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The women o Cuba are being taught to
use firearms. Citizens are fed with the
obsessive fear that the U.S. will invade
their land. Below, a rebel stands guard.
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An American Family Flees from Cuba
HAVANA WAS
OUR HOME
ANONYMOUS
They left behind a lifetime of work, love,
and friendship to start life anew in the U.S.;
Their crime? They were the hated "Yanquis"
This is the personal account of an American
born wife and mother who spent most of her adult
life in Cuba. Months beore diplomatic relations
between Cuba and the V. S. were broken and vir
tually all Americans ousted, her family was forced
to flee their adopted land. She has requested that
her name be withheld because of possible reprisals
against friends still under the Castro regime.
AFTER 18 years, we left Cuba with only
what we could carry and five carefully
hoarded U.S. dollars apiece.
Havana had been home for my family since
1942, a home we loved. Now we were leaving
for good, forced to head northward and begin
all over again by hard, rigid economic fact,
by pent-up nerves, by made-in-Moscow propa
ganda programs. The day we left, we carried
. all our remaining possessions in 17 suitcases
and we carried fear, too.
The Cuban revolutionary government prac
tices the scare tactic of leaving you alone
until you prepare to leave. Then, as you enter
the preboarding room at the Rancho Boyeros
Airport and show your exit permit, ticket,
and passport, and after you've waved good
bye to family and friends and are irrevocably
shut off by locked and guarded doors then
they act.
There's a tap on your shoulder, and you
' turn to face a long-haired, bearded rebel
soldier who herds you into a small room and
orders you to undress. There you undergo a
humiliating surface-to-skin search. At best,
you'll miss your plane; at worst, you'll be
subjected to four or more days detainment
in the mansion-turned-prison of the Army
Intelligence Service in suburban Miramar.
I took two nerve pills before we left for the
Family Weekly. February 11, 1961
f 5
Bombings in Havana have become commonplace.
airport and stowed a whole bottle in my purse
in case of detainment. The planeload of
Cuban and American travelers many of
them were leaving for good but not admit
ting it to the authorities passed the pre
boarding scrutiny safely and were permitted
to get on the plane.
There was a tenseness among all of us as
the engines were started, for there was still
another hurdle to be passed. Time after time,
unkempt barbudo soldiers, shouldering arms
against sweat-stained olive-drab shirts, will
climb aboard, walk down the narrow aisle,
and order passengers off. Even after the
plane is airborne you cannot relax; there is
still a chance to be ordered back by the con
trol tower.
We were lucky. We made it. We were flying
to the freedom of Miami, just 55 air minutes
away from a once-happy land that had wel-