Cuba, My Love . . .

As I continue to hear the news on this country’s latest pogrom against the island nation of Cuba, I feel obligated to speak up and advocate for its right for sovereignty, self-determination, and respect; to create space for its people of all backgrounds, race, and social class to shape their future; for calls from the global community to intervene and preserve life.

An outsider and probably not even a good ally, yet, Cuba has a special place in my imagination as a shaper of my life journey that I would like to acknowledge in this moment of human crisis.

I first learned about Cuba through Playboy Magazine. Yes, Playboy. My Dad was the former Chief of Staff for the late Honorable Mervyn M. Dymally and had accompany Mr. Dymally to Cuba to interview then presidente Fidel Castro. Playboy published the article. Imagine my mom’s surprised when my Dad dropped off a few copies at our home. I guess it is true that Playboy really does have good articles.

Later, as a lover of Black women writers, I learned more about Cuba through In Search of Our Mothers Gardens by Alice Walker and her essay on the relationship between Cuba and Black liberation. I also was introduce to one of my seminal favorite authors, Zora Neale Hurston, but it was the story on Cuba that sparked my desire to one day go there.

And I did.

During a study abroad program in Jamaica, during the Special Period, I organized our group to go to Havana for a weekend. Well, I didn’t really organize, I think it is more accurate that after learning about the nation’s pursuit of independence from US intervention as we studied Caribbean history, my classmates too wanted to see first hand this small powerhouse who had stood up to the big Island of the US.

That visit was a long dream of various contradictions that taught me there is no perfect nation, so as citizens, instead we have to be clear on our own values and fight for them. What I saw in Cuba was a strong sense of mutual aid and community; a respect for the land and environment; protection of the most vulnerable (this was during the early days of the AIDS crisis); and an appreciation of learning so that people could access language to champion their needs, wants, and desires. I remember asking myself, would I sacrifice my personal comforts if it meant that all of my neighbors had housing, education, healthcare, and vocation? A question I still ask myself today.

For a Master program in Hispanic Studies, that I never completed – having ran out of the allowable time, even though I finally finished all of the components – I wrote my thesis on the American influence of racism in Cuba: Somos Cubanos – Afro-Cuban Resistance and Adaptation, 1902-2002. In my love for the nation, it was also important to be honest with myself and the ongoing prejudice against darker skinned Cubans who were not allowed to work in visible positions in the tourism industry (a major economic engine) to make Europeans and Americans “comfortable.” In doing this research, I learned so much about the resilience of Afro-Cubans; how the Spanish structure of slavery maintained people in their heritage groups to re-enforce preservation of language, medicines, dance, and spirituality; the ties to Black folks in Southern US; and parallel struggles for freedom and liberation. I reframed my understanding of them and we to one that we are of common seed – separated by ocean, land, and circumstances – but not of spirit and heart.

Around the completion of my thesis, I had a spiritual calling and it was as if the heart of Cuba was calling me into her womb. I had been on a journey to become a priestess in the Akan tradition and along the way became familiar with the goddess Osun from the Yoruba tradition of Nigeria. Reacclimating to my hometown of Los Angeles after living in Philadelphia for 16 years, I sought out community through Afro-Cuban and Brazilian dance. In dancing for Osun, or Oshun as the Cubans call her – my psyche opened up to intimate conversations with this fierce mothering being. She came to me in my dreams – sleeping and waking – and created a sense of anxiety where I just wanted to get closer to her and climb into her lap for her warm petting and embraced. In the back of my mind too were the words of a Santeria priest in Philly who told me that my grandmother’s sister was a big Oshun priestess in Cuba and she wanted me to have her pot. This wasn’t my most recent grandmother, but one from centuries ago who had survived the Ma’af. Was I ready to return to the island of deep contradictions? The space where return felt like diving under water and hopes of coming up on the other side to a magical place that many could visit – but few could see.

So returned I did with a New York dance company – Dos Aguas in 2013. That journey is documented in my memoir, Oshun’s Calabash – Dancing Across Cuba into the Memory of the Embodied African Soul and Finding Home. This book never made it to the NYT’s bestselling author’s list, but it did touch a few souls in the most unimaginable way.

Cuba, my love. The patria of my inner-world. I am grateful for your existence, your stubbornness, your preservation of African identity and culture. I never want to intrude as your people continue to remake themselves in the face on adversity and joy, know that I love your land and the spirit of the generations of ancestors whose blood is alchemized in your soil and that somehow was carried across the way through the winds to enter and fill my heart. May the God of all intervene and bring your peace even as you continue to rise against all efforts to concretize you. May Mama Oshun, Osun, Ore Yeyeoooooooooo, fill your days with prosperity and sweetness.

Below are copies of my thesis and book. You may read them here or download for a payment of citing the source should you reference or share.

Blessings!

~adorduna (6.3.26)