The Dilemma of a Cuban Democratic Organizer
Miami’s an interesting place to be brought up in; even more interesting to do political work in. It’s been hard to reconcile the oasis I had my happiest childhood memories in with the city full of people that chewed me up and spit me out during the 2020 campaign cycle. But here’s my attempt at doing just that.
My early childhood was an elixir of La Llave espresso and fried bread crumbs pieced in my clothes from our habitual Saturday-morning croquetas. As I matured, Miami became more than the food I ate, or the Agua de Violetas they put on my head. It became a sexy, humid, neon metropolis brimming and spilling over with rolled R’s and tan people; it’s my home. In time with my ascent, the early 2000s brought an even larger wave of Latin immigration than the great Cuban flight 40 years before. As a result, the city’s become known as the Latin hub of the United States, the capitol and nucleus from which Hispanic influence radiates within the country.
My father, Jose, fled Cuba in 1967 at six years old after waiting 3 years to get permission from the government to move to the US. When declaring your intent to leave Cuba, your rights as a citizen were stripped and your entire family was labeled “gusanos” or worms by Fidel Castro, his government, and all those who stayed. Abuelo Jose, his father, was forced to obtain and resell the items Cubans left on their way out to make a living while waiting. Every person fleeing Cuba was stripped of all their items except for the clothes on their backs and a small two-by-three foot worm-shaped bag for the family unit (where the slur came from). Their possessions were inventoried, taken by the government, and they were patted down no less than 5 times before their departure; even as they waited in line to board the plane out.
My mother, Darlene, was born in Miami, raised to remember the trauma her parents and grandparents suffered. Roberto Cuesta, her father, was imprisoned after protesting the seizure of the University of Havana Medical school by the Castro government. He was held in prison for a year until his father bribed a guard to let him free and escaped to Ecuador for his life, before making it to the US in 1965. My grandmother, a debutante in Havana society, fled to America at age 15 in February 1960, a year after the historic New Year’s Eve exodus of President Batista and his allies. Castro assumed the reins, seizing power of the government 11 days later by riding into Havana on a tank. She went from custom made dresses and weekly dances chaperoned by her own Abuela to cleaning the floors and toilets of strange American families in a land where she didn’t know the language. The fact that any of these people prospered at all is a marvel and a testament to their resilience and strength.
As a Cuban Democrat, I consider myself a mythic- like a unicorn. I was raised under the same guise as my parents, to kiss the ground you walk on every day and thank America and God for giving you the opportunities you have. My political awakening began in high school US History and Government class. Surrounded by kids named Hernandez, Sosa, Clavijo, and Martinez I felt so far removed from the country being represented to me, built by Franklins, Jeffersons, and Adams’. Studying the creation of the criminal justice system opened my eyes to an institution where “tough on drugs” really meant “tough on Black and brown people”. Stringent immigration policies made me realize the American dream is for some, not all, and that we really were lucky to be here. Where everyone else before me turned right in protest of a government that failed them before, I turned left in response to the government that was failing us now.
I began organizing in Miami, FL in August 2020. Excluding extraneous factors like high unemployment, a global pandemic disproportionately killing minorities every day, and strained racial tensions in the city, the race in South Florida was particularly nasty. The Trump administration had been courting the Cuban and Venezuelan communities long before 2020, with stunts like former National Security Advisor John Bolton’s speech condemning Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua as the “troika of tyranny” in 2018. This war on socialism stoked the traumatic pasts of immigrants from these nations, making them responsive to the Trump Administration’s messaging. The 2018 midterm marked another line in the sand, exhibiting the inroads that had been made among Hispanic voters when Gov. Ron Desantis won by a little less than 32,000 votes. That small margin was most likely decided by the support of 66% of Cuban Americans in the state, a 16% increase in Republican support from 2016.
These inroads became trenches as the conservative disinformation campaign ramped up in 2020. The Trump campaign’s first targeted ad appeared on Telemundo, the most watched Spanish-language cable network in 2020, in June of that year, costing the campaign $600,000 upon initial release (NBC). The onslaught continued throughout the cycle, with a debunked ad insinuating Venezuela’s socialist government publicly supported Biden played on YouTube in Florida 100,000 times in the 8 days before the election (ProPublica). His strategy was to constantly stoke the past trauma of immigrant voters and tie that post-traumatic stress to Biden, creating negative associations as a result. After a certain point it doesn’t matter that the Associated Press officially declared the ad to be false; when you’re forced to relive the pain of being a political refugee 100,000 times 8 days before an election, you’ll vote with that pain.
As September and October marched on, my calls verged from aggressive to threatening. God forbid I mentioned I was a Cuban campaigning on behalf of a Democratic candidate; I was a traitor, a worm, brainwashed by the same Socialists who ruined the lives of thousands and stole my heritage. When I went home the same thing waited for me there. I couldn’t go to the kitchen without feeling like I had disgraced every one of my ancestors, turning them all over in their graves and making their perilous move to America worth nothing. It’s hard to keep externalizing those comments, especially when it feels like your entire community is against you. Day five before the election I could barely pick up the phone.
The way I’m able to keep doing the work I’m so passionate about is to remind myself that this is the way I’m serving my country and my people. I know that they’ll be better off and I was relieved for Latinos and Hispanics everywhere when I woke up on November 8 and read the headlines that Biden had been declared the winner, officially. Stoking the pain and suffering of an entire nationality’s past was Trump’s method, and unfortunately for Florida it made a difference. The Cuban people deserve better. Hispanics and Latinos deserve better. So I’ll continue to campaign, and try to do better for them, just like my grandparents and father did for me.
