The Compass

Issue date: 2/17/10 Section: Campus Life

Media Credit: Rachel Reed Alina Fernandez, daughter of Fidel Castro, recently spoke at both campuses.

When she was 10, Alina Fernandez's mother told her that Fidel Castro was her father. "I was not surprised," Fernandez said, "I always knew Fidel Castro would not be a normal father."

The Gainesville State College Colloquium Series for 2009-2010 ended last Tuesday with acclaimed orator Alina Fernandez, daughter of Fidel Castro.

Fernandez visited the school to give her detailed account of growing up in Cuba during the Revolution, and to give the audience a glimpse of her personal experience with her father.

The auditorium was packed and standing room only as students, faculty, staff and even local high school classes filed in to listen to her tale.

Fernandez first covered the background of her parents. Fernandez's mother shared a common political view with Castro and had begun correspondence with the future leader several years before the Cuban revolution crested.

Her mother was married to Orlando Fernandez when Fernandez was born. The first few years of her life were spent with the assumption that Orlando was her father.

Before coming to power, Castro was part of a secret organization that fought against the country's leader, Fulgencio Batista. As a result of his activities against the state, Castro was incarcerated.

A mistake by a jail censor resulted in a mix up of Castro's letters to his wife and to Mrs. Fernandez, and each woman received a note intended for the other. "A few months later Fidel found himself free from prison, and free from marriage," Fernandez said.

After his release, Castro and Fernandez's mother began to meet privately. "At that time my father was still Orlando," Fernandez said.

Once the Revolution started and Castro came to power, businesses and public services began to be appropriated by the government.

It was at that point that Orlando Fernandez fled the country, taking Alina Fernandez's sister with him.

"This man, the man who would step out of my TV screen and appear in our living room, Fidel Castro, visited our house very often," Fernandez said. "I continued to grow up in this bizarre atmosphere. Fidel Castro was overwhelming. I liked the presence of this big hero."

As a teenager, Fernandez resented the revolution movement. In 1989, she publically joined an opposition group. She declined to be represented as a formal descendent of Castro and tried to hide behind the name Fernandez.

Continued...

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