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As a
child, my grandmother would sit in her rocking chair and tell me stories
about Cuba. It was the only way for her to introduce family members on
the island to her US-born grandson. She succeeded; I knew them all by
name. I had never met them, but I knew their nicknames, their
idiosyncrasies, their shared histories. In my head, I had bathed in
their beaches, played in their parks, slept in their homes.
She also taught me about the savagery of
the Cuban Revolution. How it executed opponents, proscribed civil
liberties, denied due process, appropriated private property. In my
head, I saw how she pleaded for the militants to spare the lives of her
detained sons. I saw how my Dad boarded an airplane and was forced to
flee his beloved homeland.
Growing up in Cuban Miami --attending
Los Municipios, praying in La Ermita, or listening to Cuban
radio-- I experienced first hand how the regime had destroyed so many
other lives. Every time another exile landed, I relived the stories.
As a kid, I would even create drawings of
the island in chains. As an adult, I’m still at it: In 1998, “Cubaba,”
my first solo show in Miami focused on identity: “being Cuban, being
American, being both, being neither.” Three years later, the “No
Tengan Miedo” exhibit allowed me to explore the impact of the pope’s
visit on the island.
 This year, I tackle the tragedy of the
Cuban Revolution by appropriating one of its airplanes. I am literally
painting vibrant images on one half of the actual Russian Antonov-2 Colt
airplane that brought a family from Cuba to the United States. The
other half I am leaving intact – bare, neglected, dilapidated—a metaphor
for the state of Cuba after 45 years of oppression.
As part of the installation, I am also
presenting 45 pieces of luggage numbered sequentially from 1959 to 2004,
representing each year the Cuban community has been in exile. Each
piece will be painted in a different color in the light spectrum– from
red to violet -- and will include letters from exiles describing what
they left behind in Cuba and what they found when they arrived here. (A
46th piece of luggage will be set aside for letters of support/letters
about freedom from people who didn’t necessarily leave Cuba, but have a
strong connection with those who did).
This installation is being presented at !Celebra
Libertad! to commemorate Cuban Independence Day, May 20th. I don’t
know a free Cuba. Most Cubans born on the island have never known
freedom. Like me, most who live there were born after January 1, 1959.
That’s when Fidel Castro took power, and where the nightmare began.
Those attending the event will be invited
to walk up to each piece of luggage and pick up the letters and read
them. It may be overwhelming for some to see so many letters detailing
the struggle of a people starting anew, the sacrifice of families
separated by the regime, the baggage that haunts them to this day. But
in every way, it will also make a strong case as to why those people had
no choice but to get on that plane—or on a raft—and journey towards
freedom.
Indeed, in a place where you aren’t allowed
to speak freely, departure is a form of expression and dissent, of
voice. Wave after wave coming to find freedom, anyway they could. Each
individual brings their story of what they left and what they found.
Many have passed on, never being vindicated. All that remains is their
memory. Every new story awakens the memory of an old one, revives the
passion and reminds us of the homeland’s erosion.
The erosion is the distance. The loss. A
nation destroyed.
 The
erosion is the indoctrination. The malice: Children torn from their
parents and sent to boarding schools in the countryside where they would
become “children of the revolution.” Stillborn into a life where
parents play a surrogate role. Where religion is a barrier to success.
Where education is not for the open-minded, but only for those acquiesce
or feign loyalty. Where truth runs and hides.
 The erosion is the humiliation. The
savagery: Women,
professionals, having to prostitute
themselves to make a living in a savage
economic system designed
to
enrich the elite of the revolution.
The erosion is the vengeance. The
revolution is fueled by fear and envy. It eats its own children. The
discrimination: Religious believers and poets jailed for thought
crimes, men sent away to labor camps for simply loving other men, for
trying to feed their families, for trying to live in dignity, for trying
to flee the repression and insanity of the Castro regime.
The erosion is the subservience. The
control: Neighbors spying on neighbors via an intricate web of
government snitches on every city block.
The erosion is the torture. The evil.
Humans rotting in prison cells because they expressed a differing point
of view, because they thirsted for freedom.
 The erosion is
the savagery. The intolerable cruelty of political executions. Kangaroo
courts laughing in the face of justice. Masses mobilized by shameless
propaganda witness the slayings. Mobs organized by government stooges
participate in “acts of repudiation” stoning dissidents, attacking their
homes, humiliating their children at school, dragging poets down flight
of stairs by their hair and forcing them to literally eat their words.
The erosion is the absence of so many of
Cuba’s children. The tens of thousands who never saw their homeland
again and populate the cemeteries of the world, their bodies eternally
exiled, but their spirits now free. The many Cubans on the island who
when given the option of “Revolution or Death,” chose death by suicide.
The many Cubans who live daily lies, who eat a piece of their own soul
day in and day out, so that in the end they are mere husks. But saddest
of all are the empty rafts that have washed up on the beaches of
Florida.
The erosion is the vast graveyard of water
that separates Cuba and Florida. Will we ever know how many died in
their quest for freedom? How many drowned, how were eaten by sharks?
Thousands lie at the bottom of the sea --- who will speak for them? For
the children of the tugboat “13 de marzo” deliberately sunk by
the regime? For Mario, Armando, Carlos, Pablo shot down by Cuban Migs as
they flew on a humanitarian mission?
But there is one thing that can’t erode,
and that is the memory of all that has happened under Cuba’s repressive
regime. One day, Cuba will see justice. It will be free. All these
bad things will go away, it will be built up. But the individual
accounts of a people’s journey to freedom can never be forgotten.
Carrying their voices to future generations may prevent this tragedy
from ever happening again.
I create this exhibit in order that the
experiences of my parents, grandparents, and all other Cuban exiles do
not fade from memory. I want to present their individual stories, one
by one through the course of 45 years. Like colors
of a rainbow that come together to create white light, all these stories
will come together to tell the truth. To
bring the truth about
Cuba to light.
!Viva Cuba Libre!
Xavier Cortada
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