Tasha Haight

Professor Carey
Crime and Punishment in Latin America
Bolender Memo
March 17, 2015
Americas Hidden Horrors
When people think of the United States of America, they usually think of three things: the
land of the free, the home of the brave, and America the great. But just what is so great about
this nation? According to Bolender, the United States is responsible for a lot of terrible attacks
and actions against Cuba, a nation only 90 miles south of Florida. Keith Bolender threatens the
well-known idea of America the Great constantly in his book Voices from the Other Side: an
Oral History of Terrorism against Cuba.
It is one of Bolenders main points to bring up issues and past occurrences of United
States aggression on Cuba, which are mostly unknown by the general public. Because they are
so unheard of, a lot of these stories and accusations seem extremely far-fetched and it is hard to
believe the good ole United States had anything to do with any of it. He brings in Cuban natives
to then support his claims, making the allegations more realistic but still just as unbelievable and
shocking to the patriotic American.
One shocking event explored in the later chapters of the book involved bombings of a
movie theatre, Pinar del Rio. Although for once Bolender makes no claims as to whom might be
responsible, besides mentioning that the doorman was part of it, with a book so much against the

United States it is not hard to make assumptions about what the author is intending, especially by
frequently mentioning the Bay of Pigs, a well-known American attack against Cuba. This
bombing took place only days after. Hundreds of little children, adults, and families were stuck
inside the cine while the fire erupted. The bombers wanted them all to die. Whether people
believe it to be caused by the anti-Castro groups or the United States, it is an awful situation to
have occurred and makes one feel sorry and pity for Cuba and the innocents that get damaged in
the crossfire of a terrible time.
By developing the cultural aspects of the situations and introducing locals and having
them tell the stories, Bolender does a great job at giving his book the Cuban national pride and
unity feeling that he is so strongly striving for. Sentences such as Luis speaks in short, clipped
sentences, his eyes and hands animated (194) and with a population of just over 150,000 it has
all the traditional aspects of a Cuban town narrow streets, concrete homes, the ubiquitous
apartment blocks, a variety of hospitals, medical facilities and sports arenas (198) really enforce
that fact that this is a real place with real people and they arent the terrorists, but the ones being
terrorized. Because his real key push is for people to understand the acts against Cuba during
this time, including these aspects really help out his argument.
While reading this though, one cant help but wonder if the United States was truly
involved in such attacks, how did it remain such a secret and how often has it been done to other
countries? People are escaping their own countries to try to come to the United States for a
refuge, yet with the United States behind certain attacks like Operations Peter Pan and
Mongoose, is the government in the USA really any better, behind closed doors, than that which
is being left? Maybe it is the fact that the US torments other countries instead of their own
people that makes the difference, but one can never be sure of what goes on behind closed doors.