PROLOGUE
Oyeme, chico, ven acá what's this, this big story I hear you're doing about the Cubans and the Marielitos in Los Angeles and all that? Coño, chico, you know that the Cubans are always the top, brother, nobody smarter or sexier or better looking, you know? Look at what we did here in Miami, it was just a swamp for niggers and dying Jews before we moved in. We turned it into the capital of Latin American enterprise, the center of all the movement of business and peoples who want to be free and shop at Burdines and have a nice condo on the beach, or a house in Coral Gables and drive a late model car. Qué va, brother, if not for us Miami would be nothing, just another sand barrier at the edge of a mangrove full of flying roaches and good for nothings. Everybody should do the same thing we did down here, mi hermano. But I'll tell you something, you know what? They don't have the brains or the balls to do what we did, to take a load of anger and resentment and turn it into concrete and gold, to let your desire point the way so that in the end the whole world is yours because you want it and that's it, you know? That's why we're better, that's why we're one of a kind, únicos. Look it, if all the Mexicans in L.A. got together, brother, let me tell you, those Anglos would be fucked, man, that's what. Nothing can resist the will of a people whose time has come. It's a force of nature, like the wind, the tides which are nothing, air and water, but if put together and driven by a will become a hurricane or a tidal wave that wreaks the vengeance long denied. But you know what? It's not gonna happen because there's nobody like the Cubans. Just look at the music, the jazz music, man, that's all Cuban and that's a fact. All these guys came down to Havana and drank our rum and fooled around with the ladies and got into the music and pretty soon, brother, they'd stolen all the good notes from us. Even rock 'n' roll, mi hermano. You don't believe me? Dig this, you know how important Bo Didley was, right? You know, the dum-dee-dum-dee-dum, dum-dum beat of his, the one that spread through rock 'n' roll and made it so great? Hey, he himself admits he stole that from a Cuban song he heard. You see, you know, the beat, el sabor, that Cuban thing, like the pussy of a nice Cuban girl, mi hermano, incomparable. All these guys come and steal from us and then they claim it as their own. But that's OK, too, that's the past. No need to start worrying about that. You still don't believe we're the greatest? OK, look at sports--the greatest boxer, the smartest, the one that taught Sugar Ray Robinson all he knew, who was that? Why that was Kid Chocolate, my brother. And don't forget Kid Gavilan and Benny Kid Paret. And baseball--well, let's not even start with baseball, I can't begin to tell you the names of all the Cuban greats--Aparicio, Marichal, all the others. And José Canseco, qué va, there's nothing like a Cuban. You know, for such a little country, we're the greatest, that's why they call us the Jews of Latin America. We're the brains of everything south of the border. And north, too, it's just that we haven't been here all that long. Look it, we're the fastest immigrant group to assimilate in the history of this country. Coño, man, more than the Jews even. We have professors, artists, engineers, reporters, dancers, musicians, fashion designers, businessmen -- check out the biggest company in the world, Coca-Cola, who doesn't know Coke, right? I mean the drinking kind, mi hermano, although Cubans are also in the other stuff too. Who's the head of Coca-Cola? Un cubano. Who else? We know the stuff. Like I said look at Miami. Our problem was that we always had this whole political thing behind us, you know, tying us down and keeping us really all blind to the realities of what we could be. That's why we've only flowered here, on this stupid, double crossing, treacherous, perfidious American soil where everything is possible but where we see everyday how we were betrayed when we tried to stomp out the bloody Nero with the cigar and the smile full of bullets and bones. But, hey, that's historia antigua. So then who cares about these Marielitos who came here expecting everything to be done for them, thinking this is socialism or something, that all they have to do is ask and it shall be given, knock and the door will open. Coño, man, these guys just don't want to break their backs, work their asses off like we did. They want everything just because they have a pretty face, you know? So all they do is complain about this and that and then pick up a pistola and think they can solve all their problems by pumping people full of bullets. I mean, most of them are just a bunch of niggers, brother, so don't go around bothering too much with them. They give us white Cubans a bad name, you know, muy mala reputación. It was that son of a bitch Fidel who fucked the Americans up the ass and us too. That scum, those human dregs he sent us, he got them out of Mazorra, out of the madhouse, and out of the prisons he got them. They're shit, man, they're not worth spit and you shouldn't worry about them. Just look at the great thing we've done, brother, look at Miami. And that's nothing, just you wait. Pretty soon we're gonna have Cuban congressmen and Senators from all over the place, you wait and see. We already got a Cuban governor in Florida and what's her name, our congresswoman from Dade. Shit, man, they might even change the Constitution for us, brother. Make a Cuban born in Havana president of these U.S. of A, won't that be something! So forget about these Marielitos, brother, forget about them, they're scum, they're nothing. They're shit, mierda. Fidel should have killed them all anyhow. That's what they deserve, the firing wall, el paredón.