A complete, trusting acceptance of the new ways of the adopted country is not possible for these psyches. Feelings of gratitude for the benevolence of the land that shelters them are intertwined with equally sincere suspiciousness and detachment. Only after a long time, and particularly if children are born to the emigrant in the new land, can a more complete adaptation take place. In many cases, this never happens, and the immigrant protects life by encumbering it within the safe confines of a community of like-minded émigrés, with whom to exchange glamorized reminiscences of their quondam lives in the old country and passionate criticism of their present situation.

Not even great émigré artists, like Stravinsky, Schoenberg, De Falla or Rachmaninoff have been free from this syndrome.

As a child of exiles, I have witnessed these reactions in my parents, with whom I left Cuba in 1960. They were profoundly affected, emotionally, physically and intellectually, by their separation from their place of birth, despite the fact of having had a rather international professional experience, prior to our definitive departure, and a rather sophisticated, internationalist outlook. On my part, I have chosen to migrate on several occasions, for professional reasons, and it is only since my arrival in Denver, in 1983, that I can describe my life, from that standpoint, as stable.

In the meantime, my professional choices have imposed circumstances of uprootedness to my wife and children, who were born in Spain. They too have shared in my loss of place, as I did with my parents'.

Although my physical contact with Cuba ended when I was 11 years old, the culture, its music, accent, food and sense of life, were definitive in my upbringing. My mother, who had started a career as a popular singer of beautiful voice and uncanny artistic instincts, exchanged her professional ambitions, as did many women of her generation, for marriage and a family, but shared with me, from very early on, her love and familiarity with the lovely repertoire of Cuban boleros, sones and danzones that, to this day, remain part of my favorite music.

I still remember with gusto seeing my mother and father dance the Cuban danzón, with the aristocratic demeanor indispensable to do justice to this elegant salon dance. But I also remember the amazing control, sensual energy and sheer joy of their mambos, rumbas and guarachas, the fast but never furious Cuban dances that were the genesis and, in fact, the best examples yet of what is known today as "Latin salsa".

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