Alina Fernandez: Castro’s Daughter

For my last blog post I wanted to write about International Celebration Week’s keynote speaker, Alina Fernandez. On Monday, April 20, 2012, Fernandez came to DU to discuss her experience as Cuban leader, Fidel Castro’s, daughter. Her experience gave me firsthand insight on what it was like growing up as part of the Cuban elite in the 1960s and 70s. I believe that her experience as a woman, however, made her the activist she is today.

For those of you who do not know, the mother of Alina Fernandez met Fidel Castro right before he was imprisoned. During Castro’s imprisonment, the two fell in love through writing letters, despite both being married to other people. When Castro was released, he ended his current marriage and started the Cuban Revolution. Fernandez’s mother remained married to her previous husband but became pregnant with Castro’s child, Alina. When Castro came into power, Fernandez’s non-biological father fled to the US, while she remained in Cuba with her mother. A few years later, Castro was identified as Fernandez’s biological father.

Once this became national news, the remainder of Fernandez’s childhood was a constant stream of letters and people coming to her for help. As an 8-year-old girl, Fernandez was seen as the country’s only means to speak to Castro. She said that people would line up outside her house to beg her to ask her father for change—a very big message for such a young girl. The stories she heard from her fellow citizens never changed the country, however, they changed her. In her late teens she became part of the political dissident movement and in 1993, she was forced to flee Cuba for her political views.

Tying to last week’s class, Fernandez’s story is a great example of violations of human rights. On an institutional level, the Cuban government, with out a doubt, is in violation of the UDHR. During the Q&A portion of the lecture, there were some audience members who thought that “everything was fine” in Cuba and the anti-Cuban movement was just a result of American propaganda. Fernandez clarified by speaking about the inequalities that citizens face compared to tourist (i.e. different currencies, controlled areas where tourist can go, etc.). The country hides the inequalities by silencing its citizens. Additionally, the vagueness of the UDHR is meant to be interpreted, therefore anyone who questions the violations will be silenced by simply saying it was misinterpreted. Another audience member questioned Fernandez with the CIA fact book’s statistics on Cuba’s high literacy rate, and standard of living, etc. She responded by saying that Cuba reports these statistics to the CIA, and they are false—just another way human rights can be violated through deception. And just in case you were wondering, Cuba has signed the UDHR.

Alina Fernandez’s experience as a woman, I believe, is the reason she became the activist she is today. Because of the gender stereotypes of women, the country saw her as being compassionate, understanding, community-oriented, and therefore, more likely to sympathize with their stories. The stories she heard helped her see the disparities within the country, and led her to join the opposition, despite becoming estranged from most of her family (which is very rare in Latino culture). Additionally, her gender made her able to see the violations that men could not due to the shared experience of womanhood.  Like we saw with Maria’s lecture, the interpretation of rights is usually left for those who already have a voice. Fernandez, despite being part of the elite, had to leave her country in order to have a voice for herself and her fellow Cubanos.