By Madhu Krishnamurthy | Daily Herald Staff
Published: 3/21/2008 12:10 AM
Her mother adored him. Her grandmother called him the devil. She herself
soon learned to dislike the man who would lead Cuba for nearly five
decades as a dictator.
Alina Fernandez Revuelta knew early on that Fidel Castro would never be
a regular father. Her young life was defined by Castro's revolution that
has alienated the island nation from the U.S. since 1959.
"I come from a country in which the revolution is endless," said
Revuelta Thursday to a packed audience at the Lily Reid Holt Memorial
Chapel at Lake Forest College.
Revuelta got her first glimpse of that revolution while sitting in her
kiddie rocking chair in diapers, when the American cartoons she was
watching on television suddenly vanished, replaced by images of jubilant
crowds proclaiming a free Cuba.
Revuelta, 52, painted an intimate portrait of Castro's Cuba and shared
personal tidbits of her life story, including the love affair between
Castro and her mother, who was then married to another man.
She also talked about her estrangement from her dictator father, of whom
she has been a critic all her life.
Revuelta witnessed public executions in Cuba, the banning of Christmas,
which was dubbed a capitalistic celebration by the Communist regime, and
watched as fear engulfed her country forcing many families to flee.
"As I was listening to her, the fact that she brought herself in an open
and honest way and shared her history, I think shows that no matter what
circumstances you face in life, there's always room to turn them into
positive things," said Kim Braden, co-president of Latinos Unidos, a
student group at Lake Forest College. "I didn't know a lot about Cuba, I
think, because of the closed-off (image) it's had, more than other Latin
American countries."
The political practices of her father's regime eventually drove Revuelta
out of Cuba in December of 1993, when she disguised herself as a Spanish
tourist and escaped to Spain. She now lives in exile in Miami and hosts
a daily radio show on Cuban issues.
She called that period in Cuban history the "biggest children exodus of
the 20th century."
"Every economic and social mistake was blamed on America," she said.
"All institutions were systematically destroyed."
But Revuelta also knew Castro as the man who made her mother happy, who
would visit them nightly and help her with her homework.
"Fidel Castro was overwhelming," she said. "By the time I was 10 years
old, I was told the night visitor was my real father. I continued to
grow, trying to live a normal life. I think I wasted a big part of my
early years escaping social control."
Revuelta became a political enemy of the state when she joined with
dissidents in 1989. Even if she wanted to, she said, she probably
couldn't visit her ailing father, who resigned the presidency last month
and handed control to his brother, Raul.
When asked why she chose to come to America, Revuelta said it's because
the United States is the only country that gives Cubans papers, and she
was able to bring her daughter here.
"Cubans are more pro-American than Americans," she said jokingly.
That statement resonated with Margaret Neely Wilhelm of Lombard.
"I think it was helpful that she explained how she grew up and how she
sees Cuba today," said Wilhelm, who teaches at the College of DuPage and
is a Lake Forest College alum. "Americans tend to criticize our country
and take things for granted and see our faults. But it's good to be
reminded that people are dying to get here."
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