By Perly Viasmensky
Why are people holding so much hate in their hearts after years of their own wrongdoing? Does anybody believe that Cuban people, arriving here in the early 1960’s, actually need to live in the United States after so many years of exile, when the majority of them came from rich families and had their lives completely set?
There is history in that, too. And nobody can destroy our history. There are few people who know the story of the Cuban people. And the ones who know don’t want to disclose it.
My uncle, Coroner Juan Antonio Estevez Maymir, was the military attaché in the Dominican Republic from Cuba who negotiated the purchase of arms to combat the communist rebels hidden in the mountains of Cuba. My uncle showed me the invoices of the amount of money Cuba sent to the United States through the Dominican Republic.
The United States under President Dwight (Ike) David Eisenhower, who was the president in 1958, was well aware that Cuba was trying to buy those arms through the Dominican Republic because the United States refused to sell to the Cuban government, protecting the communist rebels instead.
The United States government, under President Eisenhower, threw all armaments to the rebels from a plane over the mountains of Cuba, after collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Cuban government.
Needless to say, that was a theft by the one government (the U.S.) from another (Cuba); they were probably thinking that by doing so, the United States could take over Cuba, making it another Puerto Rico.
They never thought that Fidel Castro was a lunatic who had already made up his mind to bring communism to the wonderful and prosperous island of Cuba.
Over six decades of my living in this country and regardless of the actions of a former Republican President, Eisenhower, I still follow the teaching of my family to choose between Liberals and Conservatives, which in this country means Democrats and Republicans.
Still, I have never been discriminated against. Cuba was the best island in the world; our dollar was worth one cent higher than the American dollar, but from one day to the next, the people of Cuba ended up standing in line to buy one roll of toilet paper, one pound of rice and many other things we all consider necessities.
Why am I writing about these things now? To help all of you to understand and think about what socialism means.
Remember during the last several months when you had to go from one store to another during the early days of the pandemic looking for toilet paper, bottles of water and other things of great necessity?
Those are things for which you need to stand in line in a communist country. To your surprise, you will get just one roll of toilet paper per family.
I was lucky that I never experienced communism in my own country, but the way I see things in this country now, it scares me because I see American government officials in many different states in favor of socialism; consider the fact that socialism is just a step away from communism.
Now, all of a sudden, I am scared to leave my house because I happen to be a six-catagory minority — I am white, a woman, a senior, a Latina, a Cuban, and on top of all that, a Republican.
It is not the pandemic keeping me locked up in my home, but the many socialist Democrats willing to destroy my life and this beautiful country.
* * * * *
Perly Viasmensky is the General Manager of the Las Vegas Tribune. She writes a weekly column in this newspaper. To contact Perly Viasmensky, email her at pviasmensky@lasvegastribune.co
Follow