2020_06_Blues_Final_Reduced

BOOKSHELF
Writer Lifts Veil on a Changing Cuba
Veteran NJ journalist Anthony DePalma reveals the extraordinary in ordinary lives.
in november 2016, Anthony DePalma
realized that after almost 40 years of
visiting Cuba, he needed to write a book
about it. Fidel Castro had just died,
the Obama administration had eased
restrictions on travel to the island, and
entrepreneurs were setting up shop.
DePalma, who lives in Montclair, had
arranged to lead eight tours in 2017
through the travel arm of the New
York Times, where he had worked as a
reporter for 22 years. He would have
ample time to continue his research.
But something else happened that
November, and when Donald Trump
entered the White House two months
later, his administration restricted
U.S. travel and imposed sanctions
and embargoes on Cuba, freezing the
Havana spring before it reached full
bloom.
DePalma, author of three other
books (and a longtime contributor
to New Jersey Monthly), persevered
nonetheless through almost three years
of intensive research. His book, The Cubans:
Ordinary Lives in Extraordinary
Times, came out May 26 from Penguin
Random House.
This elegantly written
chronicle of the intertwined
lives of five average
Cubans and their
families gives an unofficial,
and thus potentially
truer, account of the challenges
for people who,
DePalma writes, have an
“excess of prohibitions
and a minimum of inhibitions.”
(DePalma has a
personal connection to
Cuba: his wife, Miriam Zebina Rodríguez,
was born there, but left as a child.)
DePalma was surprised that what
he views as the greatest strength of the
Cuban people—their adaptability—is
also their gravest weakness. It explains
how the government has lasted for 60
years. Cubans are not in the streets demanding
change, DePalma
concludes, because they
are so busy adapting to the
restrictions imposed on
them.
For those who argue that
our current stance against
Cuba can push it toward
democracy, DePalma notes
that donated supplies to
fight coronavirus have
been held up because of
the embargo. “Do we really
want to be known as the
people who didn’t allow that shipment
to come in?” he asks.—Tina Kelley
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JUNE 2020 NEW JERSEY MONTHLY 23