Children of the Revolution

I never could have known that people lived in such conditions. I was the child of an educated, comfortable family. Those months, for me, were like the stories I have heard about conversion to a new religion. It was for me, the dying of an old life and the start of something absolutely new.

I did not need to read of this in Marx, in Lenin, in Marti. I did not need to read of what I saw before my eyes. I cried each night. I wrote my mother and my father. I was only twelve years old. I was excited to be part of something which had not been done before in Cuba. I would prove that we could keep the promise that Fidel had made to the world. I did not want it to be said that we would not stand up beside Fidel.

—ARMANDO VALDEZ,
*former brigadista*