Harvard Book Store; WGBH Forum Network; Carlos Eire: Learning to Die in Miami

Thank you thank you good evening everyone. My name is had again on behalf of harvard books i'm so thrilled to have you all out tonight for a venture carlos air. Here tonight to discuss his new book. Learning to die in miami. Tonight's event is one of the last events. However bookstores. Two thousand and ten event serious. Tomorrow night will welcome. Chef joe and jane here to the store to talk about her new cookbook. Flour and rumor has actually bringing cookies. Good reason to come out next tuesday and i hope you'll join us as the buyers of harvard bookstore come in come right back here to talk about their favorite books of the year they'll be festive. Refreshments as well so. More food to tell you when you come by and get some great recommendations for your holiday shopping. These two events as well as the rest of our january two thousand and eleven events calendar already listed online at harvard dot com. The best way to find out about all of our events is their weekly e-mail newsletter. You can sign up for that by going to harvard dot com. Scrolling to the bottom and subscribing there you can also follow us on twitter. Like us on facebook or you can pick up a plain old paper events flyer at the information desk.

So tonight after reading we'll have time for questions from the audience. And at the close of the talk we'll have a book signing right here at this table. You'll find copies the book available at the registers. And of course you have my personal thanks for coming out tonight and for purchasing your books from harvard bookstore. Your participation in not only keeps this author event series alive. You keeps alive a landmark independent bookstore. Has a volume for everybody in here. When you go up to town. We get the volume up just a tad please. And this is a moment where else tell you to switch off our cell and your cell phone. Thank you professor. So i think that's helpful. So tonight on behalf of harvard bookstore i'm honored to welcome carlos air. To discuss his latest book. Learning to die in miami. Confessions of a refugee boy. Learning to die in miami is of course the follow up to professor ayres a first memoir waiting for snow in havana. Confessions of a cuban boy. But when the national book award for nonfiction in two thousand and three. Well some might read the title professor s new book as a proclamation of loss. It is at its heart a coming of age story of resilience. And a stunning narrative. Of the immigrant experience. The

seattle times calls the book. Irreverent and deeply affecting the publisher's weekly tales as easily. Well the most impressive memoirs. On the thorny issue of immigration. One in havana in one nine hundred fifty carlos air left cuba. In one thousand sixty two one of fourteen thousand unaccompanied children. Airlifted out of cuba. By operation pedro pan. After earning his ph d. at yale university professor has taught at st john's university and at the university of virginia. He's now the t.. Lawless and. Larson ricks professor of history and religious studies at yale university where he specializes in the social intellectual. Religious and cultural history. Of late medieval and early modern europe. With a focus on both the prophet protestant and catholic reformations. The history of popular piety. And the history of death. Without further ado ladies and gentlemen thank you so much for coming out tonight please join me in welcoming. Carlos there. Thanks. Just

being prophets oriel unquote see. That's all. Thank you for inviting me to be here. Thank you very much thank you all for being here. On a cold night. I'm sorry if i gave any of you the wrong directions by saying this is going to be at the harvard coop but that's the information i had. Sorry i passed on bad information. What i'd like to do is just read a little bit. And talk about what the book is all about. And how it came to be. And then leave time for questions. And let me set this up. This chapter nine. Is towards the end of my stay at my first foster home. Wonderful family that took me an american jewish family. Norman lewis chase. And it's just around hollowing time in one thousand nine hundred fifty two. For those of you that were alive then you know this was also the october missile crisis. I'm much more interested in hollowing. Than in the missile crisis. It's my first hollowing.

I'm also experiencing. A lot of interest at school. In the spanish language and. About how i deal with the spanish language. And how i deal with following. And i'll jump from the beginning to the end of the chapter. Teach me how to swear in spanish. I can't add up how many times i've had this request already. Everyone wants to learn all the bad words in spanish. Even the girls. This puts me in a tight spot for uttering bad words against the first commandment. And an entry take it to hell. So if i teach bad words to anyone. I'm in danger not only my eternal fate but also there. And that makes my sin doubly worse. And if i say nothing. They'll just keep pestering me. I tried that and i know that silence won't work. Plus. If i refuse. I'll be totally uncool. Worse than a nerd.

What's a boy to do. Toss them a bone. Maybe i am a law. I say. What's that. Boy it's a spanish word for sex. You know. The really dirty word with the f.. Gimme more. Ok how about this. Matt damon up out the other last nagas. What's that all it means go have sex with a. Yourself you know. Another version of the big bad f. word. Thanks charles. Thanks a lot. That's great. I don't tell him that what i've just taught him to say is the vegetable beat. And kick my butt talks. Now to the end of the chapter. After i collect all my holloing candy. And actually get to vandalize a few homes. Because you know they've broken the law they didn't have treats. And it's perfectly. Except that and. Expected that you will vandalized the

house. God bless america. The thrill of making life miserable for someone else was unbearably exhilarating. Nothing i've ever felt so right so virtuous we attacked. The skinflints of scrooge is with all the. Zeal of crusaders. Certain that ours was a holy venture. Doing wrong can feel so right. So very right. And so totally fulfilling. Yes and it's even more satisfying to be a cretin. When you get to go home with a bag that's about the ripple. And because of the weight of the treats in it. I had enough candy at the end of that bless that night to keep me going for the next. Next two months. Of course. It was all gone in less than a week. Finally i'm wholly. And truly american. I told myself. Forget the accent. And all the harassment at school i got harassed for my x.. At this point i still thought desi arnaz had no axe.

And i was just the bottom and bark on racing my own act. By imitating the two finest. English accents that i heard on television every week. The most beautiful english. Beverly hillbillies. And andy griffith. So i got harassment at school i don't care. Now that i've done this. I'm the real thing. This being. Trick or treating. Who we like i've died and gone to heaven. I'm living out the life i've always wanted to have. I'm just like those superior american children i saw on king thought of any the back and of anna years ago. Who are headed for certain disappointment. In my inferior homeland. Heck i'm better off than they were for i'm here. Where there's a real hollowing. Now all i need to really become an american. Is to become jewish. And have a bar mitzvah. What i thought was normal. What else could i think living with a jewish family.

Around me all around me boys my age were preparing for their entry into manhood. And i was just. Floundering. Pedaling my bike to st brendan's on sundays. I've gone to a couple of markets was already it seemed like such a reasonable religion. And so on scary. Yeah. The hebrew was a drag but then again. So with a lot. Well maybe latin was less extreme but going through a ritual that turned you into a man seemed like a great thing to me. Worth even having to learn that strange tongue by ruth this by ruth not an other night to you too. And l. ok now while you're at it and melich hello i'm on top of that. Yeah why not. Dominus vobiscum it comes speeding through tool or amos. What's the difference. Jesus was a jew. After all. And he had a bar mitzvah. I knew that the virgin mary was jewish too and st joseph and

every single one of the twelve apostles. Including saint peter. The first pope. Were not guards the gates of heaven jews all of them. And we prayed to them or up for an obvious. Yes please. Chosen people all of them chosen. Like my foster parents. And my brothers. Exiles. Since day one. Always on the move. Always chased up always. Stripped of everything. They've worked for it's always ridiculed always vandalized and threatened. Always chosen a scapegoat for this and that. Sacrificial offerings. Refugees. Of the highest order. I don't even come close. Nor do my people. My twelfth birthday is approaching. Less than a month after hollow when. I know i won't get a bar mitzvah. Next year but i'd sure like to have one. That would make everything alright even if i have to wear one of those stupid little caps that refuse to stay put on the back of your head. This ritual. Might even cure me

of my accent. And give me one more chance to go out for hollowing. I'll still be a boy next year barely but a boy nonetheless with three weeks to spare very lucky boy. Mambo lips and all. This is the question i got in the restroom at everglades elementary school. Why do you cubans have such big lips. Mumble lips and all with. No bones. Through his nose. Who can teach curious american kids. How to cuss incorrectly in spanish. As he pines for fjords. And bar mitzvahs. With no concern whatsoever for the pain that comes with circumcision. Or with finding your front door keyhole has been carefully jammed up with bazooka bubble gum. Seven doors. Met this fate. On that hollow. Hey charles. What's the bad word of the day give me a really bad one this time really really bad. Betting handcuffs.

Eggplants eggplant. What's that. It's a very nasty way of saying breasts. Yeah. How about. One more. Yeah. Ok. Manc on that e.s.i. body out of two full emma. I'd love to savor your phlegm. That sounds even worse. What is it. It's a very bad way of saying i'd love to kiss you all over. Thanks charles. Thanks you cubans have such dirty minds. Thanks. You bet. Is easy for us. It's all we can do when our grass huts you know what without god i hope i don't. Go to hell you bastard. Say what. Oh. Nothing. Never mind. I know that i've just bought myself an empty trick at the hell. Especially since i've stopped going to confession. But i don't give a damn. Hell. I don't give a flying room lotsa. Somehow.

And some half assed way. I figured out that heaven and hell intersect all the time. Here in miami. Gone you. Get me out of the. Untranslatable. Theater lro the process of acculturation as a sociologist might say. Learning to die in miami. A title that has begun to bring me some grief. Because a r.p. showed great interest in the book initially. Thinking it was. About another subject. I actually did two interviews for a r.p.. One in english and one spanish so. They found out what it's really what learning to die. Learning. Diez. Metaphor of course. Has several levels. The

most obvious. And immediate and. Kind of universal and superficial. Is the fact that every immigrant. Has to die. When they get to a new place. Every him. Doesn't matter where they go where they come from. Every immigrant who takes up a new life in a new place. As an immigrant and not a visitor. Has to die. And become a new person at a deeper level. Everyone needs to learn how to die. Because we all die. Several times in a lifetime. We experience many deaths. We're all exiles. We're all immigrants. Exiles from childhood. Which we can't revisit. Or you know you'll understand because most of your. Much more audience. Anyone who gets married. Dies. Marriage is a death. The birth of a child is a death but of course behind every one of these deaths. Is a resurrection. A new birth. And didn't put resurrection in the title.

Fearing it would be too long a title. And kind of forbidding it may be awful word. Off putting to some potential readers. But in truth. We all die many times in a lifetime. And have to be reborn. Sometimes we have to reinvent ourselves. And this book. Through the narrative of just my story my story and my brothers. It's half the book. I think it's a window onto. Not just the peculiar. And very odd case of the fourteen thousand children who came to the us without their parents from cuba. But also about immigration. In general and acculturation and really about what. What america is specifically and. You know in order to kind of fill in the background of what's in the book. And how the book

came to be written. For those of you. That don't know i'll give you a very brief capsule history of this very strange. Air left. And the fourteen thousand children. Who came to the us without their parents. And the question i always get is why would any parent do that. And our parents really felt they had no choice they had a sophie's choice to make either. We stayed there and. Faced. Another form of being taken away from them or they exercised some choice in where we would end up. And what i mean is this. By one thousand nine hundred sixty one. The cuban government was already taking children away from their parents. And taking away from parents the right to have any decision any important decision regarding their children's lives. Of course education in state run schools. Was compulsory. And the education was heavily laced with indoctrination in communist prince.

And atheist not just. Communist but atheistic. Slash communist prince. Even the math problems were politically loaded. Here's a math problem. From a fifth grade textbook. Before our glorious revolution. Jose sanchez used to pay you know x. amount of pesos to his scumbag landlord. Our glorious revolution has reduced rent. By this amount. Now. Jose songes. Thank you thanks to the urban reform. Only pays. So much. What percentage reduction has our maximum leader. And the urban reform. You know. Brought forward. To help people. So on so forth. Worse than that every summer. Children are sent to camps in the countryside. To labor. They try to make it amusing but it. And for the younger children it. Kind of. I just met one last week who said they were very amused that first summer. But it's really

slave labor. Because you know you. Do work for free. And that's that's the so-called free education. But in a parent's had no say where their children would be found and what would happen at these camps and. There's no can. Power parental control over this and the older children. And even some younger children were already being sent to eastern europe. And the soviet union. So our parents panicked. And there was this program. That was not initially put into place. To rescue all cuban children. It was initially put into place to rescue only. The children of men and women who were struggling against the castro regime. But it mushroom because cubans like to share things were very friendly and neighborly. One mom would tell another you know. There's this program it's entirely word of mouth. Because you know you don't advertise in the paper was underground. And word of mouth and. Well. It spread like wildfire.

Between one nine hundred sixty and one nine hundred sixty two fourteen thousand children left. Even more amazing. A figure that blew my head open last year when i find. When i came across it for the first time. The airlift landed abroad. Ended abruptly. At the same time as this chapter. Missile crisis. The door was shut. But all castro would not let anyone leave cuba. Including the parents of. Most of us who were here. So we were trapped here our parents were trapped there. There was no getting out. But the figure that blew my head open. When the door closed. There were eighty thousand other children holding these visa waiver. Whose parents were ready to send them to the u.s. so we're talking about. Almost a hundred thousand children. In an island that had population of only six million. You know this figure alone tells you the kind of desperation. The parents it was not intended as a permanent separation it was a temporary thing. The kids could get out really quick. With these visa waivers. Because children don't need security clearance. Parents needed

real be. This is coming from an enemy state which takes longer to plan was get the kids over there. And we'll both join you over there are one of us will join you all over there and then. You know certainly three years from now this won't. This can't last. This will be over. So it's a gamble. And this is the reason my father ended up not leaving the main reason is this gambling you know how much longer can this last. For men. The minute they ask for an exit permit. They lost their jobs. And all their property. Terrible decision to have to make. Do we leave together as a family and lose everything. And then the men were sent to slave labor camps. For several years. So the families couldn't leave together anyway. Most families. So that's the difficult choice that parents face we've got here. And we're trapped it was not to late very late one nine hundred sixty five the president lyndon johnson and fidel castro worked out an agreement to begin the so-called freedom flights. Which brought over one hundred thousand cubans.

Piecemeal basis little man and the parents began to reunite with the children and eventually. Most of us reunited with at least one parent. I never saw my father again. Something was always in the back of our minds. As we left all of us parents children. And we were then scattered to the four winds forty different states. We were process very quickly. The camps in florida their purpose was to send us somewhere else. They couldn't take us all. They also didn't know. From one flight. To the next. How many children would be arriving. So it was well organized chaos. My story and my brother story is very typical of the fourteen thousand. We bounced around from one home to another and eventually. We were among the luckiest. Because eventually. An uncle of ours who had left just before the door closed. Was resettled in bloomington illinois.

And we're eventually sent to live with him but not before spending nine months. In a holding tank of sorts which was a group home for juvenile delinquents a fairly common experience for all of us who went through this. The hardest. For most of us. Hardest moment in this. Narrative this common narrative we all have the hardest moment for most of us. Was not the departure. And the years of separation. But the reunion. After years of independence. And after years of getting used to being your own boss. Basically. Except for the poor kids who ended up in orphanages and. Other nasty places but anyway. What i write this book and how did it come to be. Well you know i had written waiting for snow in havana. Out of sheer desperation. Back in one end of one thousand nine hundred ninety nine and went crazy.

I mean that literally. The alley and gonzales. Saga. Drove me to the edge of insanity. Because everything the american press was reporting was so wrong so totally and utterly wrong. And i tried to write i wrote i wrote. To every major american newspaper and major magazines on my supposedly prestigious yale stationary. And i didn't get a single acknowledgment. To my letters which said you know this government's not interested in reuniting families it's intentionally separated. Hundreds of thousands of families. Maybe if i had written on harvard station or i'd have better luck i don't know. But i thought the press was not going to listen to my story i better write a narrative about or write a novel. So i wrote my memoir. About childhood in cuba. And sold it as fiction. But the editor. Discovered pretty early on by asking me questions every time she asked me questions. Did things like this really happen in cuba i said yes it happened to me i was stupid enough to know what

catholic education does to you. You try to tell the truth and it gets you into trouble all the time and. Lo and behold in the book goes does well and does precisely what i wanted it to do which is kind of to. Reach a wider readership. And also something i had not planned at all. It also. Ends up. Telling a story for the first time that many in the cuban exile community. Mind. Very important for their own identity. I get these e-mails all the time. Say. Thank you for telling my story. They don't say thank you for telling your story they say thank you for telling my story. So i thought i'd never write another one. Waiting for snow ends with my airplane ride to miami. What else is there to say. Then the summer of two thousand and nine.

No plans to write this. For heaven's sake. I've been writing a reformation history. Survey. Since one thousand nine hundred nine. Which you know i'm surprised the editors at yale press. Haven't broken my wrists already for writing these other things you know eyes. That was my. Summer project. And i actually ended up working on that too during the daytime but at night after coming back from this trip. To eastern europe. I had to write this book. And it came piecemeal. In different ways. But it began in prague. There i was in a city that my parents. Specifically mentioned several times as a place where they didn't want me to. and Because that's where free dale had sent his oldest son feet alito. On to prague. There were hundreds of kids being sent to prague and to moscow. Poland. All of eastern europe. There wasn't a place my parents didn't want me to end up. And lo and behold the place is beautiful. It's

beautiful and it's been free. Of totalitarian communism. For twenty years or more. And i have an identity crisis. When i see a poster. For the museum of communism. And i ask myself that question just popped into my head. If i go to this museum. I am i a visitor or an exhibit. Another identity question and so on and so forth throughout this whole trip we went for the yale alumni trip. That also had a harvard alumni by the way. About half and half and then. No i was about a third third harvard and the other third were smithsonian. Went up to elba river and up and berlin. Through canals. Do i get to visit witan burg for the first time i'm a reformation historian and i get to see. Martin luther's birthplace. Martin luther didn't whisper to me. Stop writing about me. Leave me alone. I might as well have because one of the

passengers on the cruise i had given three more lectures on the reformation on this group. Which is a great lady on the smithsonian. Part of the trip. She said you know these lectures to give and not interesting. Your life your life easy and. I'd like to hear more about that. I took that be luther's voice from the grave telling. By the time i got to berlin. And was writing around berlin in a rented bicycle. And realising that. East berlin. Not with. Much much nicer than what birth. Twenty years later. I thought what the. Who who who the hell am i and why. As an exile felt like a double triple exile. Being there visiting these places that have been freed from what i've been waiting for that to be freed from for so long. I came home and thought i've got to now to continue the story. Plus i have three kids

to put through college. And my royalty check. From cambridge university press for two very serious books one year. Was seventeen dollars. So. Form follows function or function follows for whichever both ways it's a two way street. I wrote this. So that the story of the air left. Could become better known. There are three books on the pedro pan. Air left. All very serious. Books and good history. Two of them are very good and one of them. I think. Flawed because it has a has an agenda. Which is to blame the cia for everything. So i thought well. I've heard so much from readers. About my first book. Being history. And enlightening them about history. Not about my life i don't care about me the most my readers who write to me. Seem

to care about history that i'm telling. And are actually treating the book. As history. Not as memoir. I've got to continue the story. And. And also with the immigration debate swirling about this time. Summer two thousand and nine is beginning to kind of build up. And immigration being on everybody's mind and. I was hearing nothing like the allium gonzales thing right. I'm hearing. Nothing in the news. Or reading anything in the news. About. The individuals who are caught in this dilemma. And. I thought you know that all these things come together and then when the coincidences pile up. In this way for me. They seem to be coincidences and kind of become a. Preordained or predestined thing and. I get inspired. And the same way i wrote. Waiting for snow in three months i wrote this and even less time. Ordered two and a half months. I wrote like waiting for snow i worked on my academic stuff during the day. I worked on this at night.

First when i read all the chapters for my children. I read them. Everything i'd written the night before the following night when they were much younger. At this age no way and. Two in college and one in high school in the way they're going to sit so i'd give him. What i had written and my daughter who was away for the summer right. Email her that text. And they were very helpful like the first time and also my wife jane. Immensely helpful. It's one chapter in here. Let me back up. High school teachers are very annoyed with me in connecticut. And i no longer get invitations this is because high school. Comes when the students ask me you know how long did it take you i say three months. And i add. And i had no outline. And i did. Zero rewriting. I sold my first draft. They say get out of here. You're gone you're gone done our efforts. All the efforts we've made and you haven't done. In this case i did rewrite one

chapter numerous times. My wife jane kept telling me. No this is not right. Not right is the toughest. Chapter to write which has to deal with. Profoundly. Personal religious experience i had at page fourteen. Kind of a conversion story which. The trickiest than most awful thing to write about. Because you know you're right on the edge there. Offending just about everybody. But i finally got that ok and. The book is out there now. As history. Once again. Not just you know i'll go away i like to see these books because you know i'm a. I'm a scholar. My story and. I've always appreciated immensely. First person accounts from the path. Nothing gets you closer to the past. Than a first person narrative. Nothing gets you there puts you there. More intensely. And nothing is harder to deny. Than a first person. I witness account narrative.

But as a historian i know fully well that you know. Several times i've fallen on my knees. In secret and when nobody's looking. And i'm using a first person account from the sixteenth or seventeenth century and i've thanked of course for. Thank you and i say to them every time. I can't trust you you know. Memory is not always one hundred percent accurate. Plus people who write about themselves. Don't like to make themselves look bad. Or like to make themselves look much better. Like. Oprah's. What was his name. James fry a million little pieces yeah. She found out the hard way when. Trouble of first person account then. It's out there now. This one story of my brother's story which is emblematic and. Very very sort of. Very much in the pattern of the other fourteen thousand. For people to read about. At one level. As history. At another level and i think i take this book very seriously too is scholar of

religion. As taking up. Certain deep questions that we all have about existence. And about the big question. Biggest question of all the big deal death. And the fact that. Yeah. Raise your hand anyone in this room is not going to die. No matter what people think about this world or where there is anything beyond this world it is a subject that has to be faced. But i try to examine these larger questions. In a in a narrative. The reviewer for the washington post says name jonathan yardley hated this book. Oh you hate it that's one of the worst books you've ever read the style is irritating. But worst of all i do nothing but bill eat. B l e a t look it's full of bleeding his his argument was. Since i've done so well for myself here in the united

states. I have nothing to complain about. And i have no right to have any existential questions because i've done damn well by myself. And maybe i wouldn't have done so damn well if i had stayed in my own stupid. Country. If that's not racism i don't know what is. But anyway. I take up deep questions but the book is also as you saw from that pl of this chapter. Interface. Laced with humor. That critical points whenever i start getting too serious i always crack a joke. Whenever my students start falling asleep in class i crack a joke. All the time it works. But i'll close with this. And then leave it open for questions. There's no there's an ethical dilemma. Of sort or someone in my position as a scholar. Writes non-scholarly books. For a general audience. In many ways in my profession for many many generations has been considered a sin. To veer away from the footnote.

If you do that you're not serious. I remember very well. My very first. I was allowed into the inner sanctum i had tenure. And suddenly i was taking part in the. In your review for the very first time in the person it was being reviewed was one of my closest friends and colleagues at the university of virginia. And just about the first or second comment i hear from one of my idiot colleagues. Was. You know. He's not a serious historian. Look he's published poetry. And it wasn't just junk poetry is poetry and good poetry journal. Right now it's good published poetry. And there was no getting around this obstacle. This man. And several others who said we can't tenured this guy he's not a real historian. He writes poetry. So. Many. Might be what is. And but i feel that. You know if i lived through a. And event. A fifty one year long event. Longer than that if

you count but she's sixty some year vet. And no one else's or very few people are giving a narrative. First person narrative. And it's my duty to do this to bear witness to many things including the hypocrisy of the cuban regime. Separate the. Thousands of families hundreds of thousands and still does you know because by the way. Every doctor. That cuba sends elsewhere. Is never allowed to go with his family. People who travel abroad always have to travel alone. Never with their family. Still happening. I have to bear witness to this because as was al has said many many times. When an injustice is committed. If no one speaks up against or bears witness. About this injustice. It indoors. And replicates itself. And in a way. You're not only allowing this

to endure. With your silence. You're cooperating with it's indoors. So i do this. And then i you know. A comfortable rock and a comfortable hard place i am caught between. Is that i keep writing books like this. Or do i keep writing books with footnotes. Meaningful pause. These books. Take few matter months. My academic books i've averaged them out. It's eleven point three years apiece. I just turned sixty. Average lifespan for an american male is seventy three something or another. Which means i only have one academic book left then. If i'm lucky. If i'm lucky. One of the projects i have in mind is that. You know. I hope i live to be one hundred so i can do that too it's

a inquisition files. In spain of cases. Of atheists. Pure atheists who say there is no god. There is no heaven. There is no hell. All there is is or all there is is what we see. And they're willing to die for their unbelief. And they actually do die for their own beliefs they're given the chance to say no just come on just say that. You know. And they actually roast alive in the flames. For their unbelief. But that book will take easily ten years. I don't know what i'll do next but. I certainly want to keep doing this kind of writing which comes from a totally different part of the brain. And it's actually fun. But i leave you with this anecdote. Which speaks for itself. About a conference in paris. Two thousand and four. On the translation of. Texts in the early modern world. And i've given what i think is a very good paper. On

the translation of devotional texts. In the late fifth. Fairly sixteenth century. We're all having dinner at a fancy. Paris restaurant afterwards. Small conference small intimate conference with a representative of the european union present. They do this if they fund a conference they have a representative there to make sure that's all shop talk and no. Conversations going along just fine until some very impolite. Person says you know karl's won the national book award in the united states. What conversation stops. That's a conversation killer. Especially because none of my academic colleagues. Knew. And i said well what book what the. What the hey you know what book is this. So i explain what the book is and colleagues sitting directly across from me. Says to me with a pained look on his face. Oh yes he let out a like a home fool. Oh you know what this means.

You know what does it mean that means you're going to be remembered for that book. Not for your work as a historian. I so i can live with that. The french historian who would organize the conference. Put it all in perspective for me as only a french historian can. With no small amount of cruelty. He said with that thought he won't mean a prize for the big but you gave us today. All right. Yes but the time for question. Thank you yes thank you. Yes. Yeah.

I'm supposed to repeat questions for people who are in another room. So the question is about a chapter in waiting for snow and have an hour where i. I talk about my adopted brother. A boy my father picked up off the streets and eventually adopted which by the way and i don't go into after explaining this in the book. My father picked up dozens of boys and brought them home. Because he thought terrible things as a judge. And he was actually in the process of trying to establish an orphanage in havana modeled after boys town in nebraska. When the revolution just put an end to the whole thing. This boy because of my father's belief in reincarnation right. He recognized his son in a previous life. When he was louis the sixteenth. This boy. Repeatedly tried to abuse me sexually. And the chapter is written in a very different style which is a short sentences almost like a poem. That's the only way i could write it. I didn't i didn't even think about it that's the way it came out. That's the only way i could address this great betrayal. Because of course.

Our father did. So that's the only way i could deal with it. I have a kind of a symmetrical. Chapter here in this book. Which talks about good things. Good things in the same kind of one line. Yeah. Well. That's how it came to be. Yes. You know i never wanted to go back. You're right. Like. One. Well. My. My choice has been taken away from me. Because the cuban regime. Declared me an enemy. I got it. I got a call from the state department. Back in two thousand and three. Thing you're on the list. And your books are banned.

So that choice has been taken away from me completely. I can't go back to your race. While things are the way they are. I have no reason to go back. None. I don't have. I have one uncle left. Whom i never got to know very well. And that's it. I don't have any other family there. My house. The stuff my dad had i don't care. I once said to an audience somebody asked me what would you do with your property if you returned. And sort of to say that i didn't really care. I said you know if i go back. And i managed to get it back. What i'd like to do is blow it up and then bulldoze the site and get rid of all of it. And somebody in the audience. Said well you know this. Selfish bastard. You know that house is probably being used by poor people and you want to take it away from. And i said well you know. If you put me in a tight spot like this is what i would do i would take a second mortgage on my house in connecticut.

Give the people who live there. The value of the house. And then blow it up because i don't give a rats whatever remo lacina about any of that stuff. It's the stuff. Just stuff and. That cuba i knew. Is as gone. As. Every childhood in the spring. So which you can't return. Yes right there and then i see the these cases. And the one. I saw was a zero zero zero.

He says yes i was you know. I recently did a gig. This year. And you know this right now well. This is the guy. They know. I know cases of people who have been arrested when they get off the plane. So i can't risk it. They wouldn't let me go on it but a colleague of mine at yale who's no longer there is not the university of florida. Historian of cuba. Leon getter. Took a whole suitcase full of. Waiting for snow. To cuba. And got it passed. You know because cuba. Can you know depends on who you get at the airport. It depends on who you get and how seriously they're taking their job so she snuck in a whole suitcase. So i know that at least there's. There's at least one suitcase. Worth of waiting for snow.

Yeah you had your. Waiting for snow probably here you have the f.a.a. it's. Oh. Well. Yeah they'll get more. By it here. Not not on the internet come back here and buy it here the bookstores need. Clients. Yeah. Pierpont oh good good question is the stupidest name anybody could have come up with for this airlift. It's stupid in a way cruel. Peter pan. Peter pan all the kids flew peter pan. But you know. Pedro pun. In spanish. Really stupid name. Because in cuba. With. Referred to the story as a little pond it was peter peter pan. Peter pan. And in spanish federal pon means. Peter bread. And worse than that. Peter pan story is about. Neverland where children state children. Pedder pan kids. We lost our childhood. And that forty five minute

flight. From cuba to florida. So it's a stupid name but we're saddled with it because an american journalist one of the very very few of the handful of american journalists who wrote about this when it was happening. Gave it this cute name. So we're stuck with it. I wish i could single handedly change the name to you know when i watch our something or something equally stupid but you know. Of a different order. Yeah. Right. Right. Very different. Yeah. The question. Yeah i realize that the question for those in the other room. Is about. You know. Prague and berlin in one thousand nine hundred nine bertha's two thousand and nine. Yeah. Very different but that it's realizing this that had such an impact on me that it's been. It had to mean one thousand nine hundred nine as yesterday.

And i still think i was thinking of these countries that's still somewhat. In that. But i get there and. What a difference twenty years can make you see what a difference. But to add insult to injury. In those twenty years. My own country is. It has not been liberated from this system. And in the very same time has actually slip backwards even. Even more to the point that you know. Many of you may not be aware of this but. Something like half or over half of the arable land in cuba. Is not being used. And if it's been invaded by the weed this. Invasive weed. That in order the only way to get rid of it is the scrape all the topsoil. So whenever. Time for recovery and rebuilding. Comes around. It's going to be a monumental effort to get some of the most fertile land on earth. Which has now gone to waste. Back in and i'm thinking in prague. Well wait a minute. What is this. And i'm also thinking you know i'm there as a tourist.

I'm thinking of the. Two million european and canadian and latin american tourists who visit cuba in two thousand and nine. And why they why do they go there. Why are they going there as tourists to enjoy the beach. That's what you know. That also figures in the story here. And the way you. Puzzling over this discrepancy. People who go to a totalitarian regime to enjoy themselves on the beach. That is the you know and the thing is you know back to the museum of communism they are going to the museum. Of communism. But. To enjoy themselves on the beach. Yeah. I don't know if the question is if cost. Castro sold topsoil to the russians i don't know. Somebody is not and yet. You saw this. It was you know i was

site you my boy while we. Yeah. Well. It's a you know it's a caring and sharing sort of place. Just like. Another you know another fact. Is usually not part of the narrative that you find. About cuban the cuban revolution. Is the fact that during the entire vietnam war. Anyone who was executed in cuba. Was totally drained of their blood. Before they were shot or executed in the blood with that the vietnam. And you know. Again sharing and caring and what i'm trying to expose here. I had the unique experience. Last year. Of meeting. One of

the top men in the early years of the castro regime. Carlos frankie. Came to speak at yale. And he gave us a very nice talk about how he was the. The only genuine good socialist. In this. Top group. And how he was betrayed and. You know. Run out of town. He ended up moving to europe and then puerto rico. By the way. College frank he was in charge of propaganda. Is pretty high. And i asked him tell me. What did you guys know about the airlift of pedro pan or what did you know. So we loved it. We loved. And i said why why were you so happy about this is anything that would destroy the borzois family was music to our ears. And what makes the statement even worse. Is the fact that. Right. When the door was closed and the parents were all trapped. And the usefulness of the airlift ended. They arrested all the people who ran the airlift.

And the three top ringleaders. Each spent over twenty years in prison. For helping them destroy. The borzois family and he sell this to me. An airlift kid with a smile on his face. So i got an e-mail from somebody who would listen to an interview i did on n.p.r. said boy you sure have a lot of anger don't you. And made me reflect on anger. And why it is that i had mitt. I am angry. And i don't care if my anger shows and i don't want anyone to die. I don't want anyone to spend time in prison for. For what they've done i don't care you know. But when an injustice is being committed or when a crime is being committed. And you witness suffering. Being caused by others. And that suffering doesn't stop. It is very hard not to be angry. So i wrote back to this person has that have been imagined this scenario. Ok.

A woman is being raped. And her father and brother. Are forced to watch. For years on end. And it never stops. Do you think they can let go of their anger you know and that's why. You know. Forgive me. But i am angry because the source of my anger. Is still there live it's a live wire and. A very hard to let go of it. So yeah. Sorry i'm angry. Yeah. Right. Right. The question for those who haven't heard it in the other room

is. What it was like to publish. What i thought was going to be fiction. As memoir. It's an excellent question because it caused me no end of grief. The moment i was told. You know we can't publish this. As fiction. Would be wrong. I couldn't say fine. I'll go to another publisher because i'd already cashed the check. Too late and paid off my mastercard bill. I was stuck. So i begged. I said please let me take out. And i had a list of things you know if this is going to be out there for the whole world to see. As my life. Please let me take these things out. And my editor who's an excellent editor. Rachel claimant. When on to bigger and better clients. Like barack obama. And the audacity of hope she added that book. She said. You know the more unpleasant. You make yourself. In the story the more believable. It is. And also. If your whole point in writing this book is

to raise people's consciousness about what happened in cuba. If it's a memoir they don't have to ask the question. Did this really happen. You know be more effective so you know put yourself there warts and all this very painful decision. The way the book was written no. You know. To go back to my comment about james fry. And making yourself look better. I was playing a trick on myself as i was writing it of course it's going to be fiction and nobody will know that this is me. My character's name was his seuss nickname twitchell. And the original title. Was kissed the lizard. Comma jesus. Which for some reason simon schuster thought was a bad title. And i don't i don't know why. I don't know why. Then i suggested kissed the lizard. Cuban boy and they said no you don't get it's a lizard bat. And i thought they were trying to alter ised the whole project. So i had suggest that in a third title. How about. Kiss my ass.

Oprah. I hope she doesn't ever hear this. But. I was very upset. And you know biting my fingernails. To the nub. Thinking what's going to happen when my life is out there and guess what. I don't care. I don't care. I'm a forgetful professor. And i have already shown up to lecture. My class three times. With my zipper open. So one first time a student can just her sister flies open. Book is pretty much the same experience once you have first time it happens. You survive. You realize. Most people didn't notice or didn't care. And i can't write a third one. No i don't think i can. Because so many of the people who would be in the third one. Are people i still have. Live connections with. Much harder to write about these. I won't be like any dullard. There's an anecdote about annie dillard. Sending a survey to

her whole family. With a questionnaire what don't you want me to talk about. And that's what she wrote about. I can't do that. I don't think i can but you know maybe the right. Trip or the right inspirational moment. I guess. But there is i saw one more hand go up. I guess. X. y. z.. Oh. We're. X y z p d q ok. Well good. That's a good. Good code word for not standing in front of your class and. Some state of undress. Even minor. Yeah. Yeah yeah yeah. I was guided by images. Every chapter is written around an image. Same thing for this one. I'm very. We'll that's guided by.

Images and being a historian it is images once. Once i started coming in the flood gate was open and i was flooded with images. As a historian i tried to put him in as much chronological order as possible it's about. But i didn't actually. You know. Outline anything. And just i'd go i'd sit in front of my computer screen and. Go wherever it went. I felt. Not inspired but almost like possessed. And i had a very interesting experience in miami airport. Right after waiting for snow came out. Just been back to miami for the first time in thirty years. To talk about the book. I met the airport and. People magazine had published a review of my book. And i was embarrassed to go to the newsstand and ask for people magazine. So i go to the newsstand and i had. This lady who has a very thick. Cuban accent in

english. And like people magazine i have to explain to her and explain to her. And in spanish. Why i'm getting people magazine. And she says oh what a beautiful cuban accent you have that with all this and cuban spanish. And i explained to her the reason for my. Requesting the magazine. And she reads it and. She looks at me. Pulls up her sleeve and says look look. Thirty five. My hairs are standing on end. I can't believe i'm talking to the son of louis the sixteenth. And then she goes on in her. Inimitable cuban way. You know. Of mixing every religion on planet earth. She says. You know you know who wrote this book. I said not tell me who wrote my book says your father. If you channeled your father who was your father. Wrote it. And while i didn't believe

her elders from. Element of truth to that kind of possession. Thing then she added a third piece of advice that i did not follow which says if you want to become fabulously rich with this book. Get a little red rug. Put it by the side of your bed. And every morning. First thing you do. Put your feet on that red rug. And say some kind of minister gave me this incantation and and. Your robot. African land. I didn't follow her advice. On that one. But. Maybe if i had you know maybe i'd be a millionaire. Maybe maybe that's a. Pardon. No no no i've picked up by that time i had written her off you know. I had written her off. Yeah it would be good i could sell this tonight. That's how i could sell her incantation. And a little package with a red rug. And a book how to be a

millionaire. There you go. I missed my chance. Thank you thank you all. Thank you thank you very much you.