Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
in the waiting area, a woman told us it was to discourage quick-fingered Cuban bag handlers
on the other side. They took not gold and money, which few people were foolish enough to
pack, but toothpaste and shampoo, necessities. This year, however, the plastic wrap was op-
tional.
There were other post-Bush differences in the direct-to-Cuba zone. The lines had grown
fewerandshorter.Mostnoticeable,theCubansonourflight—amixtureofCubanAmericans
and returning Cuban nationals who had been in Florida or D.C. on visas of their own (some
people do move back and forth)—weren't carrying as much stuff. The crowd cast a fairly
normal profile. Last time, people had multiple pairs of shoes tied around their necks by the
laces. Thick gorgets of reading glasses. Men wearing 10 hats, several pairs of pants, every-
body's pockets bulging. Everybody wearing fanny packs. The rule was, if you could get it
onto your body, you could bring it aboard. At least five people carried giant stuffed animals
and other large toys. That's one of the things in the Cuban American community, in which
going back is generally frowned upon—but if it's to meet your
nieto
for the first time . . .
None of that, though, is what makes the Miami-to-Havana flights strange. It's that this
most obvious route, more than any of the much longer workarounds by which American cit-
izenscangettotheisland,letsyoufeelmostfullythetruthofCuba'ssheerproximity.It'sone
ofthoseflightsinwhich,almostassoonasyoureachyourmaximumaltitude,youbeginyour
descent, and within minutes you're looking down on a diorama of palm trees growing incon-
gruously in green fields, and within seconds you hit the ground and everyone bursts into ap-
plause. The country you land in is too unlike your own to have been reached that quickly, all
but instantaneously, and is after all, you recall, on hostile terms with your own. As if you've
passed through a warp. “Why are they clapping?” the six-year-old asked.
I explained that it was special, coming here. Some of these people, when they left Cuba,
might have thought they would never see it again. Some had been hearing about it all their
lives and were seeing it for the first time.
“Also, they like to clap and yell,” my wife said.
The six-year-old did her philosopher face, gazing out the window. She gets a little dimple
on her forehead when the big thoughts are brewing. “Now I'm here,” she said.
“Yes, you are.”
“And I'm Cuban,” she said.
“You are part Cuban, that's true.”
“You're not any Cuban,” she said, not meanly, just sort of marveling.
She looks like me, pale with blue eyes and light brown hair and freckles. Yet she has
largelybeenraiseddaytodaybyintense,dark-eyedCubanAmericanwomen,andtheirblood
is in her, and the history of their family, with all of its drama and all of its issues, has exerted
an incalculable influence on who and what she is. At some point in her life, she'll have to
figure out what all of that means to her; the whole story and the way she looks will be part
