Havana-Merida-Chicago (A Journey to Freedom)

By Antonio Evaristo Morales-Pita, PhD

This second edition of Havana-Merida-Chicago is an autobiography which narrates - from human, psychological, sociological, and religious standpoints – how a Cuban scientist was raised in a communist environment, believed in it, was deceived by its dictatorial procedures, and escaped from it. The manuscript is also grounded on economic and political bases. It is an inspiring story of perseverance to succeed in life.

“The book is more than just a personal story: It is a metaphor for the power of freedom and the human spirit that eventually brings demise to repressive rule” Stanley L. Brue, egregious economist co-author of the book Macroeconomics, widely used as a textbook in business departments of American universities.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Jul 21, 2023
• ISBN: 9781685629724

Antonio Evaristo Morales-Pita, PhD

Antonio Evaristo Morales-Pita, PhD has worked as a university professor for fifty-six years in Cuba, Mexico, and the USA, where he has been the recipient of numerous national awards. He has written and published sixteen books. In the US, he self-published Havana-Merida-Chicago (A Journey to Freedom), 2500 sold copies, and Gladys, My Unforgettable Love. Austin Macauley has published: Is It Possible to Inspire Anyone? Is It Always Fun to Travel Abroad? Grit + Tenacity + Proactiveness: Pulling the Bull by the Horns, Havana-Merida-Chicago 2nd edition, Are You Ready to Improve Habits, May Empathy Lead to Sense of Purpose through Tenacity?, May Anyone Become a Better Human Being by Adopting the Hero Code? and Tenacity + Passion + Patience +Self-Rejection to Failure. Antonio is an inspirational speaker, promoting his books in colleges, universities, factories, and business firms. He has been an official contributor to newspapers, and journals. Antonio can speak, write, and read in Spanish, English, Russian, Italian and French.

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Introduction

A Journey to Freedom

The title of this book may give the impression that it deals with a normal or customary trip starting in Havana and finishing in Chicago, with a stop in Merida. The meaning of the link between those cities goes beyond a geographical change from a tropical warm-climate city in the Caribbean to a cold, moderate-climate continental city in the United States.

The title ‘Havana-Merida-Chicago’ represents three milestones on my way to freedom. In Havana I was born and spent fifty-two years of my life. In reporting on those years, I have also included the period of October 1970 to September 1971, when I did my master’s degree in Great Britain, as well as two years (made up of four stays in the former Soviet Union) working toward my PhD and doctorate degrees in Kiev.

Through all these years, I continued to advance my education as well as my teaching and research experience. The dictatorial regime was the main obstacle I faced in Cuba. It did not allow me to apply my knowledge and the results of my applied research to the Cuban economy. I was a full professor at the University of Havana but did not have the freedom to make even elementary choices in my personal life. I could not choose where to live, where to work, what to wear, what to eat, or how much to eat from the products previously and centrally planned by the government. The Cuban government rationed every good and service in the ‘market’, chose in which produce or general market one could buy one’s rationed food, and who had to be one’s primary care physician without any other option.

Today Cubans cannot choose who governs. They only have one party and one candidate. No choice of candidates is given to them. The Committees of Defense of the Revolution (CDR) watch everybody’s voting activity in the neighborhood.

My yearly salary was 6,000 Cuban pesos, which was equivalent to two hundred and forty U.S. dollars. Before I went to Mexico in 1993, holding an American dollar in my hands was not possible.

At a time in Cuba when my teaching and research activity was considerably impeded and my health was seriously affected, the city of Merida gave me a hand. I stayed there from September 1993 to April 1996. During this period, I returned to Cuba on several occasions to see my family. In Merida, I enhanced my skills in completing research projects with instructors and students, while mentoring undergraduate and graduate students, writing papers, and publishing a book about methodology of research, as well as organizing and participating in scientific seminars.

My daily work life was decidedly rewarding. I was learning by leaps and bounds while helping many persons be better professionals. Although Mexico is a democratic country, I was not totally free in Mexico. I had to be extremely careful about expressing my opinion when discussing the Cuban political situation. I was working with other Cuban instructors during my stay at the Autonomous University of Yucatán College of Economics, and I did not know in whom I could confide.

The justification for my stay in Mexico, regardless of the policies of the Mexican institutions, had to be sanctioned by the executive board of the University of Havana. By that sanction I was allowed to stay, with an extension on my contract, or else I would simply be obliged to return to Cuba as directed by the Cuban authorities. The unpleasant experience I lived through in Cuba during 1995 is the best example of the lack of freedom I had in Mexico. My salary was high by Mexican standards – somewhere between US $800 and $1,000 per month – but, after a deduction for rent, 75% of the net salary was absorbed by the Cuban higher education authorities. Although I was working outside the official contract with other Mexican institutions on the weekends, my living expenses were just affordable although much higher than in Cuba. My standard of living in Mexico was also much higher than in Cuba, even if I only consider food and clothing.

The Lord chose Chicago as the destination of my route to freedom. Although in this book I have only included my first five months in this city, that time was enough for my wife and me to feel freer than ever before in our lives. Now we could talk freely about our situation in Cuba. We were protected by the government of the United States of America. Nobody could send us back to Cuba. We could freely distribute and spend our income. At the time, we did not have any credit or ATM cards and had just opened our first checking and savings accounts. Nonetheless, we could feel the freedom to spend. We were free to choose where to live, and we found an affordable one-bedroom apartment just a few blocks away from my workplace, St. Augustine College. My arrival to the U.S. workforce did not change my vocation, teaching. I started as an instructor, although some months later my academic rank was raised. My net salary was the lowest for an instructor at St. Augustine College, but, anyway, it was considerably higher than the full gross salary had been in Mexico.

This book exemplifies a journey from the most contemporary example of a country ruthlessly ruled by a dictator who pretends to be a king – a forty-seven-year term actually represents a reign, rather than a presidency – who denied his people the most elementary human rights, to a developing capitalist country having the predominance of one party during almost seventy years, and finally to the cradle of democracy in the Western hemisphere. In other words, this journey signifies a sequential battle for freedom.

In Cuba, my religious faith was almost nonexistent – to the point of my becoming an atheist. While living in Mexico, however, my faith grew toward acceptance of Catholicism, and was developed more strongly when I got to the U.S. My religious affiliation would be defined some years later in Chicago as Episcopalian.

This book relates the frustrations of a Cuban professor of the University of Havana in his almost useless attempts to help his country during thirty-three years, how he was betrayed by a revolution that pretended to represent freedom in its most complete expression, and the vicissitudes he faced in order to rebuild his life in a democratic country and more specifically in getting there. During those years, Antonio Morales-Pita was studying and working hard, honestly believing that he was helping his native land, and he could not see the main reason for the innumerable obstacles that he faced in his fight to ascend the scientific ladder and apply his knowledge on Cuba’s behalf.

The story is not common. The account is full of coincidences that appear to be taken from imaginary settings in an incredibly timely sequence. All events referred to here are real, although the names of the associates – in the cases in which only the first names are quoted – have been changed to preserve confidentiality. The names of my family members have not been modified.

I am the material author of this book, which tells of crucial moments of my life, but the intellectual author is God. During those turbulent years, full of academic good fortunes which were outwardly unexplainable, I was inadvertently following the path He had drawn for me. The Lord was present all the way from the initial reason – I studied English when I was fourteen years old – encouraged by my mother, who was under the duress of my family’s economic difficulties and could not be aware of the incredibly favorable consequences this ‘premature’ study of the English language would have for my professional and personal life – unto the incredibly hasty procedure of solving complex immigration problems and getting the political asylum in America in less than two months. Christians understand that only God knows His ways. One can only have a certain feeling of understanding God’s will as time goes by, and a series of apparently incoherent and unexpected events somehow become logically and harmonically linked, as in a puzzle. Not a single piece can be missing for the final drawing to be complete. Only its author can know how each of the pieces connects with the surrounding ones. He guided my hands in solving my life’s puzzle, but the merit of conceiving it is His.

The most remarkable happening is that, during more than thirty years, I did not believe in Him, yet He continued helping me. When unexpected happy events took place in my well-structured life, I thought I was lucky, intelligent, or tenacious, but I was not aware that an extraordinary being was guiding my life by strange paths that at the end turned out to be wonderful.

This book has political, religious, and romantic contexts. Where my battle for freedom occupies the reader’s attention, every noted event, as in chapters IV, V and VI, has a strong political connotation. At times, the attention is centered on religious faith and how and why a normal citizen can go from a stage of superficial belief in God to a process of denial that ultimately changes to acceptance and a deeply rooted conviction. In other chapters, the emphasis goes to the genuine feeling of love between a man and a woman who stay together despite unfavorable circumstances, political persecutions, and harassment.

Here I would also like to give a small but sincere recognition to the Cuban intellectuals who carry out their work, honestly believing that they are helping their country, but who ultimately suffer a deep disillusionment and then face the challenge of trying to get out of the country where they were born, uprooting themselves.

The Cuban Diaspora, which grew dramatically after the success of the socialist revolution, reaching not only the United States, but also other countries in North, Central, and South America, Europe, and Asia, did not have an economic origin. The main reason Cubans have been leaving their country is not to search for a job in the Land of Opportunity. Cubans were forced to leave Cuba in any way they could (risking their lives in rafts, crossing the Mexican border, defecting in Gander, Madrid, or any city of the Caribbean, invading embassies in Havana, or through lotteries) because they needed to be free.

Here I need to mention the deepest lesson I learned in starting a new life in each of the three cited cities. Life has ups and downs. At certain points in time, priorities change, issues that were important become irrelevant, and issues that were not relevant become transcendental. But true love is always there. I was a lucky man to have met Gladys when I was thirty-five years old and to become the recipient of her love. Together, we started from scratch in Havana, Merida, and Chicago. Together, we endured the difficult times experienced in Cuba (especially during the early nineties), accepted the happy and stressful times in Mexico, and welcomed the uncertain but predictably better times in the U.S. For her persistence of love, Gladys deserves the greatest recognition. She saved my life from starvation and sickness in Havana, and, without her, I would not have been able to return to Merida. While in Chicago, she also saved my life several times in years beyond the scope of this book.

For me, Gladys is the representation of true love. At certain times, when going through processes of scientific or social achievements, I must confess to have given second priority to love. Such processes, and even the achievements themselves, can lose importance or disappear in one’s lifetime. True love persists if there is life. If the reader is sure to have found true love, I highly recommend that he or she defend it and fight for it.

The reader is cordially invited to this three-city trip and to witness how the lives of more than eleven million people have been changed forever by a Communist dictator’s insatiable appetite for political power. History has taught the world that under Communist regimes no country can develop itself in a sustainable way without the need to repress its people strongly and multilaterally. This book shows an example of how individuals are controlled as if they were pawns, slaves without a right to protest, to celebrate Christmas, or to believe in God; in other words, this book shows how Communism is the denial of human rights.

Good luck in boarding all necessary planes, reader, and remember to fasten your seat belt whenever you are borne aloft and go through turbulence.

Food for Thought

Have the readers had any direct experience living in a country classified as Communist for at least one month?

Have they read about the collapse of the Cuban, Venezuelan, or Nicaraguan socio-politic-economic systems?

Go ahead and get ready to receive surprises.

Chapter One

The Building of My Dreams

"There is nothing like a dream

to create the future."

– Victor Hugo

The decade of the forties was starting, the planet had already experienced a world war, and the political situation in Europe was indicating a new menace. On October 26, 1940, a nine-pound boy was born in a poor home on the outskirts of the city of Havana. The family was happy to have the fourth child, but the economic situation was not good. The father worked as a stevedore at the Havana Central Produce Market. The mother was a housewife. Man and wife were looking at each other with concern. How are we going to raise the fourth child? The father’s salary – the only income – scarcely covered their elementary needs, although fortunately he could get most of their food almost free of charge at his workplace. The rest of the family – aunts, uncles, and other relatives – were not in any better position to help them.

An idea struck the man’s imagination: Maybe if I were lucky, I could win the lottery! Of course chances were minuscule, but few other choices were available to him. He could spare only twenty extra Cuban pesos. How the number sixty-five twinkled in his mind he did not know, but it did. He bought some lottery tickets ending with that number. Two days later, he was attentively listening to the results of the lottery on the radio. He could hardly believe his ears, and he began jumping like a child! He called his wife, Siria, and asked her to verify what he was hearing. They had won the first prize! They burst into tears. The new baby would not have to go through the tight financial condition the preceding siblings had had to endure. Now paying rent would not be a worry. They could even buy houses, rent them, and thereby have additional income each month. After living in poverty for so many years, having felt hunger, thirst, cold, desperation, and discrimination, Florentino Morales was now able to start a new life with his family. Quickly cashing the prize, he started that new middle-class life. Now all his children could go to private schools and have a better life than they had had. In these circumstances, they could not be happier. They laughed and cried and jumped and danced. Although the new baby cried desperately, looking for his mother’s breast, the other children knew that something good had happened, and that now they could have more toys, and perhaps other benefits. The Lord had blessed the family and they soon moved from the old wooden house to a new one made of brick. Surprisingly, before I, the aforesaid fourth child, turned two years old, Florentino Morales won the lottery again, and with the same number!

Although neither of my parents had ever been involved in secondary education, my mother had a natural affinity for such education. She wanted all her kids to study; by the same token, I had an innate insatiable desire to learn. As a result, my mother had a considerable influence over my natural inclination toward academics. My favorite toys were fairy-tale books. The gifts I always asked my godfather for were books. My childhood was not very common, was it? I was very excited to go to school and entered the first grade when I was five years old – two months before completing the required minimum of six years of age to enter school.

My studies followed normal patterns until I finished secondary school. Instead of going to pre-college (the so-called ‘Bachillerato’), I was destined to help the family’s financial situation, which has gotten much harder fourteen years after my father won the lottery. My mother encouraged me to study English and secretarial science so I could start working in a couple of years. God bless my mother for that decision, if only she had known how wise it was! She was a clever woman, despite the extremely low level of her formal education. She could barely finish second grade because she had to help her mother raise fifteen siblings. My grandmother became a widow when her eldest son was fifteen years old.

In September 1954, I enrolled in Junior High School and the Secretarial Program at the Havana Business Academy. The excellent English program the institution had, and my intense love for the English language, helped me finish my degrees in December 1955, and promoted me to the Havana Business University, where I started High School. Incidentally, for me to finish my first semester at the Havana Business University, my mother had to sell the family piano – which was a sort of relic for the family, but the only choice available for completing 300 Cuban pesos at the time. My mother was my role model in education!

In June 1956, I started to work as a bilingual secretary to the general manager of El Mundo, a daily newspaper, and continued high school studies at Havana Business University in the evening until spring 1957. My boss was an Italian-American businessman, whose American friends helped me during my first travel abroad.

On July 16, 1958, after a whole year of saving money out of my $110 monthly salary,* I had saved US$500 to visit the U.S. as a tourist. What a wonderful experience awaited me! I had never been abroad and rarely out of Havana. Being seventeen years old and used to living in Havana, going to the States was, for me, something like Christopher Columbus discovering America. I was very excited about the trip. My boss had given me some addresses and telephone numbers, and my trip was to last twenty-nine days. I first stopped in Miami for a day, and then spent one day in Miami Beach. There, I stayed for free in a hotel whose owner was a friend of my boss. I was so well taken care of that I was sort of suspicious. All the employees were very friendly and tried to be of help. Never had I been granted such privileged service, and I did not feel totally safe. All my money was in cash, and I was afraid somebody might steal it. I remember that I was enjoying a beautiful sunny day at the hotel swimming pool, and on several occasions, I went back to my room to make sure that the money was underneath the mattress. I thought of myself as ‘being treated like a king’. After being so well looked after for a day, although my mind was thinking about the mattress security and not feeling very much like a sovereign, I boarded a Greyhound bus that would take me to Washington, DC, in about thirty-six hours.

The trip from Miami to Washington, DC, was not an easy one. It involved having to board three buses because two of them broke down. Boarding of the last bus was especially stressful. The second bus became inoperable in Richmond, Virginia, and all the passengers had to find a way to get out of Richmond to continue their travel. After a long wait of a couple of hours, I realized that whenever a passenger was booked for a given bus, he simply placed his luggage beside the bus and went to occupy his seat. I did not have a reserved seat, and my ticket did not specify such a seat, but my frantic youthfulness urged me to do something because I had no clue about the ‘famous substitute bus’ that would take us to Washington, DC, was evident.

When the next bus going to that city parked close to me, I waited for the passengers to get