Festival will commemorate anniversary of Cuban American National
Foundation's Exodo
FESTIVAL HONORS PROGRAM THAT BROUGHT THOUSANDS OF CUBANS TO THE U.S.
Posted on Sun, Sep. 21, 2008
BY ALFONSO CHARDY
achardy@MiamiHerald.com
Marcial Rodríguez was 15 when his parents made a fateful decision.
They sent him alone to another country to spare him conscription in the
Cuban military.
As Marcial approached military age, he was put on a plane to Panama.
He never returned to his homeland.
Instead, Marcial stayed in Panama and eventually resettled in Miami --
one of more than 10,000 Cubans living in third countries who were
brought to the United States under the Cuban American National
Foundation's Exodo program.
Voyages like that of Marcial Rodríguez will be recalled Sunday when
foundation officials will mark the 20th anniversary of the program
during a six-hour festival starting at noon at Tropical Park, 7900 SW
40th St. Price is $5 per person with children 12 and under free.
Proceeds will go to victims of hurricanes, according to the foundation.
''Exodo exceeded our expectations,'' said Francisco ''Pepe'' Hernández,
the foundation president, who signed the accord that created the program
in 1988 with Alan Nelson, then Immigration and Naturalization Service
Commissioner.
Initially conceived to bring about 1,500 Cubans, Exodo ended up
transporting about 10,200 during a four- to five-year period, Hernández
said.
In the aftermath of the 1980 Mariel boatlift, and before the advent of
the wet-foot/dry-foot policy, Cuban refugees in third countries were
generally barred from entering the United States without documents.
Those who made it across the Florida Straits were rescued from rafts and
other vessels and brought ashore.
It wasn't until the Clinton administration negotiated new migration
accords with Cuba to end the 1994 rafter crisis that wet-foot/dry-foot
emerged. It enables undocumented Cubans to enter the United States and
stay as long as they touch U.S. soil.
Most of those interdicted at sea are now returned to Cuba.
The third-country escape route had its genesis in the start of the
Mariel boatlift when more than 10,000 Cubans occupied the Peruvian
embassy in Havana seeking asylum.
Eventually, most of the embassy Cubans were allowed to leave for Peru
and other countries while more than 125,000 other Cubans headed to the
United States on boats.
Soon, the Cubans in Peru and other countries discovered they could not
travel to the United States without immigrant visas.
Hernández said that after foundation officials visited a tent city in
Lima, Peru, where Cuban refugees lived in squalor, the group began
pressuring the Reagan Administration to grant visas to third-country Cubans.
Four years after the Lima trip, Hernández said, the Exodo accord took
effect following a White House ceremony.
''We signed an agreement with the immigration department to provide for
transport, employment and two years of health insurance for the
refugees,'' said Hernández, alluding to the program's chief goal of
ensuring that Exodo participants not seek welfare payments or food stamps.
Hernández said none of the Exodo participants became a public charge
during the existence of the program.
The foundation found sponsors among relatives and others in the
community who agreed to provide newly-arrived refugees with jobs and
private subsidies.
The first Exodo refugee, a cancer patient in Panama, arrived Sept. 3,
1988 -- four months after Hernández and Nelson signed the accord.
Eventually more than 1,000 Cuban refugees stuck in Panama arrived,
including Marcial Rodríguez, who landed at Miami International Airport
on April 10, 1990 -- about 10 months after leaving Cuba.
''My parents decided I had to leave Cuba in 1989,'' Rodríguez, now 35,
said in a recent interview. ``I left on May 30, 1989 and went to Panama,
alone. I was 15.''
It was an emotional farewell at José Martí International Airport in Havana.
''My mother was kissing me goodbye and crying,'' he recalled. ``My
father was crying and my sister and I, and even a neighbor who had a car
and had taken us to the airport was crying. We were all crying and
hugging before I got on the plane and I kept crying as the plane took off.''
Rodríguez said the reason his parents wanted him out of Cuba was because
he was approaching military age and would have been barred from leaving
the island until he turned 22.
''There was a chance to send me away then and they didn't want me to
miss it,'' Rodríguez recalled.
Rodríguez moved in with a family in Panama City who were related to an aunt.
He missed his parents terribly at first -- but was eventually more
excited about being out of Cuba for the first time.
''I called them once a week and cried every time I talked to them,'' he
said. ``I missed them because it was the first time I was away from
them, not living with them. It was the first time outside Cuba. First
time in a new country. First time for a lot of things, but all of that
also gave me a sense of adventure. It changed my life for the better.''
It was also a tense time in Panama as the United States stepped up
pressure on the country's leader, Manuel Noriega, to step down. When
Noriega refused repeated demands to quit, U.S. forces invaded.
''I was still in Panama when the fighting broke out,'' Rodríguez
recalled. ``I saw combat. I heard gunfire. I saw looting, a complete
disaster.''
Months after Noriega was toppled and calm returned, Rodríguez joined a
group of more than 30 Cuban children stranded in Panama and on that
April day in 1990 the contingent boarded a plane to Miami.
The arrival of the children evoked memories among Miami exiles of the
Pedro Pan operation in the 1960s when more than 14,000 Cuban children
were secretly spirited out of Cuba by their parents so they would not
grow up under communism.
The next day, El Nuevo Herald recorded the arrival on the front-page.
'Applause and screams of `there they are!' and 'they've arrived!'
reverberated throughout the airport when the Eastern Airlines plane
taxied to the customs building,'' El Nuevo reported.
Among the other youths who arrived on the same plane was 18-year-old
Yurizán Herrera who had not seen her mother, Grisel, in 10 years.
The second Grisel spotted Yurizán she ran to kiss and hug her daughter
who fainted after the embrace, according to the account in El Nuevo.
''Enthusiasm overcame her and she fainted,'' Joaquín del Cueto of
Metro-Dade Fire Rescue was quoted as saying.
Once here, Rodríguez enrolled at South Miami High -- but dropped out to
start earning money.
Initially, he worked a series of odd jobs from roof repair to a dairy
plant. Today, Rodríguez drives a truck.
He is the father of two children, ages 4 and 12. His parents arrived in
Miami two years after he arrived from Panama.
''All of us are now together,'' he said.
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/miami-dade/story/695054.html
No comments:
Post a Comment