Published: Tuesday, October 6, 2009
By ROSE QUINN
rquinn@delcotimes.com
CHESTER — Love child turned critic, a daughter of Fidel Castro told a
Widener University audience Monday that lifting 50-year embargoes
imposed by the United States would do little to help suffering people in
Cuba.
"I believe the government is going to control everything as it has
always done," Alina Fernandez said of the homeland she fled in 1993 to
provide a better life for her own daughter.
Though Cubans are quick to blame America for their plight, she suggested
that continuing hardships are more a result of the fall of communist
Russia in the early 1990s.
"Cuba became a harder place to live in because they were subsidized by
the Russians," she said.
Fernandez was speaking during the question-and-answer portion following
her 45-minute, first-person account of life both in and out of Cuba. She
diplomatically shifted from controversy when a man in the audience asked
her opinion about "a president trying to take control" of banks and car
dealerships — an obvious reference to President Obama.
"To think Obama could be a communist," she quipped without missing a
beat, drawing loud applause inside the packed Alumni Auditorium.
Fernandez opened her talk by asking for patience with her "Spanglish.'
She proceeded to offer snapshots on Cuban society and glimpses of rebel
politics. She traced her days as a child who played on the floor with
the frequent night visitor — Castro — to fleeing Cuba disguised as a
Spanish tourist.
"In my case, everything began with something called revolution ... the
Cuban one is the main reason for everything in my personal life story,"
she said. "I come from a country in which the revolution is endless ...
But the Cuban revolution is a legend, that is why we are here."
Fernandez described her mother as "a force of nature ... a toast of
Havana," a beautiful, voluptuous blonde who "if she looked at a man, it
didn't take long for a man to kneel down before her."
Both her mother and Castro were married to other people when their love
affair began. Castro was in jail when a letter to his mistress was
instead delivered to his wife.
Castro found himself both "free from prison and free from marriage,"
Fernandez said.
She described Castro as "enormously charismatic" and a true "political
animal," but whose presence would make her mother light up.
"Only grandma called him the devil," she said.
Fernandez released her memoir, Castro's Daughter: An Exile's Memoir of
Cuba, in 1998.
Her appearance, cosponsored by Widener's University Center
Administration and Multicultural Student Affairs, coincided with
Hispanic Heritage Month.
Castro's daughter: America not to blame for Cuba's woes - The Delaware
County Daily Times : Serving Delaware County, PA(DelcoTimes.com) (6
October 2009)
http://www.delcotimes.com/articles/2009/10/06/news/doc4acac09da64b8124568491.txt
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