Two Lives, One Century--One Cuban Family

As the youngest of four siblings in a Cuban-American family that came to the United States in the early 1960s, I knew the least about what life was like in Cuba pre-Castro and knew least about least about my family history as well as the long interdependent relationship between Cuba and the United States. I was determined to learn and document as much about my family, Cuba and South Florida by interviewing my elder siblings and other family and friends as well as to visit (in 2004 and 2011 with my own family born in the United States). What I learned first and foremost is that my parents were heroic in the sacrifice they made to leave everything behind (what wasn't confiscated, that is) in order for us and future generations to have freedom and a better future. At ages 52 and 44, my parents left careers, homes, and all of the possessions they built over a lifetime. They were certainly not the only ones and thousands blazed similar uncertain paths seeking freedom from oppression and a future for their families. They came to South Florida and started over. They took menial jobs, established new credit, bought homes, sent their kids to the best schools they could afford, and never complained about the trauma they had to go through. They were part of the amazing transformation of South Florida from a sleepy American town to a global metropolis. In the book, I traced my grandparents' lineage to Cuba--leaving Spain with the support of their parents in the 1880s to escape war and economic hardship. Many of them fought in the Cuban War of Independence (or the Spanish-American War). Others like Fidel Castro's father, fought for the Spanish in Cuba and after the Spanish were defeated, subsequently returned to Oriente Province, where both Fidel and Raul were born. My parents' sacrifice made it possible for me to have completed advanced educational degrees and eventually hold senior officer positions with major U.S. airlines during an extended career. It is quite interesting to see how Cuba and the United States were so close for over half a century and how the two were intertwined in the form of tourism, multi-national companies, education and how this strong bond was torn apart by the arrival of the Castro brothers in 1959. As this book is published, President Obama has reached out and is working on normalizing relations with the Castro regime despite obtaining no concessions on openness, elections, political prisoners, etc. So with these recent events, what was to to be a personal family story just for the family, became in a small way, a story of not just my family's life, but what Cuba was like before 1959 (and how they brought that spirit to South Florida in the 1960s and beyond). The regime would like to wipe out history pre-1959 since in their view there was nothing good that happened pre-1959. So my hope is that as more Cuba-US interaction occurs going forward, that we don't let romanticism replace realism in dealing with today's Cuba. And I hope this story of one Cuban family--and two lives preserves a little of what the Castros have tried to delete.