What is a Cuban American?

By Claudia Fanelli

Just what is a Cuban American? This topic has come up in the past few months since “Cane” debuted on TV. Cuban Americans, unhappy with the inaccurate portrayal of their people, spoke out on blogs. It got many people talking, and asking, “if Cane’s Duque family doesn’t represent Cubans in the United States, then what IS a Cuban American?

As I have stated ad-nauseum, I am not a Cuban American. So, what I have written here is my outsider’s view looking in on what I see a Cuban American to be through my dealings, research and friendships with Cubans in this country.

A Cuban American comes in all sizes, shapes and colors. Most of them are white, having the majority of their ancestry in Spain. Many are black and Mulatto, a result of the afro-Cuban bloodline introduced by the slaves brought to the island by the
Europeans. What they are not is indigenous, a result of the Taino Indian population dying out in the 1500’s. Cuban Americans have straight hair, wavy hair, curly hair, blonde hair, brown hair, red hair. Some are fair skinned, some are tan and some are black. Some look like Andy Garcia and some look like “El Duque” and Livan Hernandez. Some look like Cristina Saralegui and some look like Dr. Oscar Biscet.

In short, Cuban Americans look like the rest of America- varied.

A Cuban American is a brave soul, for if he is in this country, he has to had made a valiant escape from Cuba in some way. If he did it via the visa system, he undoubtedly lost his home and job after applying for the visa. His possessions were most likely stripped
from his home because they belonged to “la revolución,” and therefore, could not take them with him.

If he escaped by raft or inner tube, the heights of his courage are unmatched because if he had not made it to the US, he would have died at sea or been returned to Cuba, where he would have been punished for illegally leaving the country. A Cuban American has done what many American-born people cannot fathom- he has left his country behind.

A Cuban American is ingenious, having had so little in his country, he is the Cuban “McGyver,” making shoes out of plastic soda bottles, using a hodge podge of old
Russian parts to keep his car running and setting sail a Chevy truck to sea in lieu of a boat. Once here, the Cuban American parlays that inventiveness into business sense, with over 125,000 Cuban-owned businesses. “Necessity may be the mother of invention” but Cubans are the mothers of ingenuity.

A Cuban-American is determined and hard working, refusing to live off of other people. For those that train as doctors, lawyer and teachers in Cuba, they must retrain in the US. When college degrees from Cuba are not recognized here for certain jobs, Cuban Americans must take classes over to qualify for positions. And they do. They will hold menial jobs until they can work up to the job they want. And if a menial job is all they can do, they will do it well and proudly. From having nothing in Cuba to a total household income of over 14 billion dollars in the US, nobody can deny that their hard work and determination has paid off.

Cuban Americans take care of their own. When a fellow Cuban American wants to open a new company, Cuban-American firms provide the start-up until the company is self-sufficient. Cubans take other Cubans into their homes when they first arrive here until they can get on their feet, remembering how someone did the same for them when they arrived. It is the ability to count on your “hermanos cubanos” in this country that make communities in cities like Miami and Union City so tight knit. Everyone is willing to help; everyone shares their pain.

Cuban Americans are not afraid to let their voices be heard. They appear on Spanish language tv programs like Ultima Palabra and radio programs like Mesa Redonda, and on Fox news and 20/20, like George Utset of the Real Cuba website. They show up to voice their opinions when people like Code Pink show up to cause trouble in their back yard. They write blogs and websites to spread the truth about the realities of today’s Cuba, like Cubanology and Babalublog They hold vigils to bring attention to the political prisoners in Cuba that the rest of the world ignores because they know it is up to them to make those voices heard. They write books to enlighten the public about their false idols, like Humberto Fontova did about Che Guevara and Fidel.

They author historical accounts on events in Cuban history or personal memoirs to share
the truth with any who care to learn it, like Professors Antonio de la Cova who who wrote The Moncada Attack and Carlos Eire, author of Waiting for Snow in Havana.

A Cuban American enjoys life in ways that are foreign to other Americans. They don’t just eat pork, they roast a giant lechón on a spit for their family and friends and carefully prepare for the event with much anticipation. They don’t just drink a cup of coffee; they use it as a reason to socialize, drinking tiny little cups of high octane espresso, or café cubano with others throughout the day, in the office or at a local restaurant with a walk-up window for coffee drinkers. They cook delicious meals with numerous, or even limited, ingredients.

They listen to salsa music, which they created, and dance to it- young and old. They are
family-centric and hold their mothers in the highest regard. They are bilingual and bicultural- Spanish and English flows back and forth during their conversations without people even realizing that the one language they speak is actually two.

Cuban Americans loathe Communism, for it is Communism that forced them to leave their patrias, their homes, pheir families in many cases, behind. They never want to have the government take over their lives again, and they embrace democracy in the United States, and all that comes with it. They consider themselves Cuban because Cuba is where they have left their hearts, but America is where their souls will leave their bodies,
for most refuse to go back to the island until democracy is restored. As heart-breaking as they know it is, they have made their peace with it, and consider the United States their home.

A Cuban American is all of this and more. There are no rules to being a Cuban American and there is no template. They are how they are because of their roots, what they’ve been through and what they have learned as a result. One thing is certain, though, if you are lucky enough to count Cuban Americans among your friends, you are very lucky indeed.