Testimonies Racism at the Seat of Power Juan Juan Almeida Writer Cuban. Residing in the United States

f we heard that an armed guy fired upon cial discrimination that like ideology, controls someone from a distance of 20 meters, the halls of a government that defines itself as Iwe’d think he had committed a terrible humanitarian and revolutionary. Of course, I crime; but, if later someone clarifies for us want to assure the reader that delving into his- that he was part of a firing squad, would we tory dispassionately can be quite shocking and still feel the same way? revealing: it is like falling from high heaven You have to listen before you judge. My without a parachute, and smashing into the father was one of the “Cuban Revolution’s” ground. exemplary men. On July 26, 1953, he partici- Juan José Almeida Bosque was born in pated in the attack on the Moncada barracks Havana, and because blacks in Cuba have and served a brief prison sentence along with always been segregated—first in slave bar- Fidel Castro on the former Isle of Pines. He racoons and later in marginalized ghettos— was pardoned by then President and dictator he was not brought up in a real residential Fulgencio Batista, lived as an exile in Mexico, district, but rather in Poey, a poor, outlying sailed on the Granma boat expedition, disem- neighborhood where being a tough guy is barked on Las Coloradas beach, and went into not only the purvue of gang members. Many the Sierra Maestra. He ended up commanding of these nobodies also just want to survive. the Third Eastern Front’s troops, left the force People are a reflection of everything as a commander, and was one of the Republic around us. The Yoruba religion was impor- of Cuba’s Vice Presidents till his dying day. tant to my father’s natural environment. Who could ever imagine that someone with a When he was nine, surrounded by Santería record like that would become a relevant fig- priests and babalawos, yubonas and batá ure because he was black, and discriminated drumbeats, he received the orisha Agayú, against for being black. who represents the world’s force and is I know very well who my father was. It is Chango’s father, while tied to a royal palm. not my intention to stir resentment or frustra- This was genetically created for a climate of tion, but rather to uncover the racism and ra- pain; of course, humans are not orishas, but

ISLAS 65 he was filled with an inborn, musical vocation of white prisoners spent the night in Nueva that marked him. Gerona. This was suggested by Fidel, com- I am much too close and too impassioned mented on by Raúl, and it was at the home of about my father to maintain my objectivity. Jesús Montané that they stayed. Yet, the fami- Many tales and stories have been told since lies of black convicts slept like cockroaches on Moncada, the Sierra, and even the time before benches, or on the floor of the church at which and after the Revolution’s effervescence—but the honorable Father Guillermo Sardiñas of- not about the Modelo Prison on the Isle of ficiated. Pines. When they are imprisoned, humans re- Every time I look back, I recall a beloved flect and release many of their worst demons. person who one day made me promise that I This explains why racism was employed at this would not be like him—but that’s another institution, to mark difference. During their story. I feel it would be unjust to not mention prison terms, those who had attacked a bar- that appointments or assignments have been racks were allowed visitors. Family members nothing more than a punishment for many.

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