Not All Cubans

A Love Letter and a Plea to My Fellow US Latinos

I’m Cuban American. Born in the United States. When I was nine years old, a package arrived at our home in Albuquerque, New Mexico, addressed to me, from a toy store in Coral Gables, Florida.

Inside were gruesome autopsy photos of a woman, with the words “Your daddy’s next” scrawled across them in thick black marker.

It had been sent by members of Alpha 66, a far-right Cuban exile group based in Miami, enraged that my father—a Cuban immigrant, naturalized U.S. citizen, and sociology professor—was speaking publicly against the U.S. embargo and teaching about the positive impacts of the Cuban Revolution. The group had assassinated the woman in the photos, and she had been my father’s friend.

That was my introduction to being Cuban American in this country. Not pastelitos. Not salsa. Death threats. Credible ones.

Fast forward through the rest of my life as a “Latina” journalist and novelist, and I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard other Latinos bash “Cubans”—as if we’re all the same. As if we all sip cafecito in red hats and cheer for ICE raids.

It happened again this week, after I posted a photo of the Cuban American contractor building Trump’s death camps in the Florida Everglades. Someone replied:
“Figured he’d be Cuban.”

I guess they didn’t realize I—the one exposing him—am also Cuban.

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So.

Let me be blunt, because I’m tired.

Fellow Latinos in the United States: Can we please stop bashing Cubans?

You’re not mad at Cubans. You’re mad at rich, reactionary Cuban exiles, mostly in Miami and a handful of spots in New Jersey—Trump flag-flying, Botox-shiny, white-adjacent elites who think “freedom” means nobody can get healthcare but their yacht mechanic.

I’m mad at them, too.

But when you say “Cubans” like we’re all the same? That’s not solidarity. That’s a shortcut. And shortcuts are how you end up sounding like the people who shortcut all Latinos as a group.

Your definition of Cuban is too narrow, too stereotyped, too ignorant, and, m’ija, you need to evolve.

The Revolution Was About Them, Not For Them

Here’s a historical reality you may have missed on TikTok: The Cuban Revolution of 1959 wasn’t launched by those rich Cubans you hate. It was launched against them. By other Cubans, who also hated them.

Yes, against.

Against the exploitative landowners, casino brokers, and U.S.-backed sugar barons who lived like feudal lords while the rest of Cuba starved. When Fidel Castro and Che Guevara rolled in, those elites ran—straight into the arms of the U.S. government, where they rebranded themselves as victims of communism. What they really were? Losers of a class war. Mad because they couldn’t exploit and abuse poor and mostly black Cubans anymore.

So when you say “Cubans are all Republicans,” you’re repeating their insanely self-serving and deeply incorrect version of history. You’re helping the people who’ve hijacked Cuban identity in this country for decades stay in power. You’re erasing the rest of us. And we are legion.

We Are Not a Monolith

My dad, Dr. Nelson P. Valdés, is a Cuban-born scholar, professor emeritus at the University of New Mexico, and a lifelong socialist who’s led academic trips to Cuba for decades. He’s spent his life telling the truth about U.S.–Cuba relations, colonialism, and propaganda. He's more radical than me—and I’m already left of Bernie.

I write feminist books. I organize. I vote blue every damn time. I’ve built a career on telling hard truths and refusing to play nice with white supremacy or performative assimilation. So it hits different when I hear other Latinos—my own people, supposedly—painting all Cuban Americans with the same wide, lazy, “Lucy I’m Home” brush.

We are not all your enemy.

There are many thousands of us who don’t fit the “Little Havana Republican” stereotype. There are organizations, activists, academics, and artists—all Cuban American—doing the work every day to dismantle imperialism, racism, and economic injustice.

Let me introduce you to just a few of them:

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🎓 Progressive Cuban American Scholars & Thinkers

• Dr. Nelson P. Valdés – My father. Revolutionary thinker. Founder of Cuba Research & Analysis Group. One of the most fearless critics of U.S. policy in the hemisphere.

• Dr. Lisandro Pérez – Sociologist and author of Sugar, Cigars, and Revolution, dismantling myths about Cuban American identity and class.

• Dr. Ana M. López – Feminist Cuban American cinema scholar, rethinking exile and representation.

• Arturo López-Levy – Political scientist and former Cuban intelligence officer turned academic critic of both the U.S. blockade and exile hypocrisy.

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🖋️ Writers, Journalists & Cultural Builders

• Alisa Valdes – That’s me. NYT bestselling author, essayist, and literary shit-stirrer.

• Achy Obejas – Queer Cuban American poet and translator whose work centers exile, identity, and language justice.

• Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo – Radical dissident writer, blogger, and photographer whose work critiques both the Cuban regime and U.S. imperial narratives.

• Ana Menéndez – Novelist and journalist, known for piercing explorations of exile, loss, and contradiction.

• Gina Torres - Actress and producer, campaigned for Kamala Harris.

• Nely Galán – Media entrepreneur and founder of the Adelante Movement, empowering Latinas economically from the inside out.

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✊🏽 Organizers & Peace Builders

• Carlos Lazo – Iraq War vet and founder of Puentes de Amor, who leads caravans to end the U.S. embargo and reconnect families.

• Cuban Americans for Engagement (CAFE) – A group of young, progressive Cuban Americans challenging the dominant Miami narrative and demanding diplomacy, not war.

• Let Cuba Live – A humanitarian coalition including Cuban Americans sending medical aid and fighting the blockade.

• Pastors for Peace / IFCO – Faith-based, pro-justice group that’s worked with Cuban Americans for decades to build people-to-people solidarity.

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We’re out here. We’ve always been out here. You just don’t see us, because the news media and entertainment industry don’t show us. The right-wing Cuban Americans have a lot of power, and they do all they can to silence people like me, in my case starting to terrorize me when I was a child. We don’t get the PAC money. We don’t get the talking-head invites. But we’re real—and we vote, and we fight.

The Real Issue Is Class. Not Ethnicity.

What bothers you about Trump-loving Cuban Americans isn’t their Cubanness. It’s their money. Their whiteness. Their willingness to side with power over people. That’s not a Cuban issue. That’s a socioeconomic class issue. That’s what happens when wealth, fear, and white supremacy converge—whether the person’s from Coral Gables or Caracas.

So let’s stop punching sideways.

Let’s build coalitions, not caricatures.

Let’s stop repeating the propaganda of the very people we’re trying to unseat.

The right-wing Cubans lost Cuba in 1959.

Quit pretending they’re winners. Quit allowing yourself to see them as the default Cubans when, in fact, the real default Cubans were the ones who sent them packing.

In Solidarity

I’m writing this because I love you. Because I want to fight alongside you, not defend myself to you. I’m writing this because I know we can’t build a just world for Latinos in the USA if we’re too busy cutting each other off at the knees.

So if you’ve ever caught yourself saying “Cubans are the worst,” I’m asking you—gently but firmly—to do better.

We are not all the same. We never were.

Yours in struggle and story,
Alisa

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