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Noted
historian recaptures past as Cuban boy
Carlos Eire, airlifted
to U.S. at age 11, tells his story in lyrical
memoir
Sam Hodges, Book Editor.
Posted on Tue, May 18, 2004 in The
Charlotte Observer.
After Fidel Castro took control of Cuba,
thousands of middle- and upper-class parents
in that country sent their children to the
United States. The mass migration became
known as Operation Pedro Pan, or the Peter
Pan Airlift. Carlos Eire was one of the
children, arriving in the United States
in 1962, at age 11.
He lived in foster homes until his mother
managed, against the odds, to get to the
United States almost four years later. Eire
never saw his father again. (He died in
Cuba in 1976.)
Eire grew up to be a distinguished historian,
and now is a professor of history and religious
studies at Yale University. But in 2000,
the international custody dispute over Cuban
boy Elian Gonzalez moved Eire to try to
write about his own life during and after
the Castro-led revolution.
The lyrical and emotionally charged memoir
that resulted, "Waiting for Snow in
Havana: Confessions of a Cuban Boy"
(Free Press, $14 paperback), won a 2003
National Book Award. The book's success
has put Eire on the lecture circuit, and
he'll be speaking in Charlotte on Thursday,
which is Cuban Independence Day.
He answered questions by phone last week.
Q. "Waiting for Snow in Havana"
represents a complete departure from the
kind of writing you do as a historian, doesn't
it? Tremendous departure. I wrote this book
in four months. My prior effort at putting
together a book was 10 years. Doing research
as a historian takes forever. You have to
be so careful how you put things together,
how you argue them and analyze the data
that you have. This came straight from my
memory and straight from my imagination,
both at once. As I've been telling people,
writing a good history book is like running
up Mount Everest with a 50-pound backpack.
This was like a walk in a park on a pleasant
day without anything on your back.
Q. And the Elian Gonzalez case was the
trigger? That was the catalyst. I was totally
beside myself. I wanted to do something
to wake up the reading public, especially
the American reading public, about what
life in Cuba was like for children. He symbolized
for me the lack of autonomy children in
Cuba have.
Plus, I was extremely angry at the hypocrisy
of the claims being made by the Cuban government
that every child deserves to be with his
parents. Between 1960 and October 1962,
14,000 of us (Cuban children) came to the
U.S. And then in Oct. '62, that's when everything
changed, with the fallout of the (Cuban)
missile crisis. Cuba shut the door, and
the parents of over 10,000 of the 14,000
kids were left stranded in Cuba. And the
10,000 kids were stranded here. The Cuban
government actively stood in the way. I
saw my mother 3 1/2 years later. She finally
managed to get to the U.S. through Mexico,
after many setbacks. My father never left.
And Cuba is saying of Elian, the boy needs
to be with his father.
Q. You started writing this book as a work
of fiction, right? I thought I could reach
a wider audience through fiction. I ended
up with a memoir that is very different
from other memoirs. It reads like a novel,
and I constructed it like a novel. I didn't
change it, even after the editor decided
it should be published as nonfiction. Americans
have trouble with the concept of a nonfiction
novel. Europeans do not.
Q. The book is factual, though, right?
Nothing is invented here. The only embellishment,
if you can call it that, is recreating specific
dialogue.
Q. Can you generalize about how Cuban American
readers have responded to the book? It's
been overwhelmingly positive. And it's been
one of the most wonderful surprises I've
had, because I've been isolated from Cuban
culture for so long. I had picked a career
that took me away from all things Cuban,
including Cuban people. I was totally out
of touch with the exile community. But I
went to Miami in January, to give a talk
at Florida International University, and
over 500 people showed up, about two-thirds
of them Cubans. And it was a love-fest.
It was one of the most wonderful days of
my life. And I receive e-mails every single
day from Cubans, thanking me for capturing
their past, for telling their story so well.
Q. What would be the main misconceptions
Americans have of pre-Castro Cuba? Americans
are so lucky. They've never had to live
under a dictator. They don't understand
that there are bad dictators and there are
really bad dictators. I find myself having
to explain over and over that Batista (Fulgencio
Batista y Zaldivar, Cuba's ruler before
Castro) was a horrible dictator, but Cuba
had a very prosperous economy under him,
and before him, too. In 1958, Cuba had more
television sets than Great Britain, more
doctors per capita than the United States.
... Castro kicked out all the best people,
and now Cuba is one of the poorest places
on Earth.
Q. You are a specialist in the history
of religion in Europe from 1400 to 1700.
Who are some of your heroes from then? It's
the time of the Protestant Reformation.
Religion is coming apart. People are hating
each other and killing each other in the
name of religion. But, having the luxury
of being five centuries removed, I can have
heroes on both sides. One of my biggest
heroes is John Calvin, founder of the reform
tradition. One of my other biggest heroes
is Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits.
Q. Will you be writing another book for
general audiences? I would love to, but
not immediately. I have two scholarly projects
I have to finish. One was due two summers
ago, and I'm still working on it.
Meet the Author
Carlos Eire will give a talk in the
Main Library auditorium, 310 N. Tryon St.,
beginning at 7 p.m. Thursday. Copies of
"Waiting for Snow in Havana" will
be on sale, and he'll sign books after the
talk. The event is free, but seating is
limited. Reservations: (704) 336-2074.
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