually, I started out thinking about Brazil, and then
I ended up at the University of Florida for my
PhD and ended up in all their wonderful Aridean collections
finding runaway slaves from the US Anglo colonies in Carolina
and Georgia running across an international border into Spanish Florida,

(03:43):
where many of those people were from Cuba. And I
ended up going as a grad student to Cuba in
nineteen ninety one. So you all are young whips shippers, and.

Speaker 3 (03:55):
Your first time in Cuba was a very important his
historic moment. Can you tell us about that?

Speaker 6 (04:00):
It really was because as we were driving through Havana
with a government taxi and government people with us. Of course,
he pulled over and turned up the radio and an
announcement was coming on about the fall of the Soviet Union,
and he knew everything was going to change then, and

(04:23):
it did, you know, So after that, the next time
I go back, it's the Special period because all the
Russian oil supplies and supports had disappeared and they were
under a US embargo, so times.

Speaker 3 (04:38):
Were hard, and it's just amazing you've been able as
a US academic to have such a long career involved
in studying Cuba. You know, the very basics. The Cuban
embargo actually started in nineteen fifty eight. We had an
arms an arms ban against a Batista. But then once
Costro came in and it became a communist regime nineteen

(05:00):
sixty two, it expanded to everything except for basically food
and medicine, and even that not very big amounts. So
what was your career like, like, how were you able
to even go to Cuba in the first place.

Speaker 6 (05:15):
Well, you know, as I said, I went as a
grad student the first time, so my professors at the
University of Florida organized that trip and I didn't have
to deal with the paperwork. I was very mainly to
translate in help. But the next time I went was
nineteen ninety five, and that's when I had to navigate
all the paperwork of the US government problems. I had

(05:38):
to go through the Office of the Treasury actually and
showed exactly who I was taking, how much money I
was taking. There was an amount you could have per
person where you were going, with whom you were going
to meet. It was very, very regulated, and it took
a while before I finally got the permissions, but we

(05:58):
finally did on on the basis that it was an
educational project.

Speaker 4 (06:03):
Gotcha. Gotcha.

Speaker 3 (06:05):
So now we're going to turn over to Raquel. Here,
tell us about your human identity. How'd your family come
to the United States.

Speaker 2 (06:15):
Well, so, I think I didn't say in my intro,
but I am Cuban American and both of my parents
are from Havana and they left as teenagers. My father's
family actually left in nineteen sixty I think was a
little bit early actually, but they had my great grandfather

(06:41):
owned a jewelry store, and I think, you know, I
might be getting this mixed up, but I think the
jewelry store had already the businesses had already been nationalized,
or he thought they were going to be nationalized. And
so they left, and they took very dramatically. Apparently there

(07:02):
were you know, there was jewelry muggles out on yacht.
And I don't know, this might all be apocryphal. I
don't know, but this is a family more.

Speaker 7 (07:13):
And so they.

Speaker 2 (07:15):
Actually went to Mexico and my father's family was in
Mexico for a year in the Yucatan Peninsula, which there
is also a very strong connection the the you know,
I know Edward and Jane will know that there's a
very strong connection between Cuba and the Yuka Ten Peninsula.
And so they went to Medida and they were there

(07:37):
for a year, and I think it was a little
bit of a waiting it out, and then they realized
they weren't going to be able to go back, and
they actually ended up in New Orleans. And so my
father went to high school at Portier High School. Because
I have learned that people from Louisiana want to know
where you went to high school and UH, and he

(07:57):
went to LSU New Orleans. There was in those days
it was a New Orleans campus at LSU, And so
that was an unusual trajectory for or sort of not
the typical trajectory of the Cuban refugees, although there were
there was a Cuban community there that they were connected
to in New Orleans. And then ultimately he ended up

(08:20):
in New York and the rest of his family ended
up leaving New Orleans and going to Puerto Rico. And
then my mother's family left in nineteen sixty one after
the schools were nationalized. My grandmother had gone to the Ursulines,
had been raised by the Arthuline nuns, and my mother

(08:43):
and her sister were at Lasungulina Sambe. And when those
private schools were closed, my grandmother insisted on leaving, even
though they had been very much supporters, you know, sort
of that ear least class supporters of the revolution. By

(09:03):
nineteen sixty one, my my or my grandmother, the big,
the big turning point was the schools, and so they
left in nineteen sixty one and were in you know,
had a little bit of more of a typical story
where they were in Miami, you know, living in a
house with multiple other families and extended cousins and friends,

(09:27):
and then ended up in Queens. So I am not
a Miami Cuban, which is you know, perhaps a little
bit different. But I do have to say actually that
you know, you said you mentioned at the top of
the episode, i'd word that that Guanas are an important
part of the US Latino sort of history, which I
think is true, but it goes back even before that, right,

(09:50):
I mean father actually came to New York in then
eighteen twenties. Yes, so there was a Cuban New York connection.

Speaker 3 (09:59):
I'm so glad he brought it up. I happened to
be walking through Chinatown and the church there, I think
it's the Church of the Ascension, and there's a big
plaque and there, and they're honoring Felix Barela and you know,
talking about how he was an early Cuban independista. You know,
unfortunately like eighty years before quote unquote independence from Spain happened.
But yeah, like through throughout the whole nineteenth century, Cubans

(10:22):
were coming to the United States. Maybe not in the
numbers that would follow, but yeah, old history also too,
just to bring up as a side note.

Speaker 4 (10:32):
Oh yes, please please Varilla.

Speaker 6 (10:35):
There's a statue of him in Saint Augustine too, because
he grew up there or spent time there as a youth.
His grandfather was one of the government officials, Captain general
I think, and so he ends up thereafter he's kicked
out of you know, Spain for being in an early
advocate for independence for Cuba and so on.

Speaker 3 (10:56):
That's interesting he got around for that time. I just
wanted to mention as a side note, and then we'll
turn back to you, Raquel. I mean, the US wanting
to control Cuba goes back very far. Literally eighteen oh
nine Thomas Jefferson was like, we should buy Cuba. In
eighteen forty eight, the US first attempted to buy Cuba.
Those were unsuccessful, so you had a de facto US control. First,

(11:21):
you had Southerners who opened sugar plantations because Cuba kept
up slavery until eighteen eighty six, so that you know
they were raising sugar through there. And then especially in
the Precastro period the early nineteen hundreds, apparently US settlers
ran the railroads, public utilities, mining, manufacturing, sugar, and tobacco. Plantation, shipping, banking,

(11:44):
and they held much of the Cuban government's debt. So
this is a real story of US control of the
island before the embargo upended everything.

Speaker 4 (11:54):
But Raquel, let's turn back to you. So when were
you first able to visit? You both?

Speaker 2 (12:01):
So I first visited Cuba in nineteen ninety nine, so
not so long after after James first visit, actually.

Speaker 7 (12:11):
But I visited.

Speaker 2 (12:14):
As a teenager. My parents had been after, you know,
after their early adulthood away from from Cuba. They are
both academics also, and they both started visiting Cuba for
academic exchanges in the I think right around maybe nineteen
eighty nine or ninety and so they had in the

(12:37):
nineties been been, you know, creating contacts at the University
of Havana and having academic exchanges. And so there was
one trip that my father was going on that my
mother couldn't go on, and I was a teenager, and
so I think, you know, I think they kind of
came up with this idea where they were like, oh, hey,

(12:59):
like you're old enough now, why don't you go. And
so Buppy and I went to Havana for the first
time for my first time together. And you know, it
was I was, I was, I was still a kid, right,
I was a teenager, And so it was very different
to be in a place where there were no stores,

(13:20):
you know, barely any restaurants except for in the hotels.
But our Cuban friends and family could not meet us there.
And in those days, the Cubans are not allowed in
the hotels unless they were working there. And so it
was it was a very you know, eye opening experience
in terms of learning that there are other parts of

(13:40):
the world with different political and economic.

Speaker 7 (13:43):
Systems at the same So so that was sort.

Speaker 2 (13:45):
Of uh, you know, in terms of my intellectual learning
about the world. But but personally it was, it was
it was wonderful because I had grown up, as I said,
in New York with Cuban parents, very much with the
sense of a Cuban identity, but surrounded by all sorts
of latinos. And my my sort of latinis my Lapinia

(14:06):
is just as important to me as Mike Kwaniva in
a way, right, And so and my Cuban myth was
always located sort of elsewhere, right. It was at home,
or it was in Miami, or it was in Puerto
Rico when that was a little confusing, and so being
in Cuba for the first time was you know, wonderful

(14:27):
in terms of finally having something concrete to put to
this sort of sense of Cuban myths.

Speaker 3 (14:34):
So yeah, I'm dying to know about the specifics, Like
what were there things you grew up hearing about that
you could finally see in person?

Speaker 7 (14:43):
Yes, yeah, I mean for sure.

Speaker 2 (14:44):
I mean we went to you know, my father's house
and my mother's house in the Ursuline school and the
you know, all the things, but my parents are they
were not very sort of nostalgic kind of people, so
we didn't do.

Speaker 7 (14:59):
Too much much of that.

Speaker 2 (15:02):
But I think just being being with Cubans was like great,
you know, being in Cuba with Cubans felt very very
familiar and very comfortable and very lovely.

Speaker 7 (15:13):
And so being being really.

Speaker 2 (15:17):
Submerged in the culture, I think was was a wonderful
experience for you know, for a young person.

Speaker 3 (15:23):
Wow. Yeah. So I guess to turn now to your
more professional careers. It's interesting both of you are really
invested in specifically Afro Cuban history. Uh, there's without a
doubt the island is shaped nine hundred thousand enslaved Africans

(15:44):
were brought to Cuba, let alone, how many x you know,
many more Cubans were born there. Everything from the music
to the art, to the dance, to so many aspects
of Cuban culture. You name it, it probably has Afro
Cuban origins. So Jane, let's.

Speaker 4 (15:59):
Let's let's go back to you.

Speaker 3 (16:00):
How how did you specifically start to investigate Afro Cuban
histories and also how did you start to recover the
records associated with these folks?

Speaker 6 (16:12):
Okay, well, I think, you know, if I had to
psychoanalyze myself, it'd be from having been raised in the
Dominican actually a pretty colonial kind of you know, studying
with African descended, you know, yabas who raised me, and
I saw them more than I saw my own family.
And then you know, going to Miami eventually after the

(16:38):
dr and finding you know, the Hispanic American community there
which was very broad and so but mostly Cuban, and
I felt at home there, and I started also doing
social work of getting my masters, and it was always
because of my language that I got you know, assignment,

(16:59):
so it was almost always Cuban emmigrats and all the
Cuban restaurants on Cayocho and eventually seeing you know, the
Cubans who the US recruited to go in and try
to assassinate Castro over and over again, and they would
come in in their fatigues from the Everglades where they'd

(17:19):
been practicing in all the popular art around everything was
you know, anticastro, and so all of that interested me.
But when my professors at the University of Florida where
I started my PhD, wanted to go they were always
looking for the Spanish immigrats from Florida who returned to
Cuba and the Minorcans min Orcan community, and that's what

(17:44):
they were looking for. But I was then as soon
as I grew up and got my own grants, I
was looking for the Africans who went back to Cuba
from Florida, and that started me.

Speaker 3 (17:56):
Yeah, and there are very specific sources which you can find,
these Afro Cuban stories tell us more.

Speaker 4 (18:02):
About that, right.

Speaker 3 (18:04):
Well.

Speaker 6 (18:04):
One of the difficulties of doing research is all the
political supervision of the state archives and the provincial archause,
and appointments of people who weren't necessarily historians, you know,
and access wasn't very easy, and they didn't have much
earlier than the nineteenth century. It was sort of like
history began in nineteen fifty nine. And so one of

(18:28):
the things that helped me was there was one black
bishop in Florida who wrote me a letter of introduction
through the Catholic Church, and I began to work in
Catholic Church records about which I knew nothing at the
beginning that I came to find out they're the oldest
serial records for people of African and indigenous descent in

(18:50):
anywhere you go in Latin America, and they're very specific
records about ethnic groups. And so that was another thing
that in to me not to homoginize everybody, like you
wouldn't homogenize all Latinos, you know. So I wanted to
get at that and I'm still at it.

Speaker 3 (19:09):
Yeah, And that's that's that's a great point, especially with
church records. The colonial Spanish at least felt they had
to baptize everybody. So it's like, right, everybody's mentioned in
these old parish registries. But so so Jane has been
part of this amazing project since two thousand and four. Right,

(19:32):
the Slave Society's digital archive.

Speaker 6 (19:35):
Yeah, maybe two thousand and three, two three in two
thousand and two maybe.

Speaker 4 (19:39):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (19:39):
So over twenty years, you've been visiting a bunch of countries, Cuba, Brazil, Colombia,
which is how I learned about your work Saint Augustine, Florida.
I know I'm missing Mexico, I know I'm missing some
other places, but you've been digging into these church archives,
you've been digitizing them. Tell us about this effort and
what your team does.

Speaker 6 (20:00):
Well, thank you Edward for the plug for our project,
and it was great to meet you and hear your
story of your ancestry and Colombia too. It's fascinating. But yeah,
it's been twenty plus years of that, and I sort
of used the model my professors took me and taught me,
and I did the same ones I got to be

(20:23):
a professor. I started taking my grad students and we
get these grants and take them equipment. We would train
them and train jobs on the digital standards that you
had to have at those with those archives, and then
stipends for the students or archivists or whoever they had

(20:46):
available to work on the project. And so it was
a win win. We preserved the records, We trained people,
We left them the equipment when we left, and we
left them copies of everything, so nobody had to touch
the fragile records any longer. And then we bring them
back and put them up online for everybody else to
use who doesn't have our privilege of travel support and

(21:08):
so on.

Speaker 3 (21:10):
And this is really important work to digitize this stuff.
I remember Fast, I think said in our in our
season premiere paper degrades in the tropics within a couple
of decades, Like what kind of conditions of these archives
were you encountering.

Speaker 6 (21:27):
Oh my gosh, just tor end Us and Cuba being
some of the worst endangered ones because of all of
the special period and the really dis appreciation of the
materials from heat, humidity, bugs, people throwing things out. And

(21:47):
one of our wonderful graduates, who is now a professor
at the University of our Land and this was a
great photographer and has gone with us on all these projects,
he sent me a picture of people in the south
of Cuba. You know that it was portrayed in the
Cuban newspapers as a real civic effort. They were shoveling

(22:09):
old documents into a furnace as if they were cleaning
it up, cleaning it out. And it's something I find
a lot of places where they run out of space
or they don't like the you know, use of the
shelving for that the tough stuff, and they think the
newer things are more appropriate for people to be looking at.
That doesn't happen in church records. Those are sacraments and

(22:32):
they'll keep those trying to save them through hurricanes or
tornadoes and that af fect. So they're usually better.

Speaker 4 (22:41):
Got it? Got it?

Speaker 3 (22:43):
So, Raquel, now it's your turn. You have a book,
Black Freedom and Schooling in nineteenth Century Cuba.

Speaker 6 (22:49):
Tell us about congratulations, Yeah.

Speaker 4 (22:53):
Tell us about this project.

Speaker 7 (22:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (22:55):
So it's Black Freedom and Education in nineteenth century Cuba
out with the Diversity of Florida Press. I'm very excited
also because for those of you interested in the Caribbean
and in race, it's part of a new series called
Caribbean Crossroads, Race, Identity and Freedom Struggles that is edited

(23:16):
by you know, just like a beautiful cohort of editors here,
Lillian gidd Devin Spence, ben In April Mays and told
Cia and Moral are the editors for that new series.
Really an embarrassment of riches, and so yeah, I'm very
excited that it's out. Both argues that the history of

(23:37):
education in Cuba really begins or should begin, with black
Cuban educators and educational activists. So as as you guys
might know, and some of your listeners might know, you know,
public national education projects are like nineteenth century projects, right,

(24:00):
They're the projects of nation states, They're the projects of
liberal elites. And so I was interested in education. I
was interested in afford descendants thanks to the works that
had been done that I had been reading when I
was a graduate student by people like Professor Jane Landers.
And yeah, I was reading all these liberal men who

(24:25):
were like interested in creating an enlightened human society, and
I kept coming across the fact that they were talking
about they were talking about black teachers, they were talking
about black students, they were talking about whether to have
racial segregation, and they're developing school system or not. And
so yeah, so that's how I got interested in the topic.

(24:46):
And what I discovered is that that black people are
actually very black and Mola those people, as you know,
the categories were then, were very central to the development
of education in Cuba.

Speaker 4 (24:58):
So yeah, roles, where were they playing?

Speaker 7 (25:02):
Yeah, so all sorts of things. So uh.

Speaker 2 (25:06):
The book starts by recounting the story of the Mayastras.
Amigas My stress Amigas were women who had little schools,
little equalitas or are sometimes called in their home. They
still exist actually uh so uh, I mean you could

(25:28):
talk to some Cubans, uh, you know, people who are
you know, I've talked to some professors of mine in Cuba,
or historians were well established who have told me that
they've gone to that they went to equal the gasa.
So these were women who had like kind of preschools
in their homes. They were usually a little bit more

(25:50):
than a daycare because they usually did teach reading, writing,
and maybe Catechism. So these women were providing an education
at a time that there was not a public education
system in Cuba, right. And what was really interesting about
them is that they educated boys and girls together, which

(26:13):
was unusual in Cuban classrooms, and that they usually did
it not usually, but often.

Speaker 6 (26:21):
Did it for free.

Speaker 2 (26:23):
And again this is before their public schools, right, So
most people are paying for their education if they're getting them,
but not in Thesa Kualita Sagasta, and they are providing
schoolings for both black and white and lots of children,
and then the women themselves. In certain periods throughout the

(26:44):
late eighteenth and nineteenth century, the masos on the US
are often predominantly Afro defended women, and so they are
despised by the people, by the educational reformers who are
trying to create what they think is a real education system.
But in the meanwhile, they are providing education. I mean,
men mentioned them all the time, and so, uh so

(27:08):
they were really fun to find. And those are black
and women and white women teachers, and then and then
there there are students in in public schools. Sometimes there
are some teachers of African descent who become licensed teachers,

(27:31):
and so there's uh so I'm looking at teachers and students.

Speaker 4 (27:36):
Yeah, and and that's and that's cool.

Speaker 3 (27:38):
Like you said, the tradition descends down to the modern
day as well.

Speaker 2 (27:43):
Yeah, absolutely, And I would love to at some point,
and I've started actually working. I have a colleague at
Bronx Community College named Martine, who herself is an Afro
descended Huban woman and whose mother was a teacher in
Cuba before the revolution, and her mother had a you know,

(28:07):
an extensive network of women of color who were teachers,
and so she and Ida and I have begun to
try to bring the history of the Mastufa eas and
black women teachers, especially even those who were in those
who were informal schools, but also who were life and teachers.
So we want to do the history for the twentieth

(28:30):
century because I think.

Speaker 4 (28:31):
It's there that is very very very cool.

Speaker 6 (28:34):
You know, if I could just jump in a little
bit of education. In the colonial period, some of the
distinguished free black militiamen and property owners and you know,
Fifish in Cuba in the early nineteenth century also established
schools for people of color, and they established one for boys,

(28:58):
one for girls, and it was Gabriel, one of my
very interesting characters, who established those. So there was at
least some effort in the colonial period also to educate
children of color. And they would say, and we would also,
you know, educate enslaved people in the evening if the

(29:22):
owners will love him to come. So that was sort
of an interesting find and an addition in Saint Augustine
also the Catholic Church ran the school, but just for boys.

Speaker 7 (29:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (29:34):
Yeah, I mentioned Ga in the book Gain motivased on
your work on him. But yeah, I mean that's another
I mean, I hope some grad students are listening because
there's like, I'm like mentioning all these crumbs. I think
the I have a there's a couple of mentions. I mean,
I've I tracked as many as I could find mentions

(29:56):
of schools for enslaved children and night not children, adults
for enslaved people. That was that were happening in the evening.
But I didn't focus on that and I didn't find
enough on it. But I bet you that there's more
and that would be that's that's also something what education

(30:18):
is being provided for enslaved people. I think it was
limited because I don't think that because I think the
plantations had a lot of autonomy in Cuba in the
nineteenth century, and so that that made it harder for
the state to sort of penetrate I think as compared
to and and the mission like the Catholic Church and

(30:39):
the missionaries to penetrate as as compared to some of
the British islands. I have a sense that the missionaries
were able to provide more education because they were able
to penetrate that plantations a little bit more, but that
is my pretty much urban is what I was talking about.
I have right on the plantations at all. Right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

(30:59):
exactactly so. But yeah, but I think that's I think
that would be a really that's something that I'm also
fascinated by and I think could be a really interesting
future project for somebody.

Speaker 3 (31:08):
I'm blown away because I'm thinking about, you know, nineteenth
at least nineteenth century in the United States, there were
so many rules penalizing if someone taught a slave how
to read, and here it was actually taking place on Cuba.
That's really astounding. Yeah, any other history questions before we
brought in it to Cuban culture.

Speaker 6 (31:28):
I'll just say also that the same characters that I
worked on, those urban educated elites among the Afro Cuban populations.
You know, they were establishing newspapers, they had libraries, They
were just amazing in terms of their world views and
their education. So it is an urban experience, of course,

(31:51):
but it's something that a lot of people wouldn't imagine
was already happening.

Speaker 4 (31:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (31:56):
Yeah, And thank you for that reminder, Jane, because the
the sort of end arc of of my book is
about uh the the which was a umbrella organization formed
by you know, black urban elites such as Fanguamis, who

(32:19):
I know some of you are probably familiar with. And
it was an umbrella organization of these mutual aid societies that.

Speaker 7 (32:26):
The so and so, uh and and so.

Speaker 2 (32:30):
What what I really do is is focus on or
propose that one of their major focuses was really education.
And so if you look at the minutes of their
meetings you see that as well.

Speaker 3 (32:40):
Great, very good, All right, I'm gonna take a hard
left with the questions. We're gonna just go easy on
on assault. Cuban food? What's your favorite dish?

Speaker 2 (32:57):
That myself, I have to say, my mother's.

Speaker 3 (33:09):
What's your secret if you don't mind spilling it, Oh.

Speaker 2 (33:12):
My mother's I have I have no idea. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (33:22):
Also, I give the Cuban's credit. You guys have perfected
the Yeah, theos are to dwefe for.

Speaker 8 (33:31):
Yeah, yeah, I can't verify that one.

Speaker 7 (33:41):
But yeah I can't either, I can.

Speaker 4 (33:45):
Yeah, Yeah, they're pretty good. They're pretty good.

Speaker 6 (33:49):
All right?

Speaker 3 (33:50):
Shall we move on to music? Who are your favorite
keeping performers? I can guess who's going to be brought.

Speaker 4 (33:57):
Up, but.

Speaker 6 (34:00):
Oh God, let me dredge up.

Speaker 3 (34:01):
Okay, I'll start. So my parents met in Miami. They
were both working in the same hospital, and one of
their first dates, my dad's like, oh, I'm going to
take you to see this really famous singer and my
mom was like, okay, well, hey, this singer is pretty good.
And it turns out to be Celia Cruz.

Speaker 5 (34:20):
I was about to say if someone didn't.

Speaker 4 (34:24):
Would be dancing, but like you imagine that first dates.

Speaker 2 (34:30):
Wow, that is a great story.

Speaker 4 (34:34):
I mean yeah, I mean that. And look, I feel
like growing up looked like my grandma, So whenever I
saw Selects on TV, it was just, yeah, it just
reminded me of my grandma. Yeah. So yeah, that was
the times.

Speaker 5 (34:51):
At the end of the episode, I will list famous Cubans,
but that's not right now.

Speaker 4 (34:55):
Okay, Okay, it sounds good. Sounds good.

Speaker 2 (35:00):
I have maybe I think maybe I have some outliers. Yeah,
I mean we can clout Gloria Stephan right right. So,
and I always think of glorious stuff at this time
of year because I really love her DHF soundtrack from
back in the day, and they had some wonderful songs
about the new year. So I recommend that. And how

(35:26):
about gest Dragon do you guys know what? Ragon No
was a done song band from I don't know, probably
the mid twentieth century, and uh, they have a famous
song called sum I can't sing otherwise I would sing

(35:52):
it for you, so highlight it's a it's a I
danced first visited Cuba. I danced with my father to
that song in Havana, So it's there are some of
my favorites.

Speaker 3 (36:08):
Beautiful and talking about Cuban Alta Cocker's that had a
great career, the Buena Vista Social Club of course, the
States song yeah yeah come by and all his friends. Also,
Cuba just has a strong tradition of writers, poets, filmmakers,
visual artists.

Speaker 4 (36:29):
Anything.

Speaker 9 (36:29):
We touched Onacosta last week in our previous episode.

Speaker 3 (36:33):
That's right, yeah, with with with the film Muli any
who inspire you all?

Speaker 6 (36:39):
Let me think guest music is more of what I
gravitate towards. So yeah, Boavista, all of.

Speaker 3 (36:46):
Them, Yeah, I mean, of course, oh yes, please, No.

Speaker 2 (36:51):
I was just going to say, since I think was
it Briar Rose don't.

Speaker 7 (36:55):
I don't know who.

Speaker 2 (36:56):
Mentioned, but Josse Jose, Oh my gosh, my blanking on
his name, but who was a principal dancer at American
Ballet Theater who I know was one of my favorites students.

(37:16):
And of course Alicia Alonzo, who I also sat next
to at a dance performance in Havana once. Yeah, and
it was I mean that was like in that was
maybe ten thirteen years ago, so it was shortly before
she died. So she's one of one of the one

(37:37):
of the favorites too. Again, the Cuban the Cuban dancers
are really really something.

Speaker 7 (37:45):
Classido.

Speaker 6 (37:45):
For poetry, we don't have.

Speaker 3 (37:48):
Kyle oh, yes, right, yeah, Kyle Carrero Lopez would have
joined us. He's he's a Afro Cuban poet based out
of New York, but he had laryngitis to so hopefully
he enjoined us in a later episode.

Speaker 4 (38:03):
Yeah, hopefully's feeling better.

Speaker 2 (38:05):
And Nicole las Viller since we are mentioning poets, right.

Speaker 4 (38:10):
Very true, very true. So going back a little bit
to the music, y'all, there is a an artist who
is from originally from guine Quarto, Rial and who grew
up in Spain. Her name is Gonchabuica and she she
does a lot of like Flamenco and flaming confusion music.

(38:33):
She's also obsessed with jazz, so she has been moving
towards jazz lately, which is really beautiful to hear as well.
But she actually released a record that she I guess
recorded withuoal So now a really big you know, Cuban
Cuban artist, and then one of the really interesting pieces

(38:55):
and I think, Rakle, I think you danced Flamenco did.

Speaker 2 (38:59):
Just yes, Columbia, Yes.

Speaker 4 (39:02):
Okay later okay, see so I remember this wow way
back in the day. My memories not so bad. Huh, but.

Speaker 7 (39:10):
I thinks together, actually.

Speaker 4 (39:15):
We did, we did? Got you're right? Oh my goodness.

Speaker 6 (39:19):
So yeah, so flaming a different rhythm, you guys, got
that from the Caribbean to that is a leap.

Speaker 4 (39:25):
Well actually yes, but not so much because that's like,
that's what I was getting to.

Speaker 3 (39:29):
So.

Speaker 4 (39:29):
Flamenco is known as like the Southern Spanish dance right by,
mostly by Hitano artists, but there is a I guess
a portion the section of Flamenco that are called like
cant so like round trip songs because there were some
Hitano and Flamenco artists who traveled from Spain to Cuba

(39:52):
and throughout the rest of Latin America as well, but
in particular Cuba and Peru. And so they incorporated this
instrument and the Speruvian instrument called gajon into into Flamenco. Yeah,
and then there are actually different like genres within Flamenco.
They're called palos, and so there are many that are

(40:13):
that are Afro Cuban inspired, in particular guahida. And so
like you can you can almost always tell when when
a Flamenco palo is more you know, Caribbean and Afro
Caribbean influenced, because there's a lot sort of like more
I would say, from what I've observed, like hip movements, right,

(40:34):
just more sort of like sensual and for lack of
a better term, right, just kind of like more sort
of like exaggerated with like you know, movement movement of
the hips and of the of the shoulders and and yeah,
and then guahidas the music itself. Like I remember one
time one of my Flamenco teachers, her name is ciaix Mara.

(40:56):
Everybody check her out. Yeah, she's amazing. Her show where
she did a guahda with and I can't remember the
name of the instrument, but it kind of looked like
a tambourine, but I guess it was like a drum
and there was like, I don't know, like there was
something inside so that when you know, you moved it slightly,
it kind of made the sound of waves. So anyway,

(41:19):
it is one of I like, you know, almost ten
years later, still remember that piece because it was one
of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. But anyway,
so yeah, please go check out some flamencoa that are
very Afro Cuban inspired.

Speaker 7 (41:35):
That's amazing. I had I had heard of those.

Speaker 2 (41:37):
Yeah, I had heard of those, and I didn't know
what it meant, but of course it makes sense. Thank
you for very mad.

Speaker 4 (41:42):
Yeah. Absolutely then, so it was my little hobby and
obsession with flamenco paid off. So here you go.

Speaker 3 (41:50):
Awesome, I guess is another realm of for keeping culture.
Have have either of you experienced santeria of any sorts
or well, yes.

Speaker 6 (42:00):
They told me on one of my trips that I'm
Aglah and explain who that is? Okay, so the uh,
you know, I didn't want to be because he's not
the you know, it's a little boy with you know, uh,
powers of the future and opening the cross roads and

(42:22):
that sort of thing. I realized it is powerful afterwards,
But at the beginning I wanted to be you know,
the pretty ocean and who dances and but I'm supposed
to be Alega. Okay, final trips. Oh, I'm sorry, I
was going to say on one of my free James, Yeah,
thank you. One of the best things from my first

(42:45):
trip when I was a grad student was getting to
go see the Babbala Andriquillo and Regla. He was had
a beautiful house, uh for San Lazo, and all through
his house were these amazing you know objects, and so
the trained by archaeologists to pay a lot of attention
to material culture and what things mean, and he would

(43:06):
explain things to me that I didn't know what they meant,
and I looked for them now in the documents in
criminal paces against people of African descent and that sort
of thing. But he had a wall painting where he
had Son Lazito, you know, who was their devotion, but
also on it where all these other things like you know,

(43:27):
Catholic imagery. He had ahead of a Southwestern Indian with
a great big, you know, deast headdress. I said, why
is that up there? And he said because they had
good spiritual ideas too, and he was really very inclusive
about it all.

Speaker 4 (43:49):
I was going to say, well, sorry that I'm talking
about myself here, but I had a professor back in
college who conducted a lot of of experiments. You know,
he was a herpetologist, so he went to Kuba often.
Herpetologist means he studies lizards for those of us who

(44:09):
don't know, and so he he would go back to
Cuba pretty often. And so he and his partner actually
would sometimes go back to Cuba together or separately. So
on one of his partners trips, he he, I guess.
He filmed a documentary about sung Lassato and sort of

(44:31):
write and sort of like the devotion to sung Lasso.
The name of the documentary is called Flowers for sung Lassato.
I believe it's on YouTube, so I'm just gonna go
ahead and plug it. And I did back when I
was in college. I did some of the translation for him,
so the yeah, so the the captions are are in Spanish,

(44:52):
and that is mostly mostly my work. But yeah, so
just you know, I'm just kind of like okay, and
then it's funny because then the other today I was
CNN had some article I think it was CNN about
you know, Cuban's devotions to Sunglass because oftentimes that's a
Sunglassado is a saint. I don't know too much about him, right,
but people do pilgrimages to it's for healing, for healing

(45:17):
to the church, often like kneeling or literally like crawling
right like you know, from wherever I just said they started.
Don't know, necessarily wear all the way to the church,
but yeah, it is this sort of like beautiful devotion
to to the saint. So check it out, y'all. Flowers
for sunglassato. And since since you're recovering Catholic fast, this

(45:38):
is this is different from the Lazarus that got raised
from the dead, or this is different from the Lazarus
that got raised from the dead, got it? Okay?

Speaker 6 (45:47):
Yeah, he's an old man on crutches with horrible you know,
shores on his legs that the dogs lick and all
of this sort of thing. It's very unusual iconography.

Speaker 4 (45:58):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, really fascinating, really fascinating.

Speaker 6 (46:04):
But what devotion you find in each of these house resorts?
Roth Kel was mentioning the self aid groups. The devotions
you choose often have you know, a syncretic African practice
with it, and so that's really important to me, which
I think they're choosing, because then I look instead at
the African you know co order.

Speaker 4 (46:26):
Well, yeah, yeah, fast stuff.

Speaker 9 (46:30):
I could just jump in.

Speaker 5 (46:31):
Could you tell us about your trip to Cuba a
couple of years ago?

Speaker 4 (46:34):
Oh my goodness, yeah, okay, yeah, okay. I want to
preface this by saying I am not an apologist, and
I am not defending anything that the government you know,
did or is still doing. But it was just a
really beautiful, really beautiful trip. I had such a wonderful time.
I went there for a week. I think part of

(46:58):
the I guess the beautiful the experience was a group
of people that I traveled with. It was one of
my best friends, her younger sister, a friend of ours
from middle school as well, and then one of my
best friend's friends from college. And I think it was
just like a really again, like really awesome, really chill
group to travel with. But I arrived in Lavanna, I

(47:22):
spent the first night by myself in this I guess
apartment that someone had built at the top of a
building literally was just like one room, a small, teeny
tiny living room, a kitchen, and a bathroom. But it
was quiet and it was glorious and it was what
I needed at that time. So then I joined my

(47:44):
friends who arrived the next day, and so we were
able to you know, travel around. Actually before that, before
they arrived, I actually walked through Lavanna by myself and
the family that I was staying with. The lady I
think was in media if I'm not mistaken, and I
can't remember what her husband, you know, what his profession was,

(48:09):
but they were just the sweetest. So when I was
checking out of their you know, their their little apartment,
they invited me down to haveo. So first of all,
I had I don't think I had ever had cubano
like that because it was like molasses and I was
just like, oh okay. I was just like, okay, what

(48:29):
did this? I stick of it? Yeah, it was you know,
it's just sort of like very strong and then but
then you also add a lot of sugar to it.
So it was it was really great, and you know,
I guess they were just interested in like getting to
know me. They were very you know, but I don't
know what their intentions were exactly. But one of the
things you know that I that I asked, right, I

(48:50):
was just kind of like, look, I am going to
be real with troul right, Like I am a gay
man from you know, I'm Dominican, but you have lived
in the United States most of my life, and so
I was just kind of like, how safe is it
going to be for me, you know, for me here?
And so they literally were just like, oh my god,
you are going to be you know fine. And they
did tell me that at one point, you know, after

(49:11):
the or during and after the revolution started. I guess
I should say, because because different people have different notions,
you know, the Castro regime was very homophobic, and then
it seems like at some point in the eighties or
nineties there was a change of heart and you know

(49:32):
he he sort of backtracked on all of that. Well,
I guess homophobia, right, And apparently there was this the
churches of words are always interesting, right, like this education
campaign or they said campagna and if I can't if
I'm you know, it was just sort of like an
awareness campaign as way, is what it was. And so

(49:53):
you know, apparently the government had apologized for you know
what it did supposed to. This is what they told me,
and I think I looked it up and there was
some truth to that. So anyway, the point is like
I felt absolutely fine just walking around Lavanna by myself,
and I don't think I look that different than you know,
than anybody else, right, So you know, I wasn't like

(50:14):
wearing converse sneakers. I think I can't remember. I was
wearing some like beat down shoes or maybe some sandals.
I can't remember. Anyway, it was, it was wonderful. Lavana
was you know, was really beautiful right within then the
look at Cave. It has fallen into like disrepair, right,

(50:35):
A lot of the buildings sort of falling down. A
lot of things were built in the fifties, right and
even before and then just have not been able to
be up kept. And so I think what was heartbreaking
was to see the the consequences of the embargo right
against again I'm not an apologist, but against a nation

(50:57):
that you know that has different uh you know, uh government,
governmental right, and and socio and and economic system. So
that was really heartbreaking just to sort of see that.
But there was this like strong determination and the people
that that I that I met, you know, from like
our cab drivers to the people, you know, the all

(51:19):
of the churisty places that we were allowed to visit.
Because I will say, because after coming back from Coolba
and being on Instagram and seeing other people who had
gone to Cuba, I was just like, wait, we all
went to the exact same places. She was like, Okay,
that can't just be by coincidence, right, So so you know,

(51:40):
I you know, the people were gorgeous inside and out,
incredibly incredibly intelligent, and incredibly just knowledgeable about international affairs
as well. You know, they did call the United States
and Imperio right, the American Empire, and I think there's
some truth to that. But it was really interesting to

(52:02):
sort of hear, you know, people's opinions. I kind of
you know, put out like little feelers here and there,
and I'd be like, hey, you don't have to talk
about this, but I'm just wondering what's your interpretation of this,
And so people would be like, no, we can talk
about this freely. And then they would about healthcare and
again other sort of like politics and wonderful things, so

(52:25):
let me see. So yeah, so it oh and then
the most beautiful beach that I have ever visited. And
I'm not going to say that I've traveled the world
a lot, but I've been to the Dominico Republic, in
Puerto Rico and Barbados and like you know, Florida, and
especially in the Dominic Republic, I've been to my share
of beaches, and Baraveo was the most beautiful beach that

(52:45):
I have ever seen in my life, the cleanest waters,
just the calmist like like I don't know, I guess
the Calmnist area right, like it was really, it was
really wonderful. One of the things that I also noticed
when one visits the Dominican Republic, what really breaks my

(53:05):
heart is that in a lot of senses, especially when
you're traveling between between towns, between cities and the highways,
it's really just like littered with garbage. Koa was not
and in a way like it it seemed untouched in

(53:26):
many senses. And again, right, part of that is probably
because there isn't that type of consumerism, you know, because
of capitalism in the US's influence quote unquote influence on
our economies and countries. But yeah, let me see, was
there anything anything else? The cigars were really wonderful. There

(53:49):
there is this this liquor that I wish I had
bought more bottles of because I think it's made out
of a fruit that I think exists only in Kuba
called Guayavita, and I think the name of the thing
was like Guayabita, it'll beinad or something like that. And
it was like a rum, but it was more like

(54:10):
closer to licquur, right. It was. It's absolutely delicious, so
and you can only get it and from like this
one farm in in in Cuba. And again I just
wish I had gotten like a thousand bottles to be
able to bring over. But yeah, and then I after
my friends left, I actually got to spend a day

(54:32):
on my own. And I can't remember the name of
the town, but it was maybe an hour outside of Avana,
and so I was able to stay at this little
apartment literally by the ocean, with its own little like
private quote unquote private beach. It was just like a
little section that was like sectioned off from the rest
of the beach and again just kind of like it was.

(54:53):
It was refreshing, It was really I was I felt
replenished right after I returned and a funny story. And
you know, I don't know. Sometimes maybe I let my
mouth get ahead of me. But I was, you know,
at the airport getting ready to leave. I guess I
was checking in. I think it was Delta that I
was flying. And so there were apparently two lines, right,

(55:16):
there was a regular line and then there was a
priority line, and so I was next in line. But
then this like older couple joined the priority line and
then the guy was just like, well, actually they're next,
and so I was just like, oh, that's interesting in
a socialist country. And so the guy just looked at

(55:37):
me like ikea pasaman or like come on, give me
a break here, like and I was just like it's okay,
I you know, just pulling your like no worries. I
get it, I understand it. But yeah, no, I you know, again,
without defending any of the politicals going on, it was

(55:58):
it was a beautiful country. Yeah, it was just a
really wonderful, wonderful trip.

Speaker 5 (56:03):
I remember in our previous season you mentioned when we
talked about Bruhetian something that you went there, and you.

Speaker 4 (56:10):
Asked yes, I did, yes, because I was kind of like, oh,
I you know, I want to see Oh God, something
all right, yeah, yeah, And so I was kind of like,
you know, I would love to see like a ceremony,
and the cab driver was just like, well, you have
to be very very careful because he's just like you know,
oftentimes for like tourists, you know, there are people who
aren't like true, Oh my god, what are the priests

(56:33):
and priestesses called allows? Okay, that's what I thought, And
so you know, he was kind of like, it's really
hard to find someone, you know, who who is real.
So he was just like, so I would just be
careful with, you know, with with where you would go.
So I was just kind of like, okay, great, so
I'll just go ahead and scratch that off. I only
have like one more day here, so I'm not going
to go you know, and and and chase after that.

(56:56):
But but you know, just sort of like that Afro
you know, Afro Caribbean religion was was fascinating to me, right,
especially coming from the Dominican Republic where we have that's
been doing the dB which is you know, very sort
of similar to Haitian or Voodom from from ID.

Speaker 3 (57:17):
I have the dumbest question, So the the the infamous
Ricky Ricardo song. Is it related to Baba Lao?

Speaker 6 (57:26):
Like, is it is one of the.

Speaker 3 (57:30):
Oh goodness, wow, yes, yes, sasi Arnez appropriating af Afro
Cuban culture once once again wow.

Speaker 6 (57:43):
We know in a way the government has also, if
I can just jump in here, because we started going
during the revolution there was none of that and in fact,
you know, the Catholic Church was pretty shut down. Everything
was shut down religious and including Afro A religions, and
it was suppressed. And then when I, you know, as

(58:04):
I would go over the years, eventually as tourism picked up,
all of a sudden, they would be streets dedicated to
these performances. People walking on stilts with the you know,
dresses like you're coming out of the nineteenth century painting,
you know, Dia de las res and stuff like that,
and it became a tourist attraction, and all of a sudden,

(58:26):
Afro Cuban women with great big cigars and head wraps
and things like that you never saw before. It's a
tourism thing at this point, which is not to say
that they're not wonderful still authentic places to do this,
but as you found out, a lot of it is
you know, performative.

Speaker 3 (58:45):
It's funny you bring that up separate, but when I
visited Cartahina, Columbia for the first time and you go
in the walled city, yeah, it does feel very performative,
like like a show for tourists, and not to bad
mount them, but yeah, it definitely has that vibe.

Speaker 2 (59:01):
Yeah, yeah, well one of one of the just to
jump in one of the nice things. You know, maybe
coming from problematic circumstances, but one of the nice things
about being in Havana versus being in other parts of
the Caribbean or Latin America is that it's because it
has been somewhat shut off from certainly the United States,

(59:24):
and is very different in its political economy than many
other places. And this is also rapidly constantly changing and
rapidly changing. But it does not quite have the same tourists,
or at least I haven't been in a couple of
years now, but it doesn't have the same tourist orientation

(59:47):
that so much of the rest of Latin America and
the Caribbean often feel like they do. So Havana still
feels like a city that that sort of owns its
own soul to me, as compared to sometimes other places
of the Caribbean which feel like they are just so
oriented to the tourist economy. Of course, all Cuba has
plenty of tourist economy as well, and perhaps more and more.

(01:00:10):
But that is something that's nice about Havana. I'm being
in Cuba. I think in general, in a.

Speaker 6 (01:00:17):
Way there will have to be grateful for the tourists,
because that's the only income now there is possibly absolutely.

Speaker 3 (01:00:22):
Yeah, yeah, Jane Can, I'd love to have you talk
about some of the relief work which you've been helping
out in Cuba. They've had a rough twenty twenty four.
Literally their whole power infrastructure shut down multiple times, including
after Hurricane Raphael. So yeah, please Jane, tell us about
the efforts, which you're sure helpful.

Speaker 6 (01:00:41):
Oh, it's really minimal. It's just that I've been working
there so long and have so many you know, friends
who work in Cuba and so on. And one of
my good friends here at Vanderbilder's, Maria Margalena Campos poems
the famous Afro Cuban artists who just got a MacArthur
and wonderful friend and her sister needed heart surgery six

(01:01:04):
years ago and already things were bad. You wonderful doctors
and medical training who are also trying to get out
if they can, but hospitals in disarray and no medicine.
Everybody brings their own medicine and so on. If you
are going to have surgery there for the good doctors
that they have. But we had to get her out

(01:01:25):
because she needed heart surgery and that couldn't be done
in those conditions, and so we sent her back to
Cuba once she had this successful heart surgery. And then
now the collapse of the whole infrastructure. And they're from Abanza,
so it's where first you had the big blow up
of the oil refinery and that horror of everything burning

(01:01:48):
and black smoke everywhere, and then now the infrastructure has
failed and water systems were down and electric systems were down.
It's just you know, hor of Also, we had to
get her out again on a humanitarian visa. And when
we send people down there are groups that will send

(01:02:08):
medicine to distribute there, and of course our old church
friends will do it. They run food programs for the elderly,
you know, and Buenbiah and other places, and you can
take up to forty five pounds. I think it is
of medicines each time you go. So they're wonderful efforts,
not just I mean mindless accidental because of connections of friends,

(01:02:31):
but they are regular groups that go down and try
to get this, get some things back to the people there.
Because the electricity is vaguely on again but very fragile,
and it's a more than fifty year old, you know,
electrical grid. So something has to be done, and I
don't know who's going to rebuild it.

Speaker 3 (01:02:55):
And also you told me last time we talked, Jane, right,
there's like a sixty pound limit on food which you
can bring into the country.

Speaker 6 (01:03:01):
Yeah, well, anything that you bring is way you know, restricted,
and so you know, since well even since the special
careers I remember taking in, each of us could take
two suitcases full of stuff. And so I even had
like you know those mattresses that are I guess you
blow them up and so and I even had one

(01:03:22):
of those that somebody needed in and you know, you
can you're allowed a certain amount, but that's it, and
that every everybody that goes should carry us that much.

Speaker 7 (01:03:34):
Wow, yeah, I remember they go ahead. No, No, I
was just going to.

Speaker 2 (01:03:41):
Say that there's a you know, as Jay knows that
maybe if you know experience, you know, we've been taking
things when we go then since I started going, you know,
you always go with an extra suitcase of essentials and
that has come and gone and what what is needed
was not needed. You know, what's available, what's not available,

(01:04:02):
comes and goes. But uh, there's a wonderful episode on
if I may plug another podcast, I'm Mulan and it's
narrated by a Cuban author writer whose name I can't
remember now, but she lives in Portugal and she did
a whole podcast episode about the experience of packing a
suitcase every time she goes back because her mother is

(01:04:24):
still there and everything. And it's a it's a wonderful
it's really a very beautiful and it really resonated.

Speaker 7 (01:04:31):
I think it will resonate with anybody who you.

Speaker 2 (01:04:34):
Know, who has who thinks about this every time that
they go to the island, of of what what they
can take within this like you want to take everything,
but you have you have this limit and so's that's
a beautiful episode.

Speaker 4 (01:04:46):
Yeah, I mean yeah, I'll go ahead and attest to
that as a Dominican who has been traveling back and
forth since I was one. You know, you pack your
own suitcase and then you pack a second suitcase with
you know, some food and all of that, all of
that toys, all of that wonderful stuff. And I do
actually remember we did conduct just a little bit of

(01:05:07):
research before we went to Tokuban twenty seventeen, and that
apparently was like one of the recommendations was to make
sure that you you know, take some canned you know,
non perishables, you know, to be able to sort of
like distribute or even just sort of like as a
as a thank you, you know, gift. So I was
just like, oh, okay, yeah, definitely we'll do. And I

(01:05:28):
will say, you know, the people that we that we met,
you know where we gave them, you know, some like
canned goods, were incredibly incredibly thankful just because they didn't
have it there, right, not because of a lack of
but just because you know, this one thing was just like, oh,
this is like a special kind of tuna, right, you
can't get that here. So so yeah, it was it

(01:05:50):
was really it was a good thing. And yeah, not
something that was unusual for me. I was just like,
all right, I am just going to pack a couple
of shorts, a couple of t shirts and everything else. Yeah,
up to the fifty pounds is going to be you know,
food and other necessities that I.

Speaker 6 (01:06:03):
Can leave behind, you know, And the experience in Havana
is one thing that driving out into the smaller little
towns too. I remember, I can't remember about five or
six years ago, driving from Havannah to where it was
San Agustine de la Naiva, Florrito, and I studied it.
But it became the towns province and things looked better.

(01:06:27):
I saw more animals, I saw more fields with plants
and so on. And I said that to one of
the people in Seba Moa, it looks better now, and
she said, yes, but you came on the highway where
the tourists come and it's all planted next to the highway.
It's uh, you know, it's performative again. And she said,
my son still goes up into the hills to kill

(01:06:49):
food for us, so you know, it's it's still needs
so much help. Sorry, that was a downer, don't know,
It's just you.

Speaker 4 (01:07:01):
Know, it's the reality of the situation.

Speaker 6 (01:07:03):
Yeah, yeah, we need your help.

Speaker 4 (01:07:07):
Yeah yeah. Plata Bracoa was the little town where I stayed,
just outside of Bavanah. And yeah, yes, because I kept
telling them like, oh, I want to go to Barracoa
and they were like, but that's all the way in
the south, and I was just like no, no, no, plagia
but uh but yeah, like right like sort of like
off the beaten path. And and as you were saying,

(01:07:29):
right like, it's you know, the the need is you know,
was was was pretty pretty visible there. Yeah, and then
having to exchange dollars for Cuban Cuban cooks, cooks, that
was quite an interesting experience as well. Sorry, So in Cuba, you,

(01:07:51):
I guess you can like spend dollars, but before you couldn't,
or at some point you couldn't, and so you had
to have it exchanged for a Cuban And is it
a peso? Yeah, And there's two currencies as well, right,
there's a tourist currency and then there's the currency that
the Cuban people use. Am I exactly?

Speaker 10 (01:08:10):
Okay, I think they have been having a I gone
down to one currency.

Speaker 4 (01:08:16):
I merged them, okay, okay, okay. So in twenty seventeen
when I was there, it was two currencies that it
was complicated, and so what was fascinating to me is
that then the Cuban government essentially put a tax on dollars,
so you would get a lower exchange, right like whereas
in the rest of the world, yeah, your dollar, yeah exactly,

(01:08:39):
So it would be like what is it a dollar
one one cook for a dollar ten or something like that,
so that it comes out being like ninety The exchange
was like ninety cents or something like that. So it
was like a ten percent if I'm not mistaken tax,
I guess on on the dollar. But I remember I
was just like, yeah, I brought Oh that's also what

(01:09:00):
it was. Not everywhere takes dollars. So I remember actually
having to get euros before I left, and so you know,
I was kind of like, oh, I have to exchange
some money, and so you know, I was just kind
of like, all right, well, they'll take me to some
bank looking place. Now it was like like a little
shed like off the off the road, and I was

(01:09:23):
just like what is going on here? But you know,
it was legit. It was legit, and yeah, and I
was able to get my currency exchange. Oh, because at
the time, you couldn't withdraw from an ATM right like
with your with your card or use a credit card,
so so you had to go with cash and whatever

(01:09:43):
you you brought, that's what you had for the rest
of your shirt.

Speaker 3 (01:09:48):
Jane, Jane, and Raquel, do you have plans to go
back to Cuba.

Speaker 6 (01:09:54):
I would love to. My next preservation tip is back
to Columbia. But I do want to go to Cuba
whenever I can. It's a wonderful place. I love the
people I want to help, So if I can get there,
I will.

Speaker 2 (01:10:09):
Yeah, I haven't been in several years now because well
primarily because I have small children that I've been home
uh biendo and raising, giving birth to and raising That's
that's what I was looking for. But also because I
teach a you know, public community college that doesn't have

(01:10:32):
tons of resources, but.

Speaker 7 (01:10:35):
But mostly the kids.

Speaker 2 (01:10:36):
But there they are now, I'm I'm moving into a
different case of parenting where they are. My youngest is
three now, and so I think that that I'm hopeful
that it will be easier for me to go back,
maybe with them, or to leave them for a little
while longer for a trip. I really do want to

(01:10:58):
go back, though, because I always want to go back
to see friends and family and colleagues. But you know,
I just sent an email to a bunch of colleagues,
you know, letting them know that the book is coming out,
and including too many people in Cuba who who were
indispensible and who's work I relied on to be able

(01:11:18):
to write this book, and who this book is in
dialogue with, and so I hope that I can go
take them the book. You know, you can't mailing me
to Cuba from the United States, as you know, and
so it would be nice to say thank you by
by handing people the book personally.

Speaker 3 (01:11:35):
Right, yeah, all right, Briar, you said you wanted to
oh some things.

Speaker 5 (01:11:42):
I don't even know where to place this. I just have.
I do not have Cuban ancestry, but I have two
cousins who are each half Salvadorian and half Cuban, and
one of them has been on the podcast a couple
of times and very free to talk about her views
on things. But when I asked, and I refer to
my cousin as her because as we've interviewed her, she's

(01:12:05):
been a drag queen. But when we talk about our
Salvadorian heritage a fair amount, and I obviously know her
through my Salvadorian side, but I asked if she wanted
to participate in this conversation, and she and my other
cousin who are not related, they said, I don't have
anything to contribute. I don't know what to say about

(01:12:26):
my heritage. There seems to be like a really there's
a gap there. There's a big gap in how they
relate to this part of their heritage, and it's been
lost through access to this country and to being you know,
just access to their history, access to the country, and
the US is enforcement of that. I mean, I can

(01:12:47):
even say just I have very limited experience with Koopa,
but through my job, I had to take a whole
training on sanctions and what we but the US has
sanctions on with Cuba. Like the absolute limits of what
you can work on and not work on in relation

(01:13:08):
to this country is so strict that it's like, Okay, well,
they want to make it damn near impossible, damn near
impossible for you to have anything to do with this
country at all. So, I mean, that's a bummer. I
don't again, that's that's a corporate experience.

Speaker 4 (01:13:26):
I have.

Speaker 5 (01:13:27):
I was going through that training and I was like,
what damn just trying to throw this whole country away. Huh,
we just want to forget about it.

Speaker 4 (01:13:34):
I mean, yeah, that's the thing. Like even like politically right,
the rest of Latin America isn't you know, it wasn't
or isn't allowed to have regular you know sort of
oh god, what would I call it? Well, I guess right,
like a relationship right trade with Kua because in the
United States will get mad at Yes, the United States

(01:13:54):
will cut you off. Yes, you can't afford to get
cut off of the United States. So you're kind of like, sorry, cool, bough.

Speaker 9 (01:14:01):
They said I can't talk to you, so.

Speaker 4 (01:14:02):
Yeah, exactly exactly. My bully said, I can't talk to
you otherwise you'll believe me. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:14:09):
Now, like the US hasn't got involved in Latin American
affairs and helped the government.

Speaker 9 (01:14:15):
Boat Sorry, guys, I.

Speaker 3 (01:14:17):
Did find the statistic, so Al Jazeera estimate in twenty
fifteen that the US embargo has cost Cuba one point
one trillion dollars over fifty five years. And that was
in twenty fifteen, so at another ten years, at another decade, Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:14:36):
And I think the burden on people and families separated
by the Florida's race, right, it's really awful and it continues,
and it's just punitive, and it's punitive for no good reason.
So I really appreciate you bringing that up, Briar, because
you know, I said, the reason I haven't gotten back

(01:14:57):
to Cuba is because I have three small children. But like,
really it's because I have three small children and they
make it damn near impossible to go to Cuba, right.
And so if if this was Puerto Rico, I mean,
I have lots of family in Puerto Rico and I
have taken my children many times to Puerto Rico, right,
And I you know, I have lots of Dominican friends,
lots of Dominican students, and you know, they're back and

(01:15:17):
forth in the dr all the time. And so if
you are from a place where where there is easier
access to you have a different you are able to
have a different relationship with the country, with the society,
with your family there. Then if it is just crazy
logistical nightmares that it is to get to Cuba.

Speaker 3 (01:15:41):
Rock Kel, I have a really strong memory of you
from college. It was I won't mention which year it is.
But you you had the family plans to go to
Cuba because the current visa restrictions, we're allowing it. And
then suddenly President George W. Bush switched it up, and
you tell.

Speaker 4 (01:16:01):
George W. Bush spoiled my Christmas?

Speaker 2 (01:16:05):
Yeah, I mean, but why should why should governments do that?

Speaker 7 (01:16:09):
Because people, right.

Speaker 2 (01:16:10):
That's not what governments are supposed to do. They're not
supposed to make it harder for family members to see
each other, you know, and and Cuba and at the
and you know, until very recently, Cubans couldn't leave but
without permission, right, And I think you had to have
what was called the right the white paper, is that

(01:16:30):
what it's called. And so that was I think about.
I think in twenty twelve, Cuba finally lifted that and
so now it's become easier for Cubans to leave Cuba,
and many Cubans now come and go from the United
States and back and forth from other places in a
way that previous generations had not been able to come

(01:16:51):
and go, in part because of the Cuban side too.

Speaker 6 (01:16:54):
Yeah, but the thing is that the Cubans made it
more difficult. Also, was the same you know, moving embassies
around and so on and closing them and that sort
of thing. That one other thing adding to the hardship
is that when the Russians pulled out, then Venezuela steps
in and they had plenty of oil and they helped
a long time. And now that Venezuela has collapsed, there's

(01:17:17):
another another problem for Sula.

Speaker 2 (01:17:20):
Yeah, yeah, for sure, yeah, yeah, But it's my hope
for twenty twenty five is that families and loved ones
can see each other without governments making it.

Speaker 11 (01:17:34):
Difficult for that.

Speaker 5 (01:17:36):
When Fast I went to Quebec a few years ago,
this was the I don't remember that, you guys can
correct me, but there was a small gap in time
in the twenty tens where you could travel a little
more freely. Fast went. Yes, my friends were able to
go in through a cruise. My cousin whose stepfather who

(01:17:58):
raised her so her father is Cuban, and she booked
a cruise and she was so excited to go see
her father's homeland on the cruise. They said no, no, no, more,
absolutely not. She signed up for that cruise specifically to
go and it didn't work out for her.

Speaker 9 (01:18:14):
When I was a kid, we were all Mexico paper,
like two thousand and one, two thousand and two, and
they were able to travel from Mexico into Cuban and
they're like, do you guys want to like hop on
a boat and go. My parents are like, we still
have our Panamanian cards, let's go. But she's American and
she might get like stuck in the country room and
have to leave you there. So now we're not going
to go visit Cuba. My mom would tell that story
for decades, like, oh, we had the chance to go,

(01:18:36):
but you American passport would have gotten us in trouble,
so we didn't.

Speaker 4 (01:18:41):
Michael, I'm sorry.

Speaker 9 (01:18:42):
I didn't have to be born here, thank you very much.

Speaker 4 (01:18:44):
Yeah, that was also a thing back in the day,
right to be able to like to not get your
if you did travel there through Canada or America, to
not have your passport USCS passport scam because that was
well illegal. Yeah, but I am. I am happy to
report that I did get a coolest stance on my
past if it's actually really cool.

Speaker 5 (01:19:08):
So, as I mentioned in Our Citizenship, I just send
episode a couple of weeks ago. Not the only, but
one of the reasons I got citizenship and able to
get a Salvadorian passport. Is so I could go to
give it one day. Yes, not anytime soon. I don't
have it plants, but I can someday, like yeah, yeah,

(01:19:30):
that's that's.

Speaker 4 (01:19:31):
All I have.

Speaker 5 (01:19:31):
I mean I have. I have some genealogy sources that
I know people can add on too, because I have
a limited source, and I would like to talk about
the famous Gobanos in history that I was able to
come up with. That again, I want or our co
hosts and our penelists to add on to because I
know mine is not as extensive. But for our listeners
who have given a sin who want to look into

(01:19:54):
their history more, I'm not gonna lie. Not the not
not great, not great. You don't have the great is
leeway to start researching because again the West likes to
restrict information. But Cuban gen Web, family search, Facebook groups,
the Florida State Genealogical Society, National Geographic Society, the Enrique

(01:20:17):
Huertado de Mendoza Collection of Cuban Genealogy, and I have
a link for that I can put in the show notes.
Cuban Genealogy Club of Miami, Florida is actually pretty extensive.

Speaker 6 (01:20:27):
That one's pretty exact, and they have a wonderful website.
I've worked with them for quite a while.

Speaker 5 (01:20:31):
Yes, and so it's not as available for Americans, but
you can apparently write to parishes in Cuba and see
if they're willing to give you information about your ancestors,
if you have a good lead.

Speaker 4 (01:20:46):
Fascinating. I didn't know that.

Speaker 5 (01:20:47):
Yes, I mean it's longer, it's it's more, you know,
for some buggy Yeah, yeah, yeah, now some famous Kubanos.

Speaker 4 (01:20:55):
Ah.

Speaker 3 (01:20:55):
Wait before as long as we're talking about sources, here's
dot Jane. Yes, East to the Rescue, tell us about
your site. Slave Society's Digital Archives.

Speaker 6 (01:21:06):
Yeah, thanks again. We started with my interest with in
Afro Cubans or Afro anybody around where I'm traveling and working.
But we do copy everything. So we have Espanolas. They'll
have in deal as they call them, they have negros,
and so from the earliest we have in Cubas from

(01:21:27):
the sixteenth century, we go up to the end of slavery,
but often we would just keep going because we were
already in the materials. So on it's just Slavessocieties dot org.
If you go on the web you'll find it. And
Cuba is one of the most extensive groups we have,
and so the way you can search it is, you know,

(01:21:50):
you have to plow through the records and you have
to be able to read paleography. But I've had a
lot of graduate students starting to transcribe their records, and
so the Cuba page at the bottom you'll find transcriptions
of some of the documents or some of the books
that they chose to transcribe from the Catholic Church. But

(01:22:10):
we also try to add any links to other resources
people might want to use for Cuban research, videos, whatever
it might be, particles, other websites, and so I hope
you'll be able to find something about your family's there.

Speaker 5 (01:22:26):
I hope, so thank you so much, thank you.

Speaker 4 (01:22:29):
I was just going to add, right, like, especially because
the Caribbean in particular, when all those countries were collingies
of Spain, right, there was a lot of commerce, right,
just a lot of travel in between. So for example there,
I think there's a lot of I think there are
a lot of Dominicans in Santiago, the Guga, if I'm

(01:22:50):
not mistaken, right, But then also just sort of like
a lot of genealogical links between the island of Ikiskeja
and the other Googa in particular, right during the Haitian Revolution,
a lot of well, I guess the wealthier landowners that
you know left. I went to Santiago and New Orleans

(01:23:13):
at the time because again that was part of Spain.
So yeah, so, like I really just love studying the
history and genealogy of these kind Yeah. The of that
area of the Gulf of Mexican Caribbean Sea is just
because it's so inter interlinked.

Speaker 2 (01:23:28):
It is so if you haven't read alas, I heard
this wonderful book Freedom's Mirror. Uh, it's exactly about that
story about how the end of slavery in Haiti is
in some senses the rise of second slavery in Cuba,
and in part because of those those Haitian, those French

(01:23:52):
landowners from Sandomang what became Haiti coming to coming to
Cuba with their machinery and they're know how and sometimes
there's sleeves and.

Speaker 6 (01:24:04):
They'll get expelled in eighteen o nine because the Cubans
get afraid of them. And one of the things that
I see tracking it from older times is that the
free Affle Cuban community had much more power earlier before
sugar takes over. And it's when Sandoming blows up that
it gets big in Cuba and big in Brazil. And

(01:24:26):
that's when you don't want a very educated, free black
population talking about things like constitutions and rights. You know,
it gets much more shut down and out book is wonderful, all.

Speaker 4 (01:24:39):
These crazy ideas of freedom.

Speaker 6 (01:24:41):
Yeah. Yeah, I'm tracking the diester of all the three
Africans who fought in Sandong and get dispersed everywhere by Spain.

Speaker 2 (01:24:51):
Wow, that's great.

Speaker 5 (01:24:53):
And just to just to talk about some famous couponas
we have Backstreet boys ag McLean.

Speaker 4 (01:25:01):
Oh he is yes, I didn't realize that.

Speaker 5 (01:25:05):
Okay, the arms, Yeah, Andy Garcia, who's a very underrated act. Yeah,
Bella Thorne, Bob Menandez who New Jersey, Yeah, Bobby kin

(01:25:26):
of All. Oh yeah he's probably Cameron Diaz right. Also
part Camilla Caveo, who again sang that song havannah uh.
And actually I was surprised to hear Carly Simon, but
she is party. I always knew Carly Simon as the
heir to Simon and Schuster book publisher. She is like

(01:25:47):
a legacy in New York.

Speaker 9 (01:25:48):
Kidding, I didn't know that.

Speaker 3 (01:25:52):
There's there's a great Finding your Roots episode where I
think it's her maternal grandmother gave this lie that she
was the daughter of the king of Spain and and
and this Moroccan slave. But then they found out her
family actually was Cuban and normally that they they they
were Afro Cuban direct.

Speaker 9 (01:26:11):
Hearen's the blackest white person we've.

Speaker 4 (01:26:13):
Ever had on the show, remember that one.

Speaker 5 (01:26:14):
Yeah, And of course we have to mention Celia Cruz
because we had to put Christina Milian for those white
two ks in here.

Speaker 4 (01:26:25):
Okay, yes, I remember her.

Speaker 5 (01:26:27):
Yes, Corney Love actually has some oh I know that.
And Daisy Fuentees from the nineties es I.

Speaker 4 (01:26:35):
Met her time. Yeah, it's kind of cool.

Speaker 5 (01:26:38):
Oh. Danny Garcia, who is a businesswoman who is also responded.
She was the Rock's ex wife and she is a
response who's still his manager. She is responsible for why
he was everywhere a few years ago.

Speaker 9 (01:26:51):
Cuban ingenuity at work.

Speaker 5 (01:26:54):
Actor Danny Pino from SVU.

Speaker 4 (01:26:58):
Danny, Yeah, funny, funny story about about him. So right
after my mom sort of like retired from being a
lunch lady. She was just like, oh, I can make
some extra money, like like being being a cleaning lady.
So one time, not one time. She would often tell
my sister stories about her friend Danny, and she was

(01:27:19):
just like, Oh, Danny's so sweet, his kids are so nice,
blah blah blah blah. And then one day my sister's
watching SVU because loves right like that she loves and
then my mom goes, that's Danny, and my sister was like,
your friend is Danny Pino. So yeah, so my mom

(01:27:40):
was his was his cleaning lady for a little bit.

Speaker 5 (01:27:42):
So nice. Oh and I'm glad to hear he was nice.

Speaker 4 (01:27:45):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. She was just like he's really really sweet.
He seems like it. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:27:50):
Eddie Cibrian, he's an actor who is now married to
Leanne Rhymes, Emilio and Gloria Estefan. We all know, oh yes, yes, yes,
we've previously talked about this brother duo Eric and Lyel
mean Indez, Emma Mendez actress and Fat Joe the Rapper. Okay, yes, yes,

(01:28:13):
I mean everyone knows him from lean back. But he
had a he had a pretty viral thing a couple
of years ago on Instagram where he's like because inflation
went up, and he's like, yesterday's price is not today's price,
and I was just like, I love this guy is awsome,
so funny. Everyone from my era knows him from Lean
Back though the same Yes. Yes, singer Irene Cara from

(01:28:35):
Flash Dance. Uh what a feeling?

Speaker 4 (01:28:38):
Yeah that one?

Speaker 5 (01:28:40):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (01:28:41):
J R.

Speaker 5 (01:28:41):
Ramirez actor and Jamie Lynn Siegler from The Sopranos, Half.

Speaker 4 (01:28:46):
Cuban interesting, uh, Jiubano, Jim.

Speaker 5 (01:28:54):
Acosta, John Cicada, the actor jose Canseiko yes, yes, Marco
Rubio and Mel Ferrer who's an older actor, and the
Risco Rodriguez, Nicole Melliotakis who is a New York politician,
pitbull mister Worldwide, Raoul Esparza also from.

Speaker 4 (01:29:17):
Svo okay yes, yes okay, and.

Speaker 5 (01:29:22):
Rosario Dawson and Sammy Davis Junior. He was port Rican,
Cuban and Jewish and solidad O'Brien. Oh, I'm sorry, we
totally forgot to mention desire.

Speaker 9 (01:29:35):
And as sorry.

Speaker 3 (01:29:37):
Yeah yeah, can I just say as as someone you know,
the as with a Latino father and and a mom
from from the US, like I love Lucy was representation
that that I didn't really see anywhere else.

Speaker 4 (01:29:51):
So yeah, I mean this is.

Speaker 5 (01:29:52):
A whole side tangent. But like Lucy o'ball was a
comedic genius and a business woman.

Speaker 4 (01:29:57):
Yes it is a business.

Speaker 5 (01:29:59):
He missed every thing up there.

Speaker 4 (01:30:00):
Yes, that was that was him, That was on him.

Speaker 5 (01:30:02):
That was on him because she knew what she was doing.
She was a comedic genius and whatever they did. No
Ted Ted Cruz also per Cuban.

Speaker 4 (01:30:14):
Oh I thought he was Canadian.

Speaker 5 (01:30:17):
He's his name is actually it's actually So that's.

Speaker 3 (01:30:24):
All I got with my art history background, and mentioned
three artists that I love. Thank you with fredro Lam
who's Cuban Chinese descent. He does awesome surrealist paintings. And
in the process of acquiring one of his pieces. Yeah yeah,
well yeah, not to humble brags, but we'll talk about that.

(01:30:44):
We'll talk about that later. Your fine art, thanks to
my Thanks to my friend all right, Anna Mendieta, who's
an amazing feminist artist who was unfortunately she's all also
famous because she was murdered, probably murdered by her skol
their husband Carl Andre, which was a real loss. And
Felix Gonzales Torre's very famous queer installation artist who died

(01:31:08):
e ades and many of his installations reflect that that experience.

Speaker 4 (01:31:13):
So yeah, I will say Cuban art is is just
is amazing. You know. You saw it like like you know,
even like street art, I guess I would say, right
like you saw it in Ivana. That professor that I mentioned,
his apartment literally was floor to ceiling with Cuban art

(01:31:33):
and it looked like a museum in there. And I
remember there was this oh god, I don't even know
how to describe it, but it was like a red
paintbrush coming out of a you know, a paint bucket,
and like the red right went from the bucket all
the way to the floor. This was a wood carving
and then there were like human figurines just like all

(01:31:56):
all throughout. And when I saw it and I was
just like, this is amazing, and He's just like, yeah,
I actually have to bring it, bring it home in pieces.
You know. It was just yeah, so Cuban Cuban art, right, like,
not not trying to fetishize anything, but it is absolutely
absolutely gorgeous.

Speaker 6 (01:32:14):
Can I put in a plug for a wonderful brad
of ours who has is in a post doc at
Minnesota now just did a dissertation on a who are
deported from Tuba. But she works on the three women
artists who incorporate Santeria images in their art in. One
of them was an Am Mendieta.

Speaker 11 (01:32:34):
So Elita Abai a b A ll I And she's
self published poet and writer and artists and now has
a PhD also from us.

Speaker 4 (01:32:45):
Very cool, thank you for telling us. Awesome.

Speaker 6 (01:32:48):
Sure she's got a great website with all kinds of
things on it for you.

Speaker 3 (01:32:52):
Well, this has been a banquet of history culture. I mean,
clearly Cuba has so much to offer. I think it
would be worth revisiting Cuba down down the road again.
Jane and and Raquel, thank you both so much for
joining us this. This has been a real pleasure.

Speaker 5 (01:33:10):
Yeah, thank you, Thank you so much for joining us.

Speaker 10 (01:33:15):
A lovely way to kick off the break. So thank
you for thank you for meeting with us. It's really
been been a highlight of the season for me. And
it's wonderful to connect with my old pals and to
meet Briar in this medium and also Jane, who am
so wonderful.

Speaker 7 (01:33:36):
Thank you guys.

Speaker 4 (01:33:37):
Recked we may have to take a Flamenco class or
two over the next couple of weeks.

Speaker 2 (01:33:44):
Absolutely, we're making that happen, all.

Speaker 3 (01:33:47):
Right, all right, I'm going to do thank you. I'll
do some quick housekeeping here. If you love our podcast,
Rediscovering Latini DoD, please hit follow or subscribe. It is
different from downloading. Also, please leave us a five star
rating and review. For more family history tips, visit rediscovering
Latini dot dot com to learn how to join our
Patreon and gain access to our exclusive lessons and bonus interviews.

(01:34:10):
You can also send us an email at Rediscovering Latini
dot at gmail dot com or caller text us at
six four six four seven zero nine eight two four.
Slide into our dms. Follow us on social media at
rediscovering Latini dot on Facebook and Instagram, at redisc Latini
dot on Blue Sky and x and our Rediscovering Latini

(01:34:31):
dot on Reddit. Join us next week as we discuss
ooh free online genealogy resources.

Speaker 4 (01:34:38):
Google, Facebook, you name it. We'll tell you how to
search for free ninety nine So see it. See you
next time. Bye bye bye bye bye

Speaker 5 (01:35:00):
Mm

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