Roberto Valero
Roberto Rodríguez Valero, born in Matanzas, Cuba, was a prominent Cuban exile writer known for his poignant poetry and critiques of the Cuban government. Growing up in an environment rich in Afro-Cuban culture, Valero's early experiences at the University of Havana were marred by discontent with the socialist regime under Fidel Castro, leading to his participation in the mass exodus known as the Mariel boatlift in 1980. Arriving in Miami, he faced challenges associated with the stigma of being a "Marielito" but eventually flourished as a writer.
Valero's literary contributions include several poetry collections and essays, through which he explored themes of exile, identity, and the human condition. He achieved notable recognition, including a literary prize from the University of Miami for his work on fellow writer Reinaldo Arenas. His writing, characterized by a blend of political critique and personal reflection, garnered him respect in literary circles and comparisons to the renowned poet Federico García Lorca. Tragically, Valero's life was cut short by complications from AIDS at the age of thirty-nine, yet his legacy endures through his impactful body of work.
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Subject Terms
Roberto Valero
Cuban-born poet, writer, and educator
- Born: 1955
- Birthplace: Matanzas, Cuba
- Died: September 23, 1994
- Place of death: Washington, D. C.
An exile from Cuba, Valero came to the United States, where he wrote poetry and essays in Miami and then in Washington, D.C. He later earned a doctoral degree, taught at the university level, and lectured and read widely in Europe and Latin America.
Early Life
Roberto Rodríguez Valero (roh-BEHR-toh rahd-REE-gehs vah-LEHR-oh) was born in Matanzas, Cuba, a community about sixty miles from Havana, the island’s capital. Matanzas, a center of Afro-Cuban culture, is known as “the Athens of Cuba” because of the large number of poets who came from there. During the mid-1970’s, Valero attended the University of Havana, where the motto over the gates read: “This university is only for revolutionaries.” Valero, who wished to become a writer, did not earn a degree. Like many students, teachers, and intellectuals, he chafed under the rule of Fidel Castro and became increasingly disenchanted with socialism.
Valero and others were outspoken in their criticism of a repressive university life. The curriculum was disorganized; class content was heavily political and had no relevance to the students’ intended careers. University students had little freedom, even when not in the classroom. They were often required to gather en masse to welcome visitors who wished to witness the results of communism at first hand, or to assemble and enthusiastically applaud Castro’s harangues. Students suffered in silence until early 1980, when a group of dissenters used a bus to crash through barriers in order to seek asylum at the Peruvian embassy in Havana. Hundreds of people joined the protest, and Valero was one of more than eleven hundred individuals crowded onto the embassy grounds hoping for sanctuary.
The demonstration took the government by surprise. In April, Castro announced that anyone who wanted could leave the island. Valero became part of a mass exodus of Cubans, the third such migration that occurred since the revolution of 1959 (there would be a fourth exodus in the early 1990’s). The dissidents left for the United States and elsewhere from the port of Mariel, west of Havana; hence, they were called “Marielitos.” Between April and October 31, 1980, when the port was closed, some 125,000 Cubans went into exile, most of them traveling by watercraft in an operation that became known as the Mariel boatlift. Among the voluntary exiles were many Cubans—Juan Abreau, Reinaldo Arenas, Miguel Correa, Carlos Alfonzo, Reinaldo García Ramos, Carlos Victoria, Felipe García Villamil, and Valero—who were destined to become important writers, musicians, artists, actors, dancers, and filmmakers.
Life’s Work
Valero landed in Miami, Florida, where he worked as a waiter and at other jobs to earn money and enjoyed newfound freedoms of expression and sexuality. It was difficult overcoming the public perception of the Marielitos, because the media reported that Castro had emptied prisons and mental institutions and sent the inmates into exile with the other immigrants. (Records indicate that some twenty-three hundred refugees had prison records, though most crimes were political, and many of those confined in institutions were homosexuals, considered deviants in Cuba.) Valero in his spare time wrote poetry and essays, sometimes under the pseudonym Julio Real. He won a literary prize from the University of Miami for an article about an openly gay friend, fellow writer, and exile, entitled “The Homeless Humor of Reinaldo Arenas.” Valero cofounded Mariel literary magazine, published from 1983 to 1986. He released his first poetry collection, Desde un oscuro ángulo (From an Obscure Angle) in 1982, and followed up with a second collection, En fin, la noche (Finally, the Night), in 1984 and a collection of poetic prose, Dharma (1985). He married Maria Badias, a painter and the translator of his poems into English, and the couple had two daughters.
Valero studied on a fellowship at Georgetown University, where he earned a doctoral degree. He then taught Spanish-American literature at George Washington University, and he released a novel, This Lenten Wind, and two additional poetry collections: Venias (1990; You Were Coming) and No estare en tu camino (1991; I Will Not Stand in Your Way). A popular speaker, he was in great demand to read his poems at venues throughout the United States, in Europe, and in Latin America. In 1994, he fell ill and, like other Cuban exiles, such as painters Carlos Alfonzo and Ernesto Briel and writers Reinaldo Arenas, Humberto Dionisio, and Luis Boza, Valero became a victim of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), at that time an incurable disease. Valero died from complications of AIDS at the age of thirty-nine.
Significance
Known primarily for writings that mercilessly excoriated the Cuban government, Roberto Valero also wrote nostalgically about his homeland and explored the human condition in his poetry. One of his best-known poems is an epic “ . . . But No One Knows His Name,” which examines the relationship between humanity and the deities. Other poems, like “Roberto,” “Phone Call,” “Exile,” and “Islands Are Evil and Nobody Knows It,” are more personal and ironically humorous. Valero, a Cintras Fellow, won the Letras de Oro Literary Prize in 1989. Well respected in the literary community, Valero during his short life left a body of writing that has been favorably compared to the work of poet Federico García Lorca.
Bibliography
Gracia, Jorge J. E., Lynette M. F. Bosch, and Isabel Alvarez Borland, eds. Identity, Memory, and Diaspora: Voices of Cuban-American Artists, Writers, and Philosophers. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2009. This collection of interviews with leading Cuban-American intellectuals and creatives touches on many of the issues, subjects, and themes common to the work of these exiles.
Greenhill, Kelly M. Weapons of Mass Migration: Forced Displacement, Coercion, and Foreign Policy. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2010. A well-researched study of the causes and effects of movements of large groups of people —like the Marielitos—from one place to another for political purposes.
Rieff, David. The Exile: Cuba in the Heart of Miami. New York: Touchstone, 2002. An examination of the impact of relocation, both on individual immigrants and on the community to which many Cubans were transplanted.