The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
CUBA, 1980
Mabel Junco, who arrived at Key West, Florida, in a fishing boat rented by her uncle, was one of about 125,000 Cubans who got parole in 1980. They were processed at refugee camps in South Florida.
Junco’s family disapproved of the Cuban government and in April 1980 leader Fidel Castro unexpectedly announced that any Cuban who wanted could leave the island from the port city of Mariel.
Mabel, then 11, relied on an uncle who had lived in Miami for almost 10 years. He rented a fishing boat for her, her parents, and older sister, who was 16. They left their home in Havana for the port city of Mariel and found the boat was in bad shape, and full of people.
Mabel, her mother and her sister boarded another boat carrying women and children.
Her father and uncle stayed in the damaged boat, which was towed by another until a U.S. Coast Guard vessel rescued them. After a night of sailing, they reunited in Key West as part of what became known as the Mariel boat lift.
After about three months at the uncle’s house, the family moved into a rented one-bedroom apartment. The two girls walked to and from school alone, cooked and did housework.
The mother, who was a seamstress in Cuba, worked in a clothing factory in Miami. The father drove trucks, as he did in Cuba, until a few years later he opened a transportation company for the elderly. Four years later the family had their own house, with a room for each person.
“In Cuba things were very difficult, very bad,” said Junco, now 55 and a teacher in Jacksonville, Florida. “Here life has given us many opportunities, we have fought forward … my parents always taught us that you come to work, and you do not get anything free from the government.”