Six Months in Miami....

In this second entry, Delia Cukier explains her first few years in Florida as a recent Cuban refugee.

All questions in parentheses are mine.
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I was fifteen when I left Cuba. I went to Miami, to one of my—actually, I call her “aunt,” but she wasn’t my aunt. She was one of my mother’s nieces who was like an aunt to me because she was born when my mother was about sixteen or seventeen. She was married, had two children, and they lived in Miami. They had left Cuba also because of the problems. Her husband had a business, my uncle had a business of pharmaceuticals. They had stopped his import-export business, and being that they could live—being in Miami, because part of their business was already in Miami, they left, and that’s where I went.

(What part of the city did they settle in?)

In Coral Gables. My mother and father told me that I was only going for six months, because everything was going to turn out OK, and everything was going to be hunky-dory. And in six months I was going to practice my English. And it happened that I didn’t see them for four years. That was the worst time of my life, when I realized—actually, not the first few months, but when I realized that I was not gonna see my parents because they didn’t have visas. I was able to leave Cuba in 1960 because at the time, if you had your visa in your passport, you were able to travel to the States. But it was, like, in here. Your visa goes—you know, it expires, and you have a new passport and you get a new visa. But if your visa is good and your passport expires, you keep the old passport with your good visa and get a new passport, and you don’t transfer it. You travel with both. Everybody does it. It’s not anything uncommon. That’s what used to be in Cuba. But Fidel Castro forbid that. So they had good visas in old passports, and they couldn’t leave Cuba. And of course, I didn’t think that it was going to be four years until they left.

(So you went to high school in Miami?)

I went to high school in Miami, Coral Gables Senior High. I graduated from there.

(How was your English?)

At the beginning it was lousy. My grammar was very good, because in the school I went to, El Teresiano, we had English in the afternoons for three hours every day. But of course it was not conversation. So I did have a lot of vocabulary. I had a lot of grammar. I could read quite a bit and understand most everything, but if you killed me, I wouldn’t speak a word. (laughs) So my first year in high school was a very quiet time. (laughs)

(Were there lots of Cubans there?)

Not so very many. In Coral Gables there were not that very many, because most Cubans that were already leaving and going to Miami were settling in the southwest area, you know, closer to the Calle Ocho and all that part.

(So how did you feel as one of the few Cubans at that high school?)

You know, I didn’t feel bad. Everybody made me feel very, very comfortable. I had no problems. They would ask me some very stupid questions. One of the counselors said that the best thing for me to improve my English would be to be in a Spanish class, in one of the—you know, Spanish as a language, not as a second language, which is what they have now. They didn’t exist at the time. I would—because, you know, we had Spanish literature, and they would make us translate things, and that way I would practice. And it did help a lot. But there were some kids in that class that would ask me, you know, things like, “What type of housing do you have?” One day I got mad and I said, “We have three houses.” (laughs) Because they kept asking me stupid questions. “Do you have cars?” Remember, it was 1960. Cuba was still an entity not very well known. So you know—but things get better.

(Did you speak to your parents by phone?)

I spoke by phone and I wrote them every week. But communications by phone were extremely bad. It’s not like now, that you can call direct. You had to call to an operator. There was a lot of static. You never knew what to say on the phone, because you weren’t sure if it was being taped or not. So it was always, “How are you doing?” “I’m doing fine. Nobody’s sick.” Things like that.

(The same with your letters?)

Yeah. But the letters were a little more, you know, explanatory, because I could tell them things about school, that math was so easy. I had already had algebra and everything in Cuba. (laughs) Here in the States it was so easy. All my science was a walk-through. (laughs)

(What about your brother? Was he here, too?)

No, my brother was in Cuba, because he had the same problem that my parents had. I had been to the States about three years before, and they had had to change my visa—my passport, excuse me—and they had put my new visa on my new passport. So I had a passport that was good for five years more, and that’s what—and their passports had expired, and they had good visas and they had not changed them. Things that you never should do. So now, whenever the passport is getting—I always have it up to date.

(After graduating from high school, your parents were there then?)

No, my parents got there in 1964. I was already going to Miami Dade Junior College.

(And they moved in with your aunt?)

They moved in for two weeks, you know, when they arrived. Then as soon as we could find an apartment that they could afford with the salary they were getting on the jobs they got—my father started putting shoes in boxes in a factory, you know, packing, and my mother sewing in a factory. Actually, she wasn’t sewing, she was helping rip things apart that had not been sewn right. At the time, the salaries were quite bad. My brother got a job also in a factory, and I don’t even remember what he was doing, but something very menial.

(So I assume you moved neighborhoods?)

Yes, yes, we moved to the northwest section of Miami. It was a very tranquil place. There were not that many people in those areas. We didn’t have central air conditioners, so we had to buy fans. (laughs) But it was fun. The first time my mother cooked a whole meal, we were so much looking forward to it. And my mother was the lousiest of cooks, may she rest in peace. She made Cuban rice and beans. The rice was—it looked like Chinese rice, that you could throw it and it could stick to the wall. The beans were floating away in water. (laughs) And the meat, she made something called boliche, which is eye of round [?] stuffed in sausage and cooked in wine. And I didn’t taste like anything. And we said, “Oh, Mami, it’s so good!” And she believed us—thank God! (laughs) But it was disgusting. After being with my aunt, who cooked fantastic—she was a gourmet cook—for four years, going to my mother was an awakening. I guess I started learning a few things in the kitchen way back then. (laughs)

It was a shock to see my parents come out of the plane. My mother, her hair from black had turned completely white. My father had lost most of his hair. In four years they had turned Mami and Daddy into older people. And that was a shock. That was a shock. But they were the same people.

(But they had to leave everything behind?)

Of course. Of course.

(And you never went back?)

Never. Every time Miguel and I have decided we’re gonna go to Cuba, we’re gonna go to Cuba, at the last minute we say, “Why should we go and leave dollars to that son of a—” (laughs) I mean, it’s—and then we stop. We don’t go through with it. Eventually we will go. Last year, when we had the Congreso here, the Congress, we met this couple from Cuba who were brought by the Joint [Joint Jewish Distribution Committee], and after the Congress they could not stay at the hotel, of course. And they came over and stayed with us for three days. And they were the sweetest people you can ever meet. They are so full of love and, you know—we took them everywhere. We went to the supermarket and places like that. They had never really seen anything like it. And you can not imagine how happy they were. We have promised them that we will go back and see them.

Transcript by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC