I never meant to imply Cubans were free of racism. Slavery wasn't even outlawed in Cuba until the 1890s. And my family would have been appalled if I had brought home a black girl for dinner, even more so if I had a sister who brought home a black boyfriend. Of course, they weren't too happy when I brought a white girl home for dinner, either.

But Cuban racism was social, cultural, even class related, the two races did not mix, at least not officially, there was plenty of interracial sexual hypocrisy in the old country. Every well-to do gentleman had his negrita on the side.

But legalized segregation and Jim Crow was something else. Nothing like the Klan existed in Cuba. Lynching was an outrage. They simply could not understand how something like this could be allowed to happen in the most advanced democracy in the world. It was like the death camps in Germany, but no one even bothered to try and cover it up.

Granted, the whole country wasn't like that, and even in the South, the Klan was considered somewhat disreputable and extreme even by most whites. But the hatred and the viciousness of southern racism was simply inconceivable to us.

It made a deep impression on me.