4 lessons on how my Cuban grandparents see America
What are the first thoughts that pop into your head when you think of the United States? For some, it’s that our country is unjust and corrupt.
For my maternal grandparents, who escaped Fidel Castro’s Cuba, the overriding thought about our country is that it’s “paradise.”
My grandfather, Tomás Rodriguez, was born in Itabo, Matanzas province, in 1929. And my grandmother, Nereida Rodriguez, was born in Guanajay, Pinar del Rio province, in 1933. Life was good and prosperous for them before Castro came into power, even during Fulgencio Batista’s dictatorship.
They told me that they never thought of leaving their country because they loved their people and their culture. But once Castro overthrew Batista’s regime in 1959, my grandparents feared for their lives and their family. They managed to escape and have lived in America ever since.
I’ve been intrigued by my grandparents’ story since I first heard it as a kid. I decided to interview them because many of us born in the United States, including myself, tend to take what we have for granted.
Reflecting on our conversation, four lessons stuck out:
⬤ Communism is evil. In the 20th century, close to 100 million people were murdered under communist regimes. That is an unfathomable number of people. It’s enough to make the words “communism” and “murder” synonymous. And communism in Cuba was no different.
My grandmother recalled that Castro began killing people almost immediately after taking power.
“He started killing everybody who used to work for Batista, in any type of position in his government,” she said. “And he would kill innocent people in a firing squad against a wall.”
She also told me the executions were televised, which inspired communist fanatics to roam the streets in a mob shouting “¡Paredón!” (which means, “Wall!”) and in search of more people for the government to execute. “And nobody got a trial,” she said.
Imagine being executed without having the opportunity to defend yourself. Such was the fate of any Cuban suspected of being unsympathetic to the revolution. Criticism of the government was forbidden.
“People didn’t trust anyone anymore,” my grandmother told me. She said she could not trust their cleaning lady because many communists reported on those who expressed even the slightest dissent.
She also could no longer practice her Catholic faith. “Within a year, they closed the churches and expelled priests and nuns,” she said.
Communism infiltrated every aspect of their lives.
“A month after Castro came into power, they took over everything, including our refinery,” my grandfather told me. He was the chief inspector engineer of a Shell Oil refinery at the time. He noticed that “people were just leaving, without telling anybody.” Cubans were afraid and wanted to be free.
More than 248,000 escaped from Cuba to the United States between 1959 and 1962.
In 2019, my grandfather wrote a book, “A Cuban Family’s Flight to Freedom,” about their escape from Cuba.
The results of communism speak for themselves. The inalienable rights we cherish, such as life, liberty, free speech, property and due process, were trifles standing in the way of Castro’s utopia.
⬤ America is worth loving and appreciating. America has always been, as former President Ronald Reagan put it, “a shining city on a hill.” Immigrants know this. Our freedom, equality, prosperity and our vast, pluralistic society attract all kinds of people from across the world.
“I love America!” my grandmother said. “It welcomed us and gave us a great opportunity to raise our family in a free country. We’ve lived here for 62 years. I lived longer in America than I did in Cuba. This is the land of the free!”
My grandfather added: “This is the best country in the world. We wouldn’t be in any other country at all.”
But fleeing Cuba was difficult. In February 1961, my grandparents were able to leave with their two babies on a Delta Air Lines flight because they were able to get visas to the United States through a connection in the U.S. Embassy before it closed.
My grandfather also was able to bribe a man he knew working at the airport.
“Ten dollars was the most we could take with us,” my grandfather said. “He allowed us to take some items for the babies, a stroller and our clothes.”
After arriving in America, the family stayed with my grandfather’s brother for two months in East St. Louis, Illinois, before finding a job in Chicago with an engineering company. My grandfather worked there for five years and then found a job as a project engineer at Texaco in Houston. They have lived in Houston ever since.
Living in America was noticeably different. “I was able to go wherever I wanted without question,” my grandmother said. “I was able to say whatever I wanted without fear. I was able to go to church without fear. I was able to go to the store and find everything I needed for the kids.”
Thinking about what my mother’s parents went through, it is a shame to see a declining number of Americans who are proud of our country. Perhaps we need a little more perspective to realize how good we have it here.
⬤ Don’t believe communist lies. Cuba’s communist government is, unsurprisingly, dishonest. Like other authoritarian regimes, they lie about conditions inside the country, including about the supposedly great universal health care system.
When my grandparents visited Cuba in 2009, they were able to tour a hospital. The conditions they saw, including a lack of medicine and supplies, were sickening. That reality is hidden from most tourists.
“For the tourists, they have a special hospital where only the tourists can go,” my grandmother said. “For tourists, good hotels, good beaches and food go to them because they produce money.”
When my grandmother first returned to Cuba in 1979, she said, she “cried the whole week there. Neighbors and friends were coming over begging for things for the children and grandchildren, and we didn’t have the money for them. I came back with the clothes on my back.”
It angers me to see so many politicians and journalists praise Castro and his health care system.
Take it from my Cuban grandparents, don’t believe the communist government’s lies.
⬤ Communism isn’t knocking at America’s door. Despite fearmongering among Republican pundits and politicians, America is not in any serious risk from communism and socialism.
Although the size of the federal government has expanded considerably over the past century, the U.S. Constitution still greatly limits the power of government.
The fact that you can read and I can write all sorts of critical things about the U.S. government is proof of that reality.
I am very grateful for my grandparents and everything they have taught me. Perhaps if we listen to their story – and the stories of many other Americans who fled fear and oppression in their homelands, more of us also will see our country as a “paradise.”
Chris Schlak is an Opinion fellow for USA TODAY. He graduated with a degree in government from The University of Texas at Austin in May. He founded and edited The Texas Horn, an Intercollegiate Studies Institute student publication at UT Austin. Follow him on Twitter: @ChrisSchlak