Guest blog — Carmen Peláez on nostalgia and promise

Nostalgia

by Carmen Peláez

The definition of nostalgia is ORIGIN late 18th cent. (in the sense [acute homesickness] ): modern Latin from Greek nostos ‘return home’ + algos ‘pain.’

Cubans are often accused of being overly nostalgic. And even though our accusers are as guilty of us, posing for club red snapshots in front of 1950’s Chryslers, we have worn it as a badge of honor. Nostalgia was the thing that most of us chased down the rabbit hole that is Cuba. The black and white pictures on the wall, the what-could’ve-beens, the what-we-should’ve-knowns. For us, it’s been the preserving agent of a free Cuba. At least I thought so until recently.

The art any society produces will tell you volumes more than any history book. You want to know what the first decade of this century was like? Who sums it up better that Britney Spears? Flashy, trashy and destructive. When I look at modern Cuban art — and I include myself in this — we mostly deal with our pain, with loss, with remembrance. But rarely, if ever, have I seen an artist deal with possibility, with progress and with the future. We have color images of what Cuba is today but prefer those matted black and whites of what it was when it was ‘ours’.

On a recent trip to Miami, I decided that if "nostalgia’" gave me a history, "promise" would give me a future. Sadly, I will never meet El Caballero de Paris. I will never go see el Beny sing at the San Souci. I will never see the relief and joy in my grandparents faces when we return to a free Cuba. But right now I am part of the changes that are happening in Cuba. I will meet people I could never have imagined and my grandparents spirits will soar the day I experience my "return home" with a joyful heart and a new Cuba to create.

Carmen Peláez was born in Miami to Cuban parents. She is a playwright and actor residing in Brooklyn, New York.