FULL TEXT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01070R000200780003-0
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 12
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 26, 2008
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: July 3, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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RADIO TV REPORTS, INC.
PROGP&M Made in Cuba STATION WNEW-TV
July 3, 1983 8:00 P.M.
SUBJECT FULL T E X T
WOMAN: [Unintelligible] my family, my brother, [unin-
telligible]. I knew that I have to get out [unintelligible] my
husband.
1igibleI.
MAN: After terrible years, I still think of [unintel-
MAN: [Unintelligible].
GENE HAMIL: In the years since Fidel Castro came to
power, more than 700,000 Cubans have chosen to leave the island
for the United States. The great majority settled in Miami. But
many of those who came to the Northeast chose to live here and in
the small towns nearby. Twenty-five thousand are living in Union
City. They have transformed the old Irish-German neighborhoods,
but that was never their intention. For a long time they
insisted that they were exiles, not immigrants. They had chosen
to leave Castro's Cuba, but had not chosen to become Americans.
Life here was a mere parenthesis. Someday they would all go
home.
That parenthesis has now lasted 23 years, and more and
more Cubans are becoming Americans. For some, the old dream of
toppling Castro has faded. Others cherish that dream, but wish
to exert political power in the places where they've settled.
For whatever reasons, the exiles are becoming immigrants
and their children are becoming Americans. Still, it's fair to
say that their dreams and their disappointments were made in Cuba
Material supplied by Radio N Reports. Inc. may be used for file and reference purposes only. It may not be reproduced, sold or publicly demonstrated or exhibited.
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and are being lived out in places like Union City, a long way
from home.
I'm Gene Hamil (?). For the next hour, we'll be
examining the lives of some of those inhabitants of a country of
exile.
[Singing in Spanish]
HAMIL: Within weeks of Fidel Castro's triumph in 1959,
the first of the Cuban exiles were arriving in Miami. Most of
them were white, middle-class, and urban. And while some were
followers of the dictator Fulgencio Batista, others were liberal
intellectuals, social democrats, or disillusioned members of
Castro's own 26th of July movement. Very few thought that they
would stay long in the United States. There would be a counter-
revolution, Castro would be toppled, and all of them would soon
go home. They were sure of that. They were exiles, they said,
here for political reasons, temporary residents. They were not
immigrants.
MAN: I came to the United States when my -- only with
my wife because we thought there was a nightmare and maybe in six
months the new regime was over. But it was not true. And after
a year, one year -- in other words, when we have a year in the
United States, we come to conclusion that to bring the kids.
HAMIL: But in 1961, a CIA-backed exile invasion ended
in catastrophe in the swamps of the Bay of Pigs. And in 1962,
the fate of the exiles was sealed when John F. Kennedy and Nikita
Khrushchev ended the Missile Crisis with a deal. Khrushchev
removed his missiles from Cuba in exchange for Kennedy's vow
never to invade Castro's Cuba.
PRESIDENT JOHN KENNEDY: The Soviet missile bases in
Cuba are being dismantled. Their missiles and related equipment
are being crated. And the fixed installations at these sites are
being destroyed.
HAMIL: Through the years since, more waves of exiles
arrived in the United States. The later arrivals were still
urban and white, but no longer middle-class. These working-class
exiles came for more classic reasons, to improve their economic
lot.
But in 1980, one final wave began to leave from the
Cuban port of Mariel, and they were different. For the first
time, blacks were among the exiles. And of 123,000 new arrivals,
some 24,000 have served some time in jail.
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About earlier exiles, Castro had once quoted Don
Quixote, "For my enemy, I will build a silver bridge." But
during the last wave, he emptied Cuban jails of criminals and
undesirables. Some of the Marielitos were soon in trouble in the
United States. Others worked hard to get on with their lives.
But all of the Cuban exiles shared one common experience. They
had come a long way from home, and they had paid a price.
WOMAN: I never thought how [unintelligible] here,
because I remember my mother in Cuba many times asking me
[unintelligible]. And then when I came here, I said, "Oh, my
God. Maybe [unintelligible]."
MAN: [Unintelligible].
MAN: My family had opposed the dictatorship of Batista
before. In other words, all of them had opposed it. But my
father had the vision to turn around and say, "No. This is going
to be for our demise as a country." And yet my father's major
wish was to return to die there someday. And my mother the same
way.
WOMAN: It makes me sad to think, you know, you can go
through [unintelligible]. I ma happy here, but, you know, I
would like [unintelligible] I can go there when I want. [Unin-
telligible].
HAMIL: This Potito de Rivera (?). He is one of the
finest saxophone players in the world. The woman is his mother.
She came to the United States from Cuba in 1968. But Potito
stayed on. Trained by his musician father, he played for a
number of bands, and finally helped form the great Cuban jazz
band called Irequera (?). In Cuba, he had a family, a good job
by Cuban standards, and prestige. They weren't enough.
[Musical interlude]
POTITO DE RIVERA: All my life I dream to come to New
York and play jazz music here, to be in this country.
Anything in Cuba -- not only in Cuba, but in all the
socialist countries, there have to be some kind of political
[unintelligible], always. Even when you don't do political
songs. Any kind of artistry [unintelligible], have to be poli-
tical [unintelligible], always. And I don't care at all about
politics. I don't like it. I don't trust it. Not on the left,
not on the right. I don't care about that. Of course, I have my
idea, but I don't like to talk about it.
So, if you say that in a socialist country, immediately
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you are against the system. That sounds very funny, especially
for Americans. And I say, "I don't care."
Somebody, when the election was running here, said, "Who
do you prefer, Ronald Reagan or Carter?" I said, "Dizzy Gilles-
pie."
[Musical interlude]
DE RIVERA: They call jazz sometimes imperialist music.
You know, in some way, they identify jazz with North America, and
North America [unintelligible] the enemy. So jazz [unintelligi-
ble] North America. That's very funny, you know, that it is that
way.
It was a very hard decision because I had my children
there. I lost my marriage and my country and my friends in there
and my land and the whole thing. But everything in life has a
price. I paid a very high price.
[Clip of De Rivera performing]
[Largely unintelligible remarks by Mrs. De Rivera]
HAMIL: This is Rafael Tomas. He came to this country
in the flotilla from Mariel in 1980. In Cuba he had been a
singer in a piano bar in the town of Cienfuegos, but wanted to
move on to the big leagues. He was told that there were too many
singers in Havana, so he chose to leave. He went from Miami to a
refugee camp in Pennsylvania, and eventually to Union City.
There here met a 46-year-old exiled banker named Luis Faya (?)
who came from Rafael's home town. Faya decided to guide the
young man's career. The route has not been easy.
RAFAEL TOMAS: In my country, it's difficult for the
artist. It's necessary for the artist to participate in the
revolution, you know. With me, I have many problems because I
don't like the [unintelligible] system, the system. I have many
problems.
[Conversation in Spanish]
RAFEL FAYA: [Unintelligible]
TOMAS: For example, I go to Havana because I like work
in Havana. But I can't because I belong in Cienfuegos, you know?
I cannot go to Havana. I cannot work in Havana. No. Or in the
whole field, you know. Only Cienfuegos.
FAYA: The first time I saw him, the people from
Cienfuegos over here, they have a party, in the month April. And
most of the people from Cienfuegos in this neighborhood go to
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that party. And he was sitting in the table next to where I was
sitting. And then he went to the stage and he played two songs.
And that's how we met.
Then I didn't see him for a while, until I came one
Sunday for dinner at the [unintelligible] and he was playing
there. And then I asked him if he could play that song [unin-
telligible] from our home town. And he played that song. And I
liked very much [unintelligible]. And that's how the whole thing
started.
[Rafael Tomas performing]
FAYA: You try to help your countrymen. And he's not
the only one [unintelligible] trying to help him. [Unintelligi-
ble] they can have a better life here. [Unintelligible].
TOMAS: I want come back to Cuba because this is my
country. In this country with my family, sometime I think maybe
I don't see it never more.
HAMIL: While Potito de Rivera has been accepted in the
country of jazz, Rafael Tomas, so far, has been confined to the
clubs of the Cuban diaspora, places where the world seems to have
stopped in 1958.
HAMIL: No one can quarrel with one generalization about
Cuban exiles. They work very hard. With the help of several
billion dollars in refugee aid and a lot of hard work, the
earlier generation of middle-class exiles eventually settled back
into the middle class. They have transformed Eighth Street in
Miami and Bergen Line Avenue in Union City.
But more than half the exiles remain working-class,
particularly the later arrivals. They work in factories and
sweatshops and at mean jobs.
MAN: I used to go to the movies, you know, and see all
the things beautiful here. I always liked this country. I saw
so many, I was a fanatic with movies. Especially that guy John
Wayne. I used to like him a lot. I used to like everything
about this country. That's why I came over here, one of the
reasons I came.
I was like a bakery man. You know, I used
to
make
bread, things like that. My father was an insurance
man.
He
used to sell insurance. And he dies, you know. I was
the
head
of the family. That's I went and came over here. You
get
more
opportunity in this country than in Cuba in that time.
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I've been working in the [unintelligible] -- well, you
figure it out -- 30 years or more.
WOMAN: Most of the work here, they, you know, they have
clerks and everything. And they -- you know, today you have to
have a lot of money to [unintelligible] the family. They have no
husbands. And they support themselves and the kids, you know?
That's why they have to work hard. They get paid by the garment,
not by the hour. Sometimes it depends on their work. Sometimes
they make four dollars, sometimes they make six. It depends how
hard -- yeah, an hour. Yeah. Not less than four dollars.
If you work hard, here in America you can get -- you
know, [unintelligible] if you don't work. A lot of people I
know, they have [unintelligible]. My husband and I will work a
lot. We work a lot.
HAMIL: More than 50 percent of Cuban women work to help
make ends meet. Still, there have been some remarkable success
stories.
This is Marcia Julian. She arrived here with her
parents in 1961. Today she hosts a variety show on Channnel 41.
MARCIA JULIAN: I come from a very strict family, very,
very strict family. I have three brothers and I'm the only girl.
And I was brought up to get married and have a family, and that's
it. I mean there was no such thing as, you know, being a
professional, and never mind the idea of working on TV or
anything that had to do with show business.
My brothers, they all got together in a big reunion with
my father, and "You're letting your daughter getting involved in
TV," and all this. "It's going to bring shame to the family,"
you know.
So finally I convinced them. I said, "Hey, I mean this
is it. We live in America." I said, "I don't want to be the
typical housewife. I have other ideas. And I really enjoy this.
And I think I can do it. There is nothing wrong with that."
It's very hard to have a family and to be with your
children and to be running around and to do a show. But if I
don't work, she doesn't eat, or I don't eat, or she won't have a
good education. And I feel a conflict of the family and the
conflict that I have at the same time, you know, looking pretty
and acting and interviewing everybody. And all of a sudden, at
10:30 the taping is over, and take off the makeup and run home
because, you know, child is home and you go into motherhood and
then she's so sweet and innocent and lovely, and you say, "My
God. I've got to spend my time with her. I've got to enjoy
her." And when I tell her I've got to go to work, she says, "No,
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Mommy. I don't want you to go to work." [Unintelligible] she's
building up this front.
So you know what Mommy has to do tonight?
CHILD: What?
JULIAN: I've got to go work.
CHILD: No.
JULIAN: I believe [unintelligible] I probably would be
married [unintelligible] would have gone to Havana, because you
never know, really, where your future will take you. Because of
what happened in Cuba, and there's a little theory called the
domino theory and all that crazy little thing back there in the
mind stored someplace. I don't know, I always [unintelligible].
I mean I learned how to be a beautician, and I can do anything
besides working in TV. And I'm ready for anything. I'm ready
for action. I'm ready to jump in a boat.
It's a memory tlat I cannot erase from my mind, you
know. I'm an exile, in a sense. I consider this my country
already and I'm adapted to the way of living here, but it's a
memory that I cannot erase. And we are a product of what
happened.
[Clip of TV show conducted in Spanish]
HAMIL: In Cuba before Fidel, Ricardo Capote (?) had it
made. He owned the largest Cuban-owned cookie factory on the
island, a factory that was nationalized in 1961. Today he owns
eight McDonald's franchises in the metropolitan area.
RICARDO CAPOTE: I got a dime in the airport from Cuba.
Okay? I didn't know how to spend the dime, because I didn't know
that the friend that I'm going to call to pick me up in the
airport, okay, he's going to have car because he just came in a
month before me. Okay?
And then [unintelligible] came in, the two girls. And
so many, many, many months, almost a year, we stay in Miami.
Okay? Then we get up in the morning and we got only a quarter.
Right? Okay? And we can't spend it because that was the milk
for the girls in the morning.
[Unintelligible] in the Cuba, that the government came
in and he take your property. Okay? And all the 600 employee in
the factory. And they come in April 6th, 1961 at 2:20. I can
never forget that. April 6th at 2:20. That's the day for me.
[Clip of restaurant activities]
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CAPOTE: They came in right away. They surrounded the
whole factory with soldiers, they come in in truck. And he was a
captain that I know, and he was the person in charge of the
consolidating of the flavors. Everything that was bakery or had
anything with bakery, the was the director or the consolidator.
He went on top of the table and he just say that they'd
taken that factory over because of the needs of the government.
We took the two girls and we sent them to the firm,
because they having [unintelligible] rights in the firm yet. And
we stay one month playing Monopoly.
I feel like I lost my country. If this government now
[unintelligible] and put enough money over there [unintelligible]
against the Communists that they are being taken [unintelligible]
Central America. I feel that [unintelligible]. I don't have the
money, okay, to do that. So why should I dream that way?
HAMIL: The fanatic anti-Communism of some Cuban exiles
sometimes borders on the comic. The type was best defined by
exile writer Ivan Acosta in the movie based on his play "El
Super."
[Film clip in Spanish]
HAMIL: But there remain Cuban exiles for whom the long
struggle is not funny at all. They are serious men.
This is a man named Humberto Perez, a veteran of the Bay
of Pigs. He is the military chief of an exile group called Alfa
66. It was formed in 1961 and claims to have made hundreds of
small-scale raids on the Cuban mainland.
HUMBERTO PEREZ: We know that the only way that Castro
has to be out of power is by the Cuban people. We are opposed to
any intervention with the United States. We don't want Reagan or
other President send the men into Cuba. We don't have the
support in that way. The only thing we wanted, to recognize the
right to fight. Every man have the right to fight or die for the
freedom of their own country. I think the fight for the freedom
of our country is in Cuba, inside the island, where the people
who oppose, oppress our country are not here in the United
States.
The only thing was we condemn Castro to die anyplace.
Wherever he go, if we can kill Castro, yes. We're breaking any
kind of law [unintelligible]. If Castro comes to here or to
another country, we will have the chance to kill him, we try to
eliminate him.
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HAMIL: There are other exile groups who operate much
closer to home. This man's name is Eduardo Arosana (?). He was
not available for an interview because he is currently a fugi-
tive. The FBI believes that he is the leader of the most
successful terrorist group in the United States, an outfit called
Omega 7.
It is probably safe to say that Omega 7 creates more
fear among Cuban exiles than in Cuba itself. Very few exiles
will discuss Omega 7, even those who oppose its methods. Since
coming into existence in 1974, Omega 7 has been responsible for
at least 40 bombings and at least three murders, all in territory
of the United States.
They were particularly furious during the thaw in
American relations with Cuba in 1978. Exiles who took advantage
of the thaw to visit relatives in Cuba were denounced as traitors
to the cause. Leaders of the movement to normalize relations
with Castro were threatened and at least two were killed.
Lolaulo Jose Nagrin (?) was machine-gunned to deathin front of
his 12-year-old son in Union City in November 1979. Carlos Muniz
was murdered on April 28th, 1979 in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
MARIANA MARSAO: To the people that knew him, like
myself, while he was doing what he was doing, who shared the same
innocence that I shared and his friends shared in this process,
we arrived at our positions through a totally honest process. And
he was, you know, brutally assassinated. It was very, very
critical for us.
HAMIL: This is Mariana Gaston, national coordinator for
the Antonio Marsao (?) Brigade, a group of young Cuban-Americans
who sympathize with Fidel Castro. When Carlos Muniz was murder-
ed, he was a prominent member of this group.
GASTON: The right wing feels reinforced by the politics
of [unintelligible]. So, therefore, we don't feel [unintelligi-
ble]. They don't feel so threatened by us, you know. With a
dialogue, the wave of terrorism was because it was a very
significant, you know, position, you know, within the Cuban
community. You know, it made an impact, a very, very serious
--it threatened the right wing. And it did. It just really
crashed the right wing domination of the community, the dialogue.
And it's forever broken.
We view the revolutionary process in Cuba since 1959 as
a process which is irreversible and which is -- we view it as a
popular process which is supported by the majority of the Cuban
people. That's how we view the revolutionary process in Cuba.
HAMIL: Why do you think so many writers and artists
have left Cuba?
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GASTON: There has been a lot of pressure on intel-
lectuals, as I understand it, to refrain from serious [unintel-
ligible] criticisms that may weaken their united position
vis-a-vis the attacks from the United States Government, you
know, and the West of socialist Cuba.
So, some people resent that kind of demands. You know,
they want to be what they want to be and they they don't want to
be part of the collective responsibility.
IVAN ACOSTA: All dictators are afraid of artist,
writers, intellectuals, right and left. And, you know, and he's
a simple dictator. It doesn't matter...
HAMIL: The man on the left is Ivan Acosta, a playwright
and television producer. He arrived here with his parents when
he was 16. His plays, including "El Super," deal with various
aspects of the exile experience.
ACOSTA: When you have lost that past, like the
Cuban
have
lost, so they have wanted to create outside Cuba that
Cuba
that
was lost in 1959. So, therefore, you go to Miami and
it's
like
living in Cuba in 1959, except that they have 1983 cars.
You
go to Cuba and they still have the 1959 cars.
RENALDO ARENAS: I have to write about Cuba this is my
life, completely, more or less, the most important part of my
life.
H A M I L : This is Renaldo Arenas, one of the best modern
Cuban novelists. And early supporter of Fidel Castro, he ended
up in one of Castro's jails. He left from Mariel in 1980.
ARENAS: I think many, many writer left Cuba because in
Cuba there is not freedom. And I think writer, artists are the
people who needs freedom for working. Because I think some
people who -- for example, who sell something don't need enough
freedom like the writer. Writer is -- the book is some manifest-
ation of freedom.
ACOSTA: In 1961 Fidel Castro made a very famous speech
where he said that within the revolution, everything; outside the
revolution, nothing. So whoever wanted to write anything that
wasn't related to the revolution or anything that would criticize
the revolution even a little bit, that wasn't permit. So that
was really the beginning of the writers' exodus.
HAMIL: If you could sit down with him here and talk to
him, what would you say?
ACOSTA: Okay. I think I would ask him why he has done
to Cuba what he has done. I believe that I would like to know
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what is in his brain, why he has done to the Cuban people what he
has done for 23 years.
HAMIL: This is the Lyseo Cubana Jose Marti, a social
club that is one of the institutions of the exile community of
Union City. Some of these men were still young when they left
Cuba. They are growing old now, waiting for the fall of Fidel.
MAN: [Unintelligible] I want Castro out.
MAN: I give you 24 hours to get out of Cuba. If he
say, "I need it," [unintelligible] I say, "I give you 12."
MAN: When I started working, I [unintelligible] 11
years old. This was years ago. And I get ten cents a week. But
with that ten cents a week, I go to the movie, have a drink of
soda, got to eat a hamburger, everything for ten cents. You
know, this was in 1935 [unintelligible].
MAN: I don't think any Cuban invasion is going to knock
down Castro, with no American help or any country help. I don't
know, but every country in South America, when you go in them,
they are afraid of Castro.
MAN: And the only thing I know, the Cuban people, they
got [unintelligible] everybody.
MAN: [Unintelligible] 21 years, 22 years. When Castro
come to Cuba, he never do nothin' for the Cuban people. They
didn't do nothin'. The only people they did something, any
President of the United States, Kennedy, John F. Kennedy.
Somebody killed him.
HAMIL: But for an increasing number of Cubans, there is
no longer any time for the past. They must work to feed and
clothe and house their children. Those children grow up on
American streets and go to American schools and eventually get
married in American churches. They are the Cuban-American young,
people like Roberto Meer and Maritsa Perez.
ROBERTO MEER: We really forced to leave because, you
know, the way of life in Cuba was very bad, and is really bad.
But I'm not waiting for it to be free to go back because I don't
want to go back. You know, I love Cuba a lot, you know, because
that's my country. But I also love the United States because
they took me in. And, you know, I've got to thank them a lot for
that. No other country does that. Only America does that.
MEER: My father used to sell barrels on a truck and my
mother used to like wash clothest for people and stuff like that.
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MARITSA PEREZ: [Unintelligible] dance that song. And
it always gets me emotional when I hear it [unintelligible]....
My father and mother [unintelligible] a factory when
they came after a while. And it went really bad and they had to
sell it, and it was horrible. It's really bad working in a
factory, like you're a robot. You do the same things. Like in
an assembly line, you do that every single day. And they work a
lot of hours, and they don't pay such good money. And they've
had to go through that for a long time, until my mother [unintel-
ligible] to go into a beauty school, and there she got her
license and she opened up a beauty shop. And that's [unintelli-
gible].
MEER: A lot of people that I know would rather be in
Cuba right now, but they're here, you know. And they complain
sometimes about, you know, America and stuff like that, and they
would rather be in Cuba. Not me. I'd rather be here. You know,
I'm fine here. And my children are going [unintelligible].
They're going to be born here. They're not going to be born in
Cuba. So they'll be Americans.
HAMIL: There they go, the children of the Cuban past
moving into the American future. The Cubans were not the first
exiles to come to this country and they will not be the last.
But it can be said that the United States has been good and
generous to them. And certainly the Cubans have helped enrich
the great American melting pot.
For thousands, however, the past will continue to exert
its inexorable pressure. These are the people who were made in
Cuba. But the future belongs to their children, and is made in
America.
This is Pete Hamil in Union City, New Jersey, 1602 miles
from Havana.
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