[Magdalen] 50 - 50

[Jim Guthrie]

From: Jay Weigel

>good look at the ones who left for Florida vs. the ones who stayed (or
>couldn't leave) you'll see a notable difference.

Oh? I never noticed any such thing at Ft Indiantown Gap, with thousands of 
Cubans from the Mariel boatlift. I would say it was about 50-50 in fact. And in 
general there was no conflict or even separation of races as is common in the 
U.S. I wrote about the lack of overt racism in a newspaper article at the time.

Of course, that's post revolution. The ones that came in the early 60s were 
mostly people with money or connections. Lots of those folk in Miami have their 
Cuban property deed stuck in a Safety Deposit box, ready to reclaim their 
property the minute the Castros are gone. Of course, the people who’ve been 
living in those houses all these years and suffering the deprivation of the 
economy aren't going to willy-nilly move out when that happens. It's going to be 
a huge nasty conflict with some huge racial overtones  when the Castros are 
gone, you can be sure.

Albert's brother is a physician in Havana -- and we've been emailing each other 
for about 10 years -- ever since he got his first laptop. So I hear lots of 
interesting things about what's going on there. Always interesting. We can also 
exchange photos, which is even more interesting as Horaldo has a digital camera. 
At some point next year, if the stars align and my health holds out, we're 
planning to spend a week or two there.

We also have friends from Cuba who go back and forth to visit family and friends 
twice a year or so.

Cheers,
Jim