When Alina Fernandez Revuelta was 10 years old, she found out that the bearded man paying frequent nocturnal visits to her mother’s home was actually her father.
Fifty years after the Cuban Revolution that ousted dictator Fulgencio Batista from control of the island, Fidel Castro’s daughter described the reasons she spent almost 30 years struggling to flee a country that was transformed by the ideology of her father and the fate of which lies in the hands of her uncle Raul Castro.
“I come from country in which the Revolution is endless,” Fernandez said in a speech at Baker University Center last night. “My country’s been the same for fifty years.”
As the 2009 keynote speaker for Ohio University’s International Week, Fernandez spoke about a country that has been forbidden to most U.S. citizens since the 1960s, but may come out of prohibition during the Obama presidency.
From his childhood staring contests to his 1959 coup, Fernandez described Castro as a charismatic man who always hated to lose. She also talked about the way he played with her when he visited her family’s home.
Fernandez jokingly referred to her father and his cronies as “dirty, hairy men,” but despite Fernandez’s sense of humor, she painted a grim picture of post-Revolution Cuba.
Amid food rationing, tight social control and faulty government policies, Fernandez became disillusioned with the regime’s ideology and joined an opposition party. She later fled the island and now lives in Miami, Fla.
Several audience members questioned Fernandez’s dismal view of Cuban society under the Castro line, touting its state-funded education and medical services. One attendee said she thought Fernandez presented a one-sided view of the country.
Despite the criticism, Fernandez did not back down from her view that the Cuban government is stifling the country’s culture and economics, and said she can’t predict if Raul Castro’s direction will ease the potential transition to a less isolationist U.S. policy toward Cuba.
“I totally don’t know what is going to happen in that country,” she said. “I think it’s a family business.”
-Meghan McNamara
