Published Thursday, July 12, 2001.
The Miami Herald
37 Cuban migrants picked up on road to Key Largo
CARD SOUND, Fla. -- (AP) -- The Border Patrol picked up 37 Cuban migrant
Thursday on a road leading into the Florida Keys, and officials believe they
were smuggled.
The 24 adult males, seven adult females and six young girls were rounded up
at about 7 a.m., after the Border Patrol was notified by the Monroe County
Sheriff's Office, said Border Patrol spokesman Joe Mellia.
The migrants were found on Card Sound Road, the secondary highway leading to
northern Key Largo and the Florida Keys.
Mellia said none of the migrants were injured, though some did have mosquito
bites.
"We believe they were smuggled,'' Mellia said. "There's no
homemade-type boats or rafts in the area.''
Since Oct. 1, 2000, 1,757 Cuban nationals have been apprehended by the
Border Patrol in South Florida, Mellia said.
The group of Cubans that arrived Thursday would be processed by the Border
Patrol before being turned over to the Immigration and Naturalization Service's
Krome Processing Center in Miami.
Del Toro says more work needed to expand Hispanics' role in Hollywood
HAVANA -- (AP) -- Although Hispanics have made great gains in Hollywood,
much more work is needed to increase the presence of people with Latin American
roots, Puerto Rican actor Benicio del Toro said Wednesday.
Del Toro, who won an Academy Award earlier this year as best supporting
actor for his role in "Traffic,'' spoke during a visit to screen the movie
about drug trafficking on the Caribbean island.
"The reality is that Latinos must do it themselves,'' Del Toro said. "Neither
the studio nor anyone else is going to do it for them.''
When it comes to Hispanics in Hollywood, "there are few writers, there
are few directors,'' he said.
Del Toro arrived in Havana on Sunday, accompanied by Steven Soderbergh, who
won an Oscar as best director for "Traffic.''
The Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Arts and Industry invited the pair to
visit the island and show the film. They are to return to the United States on
Thursday.
Miami getting a cluster of Castros
Five of Fidel's family now calling it home
By Carol Rosenberg. crosenberg@herald.com
Two other branches of Fidel Castro's family tree sprouted in Miami on
Wednesday, a day after the revelation that a daughter of the Cuban leader had
immigrated to Miami on a visa she won in a State Department lottery.
One is a young girl, a Castro granddaughter, who lives here anonymously with
her mother. The other is Alina Fernández, Castro's daughter who sneaked
out of Cuba with a wig and a Spanish passport in 1993 and moved to South Florida
this week.
"I felt I wanted to come back to my people, my race, my friends,
everything,'' Fernández told The Herald. "I think I have accumulated
enough experience to have something to contribute. Geographically, I want to be
closer to Cuba, too.''
Fernández, who until this week lived in Madrid, said she moved here
with the promise of a writing job. She declined to name the publication but said
it was based in Miami.
Where will she live?
"Where else? Little Havana,'' she replied, adding that her daughter
Alina "Mumín'' Salgado, 23, already lives here.
Fernández, daughter of Castro's revolutionary lover, Naty Revuelta,
said she did not know a half-sister whose existence was revealed by her aunt,
pharmacist Juanita Castro Ruz of Coral Gables, in a Talk magazine article
Tuesday.
But she said she looked forward to meeting the woman, whom Juanita Castro
identified to The Herald on Wednesday as Francisca Pupo, "a really good
person, a person who doesn't want to talk about her father. She's a very quiet
person, and I respect her.''
Pupo, in her 40s, arrived in South Florida more than two years ago with her
husband after winning a visa under a lottery run by the U.S. Interests Section
in Havana. She left behind an adult daughter in Cuba, who has a son -- Fidel
Castro's great-grandson, Juanita Castro said.
Because Fidel Castro's personal life is a virtual state secret, it's not
known how many children he has, or with how many women.
Spanish radio personality Salvador Lew confirmed Pupo's existence and the
lottery story ("Unbelievable, no?'') and described Pupo as the daughter of
a woman from Santa Clara who had had a romance with Castro in the 1950s.
'SHE'S VERY LOW-KEY'
"She's not involved in any politics. She's very low-key,'' he said,
adding that some Miami residents know her connection to Castro but "they
don't say anything to her.''
She works at a day-care center in Miami, although its name and location have
not been identified.
In addition, it emerged Wednesday that Castro had yet another granddaughter
here as well -- the child of a former lover of one of Castro's sons, Alex.
Alex is the son of Fidel Castro and his current wife, Dalia Soto del Valle.
"She's a preteen, maybe 10 or 11,'' said Joe Garcia, executive director
of the Cuban American National Foundation, declining to give even the child's
first name.
Her mother immigrated here a few years ago with the child. Castro's son Alex
is still in Havana.
Alina Fernández said she knew the little girl as well, before she
left Cuba in 1993, and hoped to catch up with her.
Garcia and others said Castro kin living here have mostly sought to lead
low-key lives beyond the limelight of Miami's politically charged exile
community.
"They just want to be able to be human beings, something that is not
allowed in Cuba,'' he said. "Miami is the closest place to Cuba where you
don't have to be scared 24-7.''
OUTSPOKEN CRITIC
Fernández has been the exception. She was an outspoken critic of her
father after her defection during the years that she lived in New York, Atlanta
and Spain.
So, with the latest revelations, the count on the Miami branch of the Castro
family tree would be at least two grandchildren, two daughters and the Cuban
leader's kid sister, Juanita, 68, who has long owned the Mini Price Pharmacy on
Southwest 27th Street.
Juanita Castro, a U.S. citizen who left Cuba in 1964 and drives a 1996
Cadillac Seville, declined to discuss Fernández on Wednesday.
"Don't mention that name!'' Castro said.
A bitter breakup between aunt and niece emerged after Fernández's
book, Castro's Daughter -- An Exile's Memoir of Cuba, included harsh remarks
about Juanita and Fidel's mother, Fernández's grandmother.
Copyright 2001 Miami Herald | 
