27 Nov / This Is Cuba: An American Journalist under Castro’s Shadow by David Ariosto [in Booklist]
For a self-described “young American photojournalist who then boasted only pidgin Spanish,” David Ariosto’s arrival in Havana in 2009 on assignment for CNN was “the chance of a lifetime.” Determined to be “somehow different from those pink-faced tourists,” he’s quickly reduced to an epithet, yuma – street slang for “gringo.” A year and a half later, he’s “ready to leave – forever, [he] thought,” disenchanted with food shortages (shopping is an all-day ordeal), housing (a sink used in the morning disappears by afternoon), and being watched (“trust was at a premium”). He quickly “come[s] to loathe” the catchall nonsensical phrase used to explain “the unexplainable”: “This is Cuba.”
Beyond professional opportunities – interviewing dissident blogger Yoáni Sanchez, following Cuban doctors through Haiti’s 2010 earthquake aftermath, covering political-prisoner releases – negotiating daily life overshadows his “fantasies.” Departing, however, doesn’t sever island ties; unprecedented historical events, including presidential shifts in both Cuba and the U.S., engender return trips.
Despite repetition and disjointedness (some chapters seem like separate essays), Ariosto’s insights are plentiful, and amid erratically evolving Cuba-U.S. relations, such personal perspectives, even from a yuma, provide the best portals to mutual understanding.
Review: “Nonfiction,” Booklist, November 15, 2018
Readers: Adult
Published: 2018