The Sweet Sound of an Immigrant’s Success
Cuban-born immigrant Emilio Estefan owes his vast business empire — including Grammy-winning records, restaurants, and hotels — to the opportunities afforded him as a United States citizen.
None of it would have been possible had he stayed in Cuba, a country transformed into a freedom-squelching nightmare by its former leader, Fidel Castro.
Estefan’s new book, The Rhythm of Success, recalls the author’s decision to flee Cuba as a young teen and his subsequent rise to fame and fortune.
Part self-help tome, part autobiography, Success is an unabashed love letter to the U.S.
“Is there any other country in the world that has been so generous to so many people?” he asks.
It’s also a fresh reminder of how Castro created an atmosphere in which people will risk everything for the chance to escape.
The book belabors the obvious at times, particularly when the author is doling out commonsense business advice. But readers should be patient. Estefan’s life story, that of an immigrant who snatched every chance his new country gave him, makes for a compelling narrative full of warm, colorful anecdotes.
“My childhood ended when I was eleven,” Estefan writes on the very first page. His young mind couldn’t process all the changes happening to Cuba in the 1960s, but he understood “freedom was a place where soldiers didn’t come to your home and herd people around with machine guns.”
Estefan recalls the chilling effect the government’s oppressive policies had on family and friends alike. Those who could leave did. He managed to escape along with his father to Spain and later to the U.S., cleaving his tight-knit family in two.
He remembers getting letters from his mother and brother, some sliced and diced by Cuban officials, others with words blacked out.
The young Cuban arrived in the United States with “nothing but a suitcase full of dreams and a heart filled with hope and optimism. That, it seems, was enough,” he writes.
thump thump thump go the neocon hammers
Does anybody think this kind of touchy feelie journalism will make us decide we want to give our country away to Latin America?
but then … those who thump thump thump care nothing for the rest of us… it’s always the same 2% who care only for their capital and how to get more of it by swelling the ranks with cheap, exploitable labor….
using, um, teary testimonials…. what a racket!
Somewhere, at some time, I heard that Ms. Estefan’s husband actually is of ARAB descent, just as I am. Now, if that’s true, just why is Mr. Estefan identified as Latino? Could it possibly be that Latin countries EXPECT immigrants to their countries to assimilate to the culture of the country, including respect for its laws?
Interesting so few comments about this success story. Just a couple of grouches. Also interesting that in a world where blacks are being accorded every imaginable graciousness, e.g. the Grammy’s, tv roles, news coverage, movie roles, mega-buck sports contracts, in an attempt by Hollywood and liberals to make restitution for the sins of the past, that the Latino success is not similarly recognized. Just the crass hip-hop, vulgar, in your face I’m black – your not and “we deserve to rape you, whitey” attitude that will turn on them in the long run. Give the man credit for working hard his whole life, for creating something, giving people jobs, creating wealth, having a wife and family he loves. Not that the grouches care for any of these things. Heck, those are just dreams anyway. The fact that one Latino man made it doesn’t mean a hill of beans to them. To me it does. To the US it does. To the world it does because it is people like him that keep civilization moving ahead for the better, at least in his domain, music.
The truth is that the Estefans have set up a mini-empire in Miami that suppresses new music and is hostile to the new generation of Cuban refugees.
They also pretend to the idiot Miami public to be oh so anti-Castro, yet their closest friends are ultra-leftists like Rosie O’Donnell (lives across the street from them on Star Island.