Newspaper Page Text
Friday, April 15, 1966 Griffin Daily News
Cuban Refugees
4 Where Did They Go ?
4 What Did Do?
BY H. D. QITGG
United Press International
MIAMI (UPI) —The journey
Was only an hour to “the magic
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8
city.” To the passengers, that
Miami slogan was no tourist
come-on. To them the magic of
Miami was the magic of
freedom. And the wait had
been long.
The big silver transport came
down from a mottled sky. It
was the morning flight, one of
two daily from Varadero, Cuba,
about 85 miles east of Havana,
into Miami International Air
port.
Down the landing ramp they
came, 82 Cuban refugees, set
foot on solid American Asphalt,
nodded hopefully to two U. S.
Immigration Department girls
who waved them into three
buses. Among them was one of
the handsomest little girls
alive.
She was Viviana, 6 years old.
She wore a yellow Jacket and in
one hand she carried a doll.
The other hand grasped that of
a 39-year-old Cuban with a
broad, flat nose and full black
wavy hair, a very special man
because he was her papa —and,
a statistic.
13,000th Arrival
Generoso Rodriguez Guerra,
an Havana street-cubicle ven
dor of women’s clothing, was
the 13,000th refugee to come in
on the Cuban airlift since it
began last Dec. 1. He was
arriving with Viviana this St.
Patrick’s Day to join his wife
and younger daughter in the
U.S.A.
Down the ramp ahead of
them had come dark and
beautiful Clara Eumelia Muina,
nearly 18, bound to join her
family in Newark, N.J.
These two family arrivals
were cases in point. Generoso
and Viviana were to go to
Miami, in whose environs some
100, C"0 refugee Cubans live.
Clara represented a recent
trend —now nearly 75 per cent
of those coming to Miami are
resettled outside Dade County
(Miami and surrounding munici
palities).
Where do they go? What do
they do? For one thing, they’ve
impinged on the culture and
economy of Miami —a city of
great good tolerance and
resilience —to a point that is
immediately visible and audible
and food-smellable to a visitor.
Spanish Sig u s
You come into Miami and are
struck first by the signs. On the
highway toll station: “Espera
Luz Verde.” (wait for the green
light.) On a storefront: “Sand
wiches Cubanos.” At an airport
booth: “Seguros de Viage.”
(travel insurance.) A restau
rant name: “La Esquina de
Tejas” (a comer of Texas). All
this is far outside the big
Cuban settlement and its main
street.
You go into any Chinese
restaurant and the first thing
the waitress plunks down is a
basket of “galettas,” Spanish
biscuits. In the Hong Kong
restaurant, there is a duality of
menu: Chicken chow mein,
fried rice & egg roll, is also
"chow mein de polio, arroz
frito, egg roll”; and ying yong
gai, fried rice & barbecued
spare ribs, comes out “masa de
polio rellena, arroz frito,
costillitas fritas.”
In the heart of the downtown
shopping section, Flagler St.,
just a block and a half up from
Biscayne Blvd. By the bay, are
many Cuban-catering stores,
open Sundays —clothing, elec
tronic gadgetry, novelties, lug
gage, Jewelry. Sign: “Juguetes
(toys), T.V., radios, tocadiscos
(record players), camaras y
rollos Kodak (cameras and
film).”
You hear as much Spanish as
English in the Flagler St. big
store area, and the best known
department store has a behind
scenes order posted to em
ployes: “Speak English on
duty.” And indeed, Cuban
customers and clerks seem in
the majority in the area.
Latin Food Products
In the last five years, more
Latin food products have
appeared on the shelves —like
the little toasted banana
shavings called “mariquitas,”
like the cigarette brand whose
owners left Cuba in 1961 and
whose customers now are 80
per cent non-Cuban; the black
beans that now are in all
groceries.
“A lot of Cuban dishes have
found their way into our diet,”
said the 20-year Miami res
ident. “Five years ago you’d
never get black beans at my
house the way you did at my
party. Now, the proper way is
to serve rice on the bottom,
then beans, chopped onions on
top, and pour oil and vinegar ..
M
You are listening to sweet
music from a big 50-kilowatt
radio station and suddenly
comes the voice (twice daily):
“During the following 55
minutes, radio Miami, WGBS,
presents a program of news
and commentary broadcast
daily to Cuba, where nearly 7
million people are living
against their will under Fidel
Castro’s Communist ...”
Sign on a big building: “Wig
world -’go-go wigs’.”
The airlift brings in 800 to
1,000 refugees a five-day week
— averaging 3,600 a month. It’s
a relative-to-relative program
— a relative in the United States
must claim those in Cuba. So
they go to relatives —those 75
per cent who are resettling —
hopefully where there are jobs.
One recent week they went like
this:
Some Secret Arrivals
New York City, 226; Newark,
176; Los Angeles, 65; San Juan,
60; Chicago, 41; Tampa, 37;
New Orleans, 25 —they were
the big receiving cities. In a
recent week there were 855
resettlements out of 892 arri
vals. There are still clandestine
boat arrivals —86 persons on 12
small boats in February.
Since the advent of Castro in
January, 1959, an estimated
659,000 have left Cuba —300,000
of them to the United States,
with one-third of these staying
in Miami. Since the U.S.-Cuban
refugee program began in
February, 1961, around 105,000
arrivals have been resettled
outside Miami. They went to all
states.
The totals now range from
Alaska’s low (one refugee) to
these five leaders: New York,
28,455; New Jersey, 14,149;
California, 10,617; Illinois,
5,549; Massachusetts, 3,540. But
if Puerto Rico were a state it
would rank third, with 10,629.
Generoso Rodriguez Guerra
cares little about being the
13,000th airlift statistic. He’s
thankful he got out. The bus
took him and his daughter 11 1-
2 miles to Opa Locka, a Miami
suburb. There at the Cuban
refugee center’s compound,
they went through Immigration,
health, and settlement routines.
And he registered for a job.
Any Job.
Broken Family Problems
Theirs wag about the 1070th
case of family reunions involv
ing children since the airlift
began Dec. 1. The worst
problem facing the voluntary
resettlement agencies is that of
broken families.
These experienced voluntary
agencies, in their local commu
nities, are the outfits to be
contacted with Job offers. They
are the National Catholic
Welfare Conference, which
handles 80 per cent of the
cases; Church World Service
(Protestant), United Hias Ser
vice (Hebrew Immigrant aid
society), and International
Rescue Committee (nonsecta
rian).
More than 10,000 Job offers
from around the country have
come to the “freedom tower”
offices of the Cuban refugee
center in downtown Miami
since President Johnson made
his “asylum for the oppressed”
speech last Oct. 3. The center
can only reply: “Check with
your local church or civic
groups.”
As of Jobs, and human types,
the Opa-Locka processors say
the refugees are “a pretty good
cross section” of Cuba.
At the Opa-Locka compound,
Rodriguez Guerra and Viviana
were met by his wife Carmen,
30, in her 1955 Buick, and they
drove home to see Grlsle, 3 1-2,
who came out with her mother
when she was one month old, in
August, 1962.
Racially Mixed Area
Home is a tiny cottage, white
and green frame, behind
another cottage in a racially
mixed neighborhood. It has a
little living room, bedroom, and
kitchen. In a side yard, behind
shrubs and dappled by a
banyan tree’s shade is a swing
and slide set for the kids.
Carmen preferred this cot
tage to the streetside apart
ments of the downtown refugee
section. She pays $50 a month
rent. She drives 6 1-2 miles to
an egg packing factory, works
past midnight, and makes $1.25
an hour for $56 U $62 a week.
The husband is looking for a
job, but it’s tough because he
speaks no English. Finances?
“Going to be very difficult.”
He’s willing to pack up and go
to any city where there’s work.
He gets nothing from the
government.
That’s rather new—presuma
bly to encourage resetlement.
It’s like this: The Cuban influx
began in 1959 when the
overthrown Batista people
came in. Then came the 1959-60
peak when around 2,000 re
fugees a week came. In 1962-63
refugees were given a govern
ment check and went out and
found a room.
No city could have been more
tolerant or responsibel than
Miami—there was never a
detention or refugee camp set
up. There was a definite burden
on schools, health-keeping, po
lice (although no increase in
crime because of the Cubans).
No Backing Up
In the old days, en there was
no quick resettlement, c8
refugee family got $100 «
month maximum, a person
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231 East Solomon Street Griffin Phone 228-1326
without family, $60. Since the
“new wave” of refugees began,
with Castro’s last-September
announcement he would let
anybody leave, the plan is to
try to prevent their backing up
in Miami, as in 1962-63.
Now, there's no immediate
handout—the person gets pock
et money here, and a flat
"transitional grant” of the $100
or $60 is mailed to the
resettlement destination. It’s
assumed that a person going to
a relative in Miami will be
cared for by the relative, and
he gets no check at all.
About 12,000 refugees in Dade
County still are getting federal
assistance. In 1962-63 between
65,000 and 70,000 were getting
it.
As for taking over jobs, the
Florida State Employment Ser
vice labor market department
points out that if there’s a
function to be done, and a
refugee holds it, someone else
would have been doing it—
maybe from the north. But the
refugees have created Jobs,
buoyed the economy in their
own accumulation, plus govern
ment money, that helped during
a 1961-63 local recession.
Estimates of Cuban worker
percentages in Miami industry
include: garment work, 75;
hotel service, 40-60; furniture
and fixtures making, 40;
umber products, 20; chemicals,
50; printing and publishing, 20;
restaurant, 15-20; retail and
small stores, very heavy.
Prior to the “new wave” that
followed President Johnson's
Oct. 3 speech, the Dade County
school system was getting from
the federal government 60 per
cent of total expense for
refugee children whose families
were on relief, 45 per cent for
those not on relief. This is
continuing for those enrolled
before Oct. 3.
Support Cuban Teachers
For the “new wave,” the
government agreed to a flat
outlay of $600 per chid, plus
$518 yearly in operating costs.
Additionally, it will pay $60,000
supplemental money to provide
one Cuban aide (translator) per
6 children, one visiting teacher
and one counselor for each 500,
a psychologist for each 1,000.
Refugees in the county
schools peaked at 18,260 in 1962.
Just prior to last Oct. 3, there
were 15,501. The “new wave”
enrollees now number 1,221. So
the total now is 16,722.
The man-in-street belief in
Miami is that many resettled
refugees return to Miami. The
refugee center says ony 5 per
cent return, and half of these
relocate again. The county
labor statisticians think the
returnees exceed the center’s
figure. Recently, the school
system spot-checked 347 refu
gee children and found 28 per
cent had lived elsewhere in the
country.
The Cuban community, near
downtown Miami and centered
along 15 or 20 blocks of 8th St.,
has been enterprising and
industrious. They took on an
area that was gr’~j backward
and refurbished it, coming In
with nothing.
Just at the start of the area—
a colorful, wholly Cuban
atmosphere of clean business
street—you encounter the Sosa
cigar factory, for example.
Juan Sosa, the proprietor,
supervises 14 employes in the
business his family once ran in
Cuba. He’s been here three
years, worked in a factory a
while, and started the cigar
business 18 months ago. He
makes 80 boxes a day, sells to
New York, Detroit, Chicago.
Also Sells Paperbacks
Nearby, the “farmacia nava
rro—medicinas a Cuba, pre
cious de discount” is like any
American drugstore except that
it has Spanish language maga
zines and supplies of guava
paste and marmalade. But it
also has paper backs of Tom
Sawyer, the Scarlet Letter, and
Treasure Island.
One success story often cited
is the nightclub called Les
Violins, a duplicate of one
formerly in Havana. It’s on
Biscayne Blvd. and always
crowded and reportedly has
been offered $500,000 for the
name alone.
The first family ever regis
tered at the Cuban refugee
center, on Feb. 27, 1961, now is
in Milwaukee. The husband,
Felix Antonio Gutierrez, works
at a brewery, his wife,
Estrella, at a factory, and a
daughter and son are doing
well. The first person off on the
first airlift plane, Mrs. Virginia
Olazaba] Delgado, 75, went to
live in the Bronx, New York.
And a recent resettlement
CONFUCIUS might turn ssilr
v "He who would understand
the new China must first
examine the old."
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An examination of the eld and
the new China is presented story-strip in
a dramatic 24-part
series "One-Fourth presented by of this Mankind" newspa
per. revealing of the
I is a summary
4,000 years of recorded Chi
nese history. For a better un
derstanding of today's world
problems, the Communist
m threat, read "One-Fourth of
Mankind."
case? Let’s take the beautiful
girl who preceded the 13,000th
airliftee. Clara Muinia cleared
Opa-Locka and went in the bus
past the beautiful dress shops
and markets heaped with milk
cartons (“magnificol”) to
“freedom house,” a sort of
refugee hotel at the airport for
those outbound.
Next day she was with her
father and step-mother in a
Cuban section of Newark—a
high-school-age girl with an
urge to be an architect. The
mother is a registered nurse,
the father an auto body repair
man. There are three other
children, and they all live in a
little flat wit the customary
religious decorations on the
wall.
Clara must learn English.
W’--' was her first impression
of America?
“Magni-'ico,” she said again.
“Liberty!” said her father.
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PRETORIA, South Africa
(UPI) —Racing driver Jackie
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public road when his lawyer
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STRIKE AGAINST STRIKES
COVENTRY, England (UPI)
— About 700 auto industry
workers went on strike Thurs
day—to protest strikes. They
called the token 24Tiour walk
out to protest a series of
“disrputive” stoppages and go
slows by 15 truck drivers.
La Petite Beauty Shoppe
135 South 8th Street
Between Solomon and
Taylor Sts.
Next door to 8th Street
Parking Lot.
(Co - owners, Mrs. Nell Ellis
and Mrs. Elisabeth Kelley,
invite yon to drop in, or
phone them. Phone 227-3480