Identidades in English No 4, December 2014 | Page 114

The Cuban Chapter of the Spanish Black Legend The value of memory Roberto G. Castell Writer, novelist and journalist Batabanó, Mayabeque, Cuba 114 I n Cuban criollo slang, there are allusions to poisoning. It is often said that we Cubans have been poisoned after fifty years of propaganda. I, for example, had a hard time doing justice to the guerrillas who fought in the Escambray in the sixties. My initial reaction to the first issue of the journal Encuentro was to say it was reactionary, which may seem redundant, but that issue totally trashed the “officially” created theory concerning banditry, which is what Castroism called the activity of these fighters. It took me a while to purge my deep psyche of the impression left by films, TV series, soap operas, adventures and literature that persistently demonized the actions