Andrés Reynaldo

* 1953

Cuba, Emigrant, Journalist, The relative of a political prisoner
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    At school, they wanted us to write styles about what our parents thought of the revolution.

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    "The important moment of my childhood was - we were used to watching animated films produced by Walt Disney on television. However, it all disappeared out of nowhere and Soviet animated films appeared. The quality was catastrophic and the moral lessons were utterly boring. In those fairy tales, there were situations when children were reporting their parents - simply things that could not be watched. We called it wooden films because they were so badly done, everything was so "simplified". When the Pioneers organization was founded, we were given an example of the Communist Pioneers of the Soviet Union… and now I don't remember the exact name, but I think it was Morozov. He was a young Pioneer during Stalin's reign. His father disagreed with Stalin, and the boy went and cracked him. So the family agreed to kill the boy. That seems adequate to me (laughs). However, they gave us such examples. We read a book about the boy and said to ourselves, "What is it supposed to be?" I also remember that during the first years after the revolution, primary school teachers kept asking us to write styles about what our parents thought about the revolution. When I think about the amount of information they had to obtain from innocent children in this way. Such was the everyday face of communism."

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    Many people ask how it is possible that in Cuba the life is still the same

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    "When I look at present-day Cuba today, I feel sadness and great pain, because the country is lost - at least it seems to me, I wish I was wrong - that country has lost the ability to resist a system that is already dead. Many people ask how it is possible that life in Cuba is still like this, when there is no longer the ideological aspect, it is completely empty. It is proven that mafia structure controls everything. So I'm trying to contribute as much as I can. I write my articles, I try to contribute with my words. And if it is worth talking about what I have seen in my life, what has been lost in time, I can talk about my doubts and disappointments that come to mind when I think of Cuba. But I am already 66 years old. In fact, I would like to sit in the backyard of my house and read under the almond tree."

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    The revolution was not supported by the working class, the black population, or the villagers.

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    "Speaking of the Cuban Revolution, it must be emphasized that it was not the working class that would have carried it out, because there were trade unions in Cuba - despite General Batista, despite what anyone could say, the unions were very strong. The communist unions supported Batista. However, these unions were very successful. They had their own hospitals, recreational facilities, had their own funds and provided financial assistance. It all disappeared when the revolution won. So the working class did not support the revolution, the black population did not support it, and the villagers did not. On the contrary, during the first years after the victory of the revolution, a great peasant uprising was formed in the Escambray Mountains. It took seven or eight years for the uprising to be suppressed with all Soviet help. The uprising was initially supported by the CIA, but since 1961 there has been no support.

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    Miami, USA, 12.04.2019

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    duration: 01:49:35
    media recorded in project Memoria de la Nación Cubana / Memory of the Cuban Nation
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    Miami, USA, 12.04.2019

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    duration: 01:49:35
    media recorded in project Memoria de la Nación Cubana / Memory of the Cuban Nation
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The only thing I regret is that I didn’t leave earlier.

Andrés Reynaldo in 2019
Andrés Reynaldo in 2019
photo: ED

Andres Reynaldo was born on April 8, 1953, in a small village in the province of Las Villas. His family felt the effects of the victory of the Cuban Revolution from the very beginning. The revolutionary authorities persecuted several members of his family, and one of his uncles was even executed. He was a soldier in the Cuban army. Following a happy childhood in the countryside, the family moved to Havana, where Andres Reynaldo spent his youth. As a fan of literature and music, he tried to obtain Western recordings and books, often through a shop with sailors who sailed to the port of Havana. He studied literature at the University of Havana and worked in the field of art. In 1980, he took the opportunity to leave Cuba on a ship that sailed from the port of Mariel. He first lived in the United States, then moved to Puerto Rico, where he began working as a journalist. After returning to the United States, he worked in major newspapers and magazines, such as the El Miami Herald or the People magazine in New York. Today he lives in Miami and works for television.

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