Are ex-Cubans Cuban?

I still remember watching the 1976 Olympics on television here in Miami. It is hard to forget the joy I felt seeing Cuba’s Alberto Juantorena win gold medals in the 400 meter and 800 meter races as his long, beautiful, runner’s gait made that Afro sway in the Montreal night. Forty years later, I still feel that Cuban pride. And not only for Juantorena. There’s a picture of boxing great, the magnificent Teófilo Stevenson, still etched in my mind’s eye. They made so many of us feel just a bit prouder of having been born on that Caribbean island.

At those moments, Juantorena or Teófilo were not Cubans from the island. They were simply Cubans, and they had represented us well in their respective Games.

Fast forward to last week in Rio de Janeiro, where another Cuban, this time running for the Spanish team, won a silver medal in the 110-meter hurdles. It was a sight to behold as he jumped over those 10 hurdles trying for gold and settling for a proud second. I, too, sitting in my home and in front of my TV spent 13 seconds on the edge of my seat urging, almost pushing, Orlando Ortega to the finish line. Though he won silver, pride gushed out of me as I celebrated with friends who were watching too.

And it’s why I cannot understand how the following day, on Cuban television, the show’s presenter referred to Ortega as an “ex-Cuban” while reporting the news of his medal.

Ex-Cuban!? Now that’s a new one…

You’re either Cuban or you’re not. But who knows? Maybe there’s a new kind of Cuban I have yet to meet in my many visits to the island.

Orlando Ortega was born in Artemisa from what I understand. He still has family on the island. For whatever the reason, he decided to make his living in Spain. The medal, most definitely, was won and tallied under the European nation’s flag. But the runner, I assure you, is Cuban. Possibly now a Spanish citizen, but he’ll always be a Cuban.

For that matter, I dare ask: Am I an ex-Cuban? Surely, I am a U.S. citizen. Grew up in Miami and love my city. But I guarantee anyone who’ll listen that I’m a Cuban born in Havana. And Cuban blood runs through me like high octane gasoline.

Moreover, I wonder: Were Francisco Aruca and Carlos Muniz Varela ex-Cubans? The fact is that the motherland not only flows through the blood, it lies in our culture and life experiences. Our country never leaves us, it travels with us.

I hope the “ex-Cuban” comment was a harmless mistake. In the spur of the moment, and on television, I know how your mind can shorten and convolute a thought. At least I hope that’s what happened.

Whatever it was, I believe that Cubans living here, there an everywhere, and I assure you we live everywhere, must learn to leave labels behind. The fact is that a Cuban is a Cuban is a Cuban. Like a New Yorker friend who lives in Havana once told me: “I don’t know what it is with Cubans everywhere; it’s something you must carry in the blood. And it draws you fiercely to the island.”

Agreed.