When the Secret Police came to my house studio in Havana on February 1989, I knew I was in trouble...and I knew why. The roots of my crime began in my childhood, in the district of Marianao in the capital city, when I refused to go to the regular school with the other children.

I was born a Cuban " habanero in Marianao a suburb of Habana " Ð from campesino parents, in 1963, not very long after the Castro takeover of the island. My early childhood was typical of working-class Cubans of that era: A few hours of schooling each day, some hours helping with chores, all of it mingled with lazy hours playing with friends in the humid Cuban sunshine. But early on I discovered the pleasure of drawing -- first, with crayons on scavenged paper, then with brushes and paints on paper, or wood, or anything I could find -- and by the time I was entering my teen years, my painting endeavors occupied me so much that I ceased playing with my peers, gave up my sandlot "fútbol" games (soccer), and virtually secluded myself in the pursuit of my artistic potential.

My father, Lazaro, didn't think much of my goals. The life of an artist, a painter, was not a thing he wanted to encourage in his son. Nor did my mother, Ramona, view such a life as the best outcome for her child. But she loved me dearly, perhaps more specially among her children, and wanted me "only to be happy. She would say; "If art was the thing that made him happy, then that much she would grant him.Ó

Under Castro, Cuba's public school system was built on the Soviet Russian model: basic schooling to age 14, then tracked toward higher education in specialized fields, if you had the talent, or into the working trades if you didn't. The school nearest to my home didn't offer the higher fields, and the only foreign language it taught was Russian, so I begged my parents to let me transfer to a school outside my district that taught English. Thanks to a recommendation from a kindly neighbor, I was accepted there into an Arts program. I graduated in 1981. Later, in 1986, I graduated from the San Alejandro School of Fine arts -- with the equivalent of a B.A. in the U.S. university system -- and also won permission to enroll for post-grad work in the Institute of Superior Arts in Havana. For the next few years, I worked in teaching positions at Havana and attended school. But I still continued to develop my artistic vision, always searching for subject matter and viewpoints that spoke from my heart and mind to the beholders of my work. And that was what got me into trouble.

By early 1989, I strayed from the accepted and safe arena of Cuban "Revolutionary Art." Increasingly, my work depicted visions that were -- to say the least -- less than wholly admiring of Fidel Castro and the communist regime. When I produced a large painting of Fidel in full olive-drab uniform, but with horse-blinders on his head, an informant turned me in to the Secret Police. Apparently, the mere idea of painting Fidel as a dray-horse, incapable of seeing anything outside the narrow tunnel of socialist/communist vision, simply could not be permitted. The charge against me was "Propaganda Política" (political propaganda), a very serious crime at the time.

I then faced a draconian choice: (a) Submit to the overview of Cuban political correctness and deny my personal artistic vision, or (b) be sentenced to one of Cuba's infamous prisons, or (c) voluntarily leave Cuba and go into exile. I chose exile.

With help from my family, I went to Panama, a country with friendly relations with Cuba. From there, I flew to the Dominican Republic where I obtained a teaching position at UCE (East Central University). Unfortunately, the George H.W. Bush-appointed U.S Ambassador in the D.R. denied me a visa as a refugee. I remained in the Dominican Republic for a year. Across the ocean in Tampa, FL, my mother was ill, much to my sadness, I did not receive my red-cross visa in time to tell her good-bye. She died suddenly in the night from a heart attack. One year later, the new U.S. Ambassador appointed by President Clinton, granted me an entry visa as a political refugee to America. I had relatives in both Tampa and Miami and in October of 1991, I landed in Miami meeting my godfather who drove me to Tampa.

In Tampa, working in the freedom America grants to all artists, my artistic career was reborn -- a career that has already earned me acclaim, producing a body of work attracting discerning collectors around the world. And with no Secret Police to tell me what I can or cannot paint.