Fiesta Manguitense

El pasado sábado 18 diciembre, los manguitenses se reunieron en el Tropical Park de Miami, Florida, para reanudar amistades, recordar experiencias compartidas y conocer las nuevas generaciones de cubanos-americanos con raíces en el matancero pueblo de Manguito.

A pesar que la celebración se vio en peligro ante las inclemencias del tiempo —lluvia y viento frío— la nutrida concurrencia demostró el ansia de los hijos de Manguito en reunirse en la fecha acordada. La caseta donde se celebró la fiesta estaba saturada de concurrentes que, debido a la lluvia, estaban obligados a mantenerse bajo el escaso techo. Podría decirse que el acoso climático sirvió para unirnos más.

La exquisita comida fue un éxito rotundo. Degustamos de un surtido de platos tradicionales: lechón asado, congrí y maduros, arroz con pollo, croquetas, ensaladas, diversos postres y un maravilloso cake con los colores nacionales.

Como resultaría muy difícil nombrar a todos los presentes en una breve reseña como ésta, me limito a mencionar tres casos excepcionales: Esther Alayón, quien se trasladó desde Madrid para estar presente en nuestra fiesta “pueblerina”; Argelia “Gela" Gómez de Vázquez, galardonada de reconocimiento público, no sólo por ser la manguitense de más avanzada edad, sino también por su apoyo a tantos de sus antiguos vecinos llegados a Florida; y muy en especial para mí, la presencia de mi hijo, Carlos, quien hacía su primer contacto con la comunidad manguitense en el exterior y a quien espero poder inculcarle el amor por Manguito.

Por último, a nombre de todos los manguitenses, nuestro más sincero agradecimiento a la dinámica Milán López y familia por la organización y realización del evento; especialmente, por la preparación de la comida, la decoración y la música que amenizaban el evento. Todos los que tuvimos la suerte de llegarnos hasta Miami estaremos eternamente agradecidos a Milán López por el exitoso reencuentro de los hijos de Manguito.

A continuación comparto algunas imágenes del evento para recuerdo de los asistentes e información para todos aquellos que aunque no pudieron llegar (desde Alemania, España, California, Albuquerque, Nueva York), estarán ansiosos de ver caras conocidas. Más fotografías se encuentran en la página de Manguito en Facebook.

En memoria de Orestes Sánchez Alfonso, 1914-2010

Hilda Gómez Abreu y Orestes Sánchez Alfonso, 31 de agosto, 1946

Uno de los dos familiares más queridos que me quedan en Manguito, mi abuelo, ha fallecido hoy. Junto con el dolor evoco tantos recuerdos de mi niñez. En ellos mi abuelo es una constante. Como he pasado mi vida adulta fuera de Manguito, las palabras que aparecen aquí surgen de la memoria de esa niña que en algún momento fui. Mis recuerdos de mi abuelo también giran alrededor de ese hogar mágico, hermosa casa estilo Art-Déco que construyera sin ayuda de un plano. Pienso en los lugares donde nos reuníamos a jugar, a estudiar o a conversar. Para cada actividad había un espacio reservado. Estudiar se realizaba únicamente en la mesa de cristal del comedor, mientras que los sillones del portal servían de escenario para sus cuentos.

Mi abuelo era muy hábil contándome cuentos, su repertorio era inagotable. Los inventaba al momento y siempre que los repetía, a petición mía, eran un tanto diferentes. Mi favorito era el de Algodoncito Seco. Mi afición a la literatura hoy sin duda se debe a sus muchos esfuerzos en desarrollar en mí el gusto por la literatura infantil. Al mismo tiempo, debido a su formación en la imprenta, me inculcó la importancia de la buena letra y cuidar la ortografía en interminables tardes de dictado. Bien recuerdo los cuadernos que me preparaba, encuadernados por él en la imprenta que había sido el negocio de la familia. Mis cuadernos eran siempre diseñados en rojo o en negro con mi nombre en letras doradas. También guardo el recuerdo de una noche de apagón en Manguito mientras mi abuelo me repasaba las tablas de multiplicar.

Espero en algún momento poder reunirme con mi abuela en Manguito. Pero sé de antemano que la casa familiar me resultará extraña simplemente porque en ella faltará la presencia de Orestes Sánchez Alfonso, mi querido y entrañable abuelo.

Roots in the Sea: The Mariel Database

On Friday May 21, 2010, the Miami Herald unveiled the online Database for the Mariel Boatlift that took place between April and September of 1980. The database includes the names of the more than 130,000 Mariel refugees and other related information: US sponsor, boat name and date of entry.

I was fortunate to visit the Miami Herald’s Mariel exhibit at the Cuba Nostalgia Festival accompanied by my husband and my childhood friend Liana Dominguez Suarez. Liana and I met 30 years ago when we had both arrived to the US from Mariel. The three of us were able to have access to a copy of the US Coast Guard’s handwritten log that included other data; such as, the names and dimensions of 1,600 boats, number of crew and refugees per vessel, and even marginal notes (i.e. if the boat was confiscated upon arrival).


I was overwhelmed when I saw the page for the May 27th entries and discovered a few interesting details: My parents did not remember accurately the complete name of the boat; I learned that it was indeed the Nettie May. I also found that my mother did not appear as ever entering the country. I figured out the reason. Because of a medical emergency, she had been airlifted by the Coast Guard to Key West while the Nettie May was still at sea and, apparently, she was not processed. Another discovery was that our listed entry date was erroneous, by confusing arrival and processing dates.

Liana and I found the Santa Fe, her vessel, as well as other boats in which two other friends arrived: Crazy Legs, which transported Rolando Pulido and the Sandra J, which brought Humberto de la Cruz and his family. We photographed the pages and sent the images via MMS. For a brief moment all four of us were emotionally connected over this extraordinary experience.

I enthusiastically communicated my findings to Ruben Legra Jr. His father, the late Ruben Legra Sr., was the owner of the Nettie May and was aboard during the trip. Both his son and I are saddened that he could not experience the commemoration of the XXX Anniversary of the Mariel Boatlift in which he played such an important role.

Finally, I met and spoke with Miami Herald reporter Luisa Yanez, who noted my observations, promised me to make the necessary corrections to the database and to stand ready to support other research projects. I’m very grateful to Ms. Yanez, The Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald for supporting this five-month long project.

It was very heartwarming for Liana and I to share such an experience 30 years after the traumatic events that brought us to the United States. Just as we rediscovered our steps so many years later, I hope this database will one day help our children and future generations to discover their ancestry.

Mariel Then and Now

Class photo taken before departure. Circa January, 1980

Yanira Angulo-Cano

With the 30th Anniversary of the Mariel Boat Lift on the horizon, my memory once again relives our family’s ordeal leaving Cuba. As a then nine year old, my recollections are fragmentary, impressionistic, and out of sync with the chronology of those events; however, they are central to my sense of identity and they are likely to awaken similar memories in those of my readers who also were Mariel refugee children.

One of the most traumatic memories is about the “acto de repudio” to which our family was subjected days before our departure. It was during the night when a mob of about a hundred surrounded our house and came into our garden. Almost all of them had been brought from neighboring communities. These people wondered through our town harassing/assaulting families who had acknowledged leaving the country. There was a rumor that our family was leaving too, even though we had not confirmed it with the local authorities. The mob not only shouted insults at us and current slogans such as “afuera la gusanera” and “escoria,” but they also threw eggs and rocks at our home’s façade. I remember that my parents kept the lights inside and outside turned off. Inside the dark house the four of us could hear with horror the threatening noises of the frenzied mob. At a certain moment we thought that the front door was about to give in, since they were pushing it from the outside. I remember that a rock came through a window blind and almost hit my six year old brother in the head. I can’t recall where my little brother and I were hiding, but I know we were together. I also recall that my father was angry and my mother was pleading with him not to open the door. I don’t remember when the mob left nor when I went to sleep, but I know that night my life and my feelings for my town changed. My parents did not let me go back to school anymore, nor play with my friends ever again, and for the first time I felt real fear walking the streets of Manguito.

I am also drawn to a haunting vision; that is, the night when we surreptitiously sneaked out of town, the earlier painful separation from my grandparents, the many difficulties at a processing site, and the arrival days later to the port of Mariel, where a bay full of small crafts, waiting to pick up relatives, so crowded the harbor that one could hardly see the water.

The process for leaving Cuba was difficult enough for most people, but for my father it represented running a most formidable gauntlet. Because of his position as mechanical engineer at the Central España sugar mill, he knew that he would not be permitted to leave the country. Thus, in order to enter the processing site, he relied on an old ID card that listed him as an assistant at Central España. This ruse allowed us to enter the seaside camp called “El mosquito,” where for several days we endured all kinds of difficulties: limited food and water, no sanitary facilities, and sleeping on the sand, surrounded by many families in a similar predicament. One particularly terrifying memory relates to this one time when my mother and I had to use the bathroom, but since there was no such facility, we went behind a sand dune that, despite having some kind of vegetation cover, did not prevent two armed milicianos from approaching and watching us. My mother was in her early thirties and I was only nine years old. My mother told me not to tell my father.

As days went by, my father worried that officials at the sugar mill would figure out that his absence from work was related to the Boat Lift, and that his identity card trick would be discovered. Nevertheless, after what seemed an eternity, we were bused to the actual port of Mariel, and were taken to the boat where my father’s sister had endured 36 days of hardships waiting for us. When my aunt left Miami to pick us up, she had not anticipated that the processing of so many people would be so time consuming. Two weeks after her arrival to Mariel, she had run out of her epilepsy medication. Despite her recurring seizures and Captain Rubén Legrá's urging for her return on another boat to Miami, she refused to leave, risking her health making sure that her brother and family got out. Therefore, because of my aunt’s health and the risky conditions of my father’s departure, it was decided to leave without waiting for final clearance.

We left Cuba on an overloaded craft, the Nettie May, on May 27, 1980, taking advantage of the dark and under the cover of a brewing storm. The children were sent below deck and the adults had to face the storm on deck. Down below, there was a great deal of crying. I remember kids asking for their parents, while I busied myself in attending to my little brother. The boat had engine problems on several occasions. Many got seasick, and as we were approaching US waters, a Coast Guard helicopter lifted my mother and other very ill passengers to a medical facility in Key West. Thus, I arrived to Key West in the company of my father, brother and aunt, but not knowing the whereabouts of my mother.

Although thirty years have gone by, I have to admit that those bitter memories sometimes well up from my subconscious, reminding me of their existence. I don’t suppress them; I turn them into motivating tools. I want the best in life for me, my loved ones, and all of the Mariel refugees; especially, the ones who were children at the time. And the fact that we have done well gives me satisfaction. I don’t hate those who tormented us as we were leaving the island, they are the ones who have suffered and will continue to do so until there is real change in Cuba.