Finding Mañana

“I don’t remember a time when I didn’t know that my family’s most cherished ambition was to someday, somehow leave Cuba, as most of the people we knew had already done.”

This passage speaks to the history of the Cuban diaspora. Castro’s regime, although it set out to equalize the economic playing field in Cuba, upended the lives of many, including ordinary (not affluent) families like Ojito’s. Cubans who remained in Cuba were subject to constant surveillance, were not free to make their own career choices, and faced frequent food shortages. It is against the backdrop of this deteriorating national climate that Ojito’s family and others like them decided to leave.

“In the Cuba of the 1970s, even children knew that no loyalty was more important than that owed to Fidel Castro and the revolution. Before I learned my multiplication tables, I memorized Che’s final letter to Castro, the one in which he tells him that he has to leave Cuba because he was made for the struggle, not for the spoils of victory.”

This passage speaks to the way that Castro’s regime used schooling as a space of indoctrination. Students were taught that first and foremost their loyalty was to the regime and its communist project, and students like Ojito who believed in God were ostracized.

“Benes was so enthusiastic about the new regime that he began working as a legal advisor in Castro’s treasury department. His father cautioned him that Castro was a communist. Forget about it, Dad, he would say. Then came the summary trials and, to Benes’ horror, the televised executions of counterrevolutionaries.”

Initially, Castro promised the people of Cuba democracy. After the revolution, however, he revealed his intentions to instead install an authoritarian regime. Although many Cubans supported his communist project, others were shocked and appalled at his abrupt shift away from equality and democracy and at his violent suppression of those who disagreed with him.

“To stoke the ideological flames of his revolution, Castro needed the United States to continue its antagonism towards Cuba. Nothing brought a people together more than resistance against a powerful and unrelenting enemy.”

Castro’s foreign policy was complex and often difficult to decipher. Although during the Carter administration, Castro did want the US embargo against his country lifted, he also knew that he faced mounting criticism from a population bristling against the confines of the security state and suffering as a result of island-wide shortages. To galvanize support, he had to maintain a certain hostility between the two nations: He knew that he would be more popular if he was seen as a leader uniting the Cuban people against an enemy (the United States).

“Contrary to what I had been taught in school about the ways of capitalism, my uncle explained that he had medical insurance, so medicines and visits to the doctor were free or cost very little.”

This passage highlights the indoctrination and misinformation that characterized education under the Castro regime. Young Cubans were taught that it was only through communism that people were taken care of by their government and could find true happiness, but through her uncle’s descriptions of life in America and its many freedoms, Ojito realizes that much of what she has been taught is untrue.

“When in January 1959, Castro and his cadre made their triumphant entrance into Havana, Hector was told the revolution was meant for children like him: poor, misguided kids who needed to be schooled. Instead, Hector saw how the revolution eroded, one by one, the small freedoms he treasured.”

Hector’s experiences with the Castro regime stand in for those of countless young people like him. Although Castro promised democracy, jobs, and freedom, the surveillance state that he installed after seizing power sought to control even the tiniest aspects of the lives of everyday Cubans. Rather than feeling free, Hector and the Cubans in his generation found themselves under a microscope.

“As word spread through the country, hundreds of people began to flock to the embassy. By nightfall it was obvious that Pinto had miscalculated. Thousands of Cubans stood on the grounds.” 

This passage describes the beginning of what would come to be known as the Mariel boatlift. Angry that the Peruvian embassy had begun to allow a few asylum seekers inside its gates, Castro decided to let more people leave. His goal was to create difficulties for the Peruvian government and he was successful in that endeavor.

“Many of them had grown up with the revolution, and the only leader they had ever known was Fidel.”

Castro ruled with an iron fist during his lifetime and for a time managed to control the flow of information about the world outside Cuba. For this reason, many young people did not truly understand what life was like in other countries, and it was not until their exiled relatives began returning that they realized how poor they were compared to their family members who had left during the early days of the Castro regime.

“Attend the march with your block, don’t leave until you are told to do so, as the flow of people in front of the embassy must be constant and unbroken, be disciplined, focused, and patriotic.”

This quote is taken from the instructions Cuban citizens were given in advance of the march during the early days of the crisis at the Peruvian embassy. It shows how controlling the Castro regime was of both its people and media representations of Cuba: Castro wanted the world to believe that the massive demonstration was the product of true patriotism and revolutionary zeal, and yet the reality was that Cuban citizens were all but ordered to take part, and they knew that those who stayed home would face consequences.

“It was impossible to decipher their intentions because after two decades most Cubans had become adept at hiding their true feelings and motivations.”

This passage speaks to the Castro regime’s ability to surveil and control its people. Because free speech was outlawed and expressing any kind of dissent was punishable by imprisonment or worse, people became used to hiding their true feelings under a mask of patriotism. Here, Ojito discusses the way that this climate of silence produced an entire generation of people who could neither speak their minds nor trust one another.

“Transporting a dead pig across the island was no minor feat. The sale and consumption of food was strictly controlled by the state.”

This passage underscores the difficulty of everyday life under Castro’s regime. Because all property belonged to the state and the economy was planned, even the food grown or animals raised by an individual were not considered theirs. People were frequently imprisoned for the crime of “stealing” from the state, which could mean anything from harvesting one’s own mangos to butchering a pig that an individual had raised themselves.

“Vilaboa attended Hernández’s show on the evening of April 17th, 1980, and the two began to whip Miami into a frenzy. In a matter of hours, it seemed that everyone who didn’t already have a boat was looking for one. Cubans sped to the Miami river and the beach carrying thousands of dollars in their pockets to entice reluctant boat captains to take them to Cuba.” 

This passage speaks to the vast networks created by Cubans in exile for the purposes of communication, cultural preservation, and mutual aid. Families in the United States stayed up-to-date on current events that impacted both Cubans in the US and those still in Cuba, and radio programs like this one were one of the key sources of information.

“We have withdrawn our custody of Florida’s waters.”

This statement, put out by the Castro regime as the first boats began to leave Mariel, signaled a massive policy shift. Castro had tightly controlled emigration in the first decades of his rule, and his willingness to allow the exit of so many people marked the beginning of a new era.

“The days of Mariel were the first time that the country had turned on itself since the beginning of Castro’s regime in 1959. The government encouraged violence against those who were leaving, a widening of its policy of repudiation towards the embassy refugees.”

This passage is one of many that reflects the theme of Political Repression in Castro’s Cuba. Ojito and her family had long been the target of suspicion for their lack of revolutionary zeal, and that climate of antagonism toward Cubans who were not demonstrably supportive of the regime only increased during the Mariel boatlift.

“Fidel! For sure! Hit the Yankees hard!”

This was an old revolutionary slogan that Castro revived during the early days of Mariel. He used the boatlift as a way to garner support during a prolonged economic crisis that had impacted Cuba’s food supply and the morale of its people. By casting the would-be exiles as traitors and those who chose to remain as heroes of the revolution, he was able to curry favor among a sizeable portion of the population whose opinion of him had begun to waver.

“Ours is a country of refugees, the president began, those of us who have been here for a generation, or six, or eight generations ought to have just as open a heart to receive the new refugees as our ancestors received.”

This quote, spoken by President Carter, represents the early US reaction to the Mariel boatlift. Although the US government was initially welcoming toward the Mariel refugees, as the numbers began to increase rapidly and Castro became increasingly vocal that he was ridding his island of “criminals” and “scum,” the tide of public opinion began to turn. Carter would later amend this statement, but his response to the Mariel boatlift arguably contributed to his loss to Reagan in the next presidential election, which came on the heels of Mariel.

“Until Schumaker stumbled upon the Valley Chief and the America, no American reporter from a major US newspaper had actually been able to witness how the Cuban government was mixing ‘undesirables’ with the regular boatlift crowd.”

This passage grounds the narrative within the history of Mariel and speaks to Castro’s ability to control narratives, even beyond the borders of his country. He stoked fear in the hearts of Americans by claiming to have sent Cuba’s prisoners to the United States, but the reality was murkier. He did release prisoners, but many were in prison for crimes as petty as growing their own food or speaking out against the revolution.

“Concentrate, I ordered my brain, urging it to record every small detail of my island. This is the last time I’ll see Cuba. Take it in, take it all in.”

Although Ojito wanted to leave Cuba, it was a bittersweet and emotional goodbye. This quote reflects the theme of Exile and Identity, showing the complicated relationship that Ojito has with her homeland, and contextualizing this memoir within the broader history of the Cuban diaspora. The families who emigrated did so because the climate of political repression and lack of opportunities rendered life too difficult in Cuba, but they would never lose the emotional connection they felt to their home.

“Perhaps not even the government knew that I was on this specific boat. I felt free for the first time in my life, and the feeling was unsettling.”

This passage speaks to the climate of repression in Cuba that dominated Ojito’s life there. She was so unaccustomed to freedom that it initially felt strange to her. In the United States, she would have to grow, adapt, and change to fit into a society that was not as regimented and controlled as the one in which she grew up.

“Thank you, I said, but I’ll keep my name. I didn’t tell him that my name was all I had, my name and my memories.”

This passage speaks to the theme of Exile and Identity. Although Ojito was happy to flee Cuba, she did struggle upon arrival. Keeping her name was a way to bring a piece of her past from Cuba with her. She would ultimately come to occupy an identitarian position that would draw from both Cuban and American culture.

“By the time the new policy was in place, most South Floridians were ready to accept it. More Cubans, 86,488, had arrived in May 1980 than in all of 1962, the year that up until then had seen the largest influx of Cuban refugees.”

This passage grounds the memoir within the real-life history of the Mariel boatlift and provides details about the big picture of the refugee crisis. It also helps to clarify the reaction of many Miamians, who were not sure what such a massive influx of refugees would do to the city’s culture and demographics, and worried that South Florida did not have the infrastructure to support so many new arrivals.

“Faced with the riddle of exile life in the United States, the daily struggle between wanting and fearing, between nostalgia and the wondrous possibilities of the American dream, some were unable to adapt.”

This passage speaks to the theme of Exile and Identity. Although Cuban refugees had fled a country and a life they felt would not allow them happiness or success, happiness and success were not guaranteed in their new land, either. Many struggled to find a sense of American identity and to figure out what their place would be in American society.

“Will the last American to leave Miami please take the flag?”

The Mariel refugees were the target of discrimination from earlier waves of Cuban refugees and white and Black communities in Miami. This quote is taken from a popular, offensive bumper sticker that was popular among white Miamians in the months (and even years) after Mariel.