Author speaks on her dual identity as lesbian and Cuban

Cuban-born lesbian author Achy Obejas discussed her dual identities at the Greenfield Intercultural Center Friday as part of the 15th-annual Festival Latino de Penn and the Bisexual Gay Lesbian Transgendered Awareness Days. Members of the audience were drawn to the event for many reasons, ranging from students who attended the event as part of a class requirement to fifth-year English graduate student Julie Crawford, who said she went because "Obejas is one of my favorite writers? and I want to support B-GLAD." Obejas began the afternoon by reading long excerpts from her latest novel, Memory Mambo. She stressed that the widespread belief that her writing is autobiographical is a misconception. "It is inevitable for me to write about queers. And it is inevitable for me to write about Cubans [and] Latinos," she said. "My writing is not autobiographical, but it draws from my own experiences naturally. I don't intend to show the intersections." Following her reading, many audience members asked about Obejas' experiences in Cuba, both as a lesbian and as a Cuban lesbian. Obejas discussed Cuban culture since Fidel Castro took over the country, noting that two million of the estimated nine million Cubans worldwide choose to live in the country -- largely because of the government. Obejas grew up in a Jewish community in Michigan City, Ind. Her family fled Cuba by boat when Obejas was 6 years old. Now, at 41, Obejas supports herself between books by working as a journalist at the Chicago Tribune. After the audience discovered that she was Jewish as well, Obejas responded to questions about whether she had found it awkward being Jewish as well as Cuban and a lesbian. "[That question] assumes that I have been something else, had another option," she said. "I am Cuban. Being lesbian? makes me who I am. It was never an epiphany -- I just integrated it into my life when I realized I was queer." After being asked about the United States economic embargo on Cuba, Obejas noted that Cubans still have easy access to items such as Coca Cola and the New York version of The New York Times. "The problem with the embargo is that it is forcing everyone's hand, so the focus is to get dollars," she said. "Nothing is in place besides Castro, of all people, to keep the brakes on this." Obejas also emphasized the problems caused by the country's housing shortage and distorted economy, noting that a doorman at a tourist hotel often makes more than a university professor. She concluded that "things are different in Cuba, because day-to-day life is different," noting that homosexuality is illegal under Cuba's constitution.