Vida Clandestina essays

Vida Clandestina essays I, Enrique Oltuski, was born in Cuba in 1933. As Jews in Poland, my parents were discriminated against, and they were put into isolated ghettos. By 1929, they had decided to escape to the New World when they arrived in Cuba. For the first years in Cuba, my father had many financial difficulties. He had started a shoe business that was yet to get started during the economic worldwide depression. My mother decided to bring me to Poland for a few years, and let her husband organize and stabilize his business. It took my father a couple of years to gather up enough money to send us back to Cuba. During the two years I spent in Poland, I grew close to my grandfather who introduced me to the Jewish religion. Unfortunately, the Nazis tragically murdered him during World War II. For the rest of my life, I stayed in Cuba, and I never returned to Poland. Not many Cubans had the opportunity to go to an American University, but I was able to attend Miami University for four years. I studied Agriculture Engineering in college. College opened up my eyes to many other aspects in life. Miami was where I was first introduced to the Cuban Revolutionary movement. Many young Cubans were not pleased with the current government in Cuba. They felt the leader Batista, was running a dictatorship, and a corrupt government. Federal jobs were given to people with connections not to those who deserved the jobs. Most importantly, high-ranking government officials were stealing and keeping money from the peasants and farmers who needed the money desperately. I quickly became enraged about what I heard, and I was ready to dedicate my life to changing the Cuban government. I graduated from the University of Miami with a degree in Agrarian Engineering. By then, I was fully engulfed in my revolutionary views and desire to change the government of Cuba. However, I knew that my formal education would be vital in my success as an underground revolutionar...