I traveled twice to Nicaragua over recent decades. I visited Managua and rural areas during the early part (the more successful parts) of the movement known as the Nicaraguan Revolution in summer 1983. At that time, I saw that old downtown Managua had never been rebuilt by the Somoza family and friends who’d continued to dominate that Central American country throughout the 1970s.
A powerful coalition of peoples had marched on Managua in summer 1979 and kicked the Somocistas and cronies out of power. (That year Jimmy Carter as U.S. president had refused to prop up America’s “son of a bitch”, Somoza, any more. Recall that FDR had called Somoza “our son-of-a-bitch” four decades earlier.)
I returned to teach in Managua in 1995-1996, and I found a shell-shocked nation that had suffered a counter-revolution of sorts and was having trouble organizing a new identity for itself.
However, one thing was still the same. Earthquake destroyed downtown Managua was still empty of structures and signs of reconstruction some quarter of a century after Roberto Clemente’s plane had crashed into the sea outside San Juan, Puerto Rico carrying aid to the poor Nicaraguans of a generation earlier.
I was told by many Nicaraguans that the downtown had not been rebuilt because it is so earthquake prone.
However, in the 1990s I had also taught in both Japan and California—very earthquake prone zones. So, I would have to say that the lack of political and economic will and consensus has been the primary culprit in rebuilding old Managua—and this despite the fact that a the National Parliament building still stands near the central zone where the earthquake struck in 1972.
In short, underdevelopment can be a conscious choice made by urban planners, economists, politicians, or real estate agents.
Meanwhile, I was equally saddened to discover that fewer and fewer Nicaraguans knew who Roberto Clemente was and how he had reached out to save so many of them in one of their nation’s darkest hours.
PUERTO RICO
In 2002 I traveled to Puerto Rico. It was the 30th anniversary of the death of my old baseball hero and humanitarian, Roberto Clemente. The country is much better developed than many other Latin American states—a great improvement over the era when Roberto Walker Clemente grew up and played baseball in the sandlots among coconut palms and along the sea sides.
Puerto Ricans today still remember quite well the legacy of Roberto Clemente and all around the Caribbean baseball players come there to shine. Sammy Sosa and others from the Dominican Republic or from Venezueala to the south come often to participate there, especially at the Roberto Clemente’s Sports City.
Puerto Rico is still part of the United States. It is a territorial possession.
It’s time for all Americans—Hispanic or not--to ask ourselves: “What kind of legacy are we going to have?”
Are we going to live our lives for just this day or are we going to live a life worth living and make our land--and other lands--better places for coming generations to live in after us?
I fear we in America are stuck in the forgetfulness of the Cold War and Post-Cold War world that enveloped Nicaragua in the mid-1990s. We need to get out of that funk and meet life straight on in the manner Roberto Clemente witnessed for the North American continent in the 1950s. 1960s, and 1970s.
Fight against hunger! Fight injustice! Build a better planet! Reach out and teach others to do the same!
