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Cuban exile carves new
life as a resident refugee
Jordan Hernández,
jhernandez@theadvertiser.com. The
Lafayette Daily Advertiser, LA, October
25, 2004. /
Strong Cuban salsa music resounds through
walls adorned with family pictures, their
daughter's drawings and recuerdos - mementos
- of their native Cuba at Rafael and Vivian
Garcia's home on a recent mid-afternoon.
It's the brief reprieve from work the Garcias
get while Daniela, their eight-year-old
daughter, arrives home from school.
But soon he'll be back at his restaurant,
Cafe Habana City, walking rapidly between
tables, checking on customers and their
orders and enjoying every minute of it.
Now a successful restaurateur, Rafael once
had a much different life: One of political
activism that led to arrests, detainment
and fear for his life in his Cuban homeland.
Garcia had been working for a political
organization, Confederación de Trabajadores
Democráticos de Cuba (Cuban Democratic
Workers Confederation), for about five years
before the day he spoke on Radio Martí,
a U.S. sponsored broadcast into Cuba.
He attempted organizing the Cuban people
to go outside their homes and speak out
against Fidel Castro's communist government;
soon enough, Cuban secret police picked
him up in a car and drove off.
"They didn't like me too much,"
Garcia said candidly. "They told me
that if one person went outside and spoke
against the government because of what I
did, I was already dead."
He was held in a small cell for about a
week, along with a dozen other political
prisoners with the threat of being put in
front of a firing squad very real in his
mind.
"It was tough for me," Vivian
said, "because we didn't know what
happened. We didn't know where he was and
the police told us he was in a different
place every time we asked."
After his release, secret police shadowed
Rafael for years afterward, keeping tabs
on his activities. Then a chance to leave
Cuba for the United States came through
a political refugee program, and they took
it.
"I wanted to start a new life,"
he said. "I was in a dangerous situation,
and I didn't want that for my family."
On Nov. 7, 1997, Rafael got the best birthday
gift he'd ever received: a visa allowing
him and his family to relocate to either
Albuquerque or Lafayette.
Seeing pictures of a New Mexico winter,
with snow-capped mesas, the choice to go
to Lafayette was easy.
"Cuba's always warm. I couldn't live
where it snowed," he said.
A few months later, the Garcias, Daniela
and Rafael's mother, Josefa Suarez, flying
for the first time, left family members
and their homeland behind.
Taking a chance
With $250 in his pocket and no grasp of
the English language, Garcia's new life
in Lafayette began with a less than perfect
start.
He lost his first job on his first day
because he couldn't speak English.
"It was difficult; we didn't know
anybody, we couldn't speak English and nobody
spoke Spanish either," said Vivian,
recalling the trouble of adjusting to a
community they felt they had no part of.
"This wasn't my country."
But they began learning English, and while
they speak more Spanish at home, they're
now more comfortable conversing in the new
language.
While working four years for a drilling
company, Rafael and Vivian began dreaming
of owning their own business.
"We had our dream," he said.
"Since Lafayette had so many restaurants,
we wanted to open our own."
But being raised in Cuba made starting
the business tough, he said.
"It's very different in Cuba, since
you can't really own anything. We didn't
know anything on how to start a business,"
he said. "But we were able to open
for about $15,000."
The idea began to take shape when he learned
the location where he was purchasing his
cooking equipment from was available for
lease.
"I asked the guy I bought the stuff
from if the landlord would rent the place
out to another restaurant. He said 'probably
so' and sure enough he did, so here we are,"
he said of the restaurant at 2848 Verot
School Road.
They opened the doors in June 2002 and
haven't looked back.
"We sold everything, all the food
we bought, the first weekend. I'll never
forget it; it was a miracle," he said.
A better life
Josefa Suarez said there's a big difference
in the lives of the family now … liberty.
"Here I live my life very happily.
I work. I buy what I want, and I have the
money to do that," she said. "In
Cuba, it was the same fight, a constant
war every day to find food. … Now we
have an open world, not just for me, but
for my children."
While he misses Cuba, even longs for it,
Rafael enjoys life in Lafayette. It's still
hard work, but it's better for his family
here than back in Cuba.
"I miss the culture, my family, my
friends … playing dominoes while walking
down the streets, but now I've always got
food in my fridge for my daughter when maybe
I don't have that in Cuba," he said.
And having that better life for his daughter
was what making the move was all about.
"Most girls in Cuba don't have the
choice of what they want to do; many resort
to being 'tourist guides' - prostitutes.
Here I don't have to worry about that for
my daughter. She can be whatever she wants,"
he said.
Of course, not being hassled by secret
police has its benefits too.
"You don't know what it's like when
someone's watching you - what you do, where
you go, what you eat ... here we don't have
those problems," he said.
Garcia left his political life behind,
fearing his family back in Cuba would suffer
the repercussions of any actions he did
here.
"I never went back to politics when
we came here," he said. "I went
to work for my family."
Garcia ponders whether or not he'd return
to Cuba if the regime should fall and the
nation opened to democracy.
"It would be hard for me to go back.
I came to this city without anything and
since we've been here ... we've got a good
life now."
©The
Lafayette Daily Advertiser
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