Black Spring

2 panels organized in 1 column. 

Panel 1 
(Fidel Castro and a group of soldiers in teal uniforms ride through town in a Jeep, waving to a crowd of people.) 

Panel 2 
(A black-and-white photograph of Castro facing a crowd of people with guns raised.) 
(Narration: My earliest childhood memories go back to the time of great upheavals right after that historic event.)

5 panels organized in 3 rows, 2 panels in the top row, 2 panels in the middle row, and 1 panel in the bottom row. 

Panel 1 
(Close-up of older Alejandro, with a mustache and glasses.) 
Alejandro: My mother worked nights at the Ministry of the Interior in Camaguey. She defended the revolution heart and soul—almost fanatically. 

Panel 2 
(Black-and-white photograph of Fidel Castro surrounded by soldiers, fists raised in celebration.) 
(Narration: After Batista’s dictatorship, Castro had the support of an entire people. They all believed in him.) 

Panel 3 
(Black and white photograph of a mother and two young children.) 
(Narration: I was much too young, of course, to understand what was going on.) 

Panel 4 
(Young Alejandro, in a pink shirt, sits on his grandmother’s lap and plays with building blocks at the table.) 
(Narration: My grandmother was the one who looked after me while my mother was at work.) 

Panel 5 
(A group of people sits and stands around a small, round table illuminated by a hanging lamp. A man stands in the corner smoking a cigar.) 
(Narration: Much of my family lived with my grandmother. Her house was always full of people, because she was her block’s CDR* president.) 
[Caption: *Committee for the Defense of the Revolution]

4 panels organized in 3 rows, 2 panels in the top row, 1 panels in the middle row, and 1 panel in the bottom row. 

Panel 1 
(A neighborhood map with CDR logos placed in different locations.) 
(Narration: The CDRs were founded in 1960 to confront counterrevolutionary activity and help out the residents of each neighborhood.) 
[Camaguey] 
[Locations on the map: General Gomez, Marti Park, San Francisco Church, Padre Ollalo, Candido Gonzalez Stadium, Avenida de la Libertad] 

Panel 2 
(A black-and-white photograph of two women next to a mural that reads: “En cada barrio revolución.”) 
(Narration: There was a CDR on every block. These neighborhood communities, run by locals, were meant to protect the country from espionage and terrorism.) 

Panel 3 
(Map of Cuba with CDR logos placed all over the country.) 
(Narration: The network of CDRs throughout Cuba allowed threats to be identified quickly. In reality, their true purpose was to monitor citizens, strongly encouraging them to inform on enemies of the revolution.) 
[Cuba] 
[Locations on the map: Havana, Camaguey, Atlantic Ocean] 

Panel 4 
(Alejandro playing at the table on his grandmother’s lap, surrounded by people and plumes of cigarette smoke.)
(Narration: But I didn’t know any of that back then.)

9 panels organized in 3 rows, 2 in the top row, 4 in the middle row, and 3 in the bottom row. 

Panel 1 
(Close-up of Alejandro’s Uncle, an old, balding man.) 
(Narration: My uncle nicknamed me “El Jodedor,” a word we Cubans use a lot for people who spend their time clowning around.) 

Panel 2 
(Young Alejandro, slightly older now and in a yellow t-shirt, bounces a soccer ball on his knee in the living room.)
(Narration: And it’s true—I was often to be found goofing off.) 

Panel 3 
(The Uncle enters the room.) 
Uncle: I said cut out that racket! 

Panel 4 
(Close-up of Alejandro’s face, eyes wide.) 

Panel 5 
(The Uncle pulls a baseball bat from his bag.) 
Uncle: I’m sick of having you underfoot. Here, take this bat. 

Panel 6 
(The Uncle’s outstretched arm hands the bat to Alejandro’s outstretched hand.) 
Uncle: Go stand watch outside the building. We need someone to guard the entrance. 

Panel 7 
(Alejandro holds the bat in both hands.) 

Panel 8 
(Alejandro stands outside in front of the building, wielding the bat.) 
(Narration: I cut a proud figure by the front door, and took my role very seriously. I mean, seriously for a boy of six.) 

Panel 9 
(Moses, a boy in a green polo shirt, stands over Alejandro.) 
Moses: Hey, Alejo! Wanna come play baseball?

9 panels organized in 3 rows, 3 in the top row, 3 in the middle row, and 3 in the bottom row. 

Panel 1 
(Alejandro stands smirking with his hands resting on the baseball bat.) 
Alejandro: No way! I got a mission. I gotta guard this building. 

Panel 2 
(Moses smiles.) 
Moses: Ha ha ha ha! You? A building guard? Sure, and I’m Che! 

Panel 3 
(Alejandro, frowning, pulls back the bat, ready to swing.) 

Panel 4 
(Close-up of the bat slamming into Moses’s knee.) 
{BAM!} 

Panel 5 
(Moses is curled up on the sidewalk, crying and holding his knee. Alejandro stands over him, visible from the waist down. The bat lies next to him on the sidewalk.) 
Alejandro: Shouldnta made fun of me, moron! That’ll teach you! 

Panel 6 
(The Uncle looks out the window.) 
Uncle: Good god, I’m gonna kill that kid! 
(Narration: I always felt bad about hitting Moses out of vanity. The power the bat gave me made me lose my grip. That day, I realized that someone with power is as capable of the very best as the very worst—a lesson the repression would confirm years later.) 

Panel 7 
(Close-up of a hand pulling back the band of a slingshot. Another kid points to the sky.) 
(Narration: The rest of my childhood went by like any other kid’s from my neighborhood: shooting off slingshots . . .)

 Panel 8 
(Close-up of a pigeon sitting on a rooftop.) 

Panel 9 
(The pigeon disappears in a cloud of feathers.) 
{THWACK}

5 panels organized in 3 rows, 3 in the top row, 1 in the middle row, and 1 in the bottom row. 

Panel 1 
(Alejandro, wearing a red baseball cap, stands in batting position.) 
(Narration: . . . And skipping class to play baseball.) 

Panel 2 
(The pitched baseball flies toward Alejandro, standing in a field.) 
(Narration: But it couldn’t last forever.) 

Panel 3 
(The bat makes contact with the baseball.) 
{KRAK} 

Panel 4 
(Alejandro, now a teenager, sits at the kitchen table with his mother and father, looking sullen.) 
Father: Alejo, you’re thirteen now. Your mother and I have decided it’s time you attended an EMCC.* 

Panel 5 
(A bird’s-eye of barracks at a military school, with soldiers in formation outside.) 
(Caption: *Escuela Militar Camilo Cienfuegos, or Camilo Cienfuegos Military School. There were six.)

3 panels organized in 2 rows, 2 in the top row, 1 in the bottom row. 

Panel 1 
(A black-and-white photo of a young man in a military uniform and hat with his arm around a girl in a polo shirt and pleated skirt. Next to the narration is an illustrated EMCC crest with the silhouette of a man in a wide-brimmed hat.)
(Narration: The EMCC was: a handsome olive green soldier’s uniform with an insignia honoring Camilo Cienfuegos, a hero of the revolution . . .) 

Panel 2 
(A man stands in a grassy field with tall trees, looking at rows of men doing push-ups.) 
(Narration: But also exercises at the fucking crack of dawn . . .) 

Panel 3 
(A row of uniformed soldiers stand facing the torso and legs of a commander with his back turned. Next to him is a radio.) 
(Narration: Followed by a daily half-hour of political propaganda that I had to sit through quietly with 120 other fellow cadets.) 
Radio: A victory over imperialism anywhere in the world is a victory for us, just as a defeat at the hands of imperialism is a defeat for us. The practice of proletarian internationalism is not only a duty for all people fighting for a better future, but also an unavoidable necessity.

5 panels organized in 3 rows, 3 in the top row, 1 in the middle row, and 1 in the bottom row. 

Panel 1 
(A black-and-white bird’s-eye photograph of a nuclear missile launch site. Captions with arrows point to different equipment.) 
(Narration: Tensions reached their height in October 1962, when the US discovered missile launch ramps the USSR had installed on our territory.) 
[Captions: Launch pad with erector. Cherry picker. Launch pad with erector. Missile ready bldgs. Fueling vehicles]

Panel 2 
(A mother, father, and son sit on the couch watching a speech on television.) 
(Narration: The eyes of the world were upon us during the Russian–American negotiations. Nuclear war seemed around the corner.) 

Panel 3 
(Close-up on the arms of two people shaking hands.) 
(Narration: An agreement was finally reached.) 

Panel 4 
(A shirtless Alejandro sits alone on his bed in an empty bunk room.) 
(Narration: Despite how cut off we were, Western cultures and especially countercultures made themselves felt on our island—especially the hippie movement.) 

Panel 5 
(A swirl of hippie figures: the back of a man playing guitar; a topless woman in a headband smoking; a long-haired man wearing a denim outfit and long necklaces; a woman in a floppy, wide-brimmed hat; a man with a pompadour hairstyle; a long-haired man with a guitar singing into a microphone.) 
(Narration: In those years, the more they stuffed Marxist ideology down our throats, the less interested in it I was. What I liked way better was secretly listening to American radio: WGBS!)

6 panels organized in 4 rows, 1 in the first row, 2 in the second row, 2 in the third row, and 1 in the fourth row. 

Panel 1 
(Alejandro lies awake in bed, his covers morphing into the image of the Beatles crossing the street from the famous Abbey Road album cover.) 
(Narration: Thanks to radio, I discovered The Mustangs, Charles Aznavour, and best of all, The Beatles.) 

Panel 2 
(Alejandro leans in for a kiss with a young woman.) 
Alejandro (to himself): What I’m talking about now is a time no one younger than twenty could possibly understand. 

Panel 3 
(Alejandro and the young woman lie on the beach gazing at each other. In the background, two people kick a soccer ball around.) 
Alejandro (to himself): All you need is love. 

Panel 4 
(Alejandro, with a slight beard, surrounded by two long-haired friends, smoking.) 
(Narration: I played hooky a lot to go pick up chicks with my buddies.) 

Panel 5 
(Alejandro lies on a hill looking up at the sky with a blade of grass in his mouth, his uniform shirt unbuttoned.)
(Narration: Back then, I felt truly free. From atop the lofty heights of our sixteenth spring, my buddies and I were not really aware of what was actually going on in our country.) 

Panel 6 
(Several vinyl records broken into pieces.)
(Narration: Soon, the regime banned The Beatles, and a great wave of repression fell upon the land.)

8 panels organized in 3 rows, 2 in the top row, 3 in the middle row, and 3 in the bottom row. 

Panel 1 
(A group of people behind prison bars.) 
(Narration: Thousands of homosexuals, artists, religious believers, and even hippies were locked up in UMAPS*, or detention camps. They were accused of being pro-Western, and referred to as “cases of ideological deviationism.”)
[Caption: * Unidad Militar de Ayuda a la Producción, or Military Units to Aid Production, founded in 1965.] 

Panel 2 
(Black-and-white photograph of a man pressing himself up against a chain-link fence.) 
(Narration: I don’t really know where they came up with labels like that. Still, it was true that they didn’t appreciate our lifestyles.) 

Panel 3 
(Young people run from silhouettes of police officers wielding batons and plumes of smoke or gas.) 
(Narration: The police even mounted raids on La Rampa, an avenue popular with the youth of Havana.) 

Panel 4 
(Close-up of a pair of scissors cutting someone’s long hair.) 
(Narration: Armed with scissors, they would cut boys’ hair when it was deemed too long and shred their bell bottoms—a sign of “capitalist decadence,” they claimed.) 

Panel 5 
(A police officer with a baton leads two women into the back of a police van.) 
(Narration: As for women in miniskirts, they were hauled off by the cops and sometimes even sent to UMAPS.) 

Panel 6 
(Two police officers with batons attack a woman in a torn minidress.) 
Woman: Let go! You’re hurting me, you pervert! 
Officer: This’ll teach you to sneer at the revolution! 

Panel 7 
(Locks of cut hair and scraps of fabric lie in the street.) 

Panel 8 
(Close-up of adult Alejandro’s eye, with a concerned expression.) 
Alejandro: The revolution now had a new face, one it’s worn ever since: the face of oppression!