A Sense of Belonging: From Castro's Cuba to the U.S. Senate, One Man's Pursuit of the American Dream
Author: Mel Martinez
The swift and improbable rise of Mel Martinez to the top echelon of America’s government began not with a political race but with a burst of gunfire. In April 1958, an eleven-year-old Martinez huddled on his bedroom floor while Cuban soldiers opened fire on insurgents outside his family’s home in the normally sleepy town of Sagua la Grande. With that hail of bullets, the idyllic Cuba of his boyhood was shattered.
If political unrest made daily life disturbing and at times frightening, Fidel Castro’s Communist Revolution nine months later was nothing short of devastating. Martinez’s Catholic school was suddenly shuttered as the Communist regime threw priests out of the country. A sixteen-year-old boy from his town was seized and killed by a firing squad. When armed militiamen shouted violent threats at Martinez for wearing a cloth medallion as a sign of his Catholic faith, his parents made a heartrending decision: their son would have to escape the Castro regime—alone.
Under the greatest secrecy, the Martinez family arranged through a special church program to have Mel airlifted out of Cuba to America. After months of painstaking planning (and a simple mistake that nearly scuttled the entire arrangement), fifteen-year-old Martinez stepped on a plane bound for Miami. He had no idea when—or if—he would see his family again.
A Sense of Belonging is the riveting account of innocence lost, exile sustained by religious faith, and an immigrant’s gritty determination to overcome the barriers of language and culture in his adopted homeland. Martinez warmly recalls a bucolic childhood in Cuba, playing baseball,fishing at the beach, and accompanying his father on veterinary visits to neighboring farms. He also vividly recounts the harrowing changes under Castro that forced him to flee, as well as the arduous years he spent in American refugee camps and foster homes. And he captures the sheer joy of being reunited with his family after four years of wrenching separation. Having embraced life in America, he set about the delicate task of guiding his parents through their struggles with assimilation while also building his own family and career.
Through it all, Martinez embodies the ideal of service to others, whether comforting a younger child on the flight from Havana to Miami or giving legal advice pro bono to his father’s friends in the Cuban-American community. Though his story ends in the hallowed halls of the U.S. Capitol, Martinez has never forgetten the boy who experienced the loss of liberty under Communism. A Sense of Belonging is a paean to the transformative power of the American Dream.
Table of Contents:
Prologue: Departures and Arrivals 1
Ch. 1 Homeland 9
Ch. 2 Revolution 29
Ch. 3 Exit Strategy 43
Ch. 4 Exile 51
Ch. 5 Homecoming 67
Ch. 6 Crisis 79
Ch. 7 Graduation 89
Ch. 8 A New Course 103
Ch. 9 Reunion 117
Ch. 10 Ownership 135
Ch. 11 Turning Points 147
Ch. 12 Kitty 155
Ch. 13 New Homes 165
Ch. 14 Margarita 179
Ch. 15 Serving 199
Ch. 16 Washington 215
Epilogue: Dreams 227
Acknowledgments 239
Book review: I Hate to Exercise Book for People with Diabetes or The South Beach Diet
The Prince: A Revised Translation, Backgrounds, Interpretations, Marginalia
Author: Niccolo Machiavelli
The most famous book on politics ever written, The Prince remains as lively and shocking today as when it was written almost five hundred years ago. Initially denounced as a collection of sinister maxims and a recommendation of tyranny, it has more recently been defended and indeed applauded as the first scientific treatment of politics as it is practiced rather than as it ought to be practiced. A masterpiece of effective prose, The Prince is at once comic and formidable, imaginative and calculating, fascinating and chilling. Its influence in modern history has been profound, and - often considered to be the first modern book - it was surely a primary text for the modern philosophers who challenged the traditions of ancient and medieval thought and morality. Mansfield's translation of this classic work, in combination with the new material added for this edition, makes it the definitive version of The Prince, indispensable to scholars, students, and lovers of the dark art of politics.
A.J. Sobczak, formerly with California State University, Northridge - Library Journal
First published in 1517, this classic treatise on the art of practical politics remains a fascinating and powerful work. Laying down uncompromising guidelines for successful leadership, Machiavelli leaves no room for indecision or weakness, and his text comes alive in the voice of actor Fritz Weaver. The narrator's performance is energetic and committed, heightening the dramatic impact of such controversial mandates as the necessary destruction of all the members of a ruling family, of inflicting violence once and for all, or of acting cruelly for the sake of unity. The text is prefaced by the unidentified translator's enlightening introduction. The packaging is aesthetically appealing but flimsy. Definitely recommended for academic and large public libraries.
--Sister M. Anna Falbo CSSF, Villa Maria College Library, Buffalo. N.Y.
— Charles L. Lumpkins, Pennsylvania State University, University Station
Library Journal
First published in 1517, this classic treatise on the art of practical politics remains a fascinating and powerful work. Laying down uncompromising guidelines for successful leadership, Machiavelli leaves no room for indecision or weakness, and his text comes alive in the voice of actor Fritz Weaver. The narrator's performance is energetic and committed, heightening the dramatic impact of such controversial mandates as the necessary destruction of all the members of a ruling family, of inflicting violence once and for all, or of acting cruelly for the sake of unity. The text is prefaced by the unidentified translator's enlightening introduction. The packaging is aesthetically appealing but flimsy. Definitely recommended for academic and large public libraries.
--Sister M. Anna Falbo CSSF, Villa Maria College Library, Buffalo. N.Y.
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