Dannielle Garcia

mass communication senior

[email protected]

My whole life I have been told by my grandparents that they will never return to Cuba until the Castro brothers are gone and communism on the island is dead.

Growing up in Miami, Fidel Castro was a household name, a name that we could freely and openly curse as we please – unlike those in Cuba who have neighborhood spies watching for people who talk badly of the government. I learned very early on that he was the reason my family lost everything – their businesses, their homes, their money, their schools – and why so many families were separated and risked it all to come to a safer America.

My grandmother was 9 years old and her two older sisters were 12 and 14 years old when they came to Florida with nothing but $5, the clothes they could carry in a small bag and whatever jewelry fit into the secret pockets sewn into their purse. Their father, my great grandfather, could not leave because he was a doctor. They came without their parents because coming here alone was safer than staying there together. My grandfather’s family, like many others who bear the same struggle, was wealthy in Cuba. He came to America at the age of 13 after the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, when his school, Belen Jesuit, was seized by the Castro regime. When his parents came later, they went from being millionaires to factory workers, where they worked until they were well into their 80s.

On Friday night, November 25, I was getting ready to leave my cousin’s house in Tampa, Florida, where I celebrate Thanksgiving, when my grandmother switched the TV channel to CNN. “FORMER CUBAN LEADER FIDEL CASTRO DIES AT 90” it read, in all caps. Over the next few days, I saw lengthy Facebook posts from my friends about how this death affected them and their loved ones. I saw a video of an old woman with Alzheimer’s who wept when she heard the great news. I saw my people dancing in the streets, moving their hips to Celia Cruz and Gloria Estefan.

I felt my Cuban roots rejoicing in the hope that there could be a brighter future for the island. Change will not come overnight to a country that has been frozen in time by a regime that cares nothing about its people. (Those vintage cars that the Kardashians loved to pose with are not there by choice of the Cuban people, but because Castro placed a ban on all automobile imports.) But the death of Fidel Castro marked closure for my family and millions of others.

I also saw people telling the Cuban people that we should not be celebrating someone’s death, the death of a murderer. Those same people praised the “healthcare” system he created, the one where the brilliant doctors are sent overseas while they’d make less than the equivalent of a dollar a day in Cuba. I would like to think that those people were just not informed about his actions.

I got messages and questions from others asking, “How do you feel now that Fidel is dead?” And I could not think of any other word except hopeful. I am hopeful that Raul Castro, Fidel’s brother and current “president” of Cuba will soon follow suit and mark the end of the Castro regime. It sparked a hope, which was almost obsolete, that Cuba may eventually become a liberated country. One that holds elections for their president, not appointments for their dictators. One that does not ration food for families or limit internet access. One where mothers and children will not have to die risking their lives on a makeshift raft to float 90 miles to American soil. One where taxi drivers do not make more than doctors who spent years studying. One that takes care of its people, not destroys them. One that allows freedom of speech without fear of imprisonment, torture or death. It sparked a hope that I could one day visit Cuba with my grandparents and not worry about the communist regime.

It does not take a historian to know that Fidel had a long track record for ignoring basic human rights. It is no coincidence that Fidel rhymes with hell. His death brought happiness to many in the United States. People stormed the streets in true Cuban fashion – with pots and pans letting everyone know that we are celebrating. But in Cuba, they are in a forced mourning period for 9 days; anyone that is seen celebrating will be thrown in jail. When I left my cousin’s house on Friday night, all I wanted to do was run to Versailles, the landmark Cuban restaurant in Miami, the hub of many business negotiations, political rallies and protests, and the place I passed every morning for un cafecito on my commute to my high school in Little Havana.

But instead I got to experience the celebration on the one day where my entire family was together. I heard the older generation, who experienced the tragedies firsthand, tell their stories and talk about how much of a monster this man was. I got to laugh at the memes that were already circulating about his death. I got to cry that he was finally gone. I thought, how funny that the one man who spent his life ripping so many families apart died the day after Thanksgiving, when so many families are together.

I hope Fidel Castro can hear our pots and pans from above—or below – and know that he did not silence us. I hope our family members, my great-grandparents, who were outlived by him can hear us rejoicing in their honor and banging our way one step closer to a liberated Cuba.