When I was a boy
(say, reader, fifty years back)
we had grand, ingenuous people
who over a row in the street
of a hell-raising crowd in a bar
would shudder. They'd exclaim,
"Good Heavens, what would the Americans say!"
For some folks
To be a Yankee in those days
was to be something almost sacred:
the Platt Amendment, armed
intervention, battleships.
Back then, what is today quite common
was unthinkable:
the kidnapping of a gringo
colonel, like in Venezuela,
or of four agents provocateurs,
like our brothers did in Bolivia,
and least of all things like decisive bearded ones from the Sierra

Some fifty years ago
in the first section of the newspapers, no less,
they put the latest baseball scores
direct from New York.
Great! Cincinnati beat Pittsburgh!
St. Louis whipped Detroit!
(Buy Reich baseballs. They're the best.)
Johnson, the boxer,
was our model of a champ.

For kids, Fletcher's Castoria
was the remedy prescribed
in (rebellious) cases
of enteritis or indigestion.

One newspaper
in its table of contents listed
each day a page, in English, for the Yankees:
"A Cuban-American paper
with news of all the world."

Nothing like Walk-Over Shoes,
or the pills of Dr. Ross.

And the native pineapple juice
came no more from the plant:
the Fruit Juice Company
said it was "huelsencamp."

We would take the Munson Line to Mobile,
Southern Pacific to New Orleans,
and the Ward Line to New York.
We had Nick Carter and Buffalo Bill.
We had the immediate, greasy, memory of fat Magoon:
obese gangster and governor,
the thief among thieves of thieves.
There was the American Club.
There was Miramar Garden
(when any fool can say *jardin* in Spanish).
To travel by train there was the Cuban Company.
There was Cuban Telephone.
There was that tremendous ambassador.
And above all there was, "Watch your step,
the Americans will intervene!"

Some folks, not so ingenuous
used to say,
"Hah! They'll intervene?
You mean they're not already here?"

At any rate,
they were great...
strong,
honest above reproach,
the cream of the crop,
and our model:
for quick elections without debate,
for buildings with many floors,
for presidents who did their duty,
for those who smoked light tobacco,
for those who used chewing gum,
for Whites who wouldn't mix with Blacks,
for those who puffed curved pipes,
for energetic and infallible functionaries,
for aborted revolution,
for a single strong tug on the chain
in the water-closet.
But it came to pass
that one day we were like children who grow up
and learn that the honorable uncle who bounced us on his knee
was sent up for forgery.
One day we came to know
the worst.

How and why
they murdered Lincoln in a theatre-box of death.
How and why
the bandits there became senators.
How and why
There are many cops who're not in prison.
How and why
there are tears in the stones of every skyscraper.
How and why
With one blow Texas was ripped off and pocketed.
How and why
the vineyards and orchards of California no longer belong to Mexico.
How and why
Marines killed the soldiers of Veracruz.
How and why
Dessalines saw his flag torn from every Haitian staff.
How and why
our great general Sandino was betrayed and murdered.
How and why
they dirtied our sugar with manure.
How and why
they've blinded their people and torn out its tongue.
How and why
they're forbidden to know us and tell our simple truth.
How and why...

Oh, we came from far off, from far off.
One day we learned all this.
Our mind sorts out its memories.
We've simply grown up.
We've grown
...but we don't forget.