Memorias Cubanas 2 : Professor Nicolás Sánchez, Economics

Interviewed by Meaghan Chuckran, Maureen McKeon, and Galileo López Limón

How did you find out that you'd be leaving for the U.S.?

     It turned out that there was a rumor in Cuba that children above a certain age would not be able to leave the island because they would be conscripted into military service. And so as a result of that, my parents decided that I should leave even before they left, and the same thing was true for a cousin of mine who was slightly younger. There was the director of a school in Cuba where my cousin was attending, and he started arranging for the children to leave as part of the Pedro Pan program. I don't know if you are familiar with the Pedro Pan program? Actually, this is unusual: of the four of us whom you are going to interview [including Professors Isabel Álvarez Borland, Jorge Valdés, and Dean Esther Levine] two of us, Esther Levine and myself, came as a result of the Pedro Pan program.

     My parents talked to me, so I fully understood the situation. I was older at the time (I was fifteen), so I could understand what was going on. I think that people – children – in less developed countries grow faster, in the sense that they take responsibility sooner. I'm sure you are aware of that. So I was fully aware of what was going on, and also there was the idea that I could help my cousin because my cousin was younger.

     It ended up that we were among the very first Pedro Pan children, We left Cuba around December 23, 1960, and joined the Pedro Pan program by December 30. My recollection is that we were the third and fourth children in the Pedro Pan program. It turns out later that there are documents that indicate how the children came, and I think that my cousin and I are listed about eleventh and twelfth. But when we went to the first location where they started taking the children in, my recollection is that there were only a few. Well, there are the people that everyone agrees were one and two, a sister that was my age, and a brother that was my cousin's age.

     We stayed there for about five or, six months. I can’t recall the exact length of time. It was until my cousin's mother came and settled, and once she did we moved in with her. So I was among the earliest of the Pedro Pan children.

Once your cousin's mother came to the country, where did you move with her?

     To Miami. We were in Miami, we were in Miami all the time.

Did your parents eventually…?

     Yes, my parents came. Remember, I arrived December, and my parents arrived September. That’s my recollection. It could have been October, but I mean, I think it was September of the following year, because what happened was they wanted to make sure that all the children left before they left. So, the next one to leave was my sister and then after that my brother and then once the three of us were here. Actually, it was very interesting because they did not have a visa to come to the U.S., whereas we all did, so I had to get a visa for them and since I was the youngest, I was the only one under eighteen, I was the only one who could request that they be brought into the United States. Because both my sister and my brother were much older than I, they were able to arrange to go to the University of Florida at Gainesville and begin their… in my sister’s case begin her college education. My brother had had some college education, so he was just continuing it.

And you went to high school in Miami?

     Right. I had gone to high school in Cuba, but because of this issue I lost one year. So then, yes, I went to high school in Miami. My dad had a friend in California who told him that there were good opportunities there, so my father left soon afterwards. For California. And then again on December 23, exactly a year later, my mother and I – because remember, my brother and my sister were in college – my mother and I then moved to California to join my father.

So you left Miami when you were sixteen?

     Yes, yes. Late sixteen.

How do you remember your childhood in Cuba?

     We were middle class. It was a very happy childhood. And, you know, I cannot say that I missed my childhood. That wasn't the case, for example, for my cousin, who was younger – and to many other kids who were younger –, because by the age of fifteen, I mean, you were supposed to be almost an adult. So I had a very happy childhood. It is not something that I missed. I had a great time. But it was, I think… see, for example, Esther [Levine]: she came when she was nine, and my wife came when she was nine too, even though we didn’t meet at the time (we met years later). My cousin was twelve. So for those, they still missed the experience of childhood, so it was much more difficult for them.

From the very beginning when you arrived, did you identify yourself as Cuban, Cuban-American, or something else?

     No, no. We all identified ourselves as Cuban. And, you know, the feeling was that we were going to go back. So, and I really held on to that belief for a long, long time. I mean it’s kind of embarrassing to say, but I held on to “We’re going back, we’re going back” for many, many years. So, I was a refugee officially and my parents were refugees. Interestingly enough, my mother and my father never thought that we would go back. And, we had a large extended family who all thought we would go back, but not my mother and my father. Because, you see, my mother and my father had been refugees before. So, they felt that there was no chance that we would ever go back.

How do you mean that they were refugees before?

     OK, so what happened was my father – he’s 100 years old – is a Spaniard. He came to Cuba when he was a young man, and he worked in Cuba very hard, as immigrants usually do. He made some money in Cuba, he married my mother, and then he decided to go back to Spain. What happened was, they arrived in Spain in 1936, which was the beginning of the Spanish Civil War. So my father then fought in the Spanish Civil War on the republican side against Franco for two years and they had a terrible experience. My mother lost her first child, and she even faced the German bombardments of northern Spain. I don’t know if you're familiar with [Pablo Picasso’s] famous painting, Guernica? So she had to live in caves. I mean it was a horrible experience. And, in a sense they were saved by the fact that my mother was Cuban, so they were able to flee through Portugal and then return to Cuba. This was a very traumatic experience, as you can imagine.

     They didn’t go back to Spain. That was out of the question, so they felt that their time in the U.S. would be a similar experience. But my mother and my father were unique in that regard; in other words, most Cubans felt that they would be back, including we three children – we felt that we would be back, but not my parents. So, when my father heard that there were opportunities in California, he said “Let’s go to California, we have to settle.” That's the way he was.

Where in California did you end up settling?

     Well first, we went to what is called the San Joaquin valley, which is an important agricultural area, but later we settled in the L.A. area. And that's why for example, when I went to college, and then to graduate school, I got my PhD from the University of Southern California, because we were settled. My mother passed away soon after we came to the U.S. So, it was my father and I for a while. It’s very interesting, though. Five years after my mother passed away, he married again, and he was married to this lady for thirty-five years. And he was married to my mother for thirty years! So that is kind of unusual. My father has excellent health. (Shows a photo.) My father was ninety-three right there, and just when he turned 100, he went back for a month in Spain for vacation. Not many people can do that at one hundred years old. And when he was ninety-nine he went back. Because then Franco had been gone for many years. And now he’s planning to go back again!

You said before that when you came, you identified yourself as Cuban. Do you still identify yourself the same way today? Or do you now say that you are Cuban- American?

     Yeah, I am, yeah. It took me a long time to think that I would not go back, that my… eh… feelings, let us say, had changed. Remember that I came at the age of fifteen. I think it is more difficult for people who, say, came at the age of forty. They would always identify themselves as Cuban.

How did your experience coming from Cuba guide you in your professional development?

     Well, obviously, when you are middle class and then everything is taken away from you, and suddenly you find yourself with nothing. You couldn’t bring any money, you know; you were only allowed to bring two suits of clothes - I mean, that's it! You become very… let us say... interested in going back to the status that you held before. My mother was an educator and we were all very interested in education. So actually, all of us [his siblings] finished with PhD’s: my brother has a PhD from the University of Michigan in Mathematics, my sister has a PhD in linguistics from UCLA, and I have a PhD in economics from USC. We were all very concerned with getting back to where we were.

     I think that it is something that drives the people who go through that experience of losing everything because it is very traumatic. I mean, suddenly you have nothing and you’re dependent, you know, on other people helping you, and so forth. I will say, on the other hand, that every member of my extended family, except for one, came to the U.S. All the cousins and everyone of the younger generation have done very well here.

Where does your interest in economics fit into what you’ve experienced?

     To some extent, I mean, personally I always wanted to understand what had happened in Cuba. For example, I wrote my PhD thesis on the sugar market - you know, that’s not surprising, right? (Laughs.)

How does you language affect your identity now? In certain circumstances do you prefer to speak Spanish or English?

     Well, I have come to develop unusual ideas about language, so let me explain. First of all, I think that people have great misunderstandings about language. What I mean by that is that Spanish, which is widely spoken, involves many cultures – meaning by that if you go to Spain, the culture of Spain is very different from the culture of Cuba, which is very different from the culture of Mexico, which is very different from the culture of Peru, which is very different from the culture in Argentina, etc. So, I believe that languages are tools.

     Languages are not tied up to cultures. And, of course, you can say the same thing about English because, of course, we speak English here. If you think that the people, say, in South Africa, who speak English, have the same culture as in America, that is false; if you think that the people in London have the same culture as the people in America, that is false; if you think the people in Texas have the same culture as the people in New England, that is false. So, I do not at all tie up language with culture. And, I do realize, too, that some people have an easier time at learning languages, others do not.

     The idea that we emphasize that people should be bilingual and things of that sort - I oppose it completely, I oppose it completely. Why? Because, I was one of those, of course, that had difficulty leaning English. For example, my siblings are older yet they have a facility with languages. For them, English was a lot easier; for me it was a lot harder. And then when my wife and I had kids, we found that one daughter could fully distinguish English and Spanish, while the other daughter just could not, and would mix the two languages and it was a total disaster. So number one, I think people should be encouraged to know well the most widely spoken languages in the world: Chinese, English, Hindi, Spanish, and Portuguese. But, this whole movement towards bilingualism is a very serious mistake.

Do you speak Spanish at home, with your family?

     Well again, let me explain what happened. We only spoke Spanish with our first daughter. She grew up learning Spanish, she went to school and she picked up English in two weeks. It was amazing and we were delighted. But then, when the second daughter came along, we tried the same thing, and when she started learning English, she started confusing everything – I mean, you know, this business of Spanglish. And so, we decided to speak only English at home because we said if we are going to live in America, obviously, English is much more important than Spanish. So for several years we spoke only English at home.

     Since then, as they have grown up, they started taking Spanish in school, so, ultimately, we went back to Spanish. My wife is also from Cuba, and she was lucky because even though she came younger, her parents were sent to Puerto Rico – to work in Puerto Rico – so she had the experience of using Spanish, as she grew up, all the time. So she is truly bilingual and barely has an accent.

     At home, when it’s my wife and I, we speak Spanish. But again, I don’t encourage bilingualism… I think it is a mistake as a widespread policy. People don’t understand how difficult it is to learn a foreign language. For example, I have lectured in Mexico City, I have lectured in San Juan, Puerto Rico, I have lectured in Spain, and when I go on, I have to review economics texts in Spanish to refresh my knowledge of the technical vocabulary.

How do you view Castro’s demise, and what is your vision of Cuba for the next 50 years?

     Yeah, let me tell you this: I was able to take a group of students back to Cuba in 2003. It was a very interesting experience – I left in 1960 and now 43 years later I am taking students back. I was shocked at the level poverty in Cuba. I mean, it is just absolutely horrendous. I was shocked that basically, very few things have changed; in other words, the buildings had stayed the same. I have a very good spatial memory, and I could recognize everything, I could tell the taxi drivers “do this, do that…” The level of destruction in Cuba is horrendous. Cuba used to be one of the wealthiest Latin American countries, trailing only Argentina and Uruguay in terms of economic well-being. The level of poverty in Cuba is horrible, I mean, you have no clue.

     Let me give you and idea, so that you can understand. Remember I mentioned that I only had one relative who remained in Cuba? And, actually, you can see him there (points to a picture in his office) because I visited him. And the reason he remained in Cuba was because he had a brother who was mentally retarded, and he was taking care of his brother. He simply felt he could not just leave Cuba because of his brother. So, he stayed there until the brother died, and then he was too old to come to the U.S. So, after his brother died, he got married – at the age of 65. They live in Havana with a niece of his wife who, in turn, is married and has a little girl. When I was there, I actually took several students to see them so that they would see the level of poverty, so that they would understand. And I said, “Look, anything you can leave to my family, I would really appreciate it,” because we had actually taken stuff to distribute to people in Cuba. We left three big bags of stuff, from soap to all sorts of things, and I remember this little girl who opened up a little box and she saw toothpaste and a tooth brush, and she turned to the mother and said, “Mother, what is this for?” Now, these are people living in Havana! They were very lucky because my relative lived in a “nice” apartment, which is totally destroyed – you just cannot imagine. But for somebody in this day and age not to know what toothbrush and toothpaste is in Havana, downtown Havana - we’re not talking about out in the… I mean, that tells you the level of poverty.

     The main newspaper in Havana, Granma, which is the official newspaper, is about six pages, that’s all. Now before, Havana had like twenty-seven newspapers like American newspapers and things like that. Six pages! I had a copy of them; I wish hadn’t thrown it away. The people of Cuba can only listen to Governmental TV stations; they can only buy newspapers provided by the Government. They are brainwashed, they think that the situation there is not bad or if they say that it is bad it is because of the American embargo. It is very interesting: we went to an area called Varadero, which had always been a tourist spot, and in Varadero you can find anything. So when we went to Varadero, I told the students, “Look, everybody says the embargo is at fault, that the Americans do not allow anything.” In Varadero you find everything because it is for the tourists. Furthermore, think about it, Americans buy clothing, Americans buy clothing from China, Americans buy clothing from Mexico. China and Mexico do not have any type of embargo on Cuba. They would sell Cuba anything and everything. Cuba does not know have the resources to buy anything. And you see the reason for that is because the wealth of nations depends on the people of those nations and the knowledge that those people have. Japan, for example, does not have natural resources at all, but they have people who are very competent from the point of view of technology, from the point of view of know-how.

     Cuba experienced the exodus of over a million people from Cuba, and of course this was mainly the middle classes, the engineers – you know, the businesspeople and so on and so forth. So, the future of Cuba is bleak because I don–t think the Cuban Americans are going to return. There would be some businesspeople who would return, but I think they're going to encounter a lot of conflicts because the people there, for example, expect free medical attention, the people there expect free education. Fine, but you know I asked people in Cuba, “What is the level of taxation?” and people said, “Oh, we are not taxed, we are not taxed.” And so I said, “Well then, how do you think the Government gives you these things?” They couldn't even understand the question. They don’t see the relationship between taxation and the fact that that’s how the Government gets access to resources.

     So, I calculated the level of taxation in Cuba. I wrote a paper and now it is published. The level of income taxation of Cuba is 81%, but people don’t see it because the Government doesn’t say, “OK, here’s how much money you get, and then we are going to take 80% of your income.” The government just gives them 20% and then the people really believe they’re not taxed. Well, suppose you live in a market economy, where things are supposed to be transparent, and you say to these people, “Now that you own all these things, we have to tax you.” Then people would say, “Oh, you know the previous Government didn’t tax us.” That's going to create horrendous political conflicts. So I don’t see good long-term future for Cuba.

     It may change. But then you have the American side, which always emphasizes that countries should follow democratic principles. Well, look what democratic principles are doing in Iraq. If the people are not accustomed to democratic principles, democracy is not going to work. Cuba has had 100 years of independence, and in 100 years of independence there have been two or three presidencies where democracy has ruled and usually these have been overthrown. So, I regret to say that I do not see a change.

     Let me say, though, that there’s another side of the coin. When I went to Cuba, I said to myself, as I looked at a picture of this beautiful place, “I’m going to be very disappointed because Cuba is not going to be like that.” Then, when I went there, it turned out that Cuba was more beautiful that I ever thought it was. It is gorgeous. I mean, even this Havana, which is in ruins, it is still a beautiful city. But how do you fix it? I don’t know. I have no clue. So I’m not optimistic.

Is there something that you would like to add?

     Well, since we are a Catholic institution, let me make this point first, contrary to what most people think, Cuba was not a very Catholic country. People would call it Catholic in the sense that when they got married they wanted to get married in the church or when they died they want to receive last rites. Regrettably, it can be said that maybe the only center of opposition to the Castro regime that I saw was the African cults, generally known as Santería. They have really taken off, in the sense that I was really surprised how widely Santeria was practiced. You know that it involves animal sacrifice and some other unusual things which, again, have represented a little bit of the center of independence from the Government. But simultaneously, now these beliefs are engrained in a significant part of the population and I think that this will also create difficulty over the long term. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, about half of the people in Cuba practice Santeria, which was not the case when I was there. In my view, these beliefs represent an avoidance of personal and civic responsibilities necessary for the functioning of a modern society. Hence, reversing these beliefs will be needed to bring about progress in Cuba.