Castro's daughter shares experiences at ECC
As a young child, Alina Fernandez would kneel in front of the television set, praying that Cuban leader Fidel Castro would finish his hours-long speeches before 7 p.m. when the American cartoon “Mickey Mouse” was scheduled to air.
When Castro wasn't on television, Fernandez said, he was often in her family's living room playing games.
Fernandez, Castro's estranged daughter who fled to the United States in 1993, shared her experiences growing up with the controversial former leader during a presentation Tuesday at Elgin Community College, part of the college's Latino Heritage Month.
She will give another talk at 7 p.m. today in the Performing Arts Center at Harper College, 1200 W. Algonquin Road, Palatine.
Fernandez, who called her life one of privilege and privation, described Castro as someone who liked mojitos a little too much, hated to lose and visited at night.
“This man visited our home very often, mostly at night, because, as many of you know, Castro is a night person,” Fernandez said. “His presence made my mother joyful. Only Grandma called him the devil.”
It wasn't until she was about 9 years old that she was told that the man who “could jump from the TV screen to the living room” was her biological father. Until that point, Fernandez had believed her father to be her mother's husband, Orlando Hernandez. Her mother, Naty Revuelta, had an affair with Castro, writing letters to him while he was in prison.
Fernandez talked about Castro's ties with the former Soviet Union and guerrilla groups in northern Africa, as well as Castro's opposition to American imperialism. When Castro overthrew the Batista government in 1959, staples like coffee, sugar, rice and soap were rationed. Stores were forced to close, parking meters were destroyed and treats like ice cream were banned.
“Even Christmas became something bad,” Fernandez said.
As a teen, Fernandez felt pressure to remain loyal to the revolution but never fully complied. She saw the Cuban people as lab rats in Castro's political experiment.
“The first institution that was destroyed was the family,” said Fernandez, who saw her stepfather and half-sister forced to flee Cuba after the revolution.
Religion, freedom of the press, speech and expression followed, Fernandez said.
For years, Fernandez tried to leave, but the government blocked her exit because of her lineage. Finally, in 1993, Fernandez obtained a falsified passport and disguised herself as a Spanish tourist. She fled to Madrid, Spain, and then Miami where media pressure forced the Castro government to allow her teenage daughter to join her.
“I was traumatized. I was 40 years old. I had to learn a new language and I didn't know what money was or that taxes existed,” said Fernandez, who has no contact with her father. “I felt like I had come from the moon because of a lack of communication with the rest of the world.”
Her dissent caused an irreparable rift with her mother, Fernandez said.
“My mother is a true believer and we cannot get to a reasonable understanding,” Fernandez said. “Politics divided the family in such a way that we can't reconciliate.”
Ÿ Tickets for the Harper College lecture are $12 for general admission and can be purchased by calling (847) 925-6100 or www.harpercollege.edu/boxoffice.