Your Mom’s Food with Soledad O’Brien

Baby Soledad with her Mom

On The Sporkful podcast mini-series "Your Mom’s Food" the third installment featured Soledad O’Brien (listen to "Soledad O'Brien Cooks Rice, Not Beans").

Soledad's Afro-Cuban mom and Irish-Australian dad got married when interracial marriage was still illegal in parts of the US. Their different cultures didn't really come together at the dinner table.

Her mom offered them her Cuban food heritage, but other than an occasional potato for her father there was nothing from the Irish-Australian. That's not surprising when mom rules the kitchen.

Like many kids, Soledad grew up thinking everyone always had rice and beans at meals. Bringing churros to school on special occasions didn't seem all that unusual.

"I don't think when I was growing up that I really understood how cut off my mom was," Soledad says. Her mother, Estela Lucrecia Marquetti y Mendieta, left Havana in 1947. Her father, Edward Ephram O’Brien, was raised in Toowoomba, Australia.

A young Soledad

Soledad was born in 1966 and there was no chance that her family could go visit relatives in Cuba due to travel bans.

"We were a black/Latino family in a 99 percent white community. There was no Cuban cuisine. All you have left of your childhood is a handful of recipes."

Soledad's mom made Cuban food a big part of their childhood on Long Island, NY as a way to stay connected to Cuba.

Soledad was not much interested in cooking as a kid and still finds little time or interest  in it today, but she regrets that she never learned to cook her mom's black beans. Today her mom has dementia. "My mom made it so well for so long," Soledad says, "It just never occurred to me that there'd be a day that she wasn't going to make them."

In the podcast, Soledad talks about how she keeps her own children in touch with her mom's Cuban culture, despite never learning to cook her mom's cuisine.

Remembering Loved Ones Who Have Passed

Allison Gilbert is the author of several books, including Passed and Present: Keeping Memories of Loved Ones Alive and she spoke with Soledad O'Brien for the Huffington Post about why remembering loved ones is so important.

Soledad told about one memento that reminds her of her Cuban grandparents:

I have this great photo of my grandparents in the 1940’s at a famous hotel in Cuba called La Floridita. My grandfather used to tell people that he helped create La Floridita. It has always been one of my favorite pictures. I keep it in a small album in my room.

My life’s work has been to share real stories with real people. Naturally when it comes to loved ones I have lost, my favorite way to remember them is to share stories about them. 

Everyone deals with loss differently, but it is a part of life. It’s something we all have to deal with at some point or another. I have not let loss derail my positive energy, but rather, I try to keep my chin up and think of all of the wonderful memories we shared. The lessons I learned from them, and what that person brought into my life, are all far more valuable to me than the sadness I feel because they’re gone.

Soledad's mother and grandmother in Cuba, 1944

Soledad O’Brien Took Part in Historic Cuba Trip With President Obama

via www.gannett-cdn.com

Soledad O’Brien first visited Cuba in 1998, when she covered Pope John Paul II’s historic trip there for NBC News.

She has returned to the island many times since, but usually as journalist. Now, she is returning this time to moderate separate panels with President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama on their historic first visit.

The White House asked Soledad, whose mother's roots are in Cuba, to moderate two events. On Monday, the First Lady met with Cuban teenage girls, some of whom have studied in the United States.

Later in the day, O’Brien moderated a panel with President Obama and entrepreneurs, in which Americans who have started their own business will share advice to their Cuban counterparts.

Soledad travels to Cuba every two years to visit family. Her mother grew up in poverty and left Cuba in the 1950s, before Fidel Castro came to power. Her mother finally got to return with O’Brien on a trip to Cuba about 10 years ago.

This trip, she is bringing her 15-year-old and 14-year-old daughters and 11-year-old twin boys. It is the first time they will be able to meet their relatives and get a sense of what life is like for Cuban teenagers.

Source: variety.com/2016/biz/news/soledad-obrien

Strong Opinions on Obama's Cuba Policy

President Obama's move to normalize relations with Cuba is receiving major pushback, but he is doing what he promised voters he would do.

Senator Rubio wants to continue Cold War tactics that’ve failed the interests of the United States and the general population of Cuba. He opines that, “All this is going to do is give the Castro regime, which controls every aspect of Cuban life, the opportunity to manipulate these changes to perpetuate itself in power.” He holds onto to these antiquated views despite the fact that as far back as 2009, a Washington Post — ABC News survey told us that two-thirds of the American people supported restoration of diplomatic relations with Cuba. That number has increased.

On the other hand, Soledad O’Brien, whose mother is Cuban, puts a human face on the harm of the embargo. She tells the sad story of her mother having to miss the funerals of five of her siblings because of the restrictions on travel to Cuba through the years. How truly sad this is when our diplomatic policies fly in the face of our “family values” rhetoric.

more at http://flcourier.com/2014/12/25/cuba-its-about-time/

Soledad O'Brien: What dare I think about Cuba?

Soledad's mother and grandmother in Cuba, 1944

Soledad O'Brien wrote an opinion piece on the CNN site about her Cuban mother and her relationship to the country she left in light of the recent change in the United States own relationship to Cuba.

My mom left the island to escape the poverty, the racism and the sweltering heat. She left before Fidel Castro's ascent and U.S. politics had hijacked foreign policy. She left before both governments stranded thousands of people on a communist island suffering a punishing boycott.

Her departure was not about politics. She was black and poor and looking for an opportunity to study. She was just 14 when she left her family to live with the Oblate sisters, an order of black nuns in Maryland. She never looked back -- because she just couldn't. That's when my family's disconnect from Cuba began.

My mom almost never ever spoke about Cuba, not about her culture or her distant family, not about the life before she met my dad, another immigrant, and they had the six of us. For me, and the thousands of people like me who lost touch with Cuba, this is what Thursday's news is about. A president born 10 months before the boycott -- the 10th president during Castro's rule -- has finally given us a chance to see for ourselves what our parents left behind.

President Obama is banking on younger Cuban Americans like me to be more open to change than the angry exiles from the first wave of immigration. He also relies on statistics showing six in 10 Americans want the United States to have ties to Cuba. The Cold War has passed, and to some younger people from all walks of life, the issue of Cuba is old news. The anger toward Cuba no longer makes sense. He is letting us get a real look at where Cuba stands today, hoping the anger toward that nation will subside, even as some Republicans hope it will not.

What does this change mean to her?

I can visit my family, do some reporting and writing, visit a church or take a class. I can go to a concert and share a drink. I can even take home some rum. I know the politics are complicated. I haven't forgotten about Castro and the many people I've met here and there who can never forget the past, or the excesses of the present. But the question hovering above all this is not just whether reconnecting our two countries was the right thing to do, it was whether it will expand the cultural, political and personal view that the two have of each other. I think so -- it has for me.

read  "What my mother left behind" by Soledad O'Brien on www.cnn.com

Cuba Concert Video

View video of Soledad O'Brien in Havana talking to performer and organizer Juanes about his recent Paz Sin Fronteras concert in Cuba. The show ran well past the 4-hour scheduled time and about attracted 1.2 million people - about one-third the population of Cuba - who partied in 90 degree heat.

Soledad O'Brien in Cuba

Soledad O'Brien spent part of her birthday weekend in Cuba to broadcast from the "Concert for Peace" live in Havana on Sunday.

CNN's American Morning and CNN Newsroom will be covered the concert which took place in the Plaza de la Revolución. The concert created some controversy in the United States.

O'Brien interviewed Colombian music star Juanes who organized the concert, and Willy Chirino who will also be featured in her Latino in America documentary which airs in October.

Soledad's mother, Estella, is black of of Cuban heritage. She emigrated to the U.S. in the 1950's.