December 7, 2005

Down with "Happy Holidays!" Shout "Merry Christmas" from the rooftops. Say "Merry Christmas" over and over again before the government speech and thought police have officially banned those dangerous, politically incorrect words!

The following letter to the editor from one brought up in Cuba, where the mention of God is banned, provides much food for thought during the Christmas season:

Children of the Gulag (letter to the editor of The New American Editor, May 7, 2000):

I'd like to commend Mr. William Norman Grigg for his article "Children of the Gulag" in the March 13th ("Elian's Odyssey") issue of The New American.

It is obvious that he took the time to research and investigate the truth behind Castro's "Cuban Wonderland" especially where children are concerned.

What really touched home for me was Mr. Grigg's accurate description of how teachers point out those students who deviate from the norm. When I was growing up in Cuba, my mother always taught me to be truthful with myself and with others. So, when teachers asked us to raise our hand if we believed in God, I was always one of the two timid children who would do so. This became a weekly routine since I can remember being in school, which goes back to third grade. And it didn't matter that I had different teachers: they were all programmed to ask the same questions.

Once the "worms" were identified, the teachers would proceed to humiliate us in front of the whole class, telling us God didn't exist, that my mother was crazy, that one day my mom would be sent away to the American imperialists, and that I would stay and learn what a great thing it was to be a Communist.

This activity got to the point where it was driving me crazy and I did not know who to believe; the teachers or my mother. I especially remember this one day when I was in fifth grade: after taking a grilling from one of the teachers in front of the whole class, red as a tomato, and as soon as I saw my mother outside the school, I shouted at her: "It's all your fault." Needless to say, I grew up in a hurry. And thanks to my mother, I never deviated away from God.

I left Cuba when I was 14 years old. Before doing so, I had the "pleasure" of experiencing three years worth of labor camps. I was first sent to a camp when I was 11 years old; I was sent together with my whole school to the western province of Pinar del Rio, an area rich for tobacco growing. the tobacco plants were twice as tall as we were, but we were still awakened at 4:30 a.m. and would work the fields until 6:00 p.m., having a brief lunch break in the middle. My childhood experiences in those labor camps, however, do not even come close to matching the effects those weekly classroom grillings had on me.

Only those who don't know what it's truly like to grow up in Cuba can be in favor of sending Elian (Gonzalez) home, and so I thank Mr. Grigg once again for trying to expose the truth to everyone out there.

Luis D. Ezra, Miami Lakes, Florida