Jose Marti

Some years ago, a classmate from Oklahoma got me started reading Elmore Leonard. Or Leonard Elmore: I’ve read most of his books with great delight and still can’t remember which name is first. His Westerns and detective stories are shameless mind candy, just pure fun. But a thoughtful guy lurks behind the confections, and Mr. Leonard (I just checked) got me reading Jose Marti -- not for his poetry, but for his politics.

Jose Marti wrote “Guantanamera,” a simple beautiful piece of music that I have sung for decades in the shower and other uninhabited/uninhibited places. Marti sang (or wrote, others sang) that he preferred the mountains to the sea. Well, first, I agree; and second, it sounds so beautiful in mournful Spanish! Even mangled Anglo-Spanish. And he wrote that he “chose to share his fate with the poor of the earth.” That touches every romantic and spiritual chord in my body and soul. The song also has some “Old Macdonald” scraps that I like: “Guantanamera, ah-ee-oh …” I’m pretty sure it doesn’t mean anything, but I only know Manglo-Spanish. Still, it’s fun.

Anyway, Leonard got me reading about Marti, and I found that he is embraced by Communists and anti-Communists alike. I admire that. Marti was a Cuban revolutionary leader in the second half of the 19th century, who helped start the revolution that ended Spanish rule in Cuba. I admire that too. But he had a deep ambivalence about the United States. He admired our ideals, and was inspired by our drive for freedom and equality. But at the same time, he was appalled by our treatment of our southern neighbors. So even as he fought the Spanish, he had his eye on threats on the horizon, and spoke against overweening American influence.

I grew up hearing Fidel Castro roaring away about how he was going to stop Yanqui imperialism, and I thought he was hallucinating. I mean, I wasn’t planning to build an empire in Ecuador or Paraguay; were you? And if we had decided to build an empire in Latin America, what was Fidel gonna do about it, huh? So I was shocked when I learned that Castro got all this stuff from Marti, not from Jamaican weed. Over a century ago, Marti said that Cuba had great role to play in history: to make sure that American imperialism did not spread south of Florida.

Marti admired us, but did not trust us. He did not believe that we would treat Latinos with respect. He thought we were capable of deep hypocrisy, preaching equality but acting with savage naked greed and totally blind self-absorbed ambition. Where did he get that idea? Aside from our treatment of blacks and Indians and Tories and Canucks and Mexicans and Jews and Papists and Chinks and Japs and Wops and Krauts and morons and rag-heads, we’re pretty good with folks. Right?

Even now, I would like to live and act in such a way that I would be worthy of Marti’s trust, practicing what we have always preached.