[Clipping: Anita Bryant on the march: The lessons of Dade County] Part: 5 of 8
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work and care.
Article 28. Both parties have the right
to practice their profession or skill, and
it is their duty to help each other and to
cooperate in this direction and to study
or improve their knowledge. However,
they must always see to it that home life
is organized in such a way that these
activities are coordinated with the ful-
fillment of the obligations posed by this
code.
Cuban women with whom I had
personal contact were, in almost
every instance, like women I already
knew at home, so that by the time I
left Cuba, it seemed entirely natural
to be happy to see them each morn-
ing, and to be pleased that they ap-
peared to feel the same. One of these
women who, in her patience and gen-
tleness, was an inspiration to our
group was Magalys, a young woman
in her twenties who acted as our in-
terpreter. What I managed to learn
about Magalys is not, I think, unique
to her: she is married, her husband
works as an adjuster of salaries all
over the island and is, therefore, fre-
quently away from home for long
periods. This does not appear to
bother Magalys: she accepts these
separations as part of marriage in a
revolutionary country and is busy
studying, taking exams in mathemat-
ics (presumably for a different kind of
occupation than the-one she now has
as interpreter and guide for English-
speaking groups). A lovely, delicately
made woman of brown skin and
warm brown eyes, she is from time to
time distressed because we black
North Americans want to claim her
as one of us, exclusively, whereas she
has been brought up to believe she
belongs to the world.
On a different (possibly irrelevant)
level altogether, I was disturbed by
the Cuban use of makeup (the first
heavily made-up woman I noticed
was a curvaceous young soldier in
army fatigues who also had her hair
in curlers) and have still to resolve my
own feelings about, for example, a
revolutionary woman who dyes her
hair blond-as Haydee Santamaria
(who was with the rebels at the Mon-
cada Garrison as well as in the Sierra
Maestra) did for several years, or who
otherwise (through hair straighten-
ers and what not) endeavors to look
like someone other than herself.
At first glance, it is actually cheer-
ing to see that women revolutionaries
also paint their faces and process
their hair, but then one wonders: if a
revolution fails to make one comfort-
able with what one is (Fidel, one
notices, has not tampered with his
looks or his style of dress, and has,
since the Revolution began, even
ceased to shave), can one assume
that, on a personal level, it is a success
at all?
On the other hand, it is possible
that a revolution frees women who
are part of it to do with themselves
whatever they like. Presumably, nowthat everyone can afford makeup,
everyone may wear it. This interpre-
tation appeals to me, probably be-
cause I sometimes paint my face, and
I would not like to endure a speech
about why I do it. But does this apply
to Cuban women who pattern
themselves-in dress and makeup-
on European models almost exclu-
sively? In a country with such a large
black and brown and gold popula-
tion, this is a question that at some
point the Revolution might address:
can equality be said to be realized if a
gorgeous black woman still aspires to
Edel, one
notices, has not tampered
with his looks or his
style of dress.
lighter skin and straight hair, or if a
luscious white woman who is
brunette longs for blond hair, blue
eyes, and a skinny figure?
A Cuban film we were shown
exemplifies, to me, the danger of per-
petuating stereotypic models of
beauty. In this film, "The New
School," now being shown in the
United States, hundreds of students
are on display. It is hard to tell, after
the first several frames, that one is
looking at youngsters in a Caribbean
country: they seem almost entirely
Nordic. If this is the image of itself
that Cuba is sending out to the rest of
the world, one can only wonder what
is the true if subconscious ideal image
Cubans have of themselves. (Fortu-
nately, most Cuban films do not have
this problem, and are excellent
examples of how a richly multiracial,
multicultural society can be reflected
unselfconsciously in popular art.)
We all had strict instructions to be,
above all, humane in the struggle.
Never was a group of armed men more
generous to the adversary. From the
very first, we took numerous
prisoners-eventually nearly 20-and
there was one moment when three of
our men-Ramiro Valdes, Jose Suarez,
and Jesus Montane-managed to enter a
* barrack and hold nearly 50 soldiers
prisoners for a short time. Those sol-
diers have testified before the court, and
all without exception have acknowl-
edged that we treated them with abso-
lute respect, without even offending
them by the use of an unpleasant word.
Apropos of this, I want to give the
prosecutor my heartfelt thanks for one
thing in the trial of my comrades: when
he made his report he was fair enough
to acknowledge as an incontestable fact
that we maintained a high spirit of
chivalry throughout the struggle.
History Will Absolve Me
by Fidel CastroI have also been asked about Cuba's
political prisoners, none of whom I
was privileged to see, though no one
that we asked in Cuba denied their
existence. I cannot believe, as my gay
and lesbian friends fear, that the man
who wrote History Will Absolve Me,
one of the great human rights doc-
uments of our century, orders
homosexuals tortured or shot, or that
he jails all the people who disagree
with his politics. The people's love of
Fidel seems genuine and nearly uni-
versal, in any case. I cannot, further-
more, take comfort in the fact that the
United States tortures and destroys
political prisoners, for to do so would
be to evade the question of whether
imprisonment of politicals is right.
The Cubans seem to feel that the
imprisonment of certain people is
justified because of their activity
against the Revolution. They point
out also that many of the imprisoned
stole food and housing and education
from the people, or murdered and
terrorized the people under the
Batista regime. Since I do not know
the facts, I can only recount their
presentation of them.
My own bias, when considering a
country like Cuba, is to think almost
entirely of the gains of the formerly
dispossessed. I can be brought to
tears by the sight of braces on the
teeth of formerly poor children who,
through bad diet and no dental care
before the Revolution, might have
been robbed forever of the careless
pleasure of smiling. Seeing healthy
bodies at play or hearing the intelli-
gent voices of well-educated human
beings-whose parents and grand-
parents languished for centuries in
poverty and ignorance-can nearly
wipe out my powers of serious
scrutiny beyond these facts. To
criticize anything at all seems pre-
sumptuous, even absurd.
Perhaps it is because Cuba has
struggled so persistently to alleviate
the burdens of the dispossessed that I
believe Cubans will become ever
more sensitive to those in their soci-
ety who are dispossessed now in the
Revolution: homosexuals, Jehovah's
Witnesses, women as we really are,
political prisoners who are perhaps
innocent of everything but "wrong"
thought. After all, it is but a short
distance from understanding that,
just as a life of mere survival is insuf-
ficient for the flourishing of the spirit,
the spirit is an insufficient support for
human life if it lacks a full expression
of-its essence.
Finally, I believe in the combina-
tion of compassion, intelligence, and
work that characterizes the Cuban
people. In spite of everything that
threatens to make them less than free
to be themselves, I believe, with them,
that they will continue to win.
Alice Walker is presently editing a Zora
Neale Hurston reader. The next country
to which she would like to return and
study is Uganda.September 1977/Ms./99
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van Gelder, Lindsy. [Clipping: Anita Bryant on the march: The lessons of Dade County], clipping, September 1977; Arlington County, VA. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1787571/m1/5/: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.