“ We speak in Spanish when we make love. English seems an impossible language for intimacy. ”
Nobody is ready for death. If you ask Joe Blow on the street, he aint gonna tell you he thinks he'll live forever. But when the end is near you'll realize you've been believing that all along. It's like getting caught with your pants down. That's why you gotta live, little one. Yeah stop and smell them roses.
~ Cristina García
Santería was traditionally an unacknowledged and underappreciated aspect of what it meant to be Cuban. Yet the syncretism between the Yoruban religion that the slaves brought to the island and the Catholicism of their masters is, in my opinion, the underpinning of Cuban culture. Every artistic realm--music, theater, literature, etc.--owes a huge debt to santería and the slaves who practiced it and passed it on, largely secretively, for generations.
I resent the hell out of the politicians and generals who force events on us that structure our lives, that dictate the memories we'll have when we're old.
The war that killed my grandfather and great-uncles and thousands of other blacks is only a footnote in our history books.
