This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed human. Spending time outdoors, then let's talk about skin cancer. Non-melanoma skin cancers, or NMSCs, including basal cell carcinoma and cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma, are the most common cancers in the U.S. and can become harder to treat if left undetected.
That's why sun protection and timely detection matter. Our sponsor, Regeneron, is raising awareness about advanced NMSCs. Learn more and take the pledge to see a dermatologist annually at Let's Get RealaboutskinCancer.com. Liberty has never been just a word to we Americans. It has guided every one of our endeavors for the past 250 years.
And now it takes form in a new way. The 2026 Semi-Quincentennial Coin and Metal Program from the United States Mint. It celebrates the founding ideals that have long shaped our coinage. Available one year only, this historic collection features new coin designs, limited edition releases, and reissues. Shop new official coins at usmint.gov forward slash semi-q.
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Now just 248 and 358. PowerSlap 23 is live and free on YouTube on Thursday, September 17th. Dana White is bringing PowerSlaps to Texas for the first time on the campus of Texas Tech University. Two massive title fights headlined the card, including slap fighting legend Wolverine. Also on the card is former WWE champion Jake Hager and the debut of former UFC heavyweight Chris Barnett.
You can watch PowerSlap 23 for free on PowerSlap's YouTube channel. Thursday, September 17th, for the first time from Texas. PowerSlap's biggest card of the year. This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories, the show where America is the star. and the American people.
Up next, a story from our True Diversity series. Sponsored by the great folks at the Philanthropy Roundtable, the leading association for charitable giving in America. Their True Diversity campaign is a clarion call for valuing all of us as the unique individuals that we are. Today we meet Mike Gonzalez, a member of their campaign and a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation. He was born in Cuba.
Here is his family's story. I have a photo of my great-grandparents in my study. taken in 1921 and this is my only set of Cuban great-grandparents. and they were really the Cuban establishment. They went back to the first Spanish ships to arrive in Cuba.
In 1511, my great-grandfather was elected to the first Havana City Council in 1905 after uh the war with Spain and in the US. Uh intervention and none of their descendants are Cuban. None of the all of the descendants are here in the United States. And they're all One fourth Cuban. One half Cuban, one eighth Cuban, they have disappeared as a Cuban family.
This is a very Cuban Establishment family that has given their offspring to the United States, and they're all happy Americans. In a way, that is a success story. That's a very good story. But it also means That that that has been lost. Um Cuba The the reason why I I talk about this is is that you had uh What can only be described as cultural genocide?
A friend of mine. In New York two weeks ago, he described it this way. He said, if you walk along the streets of Havana, and you point to a beautiful building. You can be assured that the architect who drew the plans. the lawyer who worked on the plans.
the family who bought the house. and the doctors of the family have all fled. They're all here in the United States. It's the same story as my great-grandparents. You know, they they don't got camera and dias.
They're all one quarter Cuban and one half Cuban, and all of the other people who made Cuba. Left. And so Cuba has become this unrecognizable place. To me, I mean, I'd never been back. I left 50 years ago and I doubt I'll ever go back.
My grandfather was a A politician, a lawyer, and a journalist. He was an essay writer. who was very anti-Batista, fought against Batista. For decades, Amatista was a fixture of Cuban politics from the 1930s to 1958. Batista was elected president, freely elected in 1940.
And then he had a coup d'état in 1952, my grandfather, who died. in 1950. for was a a man who fought against them had to To flee to the countryside several times. My father would tell me these stories. I never met him.
and hide in the countryside so he wouldn't be taken away. Batista sent policeman to my house. in which uh my grandmother would open the drawers. And Sean boxes of soap saying because you can see all I have here is soap. But inside those boxes is soap, there was ammunition.
And then you had My father who was anti-Batiste as well. and was thrown into prison. My father taught law at university. And when Castro declared himself as a communist, Castro had always denied that he was a communist.
Well he was a rebel. My my my parents knew Castro. My my mom and dad met in law school. and they met Castro in law school. Castro was a lawyer.
And when Castro became declared himself a communist after the revolution had succeeded, My father quit his chair position as a law professor at the university, and they sent armed. uh and a delegation with weapons to my house. to try to quote unquote convince my dad to go back to university and he was very resolute. He said, well, in a country With his communism, there's no law for me to teach here.
So that was it. uh was penalized, but he was not able to get the a proper diet. He was diabetic. The day he died the equipment that might have saved his life, was being used on a Soviet officer. By the hospital, the the hospital only have one machine.
You know, I was young then. I was 11 years old. We had a farm that the government took away. And it was used as it was a very nice place. My aunts were married there, and it was used as a place to.
to entertain Soviet generals for a time. after they took it away from us. But I think the the the the Okay. The loss that I think I'd like to emphasize is not just the material possessions, it's the cultural genocide aspect of things. Communism must always destroy what comes before it.
In the case of Pol Pot in Cambodia, he actually declared the year when he entered Nompenh as year one. The Bolsheviks heated everything that was Russian and destroyed it. The Cultural Revolution hated everything that was Chinese and sought out to destroy it. When I lived in Hong Kong, for example, we used to go. and shop in Hollywood Road, Hollywood Road.
Whereas this is the street in Hong Kong where all the antiques are sold. and you would come across a lot of furniture. where people had been painting on furniture in dressers or Ah. And and the faces and many of these pieces of furniture have been erased. And the reason for that is that the Red Guard entered people's homes.
and erased the faces of of people even on furniture. That's to what degree communism must exterminate. whatever culture precedes it, So what happened in Cuba is what happened in many other countries that have had this great tragedy of communism. That's what can happen here. And what a story you're hearing from Mike Gonzalez.
Communism must always destroy what comes before it. He said. Also, his grandfather quit the law, Because under communism, There is no law. When we come back, more from Mike Gonzalez, a part of our True Diversity series brought to us. by the Philanthropy Roundtable, Ear.
on our American stories. Here at Our American Stories, we bring you inspiring stories of history, sports, business, faith, and love. stories from a great and beautiful country that need to be told. But we can't do it without you. Our stories are free to listen to, but they're not free to make.
If you love our stories in America like we do, please go to ouramericanstories.com and click the donate button. Give a little, give a lot. Help us keep the great American stories coming. That's ouramericanstories.com. Spending time outdoors, then let's talk about skin cancer.
Non-melanoma skin cancers, or NMSCs, including basal cell carcinoma and cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma, are the most common cancers in the U.S. and can become harder to treat if left undetected. That's why sun protection and timely detection matter. Our sponsor, Regeneron, is raising awareness about advanced NMSCs. Learn more and take the pledge to see a dermatologist annually at let's get real about skincancer.com.
Liberty has never been just a word to we Americans. It has guided every one of our endeavors for the past 250 years. And now it takes form in a new way. The 2026 Semi-Quincentennial Coin and Metal Program from the United States Mint. It celebrates the founding ideals that have long shaped our coinage.
Available one year only, this historic collection features new coin designs, limited edition releases, and reissues. Shop new official coins at usmint.gov forward slash semi-q. That's usmint.gov/slash S-E-M-I-Q. Okay, sis, give me the scoop. What have you been up to?
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Now just 248 and 358. And we continue with our American stories and with Mike Gonzalez's story. as part of our True Diversity series. As a kid, Mike was fortunate to escape communist Cuba. First to Spain.
and later to America. He now brings us back to his day of escape. Uh Uh happened um over 50 years ago. But I don't think we'll ever forget if we were woken up early. uh dressed, uh put a tie on and a jacket.
Even though I was 12. One got dressed to go on airplanes in those days. even though it was my first airplane flight. I wore a jacket and a tie. We said goodbye to the grandmother who had raised me.
Uh who never to see her again. The woman who gave me A uh glass of milk every night who woke me up every day. who who to who practice like uh verbal conjugations with me. Say goodbye to her, never to see her again. Then we drove over to see my mother's parents.
who were in tears. in absolute tears. as they said goodbye to her. Uh even though she was going to Spain. uh their their land of origin.
And I couldn't understand. why my ma my mother and her parents were crying. To me, it was the happiest day of my life. And it was the happiest day of my life.
Well, borrowing my My wedding and the birth of three children, of course. But but it was a very happy day of my life.
So I couldn't really understand why they were so... There was such consternation. And then we got to the airport and uh And we were all there held up in a room. And my mother. whispered in my ear.
When we start walking towards the plane, If the authorities call me back, And you and your sister Lucy run to the plane. and you get on the plane. The plane is an Iberian airplane. It belongs to the Kingdom of Spain. and you ask for asylum.
Tom Turn back, don't look at me. Just run as fast as you can and get on that plane. I don't like to discuss these things. They're hard. the hard memories uh Uh I don't enjoy talking about the in the least.
I I arrived in Spain at the age of 12. A few months after the death of my father, And uh I really realized then what shells were for. And histories are so shelves. with actual merchandise. I had never ever seen that.
No, I lie. I had seen it once before in Cuba in a photo. my father showed me. And I was shocked. To see cancer food.
in sacks of flour. Then the shelves of the stockers I had I never saw them in Cuba. Never ever. when meat would arrive at the at the butcher's Every every person, every adult left the house. To go line up to get whatever, and if you were the last one to line up.
uh then you could only get ground beef and have to eat picadillo. because everything else was gone. Um It depends where you were in line. There were lines. Everywhere, the only thing communists produce They don't they n they never produce bread, they only produce bread lines.
And I remember my um My mother, when we arrived in Spain, And we're working on. By the way, let's not forget that Spain at this time in 1972. is itself a poor country. And yet it was like pure heaven compared to Cuba. And I remember pointing to this Very strange fruit.
and asking the store owner what it was, and my mother breaks into tears. and she asks the store owner, Can Can I hold it? And he lets me hold it. and my mother was crying because it was a pineapple. and it had been produced in Cuba, obviously, because Cuba is a tropical island.
Before and I had never in my life seen a pineapple nor did I have any idea of what one looked like. at the age of twelve.
So that gives you some idea. of the kind of of of poverty that communism produces But it's it's it's again The real Impoverishment That communism causes is a spiritual impoverishment and a cultural impoverishment.
Now that is the the the the one that really is the worst. Um you know, the the the the idea that there can not be any god That they cannot be God because because that takes away a place where Castro or the Communist Party should be in your heart. One thing that God gives you is hope. God gives you hope. And communists don't want you to have hope.
Marxists don't want you to have hope. Because it's only when you're hopeless that you will launch the revolution they desire. They want you to feel Completely bereft of any feeling that your situation will improve.
So they will um They really do go after God for that reason. That again runs against human nature. One thing we do know about human nature is that we all have religion. You can arrive at an unknown island today. and the only thing you will know for sure is that they have music and religion.
So I think the empty shelves in the cultural marketplace. are are much more searing to the human condition to to man than the empty shells of the bodega. Look, I came to America in 1974. And I landed in Queens, New York. And everybody Queens, New York the neighborhood where I lived, was really a a M.
A. You had a multitude of people, mostly of European ancestry, but people didn't think of themselves that way. They were either Irish. an Italian or Polish or Cuban or Puerto Rican. And by the way, there was a there there was a a name, usually a bad name, I said everybody was something.
It was a bad term associated with all these groups. Everybody. Everybody was something. We have vastly improved on that. That is no longer really the case, and I think that's a vast improvement.
from the America that I arrived in. and that we don't put up with racial epithets. We don't think they're funny. We don't claim they're part of polite society. And I think that that is a That has been a very, very good thing that has happened in this country.
But now what we have Over the last 20 or at least 10 years. Is it's so we Well, we did. In the last quarter of the 20th century, was try to deracialize society. tried to deracialize ourselves and I think we succeeded with that but now we're re-racializing. We're going back to thinking that a person is his race.
But there's a word for this called essentialism. Essentialism means that That we are our race. You represent whatever national origin you are, or I, my, I, I. I come from very different ancestors. I come from ancestors who were Cuban, I come from ancestors who were Spanish, I come from wealthy people, I come from poor people.
I come from the Lord of the Manor, I come from the serves, and I am. who I am, not only because of that DNA, but also because of the things that I have done. the outcomes of the decisions that I have made. Since I became an adult and even as a teenager. If you make better decisions overall than bad decisions, you're gonna have a a good shot in live.
but has nothing to do with DNA, has nothing to do with race, any scheme. Whether it's charitable or government or educational, that is based on race. that is based on the idea that people are ambassadors and spokesmen. for their rays. is going to fail and fail miserably because it is not true.
We have to save America from this. We only look at the lessons of what happened in Cuba, what happened in China, what happened in Cambodia, in order that we can save what we have here. the land of the free. And you've been listening to Mike Gonzalez share with you his story. And my goodness, what a story he told here.
A special thanks to the folks at the Philanthropy Roundtable. This is a part of our True Diversity series. Communists don't produce bread. They produce bread lines. And he went on to emphasize, Mike, that it's not just material poverty, but worse is the spiritual poverty that communism demands.
There can't be God. because Castro has to be in your heart, he said. God gives you hope. Communists don't want you to feel hope. Mike Gonzalez's story.
The story is so many refugees from Cuba Eastern Bloc countries. in countries around the world. Here. on our American stories. Uh Spending time outdoors, then let's talk about skin cancer.
Non-melanoma skin cancers, or NMSCs, including basal cell carcinoma and cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma, are the most common cancers in the U.S. and can become harder to treat if left undetected. That's why sun protection and timely detection matter. Our sponsor, Regeneron, is raising awareness about advanced NMSCs. Learn more and take the pledge to see a dermatologist annually at Let's Get RealaboutskinCancer.com.
Liberty has never been just a word to we Americans. It has guided every one of our endeavors for the past 250 years. And now it takes form in a new way. The 2026 Semi-Quincentennial Coin and Metal Program from the United States Mint. It celebrates the founding ideals that have long shaped our coinage.
Available one year only, this historic collection features new coin designs, limited edition releases, and reissues. Shop new official coins at usmint.gov forward slash semi-q. That's usmint.gov/slash S-E-M-I-Q. You're grinding, putting tracks on Spotify, making TikToks, and watching fractions of a cent roll in. Exposure doesn't pay rent.
Time for real stakes. Welcome to The Beam, the new music competition app. Real fans vote. Brands buy your music before it breaks. You win money and exposure.
No more chasing algorithms. Just compete and get aid. Download the Beam at theBeam.com or on the App Store. Submit your track, earn what your music deserves on The Beam, the only chart that writes checks. It's football season and Vizio mini LED TVs are here to turn your living room into the front row of the stadium.
Watch every play come to life in breathtaking realism on a 55-inch or 65-inch mini LED TV. Plus, crank your favorite game day tunes on the iHeartRadio app built right into your Visio TV. Big screens, big picture, and a totally immersive experience. Find rollback deals at Walmart today on Vizio 55-inch and 65-inch mini LED TVs.
Now just 248 and 358. PowerSlap 23 is live and free on YouTube on Thursday, September 17th. Dana White is bringing PowerSlaps to Texas for the first time on the campus of Texas Tech University. Two massive title fights headlined the card, including slap fighting legend Wolverine. Also on the card is former WWE champion Jake Hager and the debut of former UFC heavyweight Chris Barnett.
You can watch PowerSlap 23 for free on PowerSlap's YouTube channel Thursday, September 17th for the first time from Texas. PowerSlap's biggest card of the year. This is the Dan Lebatar Show. This is Dan Lebatar, and I've been doing this for more than two decades. Our show is contagious.
It's a little bit addictive. It's uh. In the most positive of ways. It has a good amount of range from smart to silly, and it's got a journalistic backbone. Monday through Friday, I show up and talk about sports, listen to the Dan Libetard show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever it is that you get your podcasts.
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Yeah.
