Reminiscing about his emigration from Japan to Cuba, he says "I boarded the Rakuyo Maru at Yokohama on January 6, 1928. It took 2 months to get to Cuba and we passed through Hawaii, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Mexico, and the Bahamas on the way. I arrived in Havana on March 2. I was 19 years old and I knew no one."

Listening to the lilt of Japanese in his voice, the very "Cuban-ness" that had been so apparent moments earlier seems to peel away. The face of an unmistakably Japanese man, the Japanese calendar on the wall and other defining trinkets emerge from the background into sharper relief. The connection between this man and a country 9,000 miles away comes into focus.

Naito, along with 1000 other issei ("first generation Japanese" or native-born migrants), arrived in Cuba during the early 20th century. Predominantly men, they sought to escape both the draft of the Japanese army and the poverty that gripped rural Japan. Olga Oye, a half-Japanese, half-Cuban nissei ("second generation Japanese") born in Cuba, comments on her father's experience. "Many of the first generation didn't speak of Japan. Times were very difficult, and they brought many bad feelings with them. My father never spoke of it nor did he ever receive a letter."

In seeking a better life, the majority settled on the Isla de Pinos (Isle of Pines,) known today as the Isla de la Juventud (Isle of Youth.) It lies sixty miles off the southern coast of Cuba, and the largest concentration of Japanese-Cubans still lives there today. Many families continue to cultivate the melons, cucumbers and other produce that helped earn the Japanese a reputation for being prosperous, hardworking people.

They maintained this reputation for success, even as they began dispersing throughout Cuba, into areas like the Western tobacco growing province of Pinar del Rio where Margarita Iwasaki, another half-Cuban, half-Japanese nissei, resides. "The Japanese were very successful. Instead of growing tobacco like everyone else, they introduced the cucumber [into Pinar del Rio]. It was only when the Cubans saw how much money they were making that they began growing vegetables here."

If her striking features expose this dual Japanese-Cuban history- she has the face of a Spanish flamenco dancer, olive skin and black hair that contrast with her slightly slanted Asiatic eyes--her next comment exposes the irony inherent in that history.

"Unfortunately, today we are in the same situation as Japan was during the war." She describes the daily life of food rations and power shortages that Cuba has faced in the past decade since the Soviet collapse and the start of Cuba's struggle for self-reliance. It is this sobering thought that underlies an experience with the Japanese-Cubans.

For all the parallels that can be drawn between these people and the modern Japanese, the overarching impression is that of the disparity between their lives in Cuba and life in present-day, capitalist Japan. A direct link continues to bind the two societies in the eight isseis who still live. However, historical happenstance now finds them living in a debilitated Communist country crippled by an ongoing US embargo--an embargo which severely strains Cuba's ability to engage in vital trade for supplies (medicine, fuel, food) and blocks it from tapping into an enormously lucrative American tourist market.

Meanwhile, their families and descendants who remain in Japan are enjoying the fruits of Japan's post-war economic miracle--an economic miracle that arguably has much to do with the benevolent (if heavy-handed) guidance of the US and whose success has made Japan the world's richest nation, second only to the US.

Forgetting the political backdrop is difficult when dealing with a community that has somehow stumbled into the vortex of Japanese, American and Cuban politics over the years. On this very topic, Naito symbolically stumbles into a mixture of Japanese and Spanish, "Ah, mira, here is the document summoning me to the Presidio Modelo." He hands me a paper curling at the edges and brown with age. "From February 4, 1943 to January 15, 1946 me tenían preso."

Preso. Prison. During World War II, the former Cuban government, bowing to US pressure, incarcerated Naito along with every Cuban male of Japanese origin over 18 years of age. Intuitively, he resorts to Spanish when referring to this incident, as though unable to find the words in his native tongue to describe a situation that occurred precisely because he was a foreigner in an adopted land. Only an appropriated language can attempt to capture the reasoning behind the incarceration of 350 innocent civilians by a government that was not even at war with Japan. Francisco Miyasaka, President of the Association of the Japanese Colony of Cuba, and a nissei, was four years old when his father was interned. He remarks, "In some sense, the situation was worse here than in the US [where Japanese were also interned] because in Cuba they only took away the breadwinners. This left the women and children to fend for themselves".

Such a predicament irrevocably affected the family of Kaoru Miyazawa, an 87-year-old resident of the Isla de la Juventud and one of the eight living issei. She describes how her family had saved money before the war with the intention of returning to Japan, but, after her husband's incarceration and the subsequent confiscation of their property, going home became a distant dream. "I had no house, no money, nothing to eat. My house was burnt down. I asked myself, 'What am I going to do?' Even the Cubans around me were asking the same question."

Hiroko Miyazawa, Kaoru's eldest daughter, recalls, "I was only six at the time but I remember that period. My mother made 35 pesos a month. After our house was burned down, we had to move very far away to build a new home. It was a place called Esperanza." The name Esperanza, meaning "Hope," is somehow symbolic, for the story of the Miyazawa family portrays a common theme: that of surrendering old hopes and establishing new ones, as many Japanese families began to rebuild their lives permanently in Cuba. The issei and older nissei response to this change of fortune has resulted in a remarkable world. In the midst of loud salsa music and blue-eyed, fair-haired grandchildren, they retain a microcosm of old Japan. Old photo albums depict long-lost Japanese relatives, framed scrolls of classical calligraphy line the walls, and traditional recipes are used to make miso paste in homemade vats. It all makes for an air of timeless somnolescence, especially evident in the remarkable form of Japanese that they speak. Though their speech is inflected with the occasional Spanish phrase, for the most part, their Japanese is the kind probably spoken a century ago. It is utterly devoid of the English "loanwords," which comprise more than ten percent of the popular Japanese vocabulary spoken today.

Arguably, the heart of Japanese identity resides with this generation, and they will take it with them when they depart. Certain customs remain strong: many communities retain a Japanese cemetery and celebrate the traditional obon festival honoring the spirits of the deceased. Yet, once again, Iwasaki puts things into perspective. When asked if she still cooks Japanese food, she responds, "Forget about it! Even if I were able to find it, I could never afford it earning Cuban pesos." When a bottle of imported soy sauce costs two-thirds of the average Cuban monthly salary, even simple culinary traditions become a luxury. For better or worse, the Japanese-Cuban is defined by his participation in the lonely experiment of Cuba--one of the few surviving Communist countries struggling to define an alternative in an increasingly capitalist world. It is an experiment that poses questions, not just to Japanese-Cubans, but to humanity as a whole. Yoshiko Uekawa's recent decision to immigrate to Cuba is a testament to this. The 39-year-old resident of the Isla de la Juventud, married to a Cuban nissei, says, "I worked as a nurse in Japan and I remember people not having enough money to go to the hospital. Here, at least fundamental human needs are met: education and healthcare are free... It's a much better place to raise children."

The clash of cultures and ideologies inherent in the Japanese Cuban experience becomes even more pronounced in someone like Miyasaka. A former Cuban revolutionary, he currently represents the Nissho Iwai trading company in Cuba and visits Japan regularly. "Having grown up in Cuba with a Western way of thinking, I could not work for Nissho in Japan. The [social] hierarchy would be unbearable. It would be very difficult for me. From a material point of view, Japan seems to have everything, but from a social one, it still lacks a lot"--a comment that, no doubt, could be true of many societies.

The real dilemma of the future is captured in 24-year-old Noboru Miyazawa, who is a third-generation Japanese-Cuban. He has subtly Asiatic features, he is teaching himself Japanese, and he dreams fervently of visiting Japan one day, but he cannot leave. The day when he can, and how he responds, will be an interesting one.