Imagining Cuba

This chapter aims to describe a course through the treacherous waters, to make sense of the passionate polarities that have divided Cubans on the island from Cubans in Miami for decades. It explores the formative role that storytelling plays, hoping to reclaim at least one voice in a chorus of voices silenced by the very people who presume to speak for and all Cuban exiles. Cubans from Cubans on the island on such issues as the US embargo, the challenge to locate and pursue an elusive thread of connection between is no less urgent today than it was in 1959, when Castro&s;s revolution triggered the Cuban diaspora. In the context of Cuban politics and discourse, Cuba&s;s complex history is reduced to a polemic between pro-Castro/anti-Castro scenarios. Cuban exiles that cling to the singular vision memorialize the pre-1959 past as the moment of solidarity and communality, and only insiders to the vision may share its glory.

Cuban History and Society · History · Psychology