CUBA, NOT ALABAMA

Regarding Grace Edwards-Yearwood’s review of Oscar Hijuelos’ “The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love” (Book Review, Sept. 3): I am Cuban-born, and when I was a student at Havana University, I threw rocks at the Batista police. Edwards-Yearwood is incorrect, however, in stating that in Batista’s Cuba, “White musicians entered through one door and mulatto and black musicians entered through another.”

I don’t know if this statement is in Hijuelos’ novel, but in any case there is a need for a correction. Cuba was not Alabama. There was only one door for all Cubans. In fact, the first Cuban vice president, elected in 1902, was a black man. Cubans who live in the United States consider themselves Cubans, not blacks or whites. Neither music nor baseball was ever segregated in Cuba.

ANTONIO PEREZ

GLENDALE