Castro’s daughter speaks at Southern Adventist

Friday, Oct. 8, 2010


By: Perla Trevizo
(Contact)

Staff photo by Dan Henry/Chattanooga Times Free Press - October 07, 2010. Alina Fernandez, the daughter of Fidel Castro, speaks to students at Southern Adventist University about Cuba on Thursday. Fernandez, an outspoken critic of the Cuban communist regime, fled her home country in 1993 and now lives in Florida.

Alina Fernandez remembers a January morning in 1959 when Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck vanished from her television screen forever and were replaced by bearded men in military outfits.

It was the day Fidel Castro, whom she later learned was her father, took control of Cuba.

Fernandez, an outspoken critic of her father and the Cuban communist regime, spoke Thursday morning to more than 1,500 students at Southern Adventist University. The event was hosted by the Latin American Club.

When she gives speeches, she combines her personal story with her country’s history, hoping to further the understanding of Cubans, she said after her presentation.

“I don’t have a specific message,” she said in Spanish. “What I want is for an exchange. A lot of people don’t understand the influence Cuba has had; a lot of people don’t understand what Cubans have lived; a lot of people don’t understand why some unkempt people come in rafts trying to get into the United States.

“I want to defend my community,” added Fernandez, who currently has a radio show in Miami.

For Trevor Silva, a freshman majoring in history at Southern Adventist, Fernandez’s story was inspirational.

“It showed that people care once they leave [Cuba]. It shows the country is united,” he said after he had a friend take a photo of him with Fernandez.

In her presentation, which she gave in English, Fernandez joked about how her mother, Natalia, met Fidel Castro when both were married to other people.

She attributed Castro’s attraction for her mother to her curves, which resembled a Coca-Cola bottle, she told a chuckling group of students.

She wasn’t the first one in her family to escape from Cuba. In 1964, her stepfather and stepsister fled to the United States, becoming “worms” and “traitors,” as the Cuban regime called those who left the country.

“One of Cuba’s tragedies is that you become the enemy when you don’t think the way they think and they treat you like [an enemy],” she said.

As she grew older, she saw how her country changed, how families were being separated and she didn’t agree with it.

“Religion disappeared ... cultural life suffered a terrible hit,” she said.

In 1989, she publicly joined the political dissidents and four years later fled Cuba disguised as a Spanish tourist. She had to leave behind her daughter, 16 at the time, but after strong media and international pressure, her daughter was able to join her several weeks later, she said.

Fernandez said she is pleased to see that people care about Cuba because, when change comes, “we are going to need all the solidarity and help possible.”

And though she doesn’t doubt change is coming to her home country, she can’t say when.


ABOUT ALINA FERNANDEZ REVUELTA

* Born in Cuba in 1956

* Daughter of Natalia Revuelta and Fidel Castro, who took control of Cuba in 1959

* Fled Cuba in 1993

* Wrote an autobiography in 1998

* Currently lives in Florida with her daughter Alina, 33.

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