Cuban institutions live
in exile
By Madeline Baró
Diaz. Miami Bureau. Posted January 22 2005
in the Sun-Sentinel.
MIAMI GARDENS · When Fidel Castro
took power in Cuba, his government seized
and silenced some of the country's beloved
institutions, from prominent religious schools
to funeral homes.
In the four decades that followed, Cuban
exiles in South Florida restored much of
the Cuba of their memories by re-creating
those lost treasures.
Many places and associations in the Miami
area have their roots in pre-Castro Cuba,
among them La Liga Contra El Cancer, or
The League Against Cancer, a respected Miami
charity with an annual telethon.
Founded in Miami in 1975, La Liga was modeled
after a similar organization created in
Havana in 1925. The Havana center grew to
include an oncology center and operated
until Castro came to power in 1959.
Another example is the popular El Dorado
furniture chain and its opulent showrooms.
Its owners, members of the Capó family,
first became known to Cubans with the Casa
Capó chain of furniture stores, which
dated to the 1920s in Cuba.
Two of the most enduring symbols of Cuba
re-created in Miami-Dade County are Belen
Jesuit Preparatory School and St. Thomas
University, which have churned out prominent
and successful graduates as their predecessors
did in Cuba.
"Cuba was a modern nation not far
behind from the United States or other modern
nations in the 1950s," said Ricardo
Pau-Llosa, a poet and art critic who was
among the last children to celebrate their
first communion at the original Belen in
Havana. "The re-creation of these businesses
and institutions are a way of paying homage
to the splendor of the Cuban Republic."
Agueda Ogazón attended the Universidad
de Santo Tomás de Villanueva in Havana
in the 1950s. A private university, Villanueva
offered students the opportunity to finish
their degrees without worrying about student-led
shutdowns, such as the ones that set back
students at the public University of Havana.
Ogazón was among the last graduates
of Villanueva, earning a business degree
in 1958. Today she is a business administration
professor at St. Thomas University where
she keeps old pictures of Villanueva in
her office.
"I think this is the closest I could
get to my campus, where I graduated from,"
she said. " ... The wave of people
who knew Villanueva looks up to this place
as a link to Villanueva."
Villanueva was founded in 1946 and shut
down by Fidel Castro's government in 1961.
The Augustinian priests who established
the school left the country and founded
Biscayne College in Miami. Biscayne College
was later rechristened St. Thomas University,
in honor of its Cuban heritage.
For years, former Villanueva students were
able to continue their studies in the United
States because the school sent copies of
its records until 1959. Those records helped
Ogazón obtain a master's degree at
Hofstra University and later a doctorate
at Florida International University.
Today, the Villanueva records that survived
are at the St. Thomas library, where Marta
Gutierrez tended to them for years. Gutierrez,
a former Villanueva employee who has worked
at St. Thomas since 1963, said the new school
is not exactly like its namesake, but it's
still a source of pride for Cuban exiles.
"Even though it is not the same ...
many people like the fact that their children
continue the tradition," she said.
Cuban exiles have also sought to re-create
Belen Jesuit, first established in Cuba
in 1854. There it grew to be a 60-acre facility
with 1,200 students known as "The Palace
of Education" and had dreams of becoming
an institution of higher learning.
"Fidel Castro shattered that dream,"
said Javier Riera, director of development
for Belen, now located in southwest Miami-Dade.
Castro himself was a graduate of Belen
in Havana, but after coming to power expelled
the Jesuits, who brought Belen with them
to Miami, first conducting classes at a
downtown Miami church and later moving to
a Little Havana building.
Today the all-boys school is on a 30-acre
site where students attend classes in classrooms
with high-tech equipment.
Several South Florida businesses also had
their start in Cuba. Bernardo García
Funeral Homes is such a household name in
the Cuban community that it is part of jokes
told at Little Havana theaters. The first
Bernardo García funeral home was
founded in Havana in 1915 and the company
is now in its fifth generation of family
operation.
Castro's government seized the family business
and much of the García family came
to Miami, said Peter Martin, vice president
of the company and great-great-grandson
of the funeral home founder.
Martin's grandfather and great-grandfather
started all over in Miami, opening a funeral
home in 1976. At the time, they filled a
need for traditional Cuban funerals, which
include all-night wakes, Martin said.
Today, three generations continue to run
the company, which has four locations in
Miami-Dade and does about 2,000 funerals
a year.
"We're like a pillar," Martin
said. "Even though generations have
passed and we're on our third generation
in this country ... we see that same warmth,
that same care, that same personal touch
that's meant so much to us."
Madeline Baró Diaz can be reached
at mbaro@sun-sentinel.com or 305-810-5007.
Copyright
© 2005, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
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