The identity crisis of being Cuban
THE TEMPORARY transfer of power while Fidel Castro recuperates from surgery and turns a fragile 80 in his hospital bed has sparked people to wonder whether the Cuban regime is poised to open up and allow some ownership of property, like China, or even opposition parties and real elections, like the former Eastern European countries, now democracies.
The consensus, of course, is that brother Raúl Castro is as much a hardliner as Fidel. He has been minister of defense for as long as anyone can remember. Nonetheless, some think that Raúl may surprise everyone once Fidel is dead and institute controlled, limited change. Others believe that the move toward liberalization will start with the military, which is the only institution with any real power on the island, and that Raúl, lacking Fidel's charisma and support, will be unable to stop it.
To the Cubans who fled the Castro regime into exile, these events mean first and foremost that Fidel will die and that it may happen soon. To quote a bumper sticker that was once ubiquitous on the streets of Miami: ``No Castro, No Problems."
It is dangerous to generalize about any community. Cuban exiles, who number about 700,000 in Miami alone, and who have so often been portrayed as monolithic, intolerant, and even crazy, are a complex and diverse people. The first wave of Cubans to flee were those most directly associated with the Batista regime that Castro overthrew. The failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion brought another wave, this time mostly professionals and business people.
These early immigrants had grown up in a highly Americanized Cuba, where Havana had the greatest number of Cadillacs per capita of any city. In 1980, thousands fled on the Mariel boatlift. More followed, if not in trickles then in steady streams, as occurred with the rafters in the '90s. The more recent the immigrant, the longer he has lived under communism, the less comfortable he is assimilating to life in the United States.
Exiles also differ on how best to bring about change on the island. Some believe that the embargo should not only be maintained, but strengthened. You cannot judge the effectiveness of the embargo, they argue, when it has been so porous and never given a proper chance. Others believe that change must come from within. They are sometimes called ``dialogueros" for their willingness to enter into a dialogue with the Castro regime, a repugnant proposition to the pro-embargo exiles.
In spite of their differences and regardless of whether they call themselves cubano or Cuban-American, exiles and their Miami-born children see themselves as belonging to a greater nation that spans the Straights of Florida and is simply ``Cuban," without distinguishing between those who live on the island and those who live in exile. When exiles ``exult" at the prospect of Castro's imminent death, they assume that the islanders feel the same way, only they are too afraid to say so. Dissidence on the island invites ``actos de repudio," the infamous acts of repudiation. A mob surrounds the dissident's home, hurls vulgarities for hours or days, plays loud music into the night, and threatens anyone trying to enter or leave, effectively turning the home into a prison. The thinking among exiles is that Cubans on the island also want one thing -- ¡Libertad! -- the end of Castro and his regime.
Yet how much do the islanders and exiles have in common? What would a 20-something who has never left Cuba talk about with his Miami contemporary who speaks rudimentary Spanish and may eat sushi more frequently than he does rice and beans? What about the exiles who came over in the early '60s, the ones who call themselves cubanos? Most of them are retired now, after spending most of their working lives recreating the culture they left behind. How many would return to the country where they grew up, one they would not recognize? The answer is very few.
Among the three generations of Cubans in Miami, the ones who are now in their 30s, 40s, and even 50s who call themselves Cuban-Americans and toggle comfortably between English and Spanish are the most likely to travel there. Some will do so out of curiosity. Others will do so to help reconstruct the crumbling buildings in old Havana, surely one of humanity's cultural treasures.
One thing is certain: Any people separated by politics, wealth, and even language for 47 years cannot remain the same. Opening up relations between Cuba and the United States will force exiles and islanders to meet face to face. The result will no doubt cause many to ask themselves what it means to be Cuban.
Gonzalo Barr is a Miami attorney and author of ``The Last Flight of Jose Luis Balboa," out next month from Houghton Mifflin/Mariner. 
