Home
Autobiography
I was born and raised in Ingersoll, Ontario. Married at age 21 in 1956, my husband Joe, a newly-graduated doctor and I moved to New York City for the next six years. There, I graduated as a registered nurse. Fascinated by the social experiment transpiring in Cuba, we contracted with the Cuban government to work in Cuba, where we and our four four children spent almost five years in the mid-sixties. Joe set up an intern and residency training program in orthopaedic surgery, while I worked as a translator and ESL teacher. This was only a few years after the nation-wide literacy campaign which UNESCO had declared to be the single most successful literacy program in the world to date. I learned that in 1960, 25% of Cuba's six million people were totally illiterate: one million adults and half a million school age children. In the short space of seven months in 1961, a national literacy campaign had reduced illiteracy from 25% to 3.9%. Over 700,000 adults learned to read and write ending nearly 500 years of successive generations being Cuba's neglected and forgotten people.
The most remarkable element of the campaign were the young teachers?over 100,000 teenagers, the average age being fifteen?who volunteered to go and live with and teach the illiterate families. Called brigadistas (members of a brigade), they were assigned to teach in isolated rural dwellings, towns, tiny villages and remote places in the mountains. They went forth with two changes of army-type clothing, a pair of boots, a Che Guevara style beret, a hammock, a wool blanket, some flimsy workbooks, a teachers manual and a Coleman-style kerosene lap since there was no electricity where many were assigned. Some brigadistas had received a week or two of teaching instruction. What they had a surplus of was youthful health and energy, enthusiasm and the will to overcome all obstacles in order to make their country "a territory free from illiteracy";. Do it they did, and the result of their efforts was to transform a people and their country forever.
Back in Canada, I raised my family, ran a country inn, got a university degree in Spanish/Italian Language and Literature from QUEEN'S University, translated seventeen of Robert Munsch's books for children into Spanish, engaged in environmental advocacy, and served as Mayor of the City of Belleville from 1992 to 1995. Then I moved to Tofino where I lived for fifteen years. There I was a founding member of the Clayoquot Writers Group, wrote a book of short stories called Road's End: Tales of Tofino and advocated for environmental protection of the rainforest ecosystem.
The idea to write Anita's Revolution dawned gradually. I found that few people knew about the campaign that changed everything in revolutionary Cuba. As well, I became aware of the numbers of Canadians who are illiterate or functionally illiterate, and how that diminishes their lives and affects the creativity and productivity of our own Canadian society. Rather than write an article for a magazine or an academic paper, I decided to write an historical fiction novel. Following the completion of research, including interviews in Cuba with many of the campaign's brigadistas, men and women now in their sixties and seventies, I created the novel's protagonist, a young teenage volunteer teacher named Anita. Through this young girl and her experiences, we experience the daunting challenges of those seven months, challenges that were faced in a 100,000 different ways by each of those 100,000 brigadistas. Fifty years have passed since Cuba proudly declared itself "A Territory Free From Illiteracy";. According to UNESCO, literacy in Cuba today stands at 99.9%.
While Cuba comes with a lot of political baggage, Anita's Revolution has tried hard to not be polemical. I do hope that people will see what good can be done by any country if there is the political and social will to not accept illiteracy. I wanted use the example of the brigadistas, those young teachers, to show the potential of youth to make meaningful contributions to society if given the opportunity. Above all, I wanted to show the power of education to empower individuals and transform society.
I now live in Victoria, and am planning my next book, a memoir of my time and often amusing tribulations as the owner of a country inn in Brighton Ontario in the 1970s.
The most remarkable element of the campaign were the young teachers?over 100,000 teenagers, the average age being fifteen?who volunteered to go and live with and teach the illiterate families. Called brigadistas (members of a brigade), they were assigned to teach in isolated rural dwellings, towns, tiny villages and remote places in the mountains. They went forth with two changes of army-type clothing, a pair of boots, a Che Guevara style beret, a hammock, a wool blanket, some flimsy workbooks, a teachers manual and a Coleman-style kerosene lap since there was no electricity where many were assigned. Some brigadistas had received a week or two of teaching instruction. What they had a surplus of was youthful health and energy, enthusiasm and the will to overcome all obstacles in order to make their country "a territory free from illiteracy";. Do it they did, and the result of their efforts was to transform a people and their country forever.
Back in Canada, I raised my family, ran a country inn, got a university degree in Spanish/Italian Language and Literature from QUEEN'S University, translated seventeen of Robert Munsch's books for children into Spanish, engaged in environmental advocacy, and served as Mayor of the City of Belleville from 1992 to 1995. Then I moved to Tofino where I lived for fifteen years. There I was a founding member of the Clayoquot Writers Group, wrote a book of short stories called Road's End: Tales of Tofino and advocated for environmental protection of the rainforest ecosystem.
The idea to write Anita's Revolution dawned gradually. I found that few people knew about the campaign that changed everything in revolutionary Cuba. As well, I became aware of the numbers of Canadians who are illiterate or functionally illiterate, and how that diminishes their lives and affects the creativity and productivity of our own Canadian society. Rather than write an article for a magazine or an academic paper, I decided to write an historical fiction novel. Following the completion of research, including interviews in Cuba with many of the campaign's brigadistas, men and women now in their sixties and seventies, I created the novel's protagonist, a young teenage volunteer teacher named Anita. Through this young girl and her experiences, we experience the daunting challenges of those seven months, challenges that were faced in a 100,000 different ways by each of those 100,000 brigadistas. Fifty years have passed since Cuba proudly declared itself "A Territory Free From Illiteracy";. According to UNESCO, literacy in Cuba today stands at 99.9%.
While Cuba comes with a lot of political baggage, Anita's Revolution has tried hard to not be polemical. I do hope that people will see what good can be done by any country if there is the political and social will to not accept illiteracy. I wanted use the example of the brigadistas, those young teachers, to show the potential of youth to make meaningful contributions to society if given the opportunity. Above all, I wanted to show the power of education to empower individuals and transform society.
I now live in Victoria, and am planning my next book, a memoir of my time and often amusing tribulations as the owner of a country inn in Brighton Ontario in the 1970s.
Submitted on December 23, 2015 in By David.
