Reyita: The Life of a Black Cuban Woman in the Twentieth Century

"I am Reyita, a regular, ordinary person. A natural person, respectful, helpful, decent, affectionate, and very independent. For my mother, it was an embarrassment, that I-of her four daughters-was the only black one. I always felt the difference between us, because she didn't have as much affection for me as she did for my sisters. . . . I was the victim of terrible discrimination from my mother. And if you add that to the situation in Cuba, you can understand why I never wanted a black husband. I had good reason, you know. I didn't want to have children as black as me, so that no one would look down on them, no one would harass and humiliate them. Oh, God only knows! I didn't want my children to suffer what I'd had to suffer."-fromReyitaMaria de los Reyes Castillo Bueno is the author of 'Reyita: The Life of a Black Cuban Woman in the Twentieth Century', published 2000 under ISBN 9780822325796 and ISBN 0822325799.