SENSE OF BELONGING, A(ISBN=9780307405418) 英文原版 下载 pdf 2025 网盘 epub 在线 mobi 免费

　　The remarkable story of how a teenager rescued from Castro’s

Cuba rose to become a United States senator

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 town of Sagua la

Grande.

If political unrest made daily life disturbing and at times

frightening, Fidel Castro’s Communist Revolution nine months later

was nothing short of devastating. When armed militiamen shouted

violent threats at Martinez for wearing a medallion as a sign of

his Catholic faith, his parents made a heartrending decision: their

son would have to escape the Castro regime–alone.

A Sense of Belonging is the riveting account of innocence lost,

exile sustained by religious faith, and an immigrant’s

determination to overcome the barriers of language and culture in

his adopted homeland. Though his story ends in the United States

Capitol, Martinez has never forgotten 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.

Prologue　DEPARTURES AND ARRIVALS

Chapter 1　HOMELAND

Chapter z　REVOLUTION

Chapter 3　EXIT STRATEGY

Chapter 4　EXILE

Chapter 5　HOMECOMING

Chapter 6　CRISIS

Chapter 7　GRADUATION

Chapter 8　A NEW COURSE

Chapter 9　REUNION

Chapter 1O　OWNERSHIP

Chapter 11　TURNING POINTS

　　MEL MARTINEZ is a United States senator from Florida.

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　　Chapter 1

　　Homeland

　　Darkness. A porch. A warm ocean breeze. The sound of voices—my

father’s, and those of the old fishermen gathered around him.

Stories about fishing, storms, boats, life.

　　These are my earliest memories. They are memories collected at my

family’s quaint summer beach house at Playa Uvero, fifteen miles

from our hometown of Sagua la Grande. My father’s father had built

the house in this fishing village on the northern coast of Cuba

long before it became a popular summer vacation spot. At that time

Playa Uvero was the year-round home only to charcoal makers and

professional fishermen. When my grandfather and other early

vacationers settled, they built their houses near the locals’

homes, far back from the water’s edge. Later vacationers built

houses on stilts close to the shore.

　　Sadly, I never knew my grandfather—he died when I was only forty

days old—but the beach house he put up in the 1920s is the backdrop

for some of my most vivid recollections of childhood. That porch in

particular: it’s as if I can still hear the buzzing of insects in

my ear and see the weathered fishermen trading stories with my

father.

　　My father, who had been coming to this village every summer since

his own childhood, was very outgoing and friendly and loved to

talk. He had a booming voice that, along with his heavyset frame,

made him a real presence. So our porch became a social center, with

men from the village gathering there most nights. I would plop down

in my dad’s lap or, later as I grew bigger, would sit cross-legged

on the porch, listening to them talk. We would be enshrouded in

darkness, for the simple reason that our rustic little home

had

　　no electricity. A small windmill supplied only enough electricity

to charge a car battery, which in turn powered a couple of

lightbulbs. We wouldn’t have used the bulbs on the porch, since the

darkness helped keep away the ever-present bugs. For additional

lighting when needed, we used kerosene lanterns.

　　The stories these men shared were mesmerizing to a young boy. The

old fishermen had lived through World War II, when German

submarines combed the waters off Cuba. One man from the village

told a story about picking up some German sailors who were adrift

on a raft, hauling them into his fishing boat, bringing them

ashore, and turning them over to the authorities. It amazed me that

submariners from across the ocean had apparently patrolled so close

to our little home.

　　My father was a veterinarian in Sagua. Just as his father had

done before him, he would commute on weekdays in the summer, taking

a small railcar to and from Sagua, about an hour’s ride through the

green sugarcane fields of Central Resulta, the sugar mill in Sagua

la Grande. Meanwhile, the rest of our family stayed in Playa Uvero

from mid-June to mid-August. I didn’t mind the simple living

conditions— the lack of electricity and running water, the cistern

we relied on, the charcoal-burning stove and the kerosene

　　single-burner stove we had. I enjoyed the novelty of taking a

shower at Uvero. The bathroom shower was nothing more than a

five-gallon tank with a showerhead welded to the bottom. We would

fill the tank with warm water and hoist it using a pulley attached

to the ceiling. There was a cleat on the wall where we would tie

off the line holding it up. Once it was secure, the bather released

the water by pulling a cord one way for “on” and the other way for

“off.” Simple, but ingenious.

　　I loved spending the summers at Playa Uvero with my mother and my

younger brother, Ralph. There were always aunts, uncles, and

cousins visiting as well. Every Sunday, my great-uncle Mariano

would come for the big seafood lunch we shared as a family and

would bring fresh bread from Sagua with him. Sunday lunches were

always on the front porch, with the breeze gently blowing.

　　Playa Uvero was an idyllic setting for a boy. Cuba was a kind of

paradise to me, unrivaled in its physical beauty, its climate, and

the warmth and friendliness of its people. I got to see the sun

sparkle on the water in the daytime and then watch it set as a

fiery red ball at dinnertime. As a small child I played for hours

in the sand, and as I got older I would pass entire days swimming

and fishing.

　　My father passed many things on to me—not least being my name,

Melquiades, which was also the name of my grandfather and my great-

grandfather before him. A love of fishing was one of the many

traits I shared with my dad. He was big on fishing, and he taught

me the techniques of hand-line fishing and net fishing. We just

threw the line out with a weight on it and held it firmly in hand,

then pulled when a fish struck. We also would cast a net for bait,

snaring small fish in the mesh. When I got older I got my own small

cast net. I developed a routine: catch bait with my cast net, then

go fish until lunchtime.

　　My dad would often go out in our twenty-three-foot boat and fish

for the whole weekend. Sundays would be filled with anticipation

for his return. My mother would bring my brother and me to the

shore in the afternoon to await his arrival. Often when Papi came

back, his boat would be practically overflowing with fish—grouper,

snapper, yellowtail. It was more than we could ever eat in those

days before reliable refrigeration. So he would wait for the

commercial fishermen (many of them his old friends) to come in and

sell their catch on the beach. Once he was sure he wasn’t

undercutting any of the professionals, he would give away his extra

fish.

　　When I was around ten, my dad finally started taking me on

overnight trips. Sleeping and eating on the boat seemed like heaven

on earth. On one occasion Papi bought lobsters from some commercial

fishermen. The lobsters he cooked made for not only a wonderful

dinner but also a rare breakfast treat: the next morning I ate the

leftover lobster, cold with stale Cuban bread.

　　When I turned twelve I received the greatest summer gift ever. My

parents surprised me with my own twelve-foot rowing dinghy,

complete with a live well. This was a dream come true. It was handy

for my father’s fishing trips—my job was to row while he and the

other adults threw a cast net for bait fish—but during the week, it

was all mine. I would row out to my favorite fishing spots with a

friend. Being out there in the sea on my own gave me a quiet sense

of independence.

　　Fishing left me with memories of the best of Cuba and the best of

my childhood. To this day when asked I will always answer that it

is the thing I miss the most about Cuba.

　　= = =

　　So many of my recollections of Cuba involve family. The whole

family gathered every summer at Playa Uvero, of course, but that

was not the only place. It wasn’t unusual in Cuban families to have

several generations living under one roof. That was the situation I

experienced for the first six years of my life. We lived with my

father’s mother—my grandmother Graciela. Her home was a large

upstairs apartment located right in the center of Sagua la Grande.

Grandmother Graciela had a pretty balcony in the front and a little

courtyard in the back, where I have faint memories of riding my

tricycle and my scooter. I also recall going downstairs beneath the

balcony and getting the bus to take me to first grade and my first

school experience. My father drilled into me that when I got on the

bus I was to say good morning to the bus driver.

　　My own little universe was all right there in Sagua la Grande, a

city of maybe thirty thousand people located on the banks of the

Sagua River, about two hundred and twenty miles east of Havana, due

south of Miami. When I got a little older I could go everywhere in

town on my bike—my school, the ball field, my grandmother’s house,

my uncle’s house.

　　Sagua, though not a big city, was an important commercial center,

with a sugar mill, a foundry that made parts for sugar mills

throughout the country, and a thriving shipping business out of the

Port of Isabela de Sagua. The surrounding agricultural area was

rich in sugarcane, rice, and cattle. But those aspects of Sagua did

not really enter my world. It was simply a great place to grow

up.

　　Only about twelve miles from Sagua was the tiny rural town of

Quemado de Güines, home to my mother’s mother, Pilar Caro Ruiz. My

mother loved going home to see her mother. When Ralph and I were

young, she would often take us there for weekend visits. I would

sleep in that little wooden house and wake up with the sun

streaming in and the clip-clop of horses going down the street. An

old milkman would deliver on horseback, perched in the saddle with

a couple of big milk jugs strapped on either side of the horse in

straw bags. He would sing out to the ladies to come out of the

house. They would bring a container and he would pour the milk into

it. That was one of those little things I vividly recall—pastoral,

rural, rustic. It was typical of the life of a small Cuban town in

the 1950s. This was a long way from the glittering lights of

Havana’s nightlife.

　　= = =

　　Adventures were never hard to find, even when we were not at the

beach. My grandfather Melquiades, who built the beach house, also

owned a small soda-bottling factory in Sagua, Compa?ía de Refrescos

Purita, S.A. After his death, my great-uncle Mariano and my father

ran the business with their partners. Since my dad was busy with

his veterinarian job, Mariano oversaw the day-to-day operations. I

was constantly in and out of that little factory. Going there was

great fun for me. Many of the men who worked at the plant watched

me grow up. When I was a little boy, the bookkeeper entertained me

in the office. Later, as I grew older, I did some real work with

the men. Sometimes I’d help load the trucks with cases of soda and

then ride shotgun for the deliveries at restaurants and bars in and

around Sagua. Other times I’d load bottles into the bottle-washing

m...

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媒体评论

　　“Mel Martinez is a living embodiment of the American Dream.

From his early days under the iron-fisted rule of Fidel Castro to

his arrival in the United States at age fifteen, and now as a

member of the U.S. Senate, Mel has demonstrated grit, resolve, and

a commitment to fighting for the fundamental rights of freedom and

human dignity. This remarkable story not only gives a glimpse into

the life of a great man, but also reaffirms the notion that in

America, anything is possible.”

　　—John McCain

　　“An extraordinary and inspiring book, Mel Martinez’s account is

at once a memoir, a historical document, and a tribute to both his

native homeland and his adopted country. Of the fourteen thousand

stories that the children of the Pedro Pan airlift could tell, this

is definitely one of the most exemplary. Senator Martinez reveals

here, as he does in his public life, how the hyphen in

‘Cuban-American’ is like gold refined in a blazing furnace. Years

from now–even centuries from now –readers will surely marvel still

at the history recorded in these pages.”

　　—Carlos Eire, National Book Award—winning author of

Waiting

for Snow in Havana

　　From the Hardcover edition.

书籍介绍

The remarkable story of how a teenager rescued from Castro’s Cuba rose to become a United States senator

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 town of Sagua la Grande.

If political unrest made daily life disturbing and at times frightening, Fidel Castro’s Communist Revolution nine months later was nothing short of devastating. When armed militiamen shouted violent threats at Martinez for wearing a medallion as a sign of his Catholic faith, his parents made a heartrending decision: their son would have to escape the Castro regime–alone.

A Sense of Belonging is the riveting account of innocence lost, exile sustained by religious faith, and an immigrant’s determination to overcome the barriers of language and culture in his adopted homeland. Though his story ends in the United States Capitol, Martinez has never forgotten 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.