2023/2024
Collection 19

Escaping Cuba

1959; Havana, Cuba

When my grandma was about five years old, her family moved from New Jersey to Cuba, because her father had gotten hired to manage a casino. They sailed to Cuba and rented a home in Havana. The area where they lived was like a smaller and less wealthy Beverly Hills. They even had a family that drove and cleaned for them. My great-grandfather, great-grandmother, my grandma, her brother, and my gram’s dog, Papelito, all settled into living in Cuba for a few years.

At that time the president of Cuba was a man whose last name was Batista (buh TEES tuh).(1) However, there were rebels that lived in the mountains who did not want Batista to be president. They wanted their leader to be president, and their leader was Fidel Castro. The rebels were a strong army, and in Cuba, armies decided who was going to be president. They fought physically, and the strongest army was the one who chose the president.(2)

On December 31, 1958, New Year’s Eve, the rebels invaded the streets. Everybody, including my grandma and her family, turned off the lights in their house and hid, but unluckily they lived across the street from the vice president of Cuba. That meant that all of the houses on that block were searched — including my grandma’s house. My grandma and her family were sitting there silently when the door burst open. The rebels yelled at my grandma’s family, but they were yelling in Spanish, and my grandma’s family didn’t understand them. My grandma’s family backed up against the wall with their hands up.

My gram’s dog, Papelito, did not like that and barked. A soldier turned around and pointed his gun at the dog, but my grandma didn’t like that. She dove in front of the dog and hugged Papelito, but she was only seven years old, and she didn’t know better. The soldier backed off, and my grandma stood up and went to the wall. The rebels raided the family’s house, took the jewelry and food, and took a camera from my grandma.

About two weeks later, my great-grandpa said that the family was going on a picnic, because he didn’t want to scare my grandma. Instead they went on a ship. They had to wear red and black to go outside, because those were the rebel colors. My grandma’s brother did not go with them, because he had a wife and a child to take care of. Papelito also had to be left behind.

My grandma and her parents got to Key West, Florida. Then their friend drove them to Miami, and they flew to New York. Papelito ended up coming to the United States with my grandma’s brother a few weeks later.

Now my grandma lives in Colorado and remembers this as a scary period in her life.

James Adrian Manza; Colorado, USA

1. Batista served as the elected president of Cuba from 1940 to 1944. In 1952, before a scheduled presidential election, he seized power (with help from the army) and canceled the election.

2. Fidel Castro became the leader of Cuba in 1959 and remained in power until 2008. Castro was also the leader of Cuba’s Communist Party for most of that time, continuing until 2011. The Communist Party is the only political party that is allowed in Cuba.

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