In her compelling compilation, Genie Milgrom shares testimony from 36 Cubans who were among the 250,000 who fled to the U.S. during the period between the fall of the Batista regime and the rise of Fidel Castro.
Milgrom was five when she left Cuba in 1960. The Cubans who offer these first-person accounts were also children when they departed. Milgrom precedes their contributions with brief summaries of what was occurring the month each left Cuba.
The details of these stories are eye-opening. Many came from affluent families with nannies, cooks, maids, and second homes. They left their island paradise for New York or Miami with jewelry and other valuables hidden inside rubber Fidel Castro dolls, in the hems of dresses, or, in one case, a pink transistor radio. During Operation Pedro Pan, 1960-1962, 14,000 children were sent to the U.S. without their parents, an act of desperation fueled by talk that Cuban children would be picked up and sent to Russia.
Like countless immigrant groups, these exiles faced hardships in both countries. Contributors tell of departures planned in secrecy, with fake passports; neighbors turned informants; and lives lost to firing squads. They arrived in Miami to signs reading “no pets and no Cubans”; two-bedroom apartments for families of ten; poverty they’d never known.
A pathologist got a job “mopping up blood in a laboratory, just like the ones he used to supervise.” A white-collar office worker became a dishwasher; a schoolteacher, a factory worker.
Some aspects of their accounts are repetitious and would have benefited from editing. Additionally, because the stories are told to the author, the chronology isn’t always smooth. Speakers often jump forward, then backtrack, and grammatical issues sometimes create reading obstacles. Further context could also have been helpful in many instances.
But the speakers’ deep emotions and vivid recollections overshadow any writing issues. All have performed a great service by documenting their stories as witnesses to a lost way of life.
Also available as an ebook.