An American Son: A Memoir Read Online Free PDF Page B

revolution.
    Castro’s criticism of the United States had begun to severely damage relations between the two countries. While claiming he wasn’t a communist, he was nationalizing oil companies and commercial real estate. He expropriated sugar refineries as well, and began receiving economic and military assistance from the Soviets. When my parents arrived in Cuba, my father’s brother Emilio warned him against returning permanently. The regime was imprisoning thousands of dissidents, he explained; opposition newspapers had been shuttered, and the regime controlled all radio and television stations. Better to stay in the States, Emilio said, at least for another year.
    My father heeded my uncle’s advice. He never returned to Cuba, nor did he ever see his siblings, Emilio, Antonio and Concha, again. But my mother would return one last time.
    In March 1961, my mother returned to Havana to care for her father, who had tripped while boarding a bus and broken his one good leg. She stayed with him for nearly a month while he healed. It was clear during her visit that events in Cuba were going from bad to worse. The entire family wanted my grandfather to go back to Miami. She pleaded with my grandfather to return, and he finally consented.
    Cuba had changed radically by then, and travel privileges were curtailed.When she attempted to board her return flight to Miami, she encountered the scare of her life. Because she had been born in the United States, my sister, only two at the time, could leave Cuba. But my brother and my mother would not be allowed to leave, she was told. She was ordered to leave the airport, and to consider Cuba her home from now on. Though frightened, she refused to accept the decree. She returned each day for several days, pleading that her husband was in Miami, and she couldn’t remain in Cuba without him. Finally, one of the guards took pity on her, instructing her to come back the next day and get in his line. When she did, he waved her through, and she boarded a flight for Miami. The experience scared her so badly she never went back to Cuba again.
    The CIA-supported Bay of Pigs invasion began the following month. In December, Castro declared he was a Marxist-Leninist, and the United States broke off diplomatic relations. In early 1962, the United States imposed a near-total economic embargo against Cuba, and by October the Cuban Missile Crisis had begun. I’ve always been immensely grateful to my uncle Emilio for warning my parents when he did. Had he hesitated, I might have lived a very different life.
    With a return to Cuba now an impossibility, my parents devoted themselves to making their life in America work. My father continued working as a bartender at the Roney Plaza, and eventually became one of the hotel’s head bartenders. But my parents were always on the lookout for a place where the grass appeared greener, and they became restless whenever their prospects for advancement seemed uncertain. In the summer of 1964 they moved the family to Los Angeles in search of better opportunities in the fast-growing city; they moved into a small and dingy apartment where my brother slept on a recliner. Yet my father could find only odd jobs, and after just a few weeks, they tried Las Vegas next. The only employment he was offered was as bar boy, so by the end of the summer the family returned to Miami, where my father got back his job at the Roney Plaza.
    My father was a very generous man who made sacrifices all his life, not only for us, but for anyone who needed his help. My aunt Georgina recalled for me how he treated one of his coworkers who had been fired for drinking on the job. He visited my father at work and complained he had been offered a new job, but couldn’t accept it because he didn’t have suitable shoes to wear. My father refused to give him money because he suspected hewould use it to buy liquor. Instead, he met his friend outside the hotel after work, removed his own shoes and