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In late 1961, my parents reached the painful decision that the family, and we children in particular, had to leave for the United States as soon as possible. Getting out was a lengthy, difficult, and expensive process involving multiple steps. One of my mother’s sisters had left early and had settled in Miami. Her family could afford the fees involved in the process and provided money to pay for things like airline tickets, which had to be purchased in dollars. The main obstacle to our departure, though, was bureaucratic. The United States had broken diplomatic relations with Cuba in early 1961, so there were no consular offices where one could apply for a visa to travel to the United States. Instead, a way in which some could come to this country from Cuba involved the use of “visa waivers.” Such waivers could be issued automatically to children under sixteen years of age; older minors needed clearance from the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the FBI. In either case, once minors entered the United States, they could bring in their parents by applying to the State Department for their visa waivers.
Thus, our plan was to apply for visa waivers that would allow my younger brother and I to travel to the United States. Once there, I would apply for a visa waiver for my parents.
Although my brother and I applied for visa waivers at the same time, he obtained his in June 1962 and was approved for departure the next month. Because I was older, the processing of my visa waiver application took much longer, so that when my brother was given a departure date my application was still pending. That was the first wrenching decision my family faced: whether to keep my brother with us until we both could leave, potentially forfeiting future travel opportunities for him; or send him to the United States alone and have him wait there for my arrival. There was no way we would have agreed to send him alone, but my aunt in Miami told us that she would take care of my brother pending my departure. On that basis, he left in July 1962.
It was never clear to us why my aunt would not have my brother live with her. Instead, he was turned over to a program run by the Catholic Welfare Bureau, which had established shelters for unaccompanied Cuban minors. My brother was placed in one of those shelters, called Camp Matecumbe, where he remained cut off from all except for occasional visits by my aunt. He was traumatized by the experience.