Published Wednesday, November 29, 2000, in the
Miami Herald
Financial woes may have led mom to flee
By Luisa Yanez. lyanez@herald.com
Financial problems may have been closing in on Arletis Blanco in the days
before she fled the Florida Keys for Cuba, taking her five-year-old son from a
previous marriage.
Weeks before she disappeared under a cloud of suspicion for embezzling about
$150,000 from her employer, Blanco reportedly passed a bad check for $5,450 at
Cudjoe Key Fishing Equipment Sales, a commercial fishing business in Cudjoe Key.
"She stiffed me,'' said store manager Randy Skiver on Tuesday.
Blanco, 29, of Key Largo came into the store on Sept. 21 and purchased 500
crab traps at $10.90 each, Skiver said. "She told me she was buying them
for her brother, who is a fisherman.''
Blanco paid for the traps with a personal check from a joint account with
her live-in boyfriend, Skiver said. The check bounced. Skiver said he contacted
Blanco at home and on her cellular telephone. She promised to make good on the
debt but didn't.
Ten days later, Skiver called Monroe County Sheriffs deputies. On Nov. 2, he
filed a worthless-check complaint.
Becky Herrin, spokeswoman for the Monroe Sheriff's Office, said the
bad-check complaint will likely become a civil case. Already, there is an
outstanding warrant out for Blanco's arrest for interfering with her
ex-husband's custody of their son, Jonathon, a kindergarten student at
Plantation Key School.
Blanco is also under investigation on accusations she embezzled from
McKenzie Petroleum, where she worked as an office manager. The money disappeared
during the five years she worked at a small division of McKenzie.
As recently as two weeks ago, Skiver went looking for Blanco at her mother's
Tavernier home, he said.
"They told me she had gone to pick up her son at school, but I think
she was already gone,'' he said.
Blanco's escape to Cuba with Jonathon has sparked a parental custody battle
with her ex-husband, Jon Colombini, 31, of Homestead, reminiscent of the Elián
González case.
This week, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Miami took over the alleged
abduction case from Monroe, Herrin said. On Tuesday, spokeswoman Aloyma Sanchez
said the office had no comment on the case.
Blanco has told the Cuban government she wants to start anew on the island,
with her children and boyfriend.
On Nov. 12, Blanco, her son, toddler daughter, boyfriend Agustin Lemus, 37,
and his cousin, Yuriel Leon Lemus, 21, of Miami, got into a 21-foot Mako headed
from Key West to Cuba. They turned themselves in to authorities there. The
family is living in Pinar del Rio with Lemus' relatives.
Colombini wants his son back. He has sought the help of the State Department
and the Cuban government.
This week, he met with Cuban officials in Washington, D.C. His attorney,
Michael Berry, said Cuba is being cooperative and has offered to help resolve
the custody matter.
Divorced in 1998, Colombini and Blanco shared custody of the boy, who now
thinks he's on vacation, his father said.
Blanco has told conflicting stories explaining why she fled. She told Cuban
officials that she feared for her life after uncovering a plot by exiles to
divert money from her business. In cassette tapes she left for her family,
Blanco reportedly said she was running because she had embezzled the money and
didn't want to shame them.
Photos evoke longings
By Sandra Marquez Garcia. smarquez@herald.com
Step into La Galería del Medio, a new photo gallery in Little Havana,
and peek through a rare portal to the past. On the walls, carnival dancers
emerge from the shadows of a Havana night in grainy black and white. High-rises
along the seaside malecón stand as monuments to modernity. And scenes of
pastoral life in rural Cuba hint of simpler times.
Located at 3611 SW Eighth St. -- between Versailles and La Carreta
restaurants -- the gallery takes its name from the Havana restaurant that
invented the mojito cocktail and was a favorite haunt of Ernest Hemingway.
"Since La Bodeguita del Medio is so famous, people remember the name,''
owner Alfredo Rey said.
Two months ago, Rey, 65, and his longtime friend Jorge Figueroa, 83, opened
the gallery using negatives from their early days as amateur photographers
shooting Cuba's tropical landscapes and daily life for photo contests. They
became convinced that a market existed for their work after selling $5,000 worth
of photos during last year's Cuba Nostalgia trade show in Coconut Grove.
The giddy response of customers has borne out the hunch. Rey said the
gallery has tapped into a budding trend: Cuban-American families are starting to
create a special Cuban corner in their homes, a kind of shrine to the memory of
the island.
Elio Aztiazarain, 45, a Fort Lauderdale painting contractor who drove to the
gallery on a recent chilly night to buy his wife a birthday present, said his
family plans to transform one wall of their family room into a Cuba tribute.
"Coming here is like going back. It looks like time stopped,''
Aztiazarain said, surveying the shop's walls. "My wife wants to collect
almost every one.''
The couple stumbled on the gallery after dinner at Versailles. Aztiazarain,
who left Cuba at age 14 on a freedom flight, said he was overcome with emotion
when he spotted a photo of a peasant farmer's house shrouded in early morning
mist.
CHILDHOOD MEMORY
"That picture, right there, is about 10 miles from my house near Cabañas.
When I saw that, I almost choked,'' he said.
He said his wife, Olivia, had a similar reaction to a picture of an antique
piano topped with a cloth runner and a wood cross.
"When she was a little girl, she had a piano just like that,'' he said.
Framed copies of both photographs are now part of the couple's private
collection. Other recent buys: a photo of El Morro fortress shot at low tide and
a picture of an empty rocking chair.
Olivia Aztiazarain said the vintage photographs are especially meaningful to
her because her parents burned most of the family photos before fleeing Cuba to
keep them from ending up in government hands.
"For the Cuban who sees those photos, it touches their soul,'' she
said.
The couple's choices mirror some of the gallery's bestsellers, Rey said.
Like the Aztiazarains, he said, many customers come searching for fragments of
their past. Others have yet to see Cuba with their own eyes.
"These photos produce a lot of nostalgia,'' Rey said.
But even though these original photographs are works of art to their
collectors, the images on display at La Galería del Medio are priced to
sell. Framed copies of 8-by-10-inch photos cost $20; framed 16-by-20-inch photos
cost $65; mounted original prints signed by Figueroa start at $300.
Cataracts prevent the retired photographer from spending much time at the
gallery these days -- but his documentary-style prints of prerevolutionary Cuba
create a lasting impression.
Born in Havana, Figueroa took up photography as a hobby during his youth in
the 1930s. He won his first photo contest -- sponsored by El Encanto department
store -- at the age of 20 after he shot a photo of a friend lighting matches in
a dark room.
PASSION EVOLVED
With that early success came passion. Together with other amateurs, Figueroa
created a photography club and began canvassing the island in search of
evocative scenes while perfecting his technique.
Over the course of three decades, Figueroa earned national and international
recognition for his work. Besides some 250 awards, Figueroa earned mention among
the top 100 photo professionals in Who's Who in Pictorial Photography. But in
1960, he fled Castro's revolution. He packed a limited selection of negatives --
leaving hundreds more behind.
"We expected to return soon,'' he said. "I never expected to spend
40 years here.''
Figueroa hasn't returned since. After leaving Cuba, he resettled in New
York, where he worked as master printer in a Manhattan photo lab. In 1983, he
retired and moved to Hialeah.
While in New York, he crossed paths with Rey, a navy photographer friend
from Cuba who had a private photo studio on the side. Both men stayed in touch,
and in 1999 they decided to rent a booth space together at the Cuba Nostalgia
trade show.
STORED IN BOXES
"We never sold pictures before,'' Rey said. "All of this was
stored in boxes. It was dormant.''
Pulling the photos out of their resting place has awakened a powerful
response among some casual observers. Earlier this month, a restaurant worker on
her way to catch a bus popped into the gallery on impulse.
"Do you have any photos of El Prado? I want one with both lions,'' she
said, referring to the tree-lined Havana walking street graced with a pair of
stone lions.
As she walked around the gallery, gazing at the photos, she reflected on her
youth, talking to no one in particular.
"I would sit on the lion. I was a little girl, and I would put my hand
in the lion's mouth. That was my life,'' she said.
Rey showed her a framed photograph of the lion statue she was searching for.
The woman smiled at the image and left without buying it.
"She was looking for her childhood,'' Rey said.
Documentary on PBS to explore Cuba
Forever Cuba, a documentary produced by South Florida filmmakers Julieta
Torres and Isabella Arroyo, is scheduled to air 8 p.m. Thursday on WLRN-PBS 17.
That showing will be followed by an encore presentation at 2 p.m. Saturday
and the airing of a Spanish-language version at 7 p.m. on Sunday.
The hour-long documentary examines the history, geography and architecture
of the island, and features footage from Barracoa, Cuba's oldest city.
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