Word: cubans
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...tropical paradise or a giant border town, a torrid zone just across the line of sexual decorum, that most heavily policed boundary in the American psyche. Though that image is being discarded, it is not going without a fight. In a Miami department store not long ago, the Cuban-born fashion designer Adolfo, a favorite of Nancy Reagan's, was pained to overhear two women express surprise that he was the creator of a collection that was elegant and simple. "Obviously," he laments, "they just assumed that anything a Cuban designed would be full of neon, sequins and ruffles...
...unit of Hispanic life. The Mexican poet Octavio Paz recently described it. "In the North American ethic" he wrote, "the center is the individual; in Hispanic morals the true protagonist is the family." It shows in the work of a photographer like Tony Mendoza. He sees in his extended Cuban family what it is that sometimes makes * them comic, but he also knows that their fate is his, their picture...
There are scars to heal and miles to go before Hispanic-Hollywood assimilation is complete. Begin with the wondrous and confounding diversity of Latin cultures. "Cubans," says Julia, "are as different from Mexicans as French are from Italians." Menendez, Cuban-born, catalogs the differences: "First-generation Mexican Americans are still emotionally connected to their homeland. They want movies that remind them of home. But Cubans don't identify with the underclass. Would you, if you owned Miami...
...soft-spoken foreign-language professor seems bemused by his success in a career he never planned. "It was serendipity all the way," he says. Little in his childhood suggested he would someday become a bridge across Latin and Anglo cultures. The youngest of three sons of a Cuban father and an American mother, Rabassa grew up in and around New York City and seldom heard Spanish spoken about the house: "As a Cuban, my father was eager to adapt to his new environment." The Rabassas later moved to New Hampshire, where Gregory attended high school, but it was only...
...Spain or the ancient cultures of Central and South America, are now so thoroughly mixed into the mainstream that their source is often forgotten. There seems to be a Taco Bell on every corner, Corona beer in every bar. The First Lady's preferred fashion designer, Adolfo, is Cuban. And out of the crossover into the mainstream come some curious hybrids: bolero jackets with blue jeans, Jalapeno Cheez Whiz, Brie enchiladas and, in Santa Fe, even an adobe McDonald...