Tuesday, September 05 2006
Tucson, Arizona - Restaurateur Ramón Cartaya likes to sprinkle his Cuban dishes with a bit of political satire.
In a corner of his Cuban restaurant stands a cigar-smoking plastic skeleton dressed in the trademark military fatigues of Cuba's ailing Fidel Castro.
Cartaya, 54, said he put up the prop before recent news of Castro's ill health, but it took on a different meaning after word got out that Castro's 47-year regime might be coming to an end. Cartaya quickly added a sign to the fake Fidel that says: "What is left of Comandante Fidel Castro."
Cartaya said he was surprised to hear of Castro's hospitalization. "But he is 80 years old; he can't live forever."
So the political refugee decided to exercise his freedom of expression - something he said he could never do in his homeland - by keeping the Castro stand-in on display for as long as his namesake sticks around.
"My regular customers are used to him," said Cartaya, who owns El Cubanito restaurant on East Sixth Street near the University of Arizona. "But the Cubans who come in here prefer not to sit near Fidel."
That's because negative emotions against Castro run strong among Cubans who have fled the island and its oppressive way of life, Cartaya said.
"We hate Fidel because he deceived the Cuban people," Cartaya said. "Things were supposed to get better when he took power in 1959. Instead, he robbed the Cuban people of their freedom."
Cartaya left Cuba in 1983 and lived in Panama before coming to the United States in 1984. He moved from Los Angeles to Tucson in 1994. He and his wife, Irene, run the restaurant.
Although many of their regular clients have learned to live with the plastic Castro, new customers are curious.
Rob and Judith Dvorak recently tried to decipher the meaning of another Spanish sign clipped onto the rigid Castro. The message in part gives assurances that Castro is not dead yet and that he will be around for a while.
Dvorak said she and her husband didn't need a translation to figure out Cartaya "probably doesn't support Fidel."
Jorge Hernández, a regular customer, said he sees the prop as a unique part of the restaurant. "It's part of the ambience," the accountant said. "But you can't take it too seriously."
Jon Dale, while having lunch with his friend, Steve Hain, said of the would-be Castro: "It's hilarious. I just appreciate having a little piece of Cuba in town."
- Lourdes Medrano (Ariziona Daily Star online)
