Returning to Cuba for family, culture and, for some, a painful past

Returning to Cuba for family, culture and, for some, a painful past
By Maria Perez of the Naples Daily News

MIAMI — Waiting in line at the Miami International Airport to check in
for her Eastern Airlines flight to Cuba, Ana Perez misses her mother,
who is recovering from surgery to remove a tumor in her breast.

Perez, 47, left Cuba 17 years ago and now lives in Miami. She returns
almost every year to visit her parents.

"I want to hug them, see my mom after the surgery," she said in Spanish.

Along with suitcases carrying clothes and other travel necessities,
Perez has packed medicine and food, everything she said her family in
Cuba lacks. She plans to spend most of her time at home with her
parents. But she hopes to take her 14-year-old son to Varadero and Havana.

"I am trying to give him good memories of Cuba, because mine are not the
best," she says. "It's hard over there."

Like many Cuban Americans, Perez chose spring break in March to return
home to connect with family at the other side of the straits. They want
their children to speak Spanish, to know where they come from, to keep
what is beautiful about their country.

School vacation periods are high season for Cuban families who want to
make their trip home. More than 63,000 U.S. residents and citizens born
in Cuba traveled to the island nation in the first quarter of 2016, said
José Luis Perelló, Tourism professor at Havana University. He sees those
who emigrated as a significant market for Cuba´s tourism sector.

Some Cuban American families return regularly to the country. They wait
in line at the Miami airport, their luggage full of clothing, coffee,
soap, shaving machines, shoes, medicines, smartphones, and toys for
their relatives.

It´s only a few hours until they can hug their parents, siblings, sons
and daughters or childhood friends they left behind.

***

Judit Sánchez is not planning for much sightseeing, she says while
waiting to board the charter flight to Cuba that already has been
delayed for more than an hour.

Both Sánchez, 48, and her 13-year-old daughter, Yojades Castro, left
Pinar del Río two and a half years ago. Sánchez wanted a higher-paying
job so she could help her family in Cuba. On this trip, Sanchez only has
a couple of days to visit and then she must return home.

"I´m going to see my two sons and my three grandchildren," she lists.
"My mother, my brother, they are all there."

She is carrying toys for her grandchildren, clothing, shoes, and sweets.

"There aren't many sweets there," she says.

Many Cuban Americans visiting their families on the island travel with
extra suitcases or boxes filled with U.S. goods, everything from toilet
paper to flat screen television sets, and coffee to smartphones. This is
how Cubans have imported many U.S. products for years, offering
relatives any comforts they can afford.

Moving to the U.S. was difficult for Sanchez's daughter. She misses
their family, her friends, playing in the streets of Cuba.

"I´m going to play with my friends, be with my nephews, my brothers,"
Yojades says. "Spend time with my brothers and my dad."

Sanchez is a tailor, but in Cuba, she had a bakery. She misses her town,
Pinar del Rio on the west end of the island.

"I love to sit down on the sidewalk, and chat with the neighbors, like
before," she said. "Take out my shoes on the sidewalk and feel I´m Cuban."

Castro's friends from her hometown have many questions for her.

"They ask me how schools are here, how things are here," she says. "I
tell them, this is like Cuba, but with more things."

***

Near Sánchez and Castro sit Maria Fernández, who also is waiting in the
Miami airport with her 7-year-old great-granddaughter, Sofía Jaspe. She
is taking her great-granddaughter to Havana, where Fernández will spend
her 80th birthday.

This is Sofia's third trip to Cuba, with her first when she was 2. She
has an uncle there.

Fernández visits her two sisters, three brothers and a son there, among
other relatives. She came to the U.S. 13 years ago to care for her
daughter, who was sick. It´s not easy, she said, to move to another
country at her age, but her daughter needed her.

Now living with her granddaughter, she keeps the traditions at her
Florida home.

"I am the one who cooks at home and I cook a lot of Cuban food," she says.

Sofía says she misses her uncle and wants to see her friends in Havana.
She also wants to go to the Malecón, a popular promenade in Havana by
the sea. She says she likes it because it´s like a beach. If she could,
Sofia said she would be in Havana and Miami at the same time.

***

Lany Blanco, 38, has never been to Cuba. Neither has her husband, or
their two sons, 5 and 7. But they all trace their roots back to the
island country. Blanco´s grandmother and her husband´s parents were born
in Cuba and then moved to the U.S.

"We had heard the stories about Cuba," she said. "We always wanted to go."

Blanco wants their children to know where they come from. She wants to
encourage them to keep using Spanish.

She knows her grandmother is from Santa Clara and his parents are from
San José de las Lajas. They have family over there but they don´t know
anyone.

In this trip, they will only visit Havana and spend a day in Varadero.
They have booked an apartment in Havana through Airbnb´s site.

Blanco says her mother-in-law accompanied them to the Miami airport in
the morning.

"She started crying," Blanco said.

Her mother-in-law, she says, came to the U.S. with the Pedro Pan
operation, one of the more than 14,000 Cuban children that were sent
unaccompanied to the U.S. by their parents in the early 1960s. Their
parents sent them to the U.S. because they didn´t want them to be raised
under a communist system. Blanco´s mother-in-law was 15 when she left
Cuba. She refuses to visit the country until the government releases all
political prisoners, Blanco says.

"She wants to come back, but because of her principles, she can´t," she
says.

At the airport, both Blanco and her husband, Alejandro Blanco, were
thrilled to be on their way to Havana.

"My culture is from there, but I´m not from there," he says. "I want to
get to know the country for the first time."

Source: Returning to Cuba for family, culture and, for some, a painful
past -
http://www.naplesnews.com/news/local/returning-to-cuba-for-family-culture-and-for-some-a-painful-past-32bc4582-c652-49bd-e053-0100007f84b--379536591.html