Heat
Summary: Heat is about Michael Arroyo, who immigrates to the
Bronx, New York City with his Brother Carlos, and his dad. Michael is a
great pitcher; unfortunately too good to be true. He had stopped a purse
thief by hitting him with his baseball while practicing but when his team
goes against another team; he makes an enemy with a kid named Justin.
Justin the Jerk is the coach's son on the other team, and after he sees
how good of a player Michael is and when Michael beats him in a
baseball game, he tells his dad, who talks with other coaches who have
played against Michael in Little League, and send in a complaint about
him, because not too long ago, another boy from New York City lied
about his age, and had been playing against kids in a different level than
him. To prove that he is 12, Michael must produce his birth certificate,
which is somewhere in Havana, Cuba. What with his dad having died a
year ago, and Carlos struggling to pay the house bills, and yet attempting
to hide the death of their father from authorities so him and Carlos
won’t have to be separated, this is too much. While he is practicing
baseball with his friend Manny for when he can get back into Little
League, Michael meets a girl, who turns out to be the New York Yankees
star, his idol;"El Grande’s" daughter. He finds this out by watching TV. He
finds out later on in the story that Carlos had been selling stuff illegally
just to pay the house bills and was arrested by the police. Then he starts
thinking about people other than himself. He thinks about the previous
mean things he said to El Grande's daughter, Ellie and decides just to do
the best with what he has for now and to take care of his friends the best
he can. In the end, while he is coaching the team game that will get them
into the finals and World Series, El Grande runs up to him and gives him
his birth certificate. Manny had been talking to Ellie who told her dad
about Michael. El Grande knew some people back in Havana who found
Michael's birth certificate. The story ends well with Michael Arroyo
getting into the championships and finally getting to see the inside of
Yankee Stadium which he'd always lived in the shadow of and achieves
his worldwide dream and his father’s dream of going to the Little League
World Series.
Cuba
Geography of Cuba

The largest island of the West Indies group
(equal in area to Pennsylvania), Cuba is
also the westernmost country, just west of
Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican
Republic), and 90 mi (145 km) south of Key
West, Fla., at the entrance to the Gulf of
Mexico. The island is mountainous in the
southeast and south-central area (Sierra
Maestra). It is flat or rolling elsewhere.
Cuba also includes numerous smaller
islands, islets, and cays.
Geography of Cuba cont…
Arawak (or Taino) Indians
inhabited Cuba when
Columbus landed on the
island in 1492. They died
from diseases brought by
sailors and settlers. By
1511, Spaniards under
Diego Velásquez had
established settlements.
Havana's superb harbor
made it a common transit
point to and from Spain.
In the early 1800s, Cuba's
sugarcane industry
boomed, requiring massive
numbers of black slaves. A
simmering independence
movement turned into
open warfare from 1867 to
1878. Slavery was
abolished in 1886. In 1895,
the poet José Marti led the
struggle that finally ended
Spanish rule, thanks
largely to U.S. intervention
in 1898 after the sinking of
the battleship Maine in
Havana harbor.
Geography of Cuba cont… again


An 1899 treaty made Cuba
an independent republic
under U.S. protection. The
U.S. occupation, which
ended in 1902, suppressed
yellow fever and brought
large American
investments. The 1901
Platt Amendment allowed
the U.S. to intervene in
Cuba's affairs, which it did
four times from 1906 to
1920. Cuba terminated the
amendment in 1934.
In 1933, a group of army
officers, including army
sergeant Fulgencio Batista,
overthrew President
Gerardo Machado. Batista
became president in 1940,
running a corrupt police
state.

In 1956, Fidel Castro Ruz
launched a revolution from his
camp in the Sierra Maestra
mountains. Castro's brother
Raul and Ernesto (Ché)
Guevara, an Argentine
physician, were his top
lieutenants. Many anti-Batista
landowners supported the
rebels. The U.S. ended military
aid to Cuba in 1958, and on
New Year's Day 1959, Batista
fled into exile and Castro took
over the government.
Fidel Castro
•
•
Born Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz on August 13, 1926
although there are some discrepancies about the
year he was born (some say he was born a year
later). He was born near Birán in Cuba's eastern
Oriente province. Fidel Castro was the third of six
children: two brothers, Raul and Ramon, and four
sisters, Antelita, Juanita, Emma, and Augustina. His
father, Angel, was a wealthy sugar plantation owner
originally from Spain. His mother, Lina Ruz Gonzalez,
had been a maid to Angel's first wife, Maria Luisa
Argota, at the time of Fidel's birth. By the time Fidel
was 15, his father dissolved his first marriage and
wed Fidel's mother. At 17, Fidel was formally
recognized by his father and his name was changed
from Ruz to Castro. Educated in private Jesuit
boarding schools, Castro grew up in wealthy
circumstances amid the poverty of Cuba's people.
He was intellectually gifted but more interested in
sports than studies. He attended El Colegio de
Belen and pitched for the school's baseball team.
After his graduation in late 1945, Castro entered law
school at the University of Havana and became
immersed in the political climate of Cuban
nationalism, anti-imperialism, and socialism.
In 1947, Castro became increasingly passionate
about social justice. He traveled to the Dominican
Republic to join an expedition attempting the
overthrow of the dictator Rafael Trujillo. The coup
failed before it got started, but the incident didn't
dampen Castro's passion for reform.
Castro
The End