Cuban-born teacher sees hope for his homeland
Astoria teacher Manny Suarez says people seemed more hopeful and friendly.
When Manny Suarez visited Cuba this summer, he noticed things had changed since his first trip in 2011, nearly half a century after he had left the country as a child: There was a feeling of hopefulness for the future.
Cuba and the United States have had a stormy history.
The Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 and the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 darkened Cold War-relations between the U.S. and newly communist Cuba. After decades of suspicion, the Obama administration removed Cuba from the state-sponsored terrorism list this year amid a move toward a normalized relationship between the two countries.
“Back in 2011, people were very hesitant to say anything,” said Suarez, a retired teacher who lives in Astoria.
Now, he said, people seemed more hopeful and friendly.
Changing times
While in Havana, he heard a taxi driver talking about buying another cab and learned some people were trying to get air conditioning in their homes to attract tourists.
Even the terminal that handles U.S. planes at Jose Marti International Airport showed signs of the changing times, he said. The formerly dark, forbidding terminal had brightened by the time Suarez visited the second time. Sunny posters of children on the beach and a couple on a horse-drawn carriage had replaced those of the ruling Castro brothers and the revolutionary Che Guevara on the wall.
“They definitely have come a long way in becoming more tourist friendly,” Suarez said.
Outside the terminal, four or five tower cranes stood out against the skyline, heralds of new development.
“It really is a fun city to visit,” Suarez said. “Kind of like the New York City of the New World.”
Childhood home
While in Havana, he visited his old house, although he didn’t speak with any of the five families who now live there. Suarez came from a family of 14 children, so their old house had to be quite large to accommodate them all. The families had set up a stand to sell drinks, which Suarez didn’t buy.
“You don’t want to drink the water in Havana,” he chuckled.
Another stop on his itinerary was the chapel where his mother had gone to church. When he had first visited, “it was all black and mildewed and smelled like urine,” he said. But the government has since sold it back to the Roman Catholic Church, and he could see that the church was in the process of renovations.
What Suarez remembers from his childhood in Cuba is that people were happy, with rich music, family gatherings and good food.
His family left the island in 1961, two years after the revolution. They lived in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., then McLean, Va. Suarez spent most of his life living on the East Coast, including Washington, D.C., before moving to Astoria.
Diplomatic ties
Suarez had recently returned from Cuba when President Barack Obama announced the United States and Cuba would re-establish diplomatic ties, the latest in a series of landmark events between the two nations.
“If we’re able to have McDonald’s in Vietnam and KFC in China, there’s no reason we can’t be friendly with our neighbors the Cubans,” he said.
But he’s still reserved about the immediate future of human rights.
“I think we don’t really have any hope as long as the Castro brothers are in charge,” Suarez said.
Fidel Castro, Cuba’s president from 1976 to 2008, was replaced by his brother, Raul Castro, in 2008 due to health problems.
Suarez said he was not considering moving back to Cuba, but he might visit to offer his services as a teacher. Suarez worked as a substitute teacher for five local high schools in Clatsop County.
While those who have lived under communism and strong government in Cuba look to the government to solve their problems, Suarez said younger people have more of a U.S. lifestyle, having grown up on American media.
“They want to live the American dream,” he said.
