Cuando Sali de Cuba - stories of Courage and Hope

Every year around this time, I start to get requests for a story or a recipe to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month. It struck me that it would be fitting during this month of heritage celebration to tell the stories of Cubans who had to flee their island home to make a new life here in the U.S.

So, I put out the request to my readers and you have responded with the most amazing stories. I am honored to share them here.

Cuando

Some of the "Cuando Sali de Cuba" stories I have featured in the past:

Christina's Story

Jorge's Story

Gracie's Story

From now until the middle of October, it gives me great pleasure to share the stories of Cuban immigrants and refugees.

I'll also be doing some really fun and fabulous giveaways, so stay tuned. (No, really. You're going to love them!)

Thanks to all of you who have participated already. To those of you who have not, it's not too late! Please send me your stories, along with some photos. My email is mdarby (at) cox (dot) net.

I am so very excited to get to share these beautiful stories. Thanks for trusting me.

~Marta

Cuando Sali de Cuba - Lillian's Story

 Marta here. I started collecting stories from other Cuban Americans to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month. I realize now that our stories will take much longer than just a month to tell, so I'm expanding this series for as long as I have contributed stories to share. Thank you, my friends, for the privilege of letting me tell about your lives. 

Cuando Sali de Cuba, stories of courage and hope.

Today, Lillian shares about how even as she came here to the U.S. as a baby, she still feels the music of her Cuban heritage beating strongly in her heart. Enjoy.

  Cuando-sali-de-Cuba-for-web

I don’t remember when I left Cuba. I was only 6 months old. Most of what I will share is what I was told about the adventure of leaving the land of sugar cane fields, warm sultry beaches and amazing nightclubs for a land to the north, so different culturally.  I was to learn that being Cuban American meant to embrace this special place, my homeland.  The song of the Cuban soul runs through my heart as I share this account with you.

My father was a teacher and my mom was a pharmacist.   My older sister, Amy, was about 2 years old. I was only a baby.   My parents could not get a visa to the United States. They could get one for Spain. However, they really wanted to come to the United States.  There was a stopover in Haiti, and my parents simply didn’t answer the door when the knock on the door came to report to the airport to fly to Spain.

Lillian and her mother

We lived in Haiti a short time while my parents applied there to go to the United States. TWA Airlines flew us from Haiti to the United States.  My mom tells me that the airline stewardess gave my older sister a candy bar.

We arrived in Miami, but stayed there briefly.   Our family was sponsored by a group of Cubans who had a church in Northern California.  From there, my dad got a teaching job teaching ESL Math. He would continue to be a teacher in this for most of my childhood.  My younger sister Jackie was born in Northern Califonria.  We moved to the Los Angeles area, where I spent the rest of my childhood.

Being Cuban is drenched into my soul and I feel inseparable from it. My married name is not Hispanic, but there is no taking the Cuban out of my soul.

My father’s brother, Guillermo, lived in San Francisco.  Every Thanksgiving, they would come to see us. Every Christmas, they would come to see us.  It was so amazing to experience those American holidays intermingled so intimately with Cuban tradition.   Aunt Olga used to make large pots of carne con papa for us to have before Noche Buena arrived. Then it would be the traditional lechon asado, black beans and rice, those scents savored by me while my uncle and godfather, Guillermo, played his nostalgic Cuban music on his large reel to reel tape player.

My memory of arriving in this country is not a memory I vividly remember because I came here as a baby. However, my parents, my aunts, my uncles and my cousins, kept the Cuban spirit alive.  The frosting on the Cuban cake of my memories was trying guarapo for the first time in Miami and also introducing the Cuban culture to my half Americano children during their childhoods.

It’s been 50 years since I was born, and at least 30 years since the frequent visits of my family would melt Cuban ambiance into my  soul.   Receiving the rich feelings of the Cuban culture was better than having the world’s finest chocolate. They are both sweet, but my memories will always drift home, to the fast talking Cuban dialect, the scent of just brewed Cuban espresso, and the joyful expression of our music, our heart, and our soul. 

Guantanemera!

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Marta here: I'm so grateful to Lillian and all those of you who have contributed stories. I feel it's important for all of us to tell our stories. I will keep posting them as long as you keep sending them in. 

Please send me an email to mdarby(at)cox(dot)net with Cuando Sali de Cuba in the Subject line along with a few photos to illustrate. 

Thank you again, my friends.

Winner - Voices from Mariel Giveaway

First, I'd like to thank all of you who sent in your "leaving Cuba" stories.
The heartbreak and beauty of them is something that I think I'm going to start sharing regularly here on my blog. Thank you, again, my friends.
I numbered each entry and plugged the numbers into the True Random Number Generator at Random.org which gave me a number.
Congratulations to the winner of the Voices from Mariel DVD:
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Maria said...

Cuando salí de Cuba...no lloré.

In 1969, while waiting at the airport for the plane that would take me and my parents to our new life and saying our last goodbyes, I noticed I was the only one who wasn't crying. I was six years old and though my parents had been honest with me when I asked when we would see our family again ("We don't really know, hopefully not too long"), I was certain that, at most, it would be a couple of years.

I didn't understand why my only cousin, who was more of a sister to me, clung to my mother's skirt and sobbed. I suppose that, being a little older, she was less idealistic than I. I didn't know then that she would succumb to Hodgkin's disease and we would never see each other again, or that three of my four grandparents would die without having shared in my small triumphs or great joys.

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Please send me an email with your snail mail address and  HEY, MARTA! I WON STUFF ON YOUR BLOG! in the subject line and I will get a copy of this beautiful film out to you immediately.
Voices from Mariel

Thanks again, to all of you. I'm quite humbled by your everyday brand of courage. Cubans continue to amaze me and make me proud every single day.
And thank you to the filmmakers who were so generous to make this available to my readers. Gracias!
For those of you who are interested. The Voices from Mariel DVD is available for purchase here.

The Best of MBFCF in 2010

I started this tradition last year.

I reviewed my posts for the entire year (which was kind of interesting in a wow-is-that-a-train-wreck? kinda way, but that's not important right now) and picked a mix of some of my favorites.

These links are a pretty good representation of what it's like Living the Vida Loca, MBFCF-style.

If you've been a regular reader, I thank you for your time and attention and your cyber-love. You may enjoy going into my cyber-time machine and re-living this past year via the following blog posts.

If you're new to my blog, make yourself at home and enjoy this slice of my Cuban-American life in the O.C.

Besos,

Marta

1. The Writing is On the Wall - The one where I take you on a tour of the walls of my freakishly small cottage-like home.

E I love you m

2. A Living Legacy - The one where my mom turned 96 and had her photo taken with (almost) everyone in my big, fat, Cuban family.

Luza

3. Amy's Trip to Cuba - The one where Amy Kikita (my daughter) goes to Cuba and shares how she experienced the island and the people and how she ended up meeting Cuban dissident blogger Yoani Sanchez of Generacion Y. This link is to all the posts from her trip.

Amy varadero

4.  How Google Works - A Very Cuban Explanation - The one where my 96 year old mom explains how the internet search engines work. She calls them Cuco and Yayo (Google and Yahoo) and becomes an instant Youtube hit among Cubans everywhere.

5. How to Turn 55 While in Miami - In which I drag out my birthday celebration for days and enjoy a wonderful party and my husband's sweet surprise.

Birthday party

6. How to Throw a Virtual Birthday Party - In which I surprise and amaze my daughter by having everyone she knows post a birthday greeting. (*takes bow*)

Val birthday amy

7.  Hasta La Vista, Baby! - In which my son, Adam, moves far away and leaves me sad. (*wipes away a tear*)

Adam car

8. Baking With Betty - Brownieliciousness - In which I get to bake in the Betty Crocker Kitchens in Minneapolis and am overwhelmed by my own nerdiness.

Baking

9. When is a Pitbull NOT a pitbull? - In which I am introduced to Cuban rapper, Pitbull and I may or may not have called him a muñecón. Here's the video version. ;-)

Pitbull

10. El Palacio and me. (It was love at first sight.) - In which I visit El Palacio de Los Jugos (with my partner in Tiki Tiki blog-crime, Carrie) in Miami and document the entire comelata.

Palacio

11. The Mother Ring - In which I tell about how I received a family heirloom.

Ring

12. Nochebuena. Cubans. Photobooth. (Pachanga!) - In which I manage to capture the silliness and beauty that is my big, fat, Cuban family.

Girls

It's a nice compilation, isn't it?

I'll just keep writing in 2011. I hope you come back. My blog-casa is your blog-casa. =D

Happy New Year!

Cuban Miami - A Winner

First of all, I want to thank all of you who took the time to tell me your answers and some of you who wrote your stories. As I read through each comment, I realized that this was a perfect snapshot of our Cuban community.

With the naming of each city and date, I read pain and sadness and nostalgia. Thank you so much for sharing this part of your life. Your answers made me stop and think.

Every single Cuban here in the U.S. and actually scattered across the world, has a story like this.

They all begin with the same way. "My family left Cuba in......"

It's almost like our history began the day we left our homeland. And that's what we all have in common, isn't it?

I wish I could give everyone a book, (I'm generous like that, but that's not important right now) but I had to choose just one name.

So, I went to Random.org and used the True Random Number Generator. There were 3 people who entered their names twice, so I subtracted those. From 47 comments I entered the number 44. The winner was Comment #2. (See screenshot below)

Screen shot 2010-06-21 at 10.57.06 AM 

Ileana said...

Where: Mami from Sagua la Grande; Papi from Guantanamo

When Arrived USA: July 1, 1964

Still Have Family? Yes, tios y primos

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Congratulations, Ileana! You're going to love this book.

Cuban Miami 

Please shoot me an email with MARTA, I WON STUFF ON YOUR BLOG in the subject line, so I don't accidentally delete it.

Thank you all, again, for entering this contest. To the rest of you, I encourage you to get this book, Historic Photos of Cuban Miami by Jennifer Ortiz.  It's such a great history of the struggles and triumphs of Cubans as we began our lives here in the U.S., specifically in Miami.

Today, more than ever, I feel privileged to be a part of such a rich community.