Carlos Manuel Álvarez (translated by Will Noah) at Equator:
It is five years since I was exiled. My own erasure must be underway. Though for a long time I resisted settling in the US, I now live in New York. If I’m ever able to return to Cárdenas, it will surely be as an intruder in my own town; another ambassador from a foreign society. While the government or the military banish you deliberately, ordinary people can do the same through indifference – a form of cruelty that can’t be blamed on anyone in particular because, in truth, nobody wills it.
People tend to assume that the challenge of exile lies in finding a sense of purpose in your displacement, in inventing something from nothing. But often it’s sadder and more concrete: accepting the meaning that others have assigned to your life.
There’s something anachronistic about becoming an exile from communism long after the fall of the socialist bloc. The Cold War ended, and even what came after it seems to be reaching its end. I can’t pretend I live in a world where the Soviet Union still exists. Yet much of the Cuban community in the US has decided to keep replicating this conservative fantasy, especially after the rise of Donald Trump.
More here.
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