Her parents fled Cuba in ’61 – The Virginian

They left on a Wednesday.

There was no time to plan.

My mother’s brother had arranged for two tickets so my parents could join him and his family on a ship out of Havana.

“Do you want to come?” he asked my father.

My parents had just returned from their honeymoon, after a month-long trip around the island. They had wanted to leave the country, knew they had to leave, but they hadn’t been able to secure plane tickets. Now the Monte Anaga was sailing for Spain.

It was more than two years after the revolution.

July 12, 1961.

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Every American has a story, a moment when his or her family got from there to here.

Mine began on that pier, a generation ago.

There were 150 passengers on the ship. Each family could bring a trunk. My parents filled theirs with my mother’s lingerie, my father’s architecture books, a watch that had been a graduation gift for him. And they had some American dollars hidden in the soles of a pair of my father’s shoes.

They went to the harbor with extended family – my grandparents, the uncles who helped raise my mother, my father’s sister.

My mother, Josefina, was 22. My father, Hector, was 30.

He had been to America once, years before. She had never left Cuba.

They felt certain they’d be back, in two years or three. After the next revolution.

But in that moment, they had to go.

One dictator had overthrown another in 1959, and it didn’t take long to realize that the devil they didn’t know was worse than the one before.

Before they could board the ship, they had to get past the soldiers, who were checking permits and doing inventory on what possessions could – and couldn’t – leave. A bracelet had to stay with my grandmother. A ring was tucked inside my mother’s bra before the soldiers could find it.

Then one of the militants studied my father’s papers.

The permit had expired two days earlier, and he was told that he wouldn’t be allowed to leave. At that point, doctors, lawyers and other professionals could travel only with permission, and my father was an architect.

It was decided that he would race to the Department of Public Works, where he had been assigned, to see if he could obtain another permit.

In the meantime, another soldier took my uncle, Tino, aside. He had been denounced – by whom, we don’t know. His wife, Mirtha, and their sons, Armando and Jorge, waited while Tino was brought to a room where a picture of Fidel Castro hung on the wall.

He was told to strip.

The soldier found an American quarter in my uncle’s pocket, and that raised more suspicions. This was three months after the Bay of Pigs.

Tino stood there in his socks and lit a cigar.

The soldier asked him why he was going to Spain.

To get an inheritance, my uncle said. It was a lie, but relatives in Spain had sent a telegram as proof that there was family business to attend to.

“And are you coming back?” the soldier asked.

“If you were me, would you come back?” my uncle responded.

“No.”

“Me, neither.”

Despite the answer – or maybe because of it – he was allowed to join the others.

The minutes ticked by as they waited for my father to return.

The passengers were separated from other family by a glass wall.

My mother’s uncle Juan held up a sign:

“If Hector doesn’t go, Finita doesn’t go.”

Then Tino wrote in response:

“If Hector doesn’t go, Finita has to go.”

He knew my parents would be arrested if the dollars in the shoes were discovered. The soldiers couldn’t be allowed to unload the trunk and start prying.

Another uncle, Ramon, handed her a piece of cloth with an image of La Virgen de la Caridad (Our Lady of Charity), who is said to have saved three fishermen from a storm.

My mother prayed to the virgin. She made promises.

The ship was due to leave, but the captain informed authorities that he wouldn’t go until all the passengers had boarded. The first prayer answered.

Then later, my father appeared, racing down a hallway toward his new wife. In his hand, he held a piece of paper, the ticket to freedom.

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They never went back.

Ten days after they left, the ship reached Vigo, in northern Spain. From there, my parents went to Madrid, where my mother bought a statue of the virgin that she still has in her bedroom. Later, she found a gold pendant with her image; my father wears that around his neck. Cubans in exile have come to revere her, as someone who has guided their exodus.

In Spain, work was scarce, so my father left for America. My mother joined him that fall.

They had their first child, then second (me) and third. They brought their mothers over to reunite their families, but other relatives remained on the island, and they never saw them again. They became naturalized citizens and proud Americans.

But at the dinner table each night, there were black beans and roast pork and rapid-fire Spanish and stories that always took us back to the place they left.

And now it’s me who longs to go home.

Maria Carrillo, 757-446-2362, maria.carrillo@pilotonline.com

Maria Carrillo is an editor at The Virginian-Pilot. She wrote this essay to honor her parent’s courage, to chronicle the moments that changed the course of her family’s life and to make sure her children would never forget how lucky they are to live in America. The essay, along with one by Judy Le, also an editor at The Virginian-Pilot, was recently featured on EP, the Pilot’s tablet app that is available for download through the App store. Look for Judy Le’s essay on HamptonRoads.com Wednesday.

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Coming to America

Few American families are truly from America, which means most of us carry a legacy of immigration. After hearing some of these resettlement stories from Virginian-Pilot staffers, we’re curious what tales our readers have of the day their families left their homelands for America. If you’re willing to share one of those stories, send it, along with your name, age, phone number and the city you live in, to daily.break@pilotonline.com with the words “Coming to America” in the subject line. We’ll collect the stories for a future feature in the Daily Break.

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