'Devils and Dust' from Springsteen

DATE April 26, 2005 ACCOUNT NUMBER N/A
TIME 12:00 Noon-1:00 PM AUDIENCE N/A
NETWORK NPR
PROGRAM Fresh Air

Interview: Mirta Ojito discusses her memoir, "Finding Manana: A
Memoir of a Cuban Exodus"
TERRY GROSS, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

On May 7th, 1980, the police knocked on Mirta Ojito's door in Havana and told
her mother that the family was cleared to leave Cuba. At the age of 16, Ojito
became one of the 125,000 people who emigrated to south Florida in the Mariel
boat lift. Castro allowed these Cubans to leave from the port of Mariel on
boats run by relatives already living in the States. Although Ojito came here
speaking no English, she eventually became a journalist. She shared a
Pulitzer Prize for her contribution to The New York Times series, How Race is
Lived in America.

Now, on the 25th anniversary of the boat lift, she's written a memoir called
"Finding Manana." Manana is the name of the boat that took her to the US.
Many Cubans were desperate to leave. Thousands had been seeking asylum at
foreign embassies in Havana. Ojito says that one of the events that set the
stage for the boat lift was Castro's decision to allow thousands of Cuban
exiles to visit relatives in Cuba in 1979.

Ms. MIRTA OJITO (Pulitzer Prize Winner; Journalist, The New York Times;
Author, "Finding Manana: A Memoir of a Cuban Exodus"): In 1979, more than
110,000 Cubans from the United States went back to the island, mostly carrying
gifts and wonderful stories about what life was like in the United States,
created a crisis for the Cuban government in Cuba. People basically were
saying, `Well, we have been told that life in the United States for immigrants
is pretty horrible. That's not what I'm getting from the uncle, my cousins,
my aunt, everybody who went back. It's not as bad as I have been told. In
fact, it's pretty good. They get to have a house, a car in the garage, a
vacation in Disney World.'

And people wanted to do that, too, so there was a degree of desperation among
us Cubans on the island, trying to get out, trying to get to have what others
have. And it wasn't just material goods. It was also the idea, of course, of
freedom. And that led to several break-ins in embassies. And the most
successful, of course, was the on the Peruvian Embassy April 1st.

GROSS: Where people were breaking in to be in a place of sanctuary, to
declare that they wanted to leave the country.

Ms. OJITO: Yes. They wanted political asylum, absolutely. And it happened
in several embassies, Latin American embassies in Havana. It just so happened
that the six people who went on April 1st were lucky enough to encounter a
diplomat, very young diplomat, who was also a lawyer. His name was Ernesto
Pinto-Bazurco. His name is. He still lives in Lima, Peru. And he very much
stood by them and refused to turn them over to the Cuban government.

The Cuban government, specifically Fidel Castro, got extremely angry, and they
removed all the guards, all the protection from the embassy. And it just
stood there, tempting and open. And in less than 36 hours, more than 10,000
people went into and also asked for political asylum.

And the foreign minister of Lima, Peru, began to ask for help to the
international community. Several countries said, `I'll take 300,' `I'll take
500,' `I'll take 600,' whatever number. And that eventually led to the
opening of the port of Mariel.

GROSS: When you became one of the people leaving Cuba from the port of
Mariel, were there certain things you had to do to qualify to be one of those
people that Castro was going to let out?

Ms. OJITO: Well, the reason we got out was because my uncle, my father's
older brother, went to Cuba to pick us up. He chartered a bout in the Miami
River and basically went to Cuba and said, `This is the list. This is the
family members I want.' And he waited for us. That was one of the ways in
which we could leave Cuba in 1980. There were other ways, and the other ways
were basically when the government wanted to get rid of you. But one of the
categories was family claiming you, and that's what happened to us.

GROSS: So you had family come to claim you, and that was your ticket out?

Ms. OJITO: That was my ticket out, absolutely. I did not know it, but I
found out during the reporting of the book, my uncle had made a promise to my
father, to get him out in any way he could and as soon as possible. And that
was the very first instance he was able to deliver on that promise, so he left
his job--he was an accountant for General Electric at the time--his family,
and without even knowing how to swim--which I always find amazing. He didn't
know anything about boats--chartered this boat and went to get us out of Cuba.

GROSS: Your book opens with the police knocking on your family's door.

Ms. OJITO: Yeah.

GROSS: What did the police say? What were they doing there?

Ms. OJITO: The police were sent to take us to the first of a series of places
before we actually got to the harbor. And they first asked for our names, all
of our names, asked if we lived there. And we said, `Yes.' That day, it was
just my mother and me. I was getting ready to go to school. I was in 11th
grade. My sister was in a school, and my father had just left for work after
a lunch break. And they asked if we were ready to abandon the country, which
was a word they used all the time. It was a preferred word, the abandonment
of the country, not just simply leaving. And it was loaded with all kinds of
political and social implications. So I resented it immediately. But yes, at
that point, I was ready to leave.

GROSS: So the police came to ask you if you were ready to leave because you
had already applied to do that?

Ms. OJITO: No, because they knew that there was someone at the port, waiting
for us, and they simply said, `There's somebody out there. Do you want to go,
or not?'

GROSS: Right.

Ms. OJITO: And by us saying `yes,' it meant they could take us there in a
police car.

GROSS: Why did your parents want to leave so badly? I mean, for as long as
you were alive, they had wanted to leave Cuba.

Ms. OJITO: Yeah, even before I was born. My parents were--my father was a
truck driver, and my mother was a homemaker. And they always--specifically my
father, they just never believed in the promise of a better society delivered
by Fidel and his people. They just never believed in him. My father was a
lot--very much believed in the individual and in what you could do as an
individual. He had his dreams. They were modest, but he had his dreams
before the revolution, and he could not fulfill them. He had to--that's how
he became a truck driver, in fact. He wanted to do something else. But they
simply said, `This is the job the revolution needs you to do right now,' and
that's what he had to do.

So the whole thing--he also had relatives in the United States, and he really
wanted to join them. And he did not understand a system that attempts to rob
you of the soul. I mean, this whole idea of controlling who you talk to, who
you communicate with in the United States, what you read, what you teach your
children, whether or not they can go to church, that did not make any sense
for him. And he was constantly teaching me and my sister, but especially
me--I was the older, the oldest--that there was another way.

GROSS: On the day when your family set out to go to the Mariel Harbor and
leave for the US--Would you describe what it was like in the streets? You
know, in your book, you describe that there were gangs prowling the street,
because, you know, the people who were leaving were abandoning the country.
You weren't being good guys in leaving. There was a very negative association
with that.

Ms. OJITO: Oh, my gosh. It was the worst time. I have never seen anything
like that in Cuba, or elsewhere, for that matter. And I think it was perhaps
a very dangerous time for the Cuban revolution, because I don't think they
even realized how out of hand it almost got. It was almost--I don't want to
say like a civil war, but it was very, very ugly time to be a Cuban in Cuba.
In my particular case, nothing happened. We were lucky enough that, because
our neighbors had always known us, they knew that we always--we were ready to
leave at any time, and that we had never lied to them, they--and they also
like my parents, who were good neighbors. They, in fact, came to say goodbye
and asked us to write to them and `good luck' and all kinds of things.

But I know of many stories, and I've seen many videos in which--in fact, I
know a person who was locked in his house for 47 days. He couldn't get out.
They would have killed him. It was a horrible thing. People were throwing
eggs, tomatoes, screaming, yelling horrible names, writing on the walls
insults just because we wanted to leave the country.

And you know the worst part is--perhaps the best part, depending how you look
at it--that I am certain that many of the people who did that in 1980 are now
walking the streets of Miami. They've came from Cuba later. I am certain
they are here, many of them.

GROSS: I think one of the things that added to, like, the negative
connotations of you and the others leaving Cuba was that, in addition to
letting people out who had family members in the United States, family members
who had come to get them, Castro was letting out a lot of, quote, "social
misfits," prisoners...

Ms. OJITO: Yes.

GROSS: ...people from mental institutions.

Ms. OJITO: Yes.

GROSS: What was his strategy in doing that? What was that about?

Ms. OJITO: Well, imagine you are the leader of a country, and, in five
months, more than 125,000 people leave you. It was a public relations fiasco.
He had to turn it around, and he's very good at that. He knows how to do
that. In addition, he wanted to punish the United States. You may recall
that on May 5th of 1980, President Carter urged Americans to receive those of
us coming in the boat lift with open arms and an open heart. That cost him a
great price, because the Cuban government did not appreciate that. And I
think it was around then that he began inserting in the boat lift these social
misfits and these people who--basically people he wanted to get rid of, that
didn't have to be bad people necessarily. They simply needed to be
malcontents, people who were not happy with the revolution.

It was a great opportunity for him not to have to worry or have to feed people
who did not agree with him, who did not want to be there to begin with. And
in addition, if he also could get rid of some criminals, perfect. It was like
a sweet deal for him. And he knew that they would have been--and in fact, it
was very difficult for the United States to detect those people. So he won
that round, and he knew it.

GROSS: And that was also his way of making it more difficult for the United
States.

Ms. OJITO: Absolutely. It made it very difficult for the United States.
Because how do you know who's a criminal and who isn't? I mean, some people
were kind of obvious, but others were not. ...(Unintelligible)...

GROSS: And that must have made it difficult for you, too, because maybe
you're a criminal. Who knows?

Ms. OJITO: Well, I have to tell you that to this day, when I say, `I came in
the boat lift,' or `I'm writing a book about the boat lift,' people tell me,
`Oh, my God! That's when all the criminals came from Cuba,' or, otherwise,
they tell me, `You don't look like a Marielito,' which is a word that was
immediately used to describe us. And I'm always, `So what does a Marielito
look like, Scarface?'

GROSS: Right.

Ms. OJITO: That movie did not help, I have to tell you.

GROSS: No. I'll bet it didn't. Tell me about what that movie did.

Ms. OJITO: Well, you know, the main character was...

GROSS: This is the Al Pacino character.

Ms. OJITO: Al Pacino, yes.

GROSS: Yeah.

Ms. OJITO: It just--I mean, it was a good--I like him very much. He's a
terrific actor, and it was a good role for him. But it was very damaging for
us, because he made us all look like we were, you know, crazy. There was also
the time of the cocaine--so-called cocaine cowboys in Miami, so it wasn't far
from the truth. I just simply doubt that a Marielito, himself, get that far
in that business. But that was the idea, you know, that we were all out here,
because we wanted to make money, and that we would do it in any way possible,
including breaking the law to that gross degree, which was what the movie was
about.

GROSS: You know, when you were describing what happened when the police
knocked on your door and told you it was time to go, you mentioned that you
and your mother were home, your sister was in school, your father was on his
way back to work...

Ms. OJITO: Yeah.

GROSS: ...after a lunch break. So here you are, ready to flee the country,
but the family isn't together, and there isn't a lot of time. So I take it
you were able to round up the rest of the family.

Ms. OJITO: Very quickly. We were able to round up the rest of the family
very quickly, and it was a terrifying moment, because the one thing we had
very clear was that we were not going to leave unless we were all together.
At the time, the Cuban government was pretty much, I think, on purpose,
breaking up families. That means that, for example, in the case of my uncle,
he was only allowed to claim two people. But somebody else who was with him
in the boat was also only allowed to claim two people, and one of his people
didn't come, so they gave him one. In other words, he was able to cobble
together a few slots so that the four of us could leave together. And we knew
that. We didn't know what was happening with my uncle, but we knew that not
every family was able to leave together or to leave at all.

And we had made a decision that either we left together, or we did not at all.
So it was a moment of panic to have to go get my father quickly and my sister
before the police got tired and left. We didn't know if at some point, the
police was going to say, `You know what? You're not here. Sorry. Try next
time.' So--but we managed to do it pretty quickly.

GROSS: Would you describe the scene at the Mariel Harbor when you got there?

Ms. OJITO: Yes. The first thing I remember seeing was my uncle. He was
wearing a very dirty white T-shirt, and had a little bit of a beard from not
shaving for about 16 or 17 days. And that was quite emotional, seeing him
there finally.

And then I remember, you know, the sounds of the harbor, the people running
around the guards, bullhorns. It was all very confusing. I do remember
getting quickly in our boat and then seeing it fill up slowly by people I did
not know and that clearly were not related to anyone on board. There were
about seven people who had left with my uncle to pick up relatives. And those
people arriving or getting into our boat did not belong to anyone. And so we
huddled, all of us who we knew who were related to someone in the boat,
huddled in one end of the boat and sort of left everyone else on the other
side, and just waiting for the time to leave. And it took a long time. And
when we finally got it, the boat, which was called the Valley Chief, broke
down.

GROSS: And then what happened?

Ms. OJITO: And then, that was another moment of desperation. Then my uncle
decided that he needed to find--he was the only one who spoke English in the
group. And he decided that we needed to find somebody else who would take us
to Miami or to Key West, and went in search of that person, and found one, one
boat captain who was eager to leave. He was not getting the people that he
had come to get. And luckily for us, he said that, yes, that he would take
the women and the children, and that he would tow the other boat, the Valley
Chief, with the men on board, to international waters. And that's what he
did. And in fact, that was the captain of the Manana, and it's the person I
set out to find in 1999, and the reason we have this book now to begin with.

GROSS: OK. So you're in this yacht, the Manana, which is towing the
broken-down Valley Chief, the boat that your uncle came in on. And the Valley
Chief is let go in international waters, and then what? Then you're separated
from your father and your uncle.

Ms. OJITO: Yes.

GROSS: What happens to them?

Ms. OJITO: I did not see the moment in which the Manana let the Valley Chief
go. I was very, very sick and sleeping and throwing up. It was a very
horrible ordeal, 16 hours. But I remember waking up in the middle of the
night--it was Mother's Day, it was Sunday--and saying, you know, `Happy
Mother's Day' to my mother. And then I saw her face, and her eyes were very
dark. Like, you know, my mother has very dark eyes, black pools. And I said,
`What happened?' And she said, `Well, you know, we've let go of the Valley
Chief, and I don't know where your father is.'

GROSS: So there was a period there when you and your mother thought you might
never see your father and your uncle again?

Ms. OJITO: Right. We found them again--or they found us, rather, when--after
we had arrived, we were taken to sort of a military warehouse, a very large
place. And there were thousands of people there. And there, we found my
uncle's wife and my father's sister, who had come to pick us up. We left with
one of them, and the other remained behind, waiting for the men, for my father
and his brother. And--but, you know, in the rush to leave, we left our papers
behind, these sort of entry papers we had received when we arrived. And we
had been told not to lose the papers, but we left them behind. And therefore,
on the way to Miami, we were stopped and told we needed to wait before we
could proceed for our papers.

And sometime that night, I was sleeping inside the car by the side of the
road, and I felt this warmth, and it was my father.

GROSS: How did he find you?

Ms. OJITO: Because he was driving to Miami with his sister, and they
recognized the car stopped in the middle of the road, the other car. And
then, of course, they stopped and saw my mother, and saw that my sister and I
were sleeping inside the car.

GROSS: So it all worked out?

Ms. OJITO: It all worked out, yeah.

GROSS: Do your parents have any second thoughts about having left Cuba? Does
their life in Florida measure up to what their expectations were?

Ms. OJITO: You can't see me, but I'm smiling. My father has never had a
second thought. I remember when the neighbor of my uncle asked him, `Well, so
have you adapted well?' And my father just looked at her and said, `Ma'am, I
adapted before I came here.' He was--he so wanted it. It was so much his
dream that he absolutely loves this country. He became--both he and my mother
are US citizens. They vote in every election. And they just--especially my
father.

My mother, you know, likes what happened, in other words, the end result. She
likes to see me and my sister thriving, but she had to pay a very, very high
price. She left her father behind. He was ill, my grandfather. And I don't
think she's ever reconciled herself with that.

GROSS: Did your grandfather encourage her to leave, or did he want her to
stay?

Ms. OJITO: He encouraged her to leave. He knew from the moment my mother
married my father that he would one day lose her, and he totally identified
with my father in political terms. He understood my father, and he knew it
was going to happen. So I think the last time he saw us, he had a sense that
it would be the last time. But I think he thought it was because he would die
before. In fact, he died six months after we were here.

GROSS: So you found the captain of the boat...

Ms. OJITO: I did.

GROSS: ...that took you from Cuba to Florida. What did you learn about him?

Ms. OJITO: He's a wonderful person. He's just a wonderful person. I'm so
glad he's in my life. We're now friends. He came to our house Christmas Day
last year, and he's met my husband and my children. And we all love him.
He's just a great guy. I told him when I met him, I could not have asked for
a better hero in my life.

GROSS: Why did he do it?

Ms. OJITO: He's an actual...

GROSS: Why did he do it?

Ms. OJITO: Well, you know...

GROSS: Why did he take the yacht and let you and others on it?

Ms. OJITO: Well, Mike Howell is a Vietnam veteran, and he was almost killed
in Vietnam. He lost--he went to Vietnam when he was 18. He lost his left arm
at 19. And he felt--he told me that he was alive for a purpose. It was like
he was living some extra time. He should have died in Vietnam. And I don't
think it's survivor's guilt. I think it's survivor's gratitude. I think
because of that, you know, he had a debt with God. Even though he had--by
that point, he had stopped believing in God, I think the Catholic boy in him
was still there, and he felt he had this debt with God.

And when several Cubans from New Orleans--he lives in New Orleans--approached
him and asked him, you know, `Would you take this money and take us to Cuba to
get our relatives?,' he said, `I'll take you to Cuba, but I'm not going to
take your money.' So he took these people, whom I've met, of course. They're
in the book, as well. And for a variety of reasons, these people could not
get their relatives out of Cuba. And then he was ready to come back and--by
himself, you know, without any refugees. And that's when he met my uncle. He
said he took a look at the Valley Chief and realized that it was extremely
dangerous, too many people. There were more than 200, perhaps 300 people in
that boat.

GROSS: This was your uncle's boat.

Ms. OJITO: Yeah, the one that he had chartered. And he thought, you know,
`If I don't do it, who would? Who's going to take these people out?' And
decided in one moment to do it, and he never charged anything. And the
interesting thing is that he didn't know--he said that--he told me later, when
I found him, that when he saw us leave, he and a friend who went with him,
David, looked at each other and cried. They were crying, because they felt
right. They felt that they had done something very important.

GROSS: You know, it's...

Ms. OJITO: And then he never heard from any of us until I showed up
(unintelligible) his boat.

GROSS: But that's the thing, you know. It's amazing that after an experience
like this in which he's basically saving the lives and giving new lives to a
group of people...

Ms. OJITO: Right.

GROSS: ...and then there's, like, you don't know where you're going. And
it's not like you have necessarily a phone number to give or, you know...

Ms. OJITO: No, that's right.

GROSS: ...there's no e-mail address to give. And it's amazing how people
just kind of leave after that without exchanging any information or any way
of, like, sending a thank-you card even.

Ms. OJITO: Exactly. But who would have thought of that? You know,
refugees--I don't know any refugees coming off a boat who thinks of a
thank-you card. But that's what I did years later, in effect. Instead of
sending a thank-you card, I went myself. I showed up and knocked on his door.
He lives in the boat, by the way. He lives in the Manana.

GROSS: Oh, wow.

Ms. OJITO: And just--I mean, I've gone out with him in the boat twice
already, and it's been a wonderful experience. And I just say, you know,
`Here I am, and you brought me from Cuba, and I couldn't wait to meet you.
Thank you so much.' And he was thrilled. He's still thrilled about it.

GROSS: You did a lot of research for this book.

Ms. OJITO: Yes.

GROSS: And you talked to people who were in the Carter administration at the
time of the Mariel boat lift, and you talk about some of the controversies
behind the scenes. What surprises you most about what the controversies were
like, what the debate was like within the Carter administration?

Ms. OJITO: You know, what really surprised me was that I thought that when
Carter has said that Americans should receive us with open arms and an open
heart, he had really meant it. It turns out, he didn't. I actually sent him
a message a while ago, and he replied, saying that he had been misunderstood.
That's not what he had meant. He had not meant to encourage a boat lift at
all. What he meant to do was to say, `Those who have already arrived'--and at
that point, it wasn't that many--`let's be nice to them, because after all,
we're all immigrants.'

But he did not mean for his words to mean that the boat lift was on and that
Fidel could send whoever he wanted, and that it would last for five very long
months in a re-election year. Well, in an election year. Actually, he was
running for re-election. When so many other things were going on in this
country--this was the beginning of 1980--they understood very early on that
the only way to stop the boat lift was through the use of force. Coast Guard
service told them, `Mr. President, we will have to use force.' And the
government made a choice, a government that, remember, was guided by
principles of respect for human rights all over the world, not only not to use
force against unarmed refugees, but not even to intimidate us, on the
contrary, to help us. The Coast Guard service saved an untold number of
lives, and I'm very grateful for that.

But I was surprised when I learned, as a reporter, that, in fact, they had
discussed all kinds of options to stop the boat lift, and that it simply had
gone on because they were not able to come up with one that worked. In time,
eventually, they did, but not before hundreds of boats had already left for
Cuba and came back, eventually and slowly, full of refugees.

GROSS: And just to put this into context, this is about the same time of the
Carter administration's failed rescue attempt of the...

Ms. OJITO: Yes.

GROSS: ...American hostages in Iran.

Ms. OJITO: Yes, exactly.

GROSS: So there's a lot going on.

Ms. OJITO: A lot going on, yes.

GROSS: So what about the negotiations between the Carter administration and
Castro? What surprised you most about that?

Ms. OJITO: It surprised me that it was Castro who stopped the boat lift. I
thought--remember, this is something that I really had not written about as a
reporter, because I was 16 at the time, so I lived the story. I didn't report
it. And it's quite different when you are the reporter in the story. So
perhaps reporters knew that back when it happened, but I didn't. It surprised
me that it was Castro the one who put a stop to it, not the United States.

On May 14th, 1980, the United States announced a series of measures to stop
the boat lift. And to a certain extent, they stopped in the sense that after
that date, very few boats left for Cuba, if any. But many, many boats had
already left. So in fact, it was up to Castro how those boats were coming
back, with one refugee each, completely empty or 200 each, which is what he
did, until he basically, I think, either ran out of people that he wanted to
see go, or was too exhausted and embarrassed by the whole process.

And by the time two people from the Carter administration went to Cuba to
negotiate the end of the boat lift with him, they told me that he basically
said, `You know what? I've already made up my mind, and this is going to
happen whether you ask me or not.' In other words, he wanted to give the
impression that he was not, if you will, obeying an order from the United
States, but that he had already decided to stop the boat lift for his own
motivations. And the motivations, I think, more than anything else, was the
economic cost. The country was in a total upheaval. Everyone had lost
someone to the boat lift, someone to the United States, and he needed to put a
stop to that. He needed to go back to the business of running the country
instead of organizing a flotilla of people who were leaving the country.

GROSS: Your ambition, when you were young and still living in Cuba, was to
one day be a journalist. You thought that that would never happen, because
you moved to a country and didn't speak the language. You learned to speak
and write English, write it where--I can vouch for the fact you write it quite
well. It's a beautifully written book. But I'm wondering what it means to
you now to be a journalist who has written about the boat lift and the new
book and who has covered the Cuban community in south Florida.

Ms. OJITO: You know, I've been a reporter for so long--since 1987--that--and
I've--can I tell you, I've never given this question some serious thought.
It's just what I am. It's what I do, and it's--I don't know that it means
anything other than--well, you know, what it does--well, I'll tell you what it
means. Learning English is--other than having my children, healthy children,
it's the biggest single most important accomplishment of my life, because I
thought I was never, ever going to learn English. And being able to write it
is just a wonderful thing.

But--and also, if people like what I do, to me, still, it's so humbling and
incredibly amazing and wonderful to have people--sometimes they remember a
story I wrote, and they call me, or they see me in the supermarket or whatnot.
And I just think it's great, and I'm so grateful that I had, I don't know, my
love of reading, my wonderful teachers, my wonderful parents that allowed me
to go to school. They worked two and three jobs so that I could continue in
school. Not all immigrants have that luck, and I did. And that just made
such a huge difference in my life that I have to tell you, you know, humbled,
I'm grateful.

GROSS: How old are your children now?

Ms. OJITO: My--I have three boys: 10, five, and the little one is going to
be two on Sunday.

GROSS: Have any of them ever been to Cuba?

Ms. OJITO: No, but we've tried. A couple of years ago, my husband and I
asked for visas to go to Cuba with the oldest, because--well, because we
wanted him to see Cuba, but also because he's really into baseball, and I had
this dream of seeing him playing baseball in the streets of Havana. And I
have been told that boys there don't--you know, they have to--I don't know
what they do, but they don't really have baseballs or gloves or bats, so I
thought I would take the suitcase full of all these things and see my boy play
baseball in the streets of Havana, as I never did, because I never played
baseball.

And we were not allowed. He got the visa, my son, but my husband and I did
not. And, of course, we didn't send him. I also asked for a visa while I was
reporting this book, because I wanted to be able to interview some Cuban
officials, and I did not get it.

GROSS: How much do your children know about your family's story?

Ms. OJITO: My oldest, who is 10 in fifth grade, and a wonderful reader, is
reading the book and relating very well to it, I was pleased to see. So he
knows quite a bit of it. And the others are too little. We just went to
Books & Books, a bookstore here in Miami, yesterday, in fact. And there was a
poster there announcing my reading, and my five-year-old stopped at the door
and said, `What are you doing there? What is your picture doing there?' He
was shocked. So he has no idea.

GROSS: I want to thank you very much for talking with us.

Ms. OJITO: Thank you. Thank you very much.

GROSS: Mirta Ojito is the author of "Finding Manana: A Memoir of a Cuban
Exodus."

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Review: Kazuo Ishiguro's novel "Never Let Me Go"
TERRY GROSS, host:

Ever since the publication of his third novel, "The Remains of the Day," which
won the Booker Prize and was adapted into an award-winning film, Kazuo
Ishiguro has been recognized as one of England's most compelling contemporary
writers. Book critic Maureen Corrigan has a review of his new novel, "Never
Let Me Go."

MAUREEN CORRIGAN reporting:

I live with someone who demands near instant reviews of any book he's seen me
pick up. `How is it?' this connubial book gnat will ask, buzzing around my
reading chair. Sometimes it's easy enough to shake my head--yes, no--and
he's appeased. But with other books, such as Kazuo Ishiguro's novels, I have
to swat away this pesky plea for a quick evaluation. As Ishiguro superbly
demonstrated in his mega best seller "The Remains of the Day" and less
successfully in his recent book "When We Were Orphans," he's a novelist who
has a fondness for last-minute revelations, and sometimes even changes in
genre that disrupt a reader's sense of connection with his fictional worlds.

True to shape-shifting form, Ishiguro's latest novel, "Never Let Me Go," is a
restless creation, referencing the tradition of British school days fiction
and sci-fi novels, and even treading lightly into the realm of the mystery.
Such a protean novel takes time to settle in a reader's mind. `How is it?'
the connubial book gnat keeps asking. The only sure thing I can say is,
`Worth reading.'

"Never Let Me Go" is a haunting allegory about our own helplessness to stop
time and hold fast to the ones we love. Ishiguro's genius is to grab hold of
the free-floating tragedy of the human condition through the most mundane
images and snatches of conversation.

I'm still mulling over the novel's weaknesses: the gimmicky cliffhangers, the
pallid feel of so many of the characters. But I'm also certain that there are
scenes in this novel that are so powerful they will indeed never let me go.
The one constant in Ishiguro's work is its overwhelming mood of melancholy.
His narrators always look backward in regret, and our narrator here, known
only by her nickname of Kath, is no exception. The present time of the novel
is the late 1990s, and Kath, who introduces herself as a 31-year-old woman,
launches into a reminiscence about her childhood and adolescence at an English
boarding school.

Right away, something feels off here. Kath never mentions her parents.
Instead, she talks about adults called guardians and focuses on her two best
friends, the manipulative Ruth and cranky but endearing Tommy. Throughout
part one of the novel, Ishiguro brilliants re-creates the long process by
which a child comes to an awareness of herself and her world. `It's hard now
to remember just how much we knew by then,' Kath says in a typical aside about
her eight-year-old self and her friends. `If we were keen to avoid certain
topics, it was probably more because they embarrassed us.'

It sounds here as though Kath is talking about sex, but she's not. The kicker
in this novel--and the astute reader catches on fairly early, so I'm not
giving much away--is that Kath and her friends are clones. They're being
raised in boarding schools and institutions across Great Britain for the
purpose of giving body parts, `donations,' as the Orwell-speak of this novel
calls them, to sick, normal human beings.

Don't fear. "Never Let Me Go" is no more Ishiguro's attempt at writing an
anti-cloning polemic than Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" was. In fact, like
"Frankenstein," "Never Let Me Go" uses the fantasy of artificially constructed
beings to go after big, metaphysical mysteries about life, death and the
measured benevolence of an all-powerful creator. Ishiguro's characters always
tend to be somewhat flat. Whether that's his trademark strategy or his
trademark limitation as a novelist is still, for me, a verdict that's up for
grabs. The clones may be even flatter than his other characters because
they're clones. When they come to a consciousness of their identities, they
don't rage against their condition, as the monster does in "Frankenstein";
they question it politely.

The climax of this novel, where Kath and Tommy work up their courage to
confront their guardians and submit proof that even as clones they too have
souls, is heartbreaking in its doomed deference. I want more from "Never Let
Me Go." I especially want it to delve more deeply into the classic Ishiguro
situation where characters are pushed up against the limits of their
environment and perversely rationalize and adapt to them. And yet I wouldn't
want more from this novel were it not for the chill beauty and emotional
resonance of what's already there.

How is "Never Let Me Go"? Frustrating, somewhat unfinished, unforgettable.

GROSS: Maureen Corrigan teaches literature at Georgetown University. She
reviewed "Never Let Me Go" by Kazuo Ishiguro.

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Review: Bruce Springsteen's new album "Devils & Dust"
TERRY GROSS, host:

Bruce Springsteen's new album "Devils & Dust" was released today. It's a
mostly solo affair recorded without his E Street Band. Rock critic Ken Tucker
has a review.

(Soundbite of "Devils & Dust")

Mr. BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN: (Singing) I got my finger on the trigger, but I don't
who to trust. When I look into your eyes, there's just devils and dust.
We're a long, long way from home, Bobbie.

KEN TUCKER reporting:

Time and the times we live in hang heavily over "Devils & Dust." The often
weary-sounding 55-year-old on this brooding album shares none of the qualities
found in the title of his most exuberant early record. He's not wild, he's
certainly not innocent, and the only time he does the E Street shuffle anymore
in public is when a stadium full or revelers inspires him to shake off the
rumativeness(ph) that is now his primary creative mode. Sometimes on this
collection consisting of a dozen new songs plus a DVD showing him performing
five of them, it's all he can do to tap his booted toe in time to the couple
of chords that he's scratching out on the acoustic guitar that dominates most
of the record.

(Soundbite of "Maria's Bed")

Mr. SPRINGSTEEN: (Singing) Been on a barbed-wire highway 40 days and nights.
Ain't complainin'. It's my job and it suits me right. Got a sweet soul fever
rushing 'round my head. I'm gonna sleep tonight in Maria's bed. Got on a
dead man's suit and smilin' skull ring, lucky graveyard boots and a song to
sing. Keep my heart in my work and troubles in my head. And I keep my soul
in Maria's bed. Hey, hey.

TUCKER: "Devils & Dust," produced, as was "The Rising," by Brendan O'Brien,
is frequently underpinned by soft female backing vocals, a few orchestral
strings and a rhythm section: O'Brien on bass, Steve Jordan on drums. But
it's best when songs break new ground for Springsteen. On such songs as
"Maria's Bed" and "All I'm Thinkin' About," he tries out with great success a
different vocal register, a daringly sinuous falsetto that gives tremendous
urgency to the pleasures of the flesh. Quote, "I keep my heart in my work, my
troubles in my head, and I keep my soul in Maria's bed," he trills, exulting
in Southern country soul.

On the other song, he uses that voice to embody a kid putting away childish
things to become happily addled by a girl with, quote, "sweet brown legs."
The increasingly intense repetition of the phrase `All I'm thinkin' about is
you, babe' is a metaphor for a quivering horniness that's both sly and bold.

(Soundbite of "All I'm Thinkin' About")

Mr. SPRINGSTEEN: (Singing) Blind man wavin' by the side of the road. I'm in
a flatbed Ford carryin' a heavy load. Sweet thing sippin' on a blueberry wine
on a flat black highway down in Carolina. Blackbird slippin' in a sky of
blue. All I'm thinkin' 'bout is you, baby. All I'm thinkin' 'bout is you,
honey. All I'm thinkin' 'bout is you, baby. All I'm thinkin' 'bout is you.
There ain't nothin' in this world I can do about it. All I'm thinkin' 'bout
is you. Little boy carryin'...

TUCKER: Even in his gulping, yowling Bob Dylan drunk youth, Springsteen never
crammed as many words into a song as he does on one here, "Black Cowboys." Its
rushed lines burst with the details of how a kid finds his frail sense of
innocence and comfort steadily destroyed by a succession of small betrayals in
the adult world. Springsteen barely takes the time to nail down an end rhyme
before, as Chuck Berry would say, motorvating on to the next verse, scattering
in his path strikingly precise images such as, quote, "a smile that was fixed
in a face that was never off guard." This same notion, that youthful hope and
ardor too often gets wiped away by the meanness of the world, is what makes
another song here, "Long Time Comin'" one of the most languidly beautiful
Springsteen has ever recorded.

(Soundbite of "Long Time Comin'")

Mr. SPRINGSTEEN: (Singing) Out where the creek turns shallow and sandy and
the moon comes skimmin' away the stars, the wind in the mesquite comes rushin'
over the hilltops, straight into my arms, straight into my arms. I'm ridin'
hard, carryin' a catch of roses, a fresh map that I made. Tonight I'm gonna
get birth naked and bury my old soul and dance on its grave, and dance on its
grave. It's been a long time comin', my dear. It's been a long time comin',
but now it's here. Yeah, now it's here.

TUCKER: Springsteen frequently assumes different identities here: a
bare-knuckled a boxer in "The Hitter"; a morose schmo visiting a hooker in
"Reno." The latter actually earns Springsteen his first Adult Content Warning
Advisory, which should not distract you from the fact that the song also
contains some vivid writing.

The DVD side of "Devils & Dust" finds Springsteen alone in a dark room, his
singing, strumming and puffing on a harmonica interspersed with remarks about
how the new tunes are, quote, "all songs about souls that are in danger or at
risk through what the world is bringing to them." In other words, this could
be heard as, among other things, his Bush second administration album. It's
Springsteen's gift to acknowledge the harrowing burdens one bears in this
increasingly hemmed-in, dangerous world. And he shakes off the pressure and
exhaustion of that weight by illuminating the few moments of dignity and power
that his characters pull out of their souls. That's what gives "Devils &
Dust" its drama, its complication, its kick.

GROSS: Ken Tucker is film critic for New York Magazine.
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