Sharing the Joy of Liberty at a Cuban Pig Roast
By Mary Anastasia O'Grady
Most of the party guests were also immigrants, many having arrived
within
the last five years. But the scene was pure Norman Rockwell: a
backyard barbeque with beers by the swimming pool. "I'm living
the American dream," my grinning host, who is now a citizen,
told me as he showed me around the home he owns.
It was a solidly middle-class afternoon. Yet as we toasted freedom
on a patio full of former prisoners of the Cuban system, I think
we all felt fabulously wealthy and fortunate. I had a lump in
my throat all day, thinking about the struggle of my own immigrant
grandparents and the wonder of this place called America.
Anyone who truly wants to understand why walls and border guards
and threats
of felony charges aren't likely to change the dynamics of U.S.
immigration really ought to spend some time with new arrivals,
as I did last Saturday.
What you learn from migrants is that escaping the dead-end life
of privation and bad government is only part of what pushes them
to set sail. An equally powerful force is the irresistible attraction
of America, a pull so strong that it brings the voyagers through
perils they are extremely lucky to survive. What you learn from
their American employers is the unequaled value placed on these
tenacious and grateful newcomers as employees.
In Revolutionary Cuba, the voluntary exchange of goods and labor
does not exist. "Everyone has to steal in order to survive,"
one of the guests explained to me, "and this dependency is
how the state keeps control." The government knows about
the theft and records it. Employees even have to share some with
their bosses. Should the employee decide to buck the system, the
record is the evidence that lands him in jail. When human rights
groups ask about political prisoners, Cuba can claim there are
none, that there are only convicted thieves repaying society.
Every Cuban also knows that this is not the way life is lived
across the Florida Straits. Most new arrivals from the island
will tell you that everyone they know back home wants leave. Unfortunately,
their struggle to migrate is more difficult than ever because
of a policy put in place by the Clinton administration that says
those caught at sea will be sent back to Cuba and only those making
it ashore will be granted asylum. Under this policy, known as
"wet foot/dry foot," not only do refugees have to evade
Castro's thugs, who are known to sink boats loaded with defenseless
women and children, but they also have to dodge the U.S. Coast
Guard.
Yet even these lower odds haven't dissuaded would-be Americans
from fleeing Cuba. One young man I met Saturday, who I will call
Rafael, is a perfect example. He boarded a raft for the States
a few years back. When the motor on his not-so-seaworthy craft
broke down, he was picked up by the Bahamian coast guard. The
Bahamas has a policy of keeping captured Cuban rafters in an overcrowded,
rat-infested and rather primitive jail until Fidel gives the green
light that he will take them back. This can take many months.
But Rafael wasn't giving up so easily. He says that he escaped
the detention center, climbing over two fences, was befriended
by some locals, who gave him refuge for a short time, and eventually
made his way to the home of a
Cuban family. From there he managed to stow away on a cruise ship,
which two days after he boarded, docked in Florida. About his
"cruise" he says, "I was afraid to go to the buffet."
He may have arrived hungry but Rafael's mode of transportation
had one big advantage: He was "dry foot" when he met
U.S. customs and immigration and he
qualified for a green card, allowing him to get a job and become
a tax-paying asset to his adoptive homeland.
Rafael's employer, also at the party, couldn't be happier with
the Cuban-born workforce that immigrant networking has brought
to his small business. Among their common traits, this group is
known for its work ethic and a knack for being able to repair
just about anything. That, undoubtedly, has something to do with
the fact that the modern Cuban automobile is the 1957 Chevy. Speaking
about the owner of the business, a mutual friend told me, "He
thinks he's died and gone to heaven with these guys working for
him."
Not all the immigrants at the party had arrived in the same harrowing
fashion as Rafael. Some of them had won the annual lottery of
20,000 U.S. visas or had come through the Immigration and Naturalization
Service's family reunification program, a path that took one migrant
I talked to 15 years to travel. But they all shared a bitter disdain
for the dictatorship.
"Fidel Castro hates the Cuban people," one guest told
me with a mixture of sorrow and anger. "Cuba," he said,
"is one big prison."
Beyond these short commentaries, all of which I pulled out of
them, most of the party goers weren't particularly interested
in talking about the past. That may be because most have left
family on the island and worry about retribution from the regime,
which is why I have protected their anonymity.
But I suspect there is another reason: The details of all the
accumulated injustices experienced under a ruthless regime amount
to just too much heavy baggage to lug around. Better to dump it
in the straits upon crossing, travel light and look to the future.
After all, once you make it to "La Yuma" -- Cuban slang
for the U.S. -- everything is possible.
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