Next Year In Havana

I first heard the fascinating backstory of Alex Soto--who recently concluded his term as president of the Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of America--from a DVD he gave me of his "Black Bean Soup" speech about his boyhood in Cuba, his family's escape to Florida after Fidel Castro seized power, and his longing these past 47 years to return home someday on his own terms. His story resonated with me--the son of a man who as a teenager had fled the Nazis in Poland to start a new life in New York. I offered my editing skills to help craft a personal essay out of his speech, which I would still like to see published in the consumer media. In the spirit of the season, I present here a slightly shorter version of his moving story, to remind us to give thanks for the blessings we enjoy living in a free country.

Alex is president of InSource, an insurance agency in Miami, Fla., where he lives with his wife, Patty, a nationally recognized schoolteacher. His essay follows:

Next Year In Havana
BY ALEX SOTO

Fidel Castro changed my life forever on Aug. 11, 1960--the day my family left Cuba and came to the United States. We stood in front of our home in the suburbs of Havana at about 7:30 in the morning. It was a two-story housenot opulent, but very comfortable, and in a nice neighborhood. We stood there looking at our home, watching my dad lock the front door.

My older brother Orlando was 12 years old. I was 11, and my sister Grace was 7. So Mom and Dad and the three kids took a moment to look back because we were about to leave our home and go to the docks at Havana Harbor to board a ferry boat to Key West, Florida.

At that point, on that morning, we expected to be out of Cuba for about six months, or one year at the mosta sufficient amount of time for political conditions in Cuba to be straightened out so that we could return to our homeland and our home.

Obviously, we were sadly mistaken. Its been more than 47 years since I last set foot in Cuba or saw my home.

My Mom and Dad passed away here in the United Statesboth are buried in Miami--but I will tell you I am planning on going back to Cuba. It is now a marathon race between Fidel Castro and me. Fidel is 81 and sick, while Im 58. I dont smoke; Im trying to drink with moderation. My wife, Patty, has put me on a diet. So with a little luck Ill be able to outlast him and outlive him, and I do plan to go back.

My former life has been very much on my mind of late, given the uncertain health of Fidel Castro, and the even greater uncertainty about what will become of Cubaand its relations with the United Statesonce this dictator is inevitably dead and buried.

I do not want you to think I am a bitter or disillusioned man. On the contrary, I love my adopted country, and am proud of the life I have built here with my family. Today I am a successful insurance agent and served as president of the largest association of my professional peers in the nation. But I can never forget what happened to my family, or stop longing to return--on my own terms--to the land of my birth.

On the morning we left Cuba, I had very mixed feelings about what was about to happen. There was a great deal of excitement because we were going to the Great Colossus--the United States--that we knew so much about. The American culture was ingrained in Cuba. We even had a Cocker Spaniel by the name of Hopalong Cassidy, although we couldnt pronounce his name!

But there was also a great deal of trepidation because we were going from a country where we spoke the language to one where we did not. From where we knew the customs and the habits to one where everything was different.

And we were moving from a situation where we were in the majoritymost everyone was like usto one where we were in a distinct minority by language, culture, background, even religion. (Each and every one of us will profit if at least once or twice in our lives we are part of a minority, because it teaches you understanding, tolerance and forbearance.)

Cuba is a tropical island, 92 miles south of Key West. If you board a jet plane in Miami and fly to Havana, youre landing in half an hourless time than it takes to get from Miami to Orlando. But Cuba is now ever so far for so many of us.

Cuba is about the size of Pennsylvaniaor about three-quarters the size of my own state of Florida, although with a much more interesting topography, featuring real mountains.

Florida has a population of 16 million, while Cuba has 12 millionbut in addition to those still on the island, theres an additional 1.5 million that have left (the Cuban Diaspora) scattered throughout the world, with about one million here in the United States (and, of that, probably 900,000 in Mecca--Dade County), with a few sprinkled up to Broward County, Fla.

I would submit to you that if we opened the doors in Cuba and anyone could leave, fully half of the population would be gone.

On Jan. 1, 1959, Fidel Castro (who was 32 at the time), his brother Raul (27) and Che Guevara (about 30) led a group of about 300-to-400 men who overthrew a military dictator by the name of Fulgencio Batista.

Batista had been in power for about seven yearsafter staging his own coup, overturning a democratically-elected government. We had a constitution and constitutional guarantees. He set them aside and named himself president and ruled for seven years.

So on Jan. 1, 1959, the overwhelming majority of Cubans were in favor of Fidel Castroexcept for those few who were aligned with the Batista regime. Most of us were in support of Castro because he promised to return Cuba to a democratic process. We were going to be able to have free elections. Constitutional guarantees were going to be re-established.

But as every one of us knows now, that was a very, very cruel lie.

By 1961, Castro declared that Cuba was a Marxist, Leninist, Communist, Socialist island. That Cuba was anti-imperialist, and that anti-imperialism was directly aimed at the United States. (You must understand in any consideration of Fidel Castro that he has a visceral dislike and envy for the United States.)

Castro also declared that Cuba was an atheist nationthat there was no room for God in the new Socialist island. And by any measure, by any standard, by any ruler we look at, his reign has been a dismal failure. Whether youre looking at the economy, democratic institutions, individual freedoms, freedom of religion, its been an absolute failure.

The Heritage Foundation every year ranks the economic well-being of every nation on the planet. In 2003, they ranked Cuba number 155 out of 156 nations. Only North Korea had a weaker economy than Cuba.

In 2004, the Heritage Foundation improved the ranking to about 144 (mainly because the president of Venezuela--Hugo Chavez, who is a big fan of Castro--is practically giving Cuba free petroleum. They get deep discounts and then do not pay!). In 2006, the ranking dropped back down to 150.

Let me tell you how they dismantled the economy in Cuba.

On May 17, 1959, they passed the Agrarian Reform Law, which basically says that any farms or ranches that are bigger than a certain size would be taken away from private ownership and given to the government, redistributed or put under governmental control. So with the stroke of a pen, 85 percent of all the agricultural lands in Cuba passed from private hands to the government and its whim.

My family on my maternal sideGomezwas in agriculture. (I am actually Alejandro Soto Gomez. In the Spanish tradition we never forget about Mom. You always carry in your name the last name of your father and your mother. So I am Alejandro, the son of Mr. Soto and Miss Gomez.)

The Gomez family arrived in Cuba in the year 1511--about 119 years before the pilgrims got to Plymouth Rock. They settled in the interior of the island and went into agriculture. Then about 450 years later, with the stroke of a pen, on May 17, 1959, we were out of business. We were no longer raising cattle.

The next year, on Oct. 13, 1960, they passed the Urban Reform Law, which basically took all the means of productionall the factories, all of the businessesand either confiscated them outright or put them under the control of the government.

My grandfather, Antonio Soto, on my fathers side of the family, was the son of a Spanish immigrant who was born in 1882, and who, because the family had bad economic conditions, started to work at the age of 17. He would work during the day and go to school at night.

One of his first investments was a cart from which he sold vegetables and fruit. And that went very well for him; soon he bought a little piece of land and a business here and there. He was on his way.

By the time he was in his late 70s, in 1959, he was a self-made man. He was a mortgage lender. He had owned an insurance company, was a hotelier, a financier, had owned a bank, had a roof tile company, was a homebuilder, a land developer, a restaurateur and a number of other things.

Yet with a stroke of a pen, on Oct.13, 1960, it was all taken away. That same month he boarded a plane to Miami and two years later he died having lost everything that he had built and worked for over an entire lifetime.

Consider a couple of other facts about the Cuban economy. The federal budget in Cuba is only $13 billion. Heck, the gross domestic product of Cuba is $18 billion. The Cuban-American businesses owned in Miami have a gross domestic product of $26 billion.

Do the math: Cubans in Miami--$26 billion; the entire island of Cuba, $18 billion. And it is not because the Cubans in Miami are smarter or harder workers. Its simply because in the United States there is opportunity. In Cuba, there is none.

The lessons of Adam Smith and The Wealth of Nationsthat people will work harder for themselves and for their families than for the government--is a lesson that most everybody in the world understands. But in Cuba they havent quite gotten it yet.

In 1962, the Castro government did away with a free press. They confiscated 16 newspapers, 18 radio stations and four TV stations. They just shut them down and then created a few newspapers that are pure propaganda. The Granma, their main newspaper, is full of lies about our government, our nation and our president.

Fortunately, a number of people in Cuba see through that, but its a propaganda mechanism nevertheless.

Cuba operates under the whim of one manFidel Castro. After all, who was left in charge when he came down ill? Was there any due process of law? No. There was his brother, Raul, hand-picked to take over.

About three years ago, I get a call out of nowhere from a man named Dr. Emilio Adolfo Riveroa professor of political science and language in the Washington, D.C. areaand he tells me hed like to meet; hed like for us to get to know each other. And he has a story that he must share with me.

This was November 2003. Over lunch with Dr. Rivero, he tells me this story that he had been a political prisoner for 18 years in Cuba for opposing Fidel Castro. But interestingly enough, he had fought with Fidel Castro, and very quickly after Castros triumph, he turned, he changed.
I asked him what had caused him to do that, and he said, I realized we traded a bad dictator for an awful one, and we made a huge mistake in taking up with Fidel Castro.

The anecdote that he wanted to share with me, most poignantly, was that he was picked up by the secret police in Cuba. When they caught him, he was taken to some safe houses they had for interrogation. They kept him upstairs there for a 31-day period; they would drag him downstairs every day and threaten him with execution unless he gave up everybody that was working with him.

And one day, when he is in his cell he is looking through the crack on a little peephole they had established to keep an eye on him. And there is a guard sitting outside his door looking at a photo album, and Dr. Rivero surmises that that must be the album of the family that had lived there.

And he spots a picture of my grandfather, and he recognizes the picture of Miguel Mariano Gomez, because my grandfather had the good fortune of having served as president of Cuba in the 1930s. So he correctly assumes that hes in the house of a Gomez.

He was in our home and next door in my aunts home! Yes, our home for 45 years has been a place of interrogation, intimidation, torture and, in some cases, perhaps even execution. And that is very heavy on my heart that a home that gave us so much pleasure is now used in this manner.

In Cuba, God is dead. Theyre now reviving Him a little bit. Theyre allowing some interaction between American churches and Cuban churches, but theyre watching it. They want to make sure Uncle Sam doesnt misbehave, and if it ever becomes a problem, I can assure you theyll shut it down.

After all, in 1961 they expelled 100 priestsfirst, the foreign-born, and then the natives. For the first three years of the revolution they coerced another 460 religious leadersrabbis, ministers, Jesuits, priestsjust to get out of the island. And they basically said you can practice your religion, but if you do you cannot join the Communist party, and nothing happens in terms of getting ahead in Cuba if you are not a member of the Communist party.

You also might as well forget about going to college. Youre not going to be admitted into the University of Havana and you will not be able to work for the government. So if you want to practice your religion, you better be ready to have someone in your family take care of you and support you.

Pete Cabrera, who was until recently the assistant principal in my wife, Pattys, school, told me a story that happened to him when he was in kindergarten in Cuba that I have heard quite frankly repeated many times in Miami.

Pete was in class in kindergarten, and the teacher said, Today were going to talk about God, the revolution and Fidel. He said, Kids, put your head down and lets pray to God for a piece of candy.

They raised their heads and there was no candy on the desk. Kids, put your head down and lets pray to the revolution and to Fidel for a piece of candy. And lo and behold, candy appeared on every desk!

The message was that you see, kids? Fidel and the revolution will take care of you. God will not take of you. Pete Cabrera went home and told his mother what had happened and she freaked out. She began moving heaven and earth to try to get Pete out of the island. And that was happening in the early 1960s all across Cuba, and gave birth to an operation that was called Operation Peter Pan.

Operation Peter Pan lasted only two years, but some 14,000 Cuban kids were smuggled off the island with the help of three groupsone being the United States State Department, which started issuing visa waivers shipped into Cuba in the hundreds.

Number two were a group of Cubans who got the visas and clandestinely distributed them. That group of Cubans paid dearly, because once the operation was discovered in 1962, they went to jail for a long, long time.

The third group was the Catholic Church in Miami. Monsignor Bryan Walsh would go every day to the airport with a group of people waiting for the plane from Cuba, just watching to see if there were any children that were unaccompanied that the Church needed to take. And in those two years, 14,000 kids got out--7,000 went to U.S. relatives, but another 7,000 were put in foster homes, orphanages and other institutions in 35 states.

Elsa Pergolathe law firm administrator of one my clientstells me that she was nine years old and her brother was five when they received visa waivers. Her parents took them to the airport three days in a row looking for somebody who had a kind face to turn them over to.

On the third day they found two middle-aged women, and they turned the kids over to them. Elsa said, I rode in the lap of one and my five-year-old brother sat in the lap of the other lady. And Elsa is one of the fortunate ones, because she had an aunt who was waiting at the airport to pick her up.

But thousands of kids came with nobody here waiting for them except the Catholic Church. Pause a second as a parent or grandparent and think about how desperate you have to be to turn your kids over to strangers, not knowing whenor even if--you would see them again.

Some of those kids were reunited with their Cuban families within six months, within a year, within two years, but others never saw their parents again. Their parents died in Cuba. They were in prison.

The last kids from the Peter Pan operation got out of an institution in the United States in 1976, so they were without a regular home or family for 14 years.

Cuba operates under total control. Everybody is encouraged to keep an eye on everybody else. One of the ways they do it is to set up committees for the defense of the revolution, organized all the way down to the block level. There is a captain and there is a lieutenant, whose job it is to know the business of everyone on our block.

They want to know where you work, what your political inclinations are, where you drink, what your vices are. And whenever anyone arrives in the neighborhood that doesnt belong, they make it their business to find out who they are.

When the busses arrive to pick up people to go to the plaza to listen to Fidel Castro, they make sure you get on the bus. And they keep tabs, because if you dont cooperate, you lose out if you want to improve your job or get a better apartment because nothing is bought and sold in the free market, it is provided by the government to you.

If youve been a good Communist, if youve been a good party member, then they will let you have the apartment. Otherwise, they will not.

Let me share a story about what total control can do to people.

In the middle 1980s, Patty and I had a young man hanging some curtains in our house, and by the language pattern, I realized this was a young man who arrived from Cuba not too long before.

Its typical of us Cuban-Americans to kind of get grounded with each otherwhats your story and whats my story, and how did you come over. He told me he was a member of the Pioneers, which is the Communist youth movement in Cuba, and was on his way to join the Communist party. He said he loved the Cuban revolution. In fact, he said, his father was in prison, and he would go argue against his Dad, and say, Dad, the revolution is for all Cubans! Youve got to change!

But interestingly enough, as he got a little olderwhen he became a teenagerit was he who started to change his thinking about Cuba, but he had no one he trusted with his new feelings.

So he would go to the woods and he would argue against himself. He would take one side and then the other. Just have an argument. But he would not tell anyone that he was changing.

Right around the same time, he had a girlfrienda young lady he was madly in love with, and eventually they became engaged. He would go over to her house, led by her fathera colonel in the Army. There were pictures of Fidel and Raul Castro on the walls, and they would all talk about how great the Revolution was, and all that, and he would just keep his mouth shut.

One day, hes about 18 and he gets word that hes being sent to Moscow to study for two-to-four years. He doesnt want to go, but doesnt know how to get out of it, so to the airport they go. His fianc is crying. Her family is there; his family is there. Everybodys crying. He promises hes going to come backthat theyre gong to get marriedeven though he doesnt even know how long hes going to be away.

The plane takes off, but stops in Madrid to refuel. He sneaks off the plane and hides for about three-and-a-half hours. Theyre looking for him, but to no avail, and they cant wait any longer.

The plane takes off and goes on to Moscow, and now hes in Madrid. He asks for political asylum, and its granted. Within seven months, hes in MeccaMiami--like the rest of us Cuban exiles.

So now he starts putting his life together, learns English and enrolls in Miami Dade Community College. One day he comes out of class and makes a turn down the hallway, and as he makes the one turn, who does he run into but his fiance. He and this girl have not spoken a word, written a letter or had any communication in over a year.

And they are stunned. They are seeing each other for the first time since he left Cuba. So they stumble over to a concrete bench and have a quiet conversation. And she goes, What happened to you? You went to Moscow. You were going to study. Then you were going to come back and we were going to get married.

And he says, I couldnt take it any more. I literally had to escape. I had to get awayBut what about you? Your father was a colonel in the military. Every time I came over to your house, there would be Fidel to the right and Fidel to the left, and Raul and this and that.

And she goes, Oh, we never believed that, either, but we pretended because of you. We pretended because of you.

If you stop there a second and you think about it, heres a young couple who were madly in love, engaged to get married, who even in pillow talk do not feel confident enough, safe enough to say to the other, You know sweetheart, I dont believe this. Im sorry, but I do not believe this. In effect the Revolution was in bed with them, acting like a bundling board and keeping them apart.

I asked him whether they repaired the relationship, and he said, No. Unfortunately, we realized that we had lived a lie to each other, and too much had happened to each of our lives separately for us to get back together again. So, we hugged and we kissed and we wished each other well and she went her way and I went mine.

That is a very sad tale, but it underscores the impact of government control, which is what happens in Cuba to a great extent.

Let me close by making some comments about the American embargo and the future of Cuba. I believe that the embargo should stay if that helps brings change to Cuba, and we should do away with the embargo if that helps expedite bringing change to Cuba.

It reminds of a letter I read by Abraham Lincoln to Horace Greeley, publisher of the New York Tribune. Mr. Greeley was an abolitionist, and this was during the dark days of the Civil War.
President Lincoln wrote to Mr. Greeley: My interest in this struggle is the preservation of the United States. It is the preservation of this country. And you should understand that I will free all the slaves if that helps preserve the nation. Or I will keep all the slaves in bondage if that accomplishes that. Or I will free some of the slaves and keep some in bondagewhich is precisely what he did, by the wayif thats what helps the cause.

So thats the way I feel about the embargo of Cubawhatever works to expedite change is what I am for--but my analysis is this: I dont think we should be trading with Cuba for the reasons I mentioned a moment ago. I dont think we ought to be going as tourists and leaving money in Cuba and I, for one, will not until there is change.

Raul Castro, the brother of Fidel and head of the Army, declared that now the tourist industry is under total control of the Army. Its been moving in this direction since 2004, and now the tourist industry joins the sugar, construction and import-export industries as being all under military control.

Youve got to ask yourself, why would the Army be interested in running tourism?
There are two reasons. One is control; you want to keep an eye on the American and European tourists. You want to take them to the resorts where Cubans are not allowed to goto the restaurants and hotels where native Cubans, even if they were allowed to go, couldnt afford to be there anyway.

The second reason is money. If they get the tourist revenues, that will strengthen the military, the militia and the committees for the defense of the Revolution.

Change will come, I am sure of that, though whether in the moderate form of the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia, or like in Romania--with the Ceausescus being alive one day, and the next day their bodies dragged through the streets--I dont know.

But I suspect change will start coming when Fidel Castro dies in his bed of old age. And when he does, the Cuban people there will hopefully say, Enough. Enough suffering. Enough of this. And there is no one else to take up the mantle with the charisma of a Fidel Castro.

When that occurs, the fondest hope in my heart is that Patty and I will have a home in Cuba.

Will I turn my back on the United States? Of course not. I am an American. I have been here for 46 years. I love this country with every fiber in my body. My kids are 50 percent Cuban but 100 percent American.

But I can see us having a second home, not unlike those of you that have beach houses, or places in the mountains. Remember, its only 30 minutes from Miami to Havana. And so I truly, truly look forward to the day each of you can come and visit us in Cuba. A free Cuba.