With packed tables and more attendees sitting on the floor, the Mulitcultural Center kicked off Hispanic Heritage Month with speaker Alina Fernandez, Fidel Castro’s daughter, Wednesday evening.
Following performances by the Auburn Mosaic Theatre Co. and Axé Capoeira Atlanta, Fernandez gave anecdotes of her life in Cuba and shared a detailed view on her father.
“In those days, he would jump from the TV screen to the living room just like that,” Fernandez said.
Fernandez said she grew up in a bizarre atmosphere when Castro would only often visit at night, yet he made her mother—whom she calls her sprite—happy.
“Only grandma called him the devil,” she said with a smile. “I was totally confused.”
She said people came up to her with petitions to give to father and a line of people waited outside her house sometimes.
“(They were) hoping that I would be their messenger with the man that had absolute power over their lives,” Fernandez said.
When she was an adolescent, Fernandez said she was already trying to escape the identity of Castro’s daughter. And when the time came for her to be recognized legally as Castro’s formal descendant, she defied social norm and denied.
Fernandez eventually fled Cuba in December 1993 with the help of friends from the United States by disguising herself as a Spanish tourist.
“Since then I have discovered that freedom is something you have to fight for every day of your life,” Fernandez said.
Allen Sutton, director of the Multicultural Center and adviser for the Auburn Latino Association for Students, said the goal was to bring someone people could associate with Hispanic Heritage Month.
“You rarely get an inside story about Cuba,” Sutton said. “To actually have a person who experienced living in Cuba and someone who actually experienced knowing and communicating with the leader of Cuba is a different dynamic.”
William Brannon, sophomore in mechanical engineering and president of ALAS, said ALAS was looking for a commendable speaker of Latino heritage and when Sutton suggested Fernandez, they seized the opportunity.
“Our goal is to teach everyone the Latino culture while showing them a good time,” Brannon said.
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