Word: cuba
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...something special. Like middle-class Italian kids flocking to see Sinatra at Carnegie Hall, the young Cuban Americans have gathered to see the reigning Reina de la Salsa, Celia Cruz, who was entertaining their parents and their parents' parents in the smoky dens and fancy nightclubs of pre-Castro Cuba long before they were born...
...albums and 40 years in the business behind her, Cruz, seventyish, handsome, dark-skinned and wearing a snug, sequined fuchsia gown, gyrates for 90 minutes to the insistent beat of her razor-sharp backup band. At the refrain of her old favorite Canto a la Habana (Song to Havana) -- "Cuba que lindos son tus paisajes" (Cuba, what beautiful vistas you have) -- the bilingual crowd goes wild, even though most of those present have never seen Cuba and have little prospect of ever doing so. "We've never had to attract these kids. They come by themselves," says Cruz. "Rock...
Perhaps the most gifted is Eduardo Machado, 35, a Cuban expatriate who arrived in the U.S. at age eight, speaking no English, when his family fled Castro's Cuba. Brought up in Los Angeles, he now divides his time between a house in suburban Pasadena, Calif., and an apartment in Manhattan. A would-be actor, he began writing plays when a therapist suggested he compose an imaginary letter of forgiveness to his mother. Among his best works: The Modern Ladies of Guanabacoa, an evocation of the complex caste system in Cuba six decades ago, and Once Removed, which captures...
Reinaldo Povod's first full-length play, Cuba and His Teddy Bear, included a street-poet character who was widely seen as a tribute to Miguel Pinero. And like Pinero's. Short Eyes and Valdez's Zoot Suit, Povod's explosive play made the move to Broadway. The script was helped by the casting of Robert De Niro in his first New York stage role in 16 years. Its central character, like the author, was a bright and literate kid who turned to drugs just because they were so pervasive in his environment. Povod, 28, admits that he was addicted...
Flying back to Pretoria from talks in Cairo, South African Foreign Minister Roelof ("Pik") Botha was in high good humor. Jauntily donning a red fez, Botha told reporters that with the aid of Chester Crocker, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, negotiators from South Africa, Angola and Cuba had made progress on future discussions concerning the withdrawal of Cuban and South African troops from Angola. But the euphoria dissolved the following day, when new fighting broke out. Pretoria said that twelve of its soldiers and 300 Angolans and Cubans were killed when a government force attacked a South...