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CUBA
NEWS
The
Miami Herald
Cuba unafraid of U.S. beef, official
writes
The head of Cuba's main food import
agency says a case of mad cow disease in
the United States won't stop Cuba's buying
U.S. cattle.
By Nancy San Martin, nsanmartin@herald.com.
Posted on Sat, Jan. 03, 2004.
In an apparent effort to bolster relations
with American ranchers who want an end to
the U.S. trade embargo, Cuba vowed to move
forward with plans to purchase its first
supply of Florida cattle, despite expected
delays because of the detection of mad cow
diseasein the United States.
''We know that the U.S. beef processing
industry is safe and will remain so in the
future,'' states a letter to a Florida rancher
signed by Pedro Alvarez Borrego, head of
Alimport, Cuba's primary food purchasing
firm.
The letter, released Friday, also states
that when the mad cow issue is resolved,
Cuba will become a chief export market for
U.S. ranchers.
STILL 'COMMITTED'
''Alimport remains committed to enhancing
its business relations with the beef and
dairy farmers, as well as the cattle ranchers
in the U.S.,'' the letter states. "It
is our strong belief that American cattle
have a critical role to play in increasing
our local beef and dairy output.''
Over the past year, Cuba has signed contracts
for approximately 1,000 head of American
cattle, half of which were shipped to Cuba
over the summer for dairy production. The
first supply of 250 head of Florida-born
beef cattle is scheduled for delivery to
the island during the next few months.
John Parke Wright of J.P. Wright &
Co. in Naples said Friday he is optimistic
that the deals will remain on course, though
a delay in shipment is likely.
''We are in complete agreement [with Cuba],''
Wright said in a telephone interview. "The
national issue, obviously, has to be resolved.
. . . There is no need to rush.''
Efforts to reach Cuban officials were unsuccessful.
Alvarez's letter -- addressed to James
Strickland of Manatee County, who is supplying
Cuba with 80 head of Brangus heifers and
two bulls -- states that Cuba will not terminate
any pending agreements.
FUTURE PURCHASES
In a jab at the embargo, Alvarez also tempts
exporters with future purchases. Cash sales
for food purchases are allowed under an
exception to the four-decades-old embargo.
''Cuba stands ready to purchase up to 100,000
head of cattle from the U.S. on a competitive
basis once trade and travel relations between
our two countries come back to normal,''
the letter states, adding that Cuban animal
health specialists "stand ready to
cooperate with their American counterparts,
if deemed appropriate.''
U.S. officials could not be reached for
comment on Cuba's offer to provide help.
Similar letters expressing support were
sent to the U.S. Meat Export Federation
and the National Cattlemen's Beef Association.
''It's always a welcome letter to receive
but especially at this time,'' said Lynn
Heinze, a spokesman for the Denver-based
federation.
Is Cuban singer Lucrecia the next Celia?
By Lydia Martin. lmartin@herald.com.
Posted on Sat, Jan. 03, 2004 in The Miami
Herald.
On a recent wintry day in Miami, Cuban
singer Lucrecia searched the gray skies
outside her room at the Mandarin Oriental.
She had been looking for a sign, and as
a faint streak of sunlight broke through
the clouds, she wondered if, finally, she
was receiving it.
''I decided that probably wasn't it, either,''
said the woman whose powerful vocals have
landed her the singular if daunting distinction
of being called Celia Cruz's possible successor.
A producer in Spain wants Lucrecia to star
in a musical about the departed Queen of
Salsa. Rights are being secured, musicians
are being enlisted, the story is being scripted,
and Lucrecia is studying Celia's songs.
But she worries the project isn't quite
kosher.
"I keep thinking that we haven't asked
Celia for permission. She always said she
didn't like anybody singing her songs. I
keep asking her to tell me, somehow, that
she wants me to do this. Or that she doesn't.
I keep waiting for the sign. Is it the ray
of sunlight breaking through the clouds
in Miami, the city that adored her? Will
it be something else?''
Here's a woman who never even heard a Celia
song growing up in Cuba. After Celia left
the island in 1960, Fidel Castro's regime
banned her music in an attempt to erase
her from the collective memory.
''The first time I heard her was on a trip
to Mexico to perform,'' conservatory-trained
Lucrecia said. 'Somebody gave me one of
her LPs with La sonora matancera. I arrived
in Cuba with that old record and told people,
'Look what I have!' It was a find. She had
such force in her voice.''
Imagine hearing over and over that you
could be the one to take the torch from
Celia, the woman whose career spanned six
decades, whose voice was synonymous with
Cuba, whose name was known across the globe.
And the woman whose death at 77 warranted
a double funeral through the streets of
Miami, then the streets of Manhattan, the
likes of which neither city had seen in
recent memory.
The successor tag is something that Lucrecia
has been uncomfortably lugging around for
several years, something that Celia herself
heard time and time again, long before her
death in July. And it wasn't a lack of graciousness
-- Celia was always gracious -- that made
her finally say to a journalist for Spain's
El País in 2001: "The singer
who is designated as my successor is a clear
candidate to sink.''
NOT A DIVA SWIPE
Lucrecia, who left Cuba for Spain eight
years ago (the Cuban government won't let
her back in) and is still a virtual unknown
in Latin America and the United States,
knows Celia wasn't taking a diva swipe.
That wasn't Celia's way. She was saying
something more like, ''Give this young singer
a break.'' Because imposing that sort of
legacy on anybody means foisting on her
a major musical burden.
Never mind that times are different, anyway.
The Age of Communications creates more opportunities
to be heard but diffuses the possibilities
for would-be legends.
''I adore Celia. She is an angel who is
still with us, still with me,'' Lucrecia
said in a velvet voice that grows even more
velvety when she sings.
She drinks bubbly water and searches for
words. They come slowly, dictated from someplace
more mystical than the Mandarin's cafe.
BORN WITH A STAR
''I can't, even for a moment, consider
the possibility of being her successor.
Nobody can be. She was the goddess of Cuban
music. She still is. She was great even
before anybody knew it. It isn't that she
one day became great. It's that one day
people came to know her and to understand
that she was great. She was born with that
star. I'm just Lucrecia. I want to have
the career that was meant for Lucrecia,''
she said.
In Spain, Lucrecia is becoming a big name,
a popular voice on radio waves and a TV
personality with a daily children's show.
But Miami is barely acquainted with her
sound.
Just before Christmas, on the green outside
the Village of Merrick Park in Coral Gables,
she showered an uninitiated audience with
bolero and son.
''In my humble opinion, she is the most
versatile Cuban singer today,'' said Nestor
Rodriguez, who invited her to perform in
the Merrick Park gala honoring Celia Cruz
and benefiting Voices for Children, a fundraising
organization for the guardian ad litem program.
"I don't think there is anybody out
there with the presence, the range, the
musicality or the sophistication of Lucrecia.
The woman starts to sing before she opens
her mouth.''
Celia's husband, Pedro Knight, looking
heartbroken still, watched from the front
row as Lucrecia sang an old Afro-Cuban lullaby
into the skies -- Drume negrita (Sleep,
Little Black Girl).
''I couldn't look at him,'' said Lucrecia,
who prefers not to share her age but was
born long after Celia left Cuba. "The
moment was too big. I was afraid I would
start crying right there.''
When the show was over, Knight declared,
simply, "Es buenísima,'' she's
very good. And he has given his blessings
to the Celia musical.
''Pedro and Celia are like nobody else.
They have the sort of heart that is singular,''
Lucrecia said.
Like Celia, who always shouted "Azúcar!''
(Sugar!), Lucrecia has a trademark cry,
"Agua!'' (Water!). On the night that
Celia lay in state in Miami, audiences at
a Lucrecia show in Barcelona held up signs
that read "Agua con azúcar.''
It happens to be the default meal of many
who go hungry on the island, but Lucrecia
won't get into a whole thing about that.
''I didn't have agua con azúcar
in Cuba. Not too much,'' she said.
Like Celia, Lucrecia is not allowed back
home. But if she is destined to become anywhere
near as big a symbol for Cuba as Celia was,
then she will be a symbol of a newer generation.
Like Celia, she has sung her heart out
for her homeland. In fact, her big hit from
the documentary Balseros, Noche de la iguana
(Night of the Iguana), is the freedom anthem
that got her barred from the island.
''For my people who tell the truth day
after day and their words are always silenced
. . . ya amaneció (it has finally
dawned),'' she sings.
Celia's songs were often about an earlier
generation's homesickness for the way things
used to be. But Lucrecia refuses to get
tripped up by nostalgia.
BIG DREAM DENIED
Celia's biggest dream was to be buried
in her homeland. Instead, she rests in the
Bronx. Lucrecia -- well, she doesn't believe
in going backward.
"I want to live in the present, I
don't want to torment myself with what I
left behind. My home is Barcelona now. It's
where my son and my husband are, and thankfully,
my mother, who I managed to get out of Cuba.
Yes, I miss my friends, yes, I miss the
palm trees and the beaches. But the truth
is, there is a beach in Barcelona that is
gorgeous. The beaches of the Canary Islands
are fascinating. Miami is fascinating.''
Just when you turn the tape recorder off
and really get to talking, Lucrecia tells
you to turn it back on. She doesn't want
to go down as one more exile obsessed with
Cuba's politics. She refuses to get stuck
in that old groove.
But: 'When I was asked to do music for
Balseros, I said yes, but I was scared to
death even though I was far away in Spain.
La noche de la iguana says many things without
having to actually say 'Abajo Fidel' (Down
with Fidel). In Cuba, so much is prohibited.
In the beginning, I was even afraid to check
certain books out of the library in Spain,
paranoid that I was being followed.
"Then, little by little, I started
losing my fear. And when I stopped living
in fear, I realized -- that's what liberty
is. Liberty is the lack of fear. That's
why I don't look back. But not wanting to
go back there doesn't make me less Cuban.
Cuban is what I am, period.''
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