The country’s economic crisis ruined one couple’s prosperous business in Havana but Adelina and Luis dream of reopening their cafe one day
14ymedio, José Antonio García Molina, Miami, 7 July 2024 — Adelina arrived in Miami a year ago with her husband and $15,000, the profits from a family business, hoping to rebuild her life in the United States. The 48-year-old Havana resident still has issues pending back home: family, interests, a house, a car. She did not want to burn her bridges or, as she prefers to put it, “close the door.” Though she decided to take advantage of the United States’ humanitarian parole program, for which her son-in-law filled out the paperwork, she feels she is waiting for the “downpour” to clear up. “Things will change in Cuba when people least expect it,” she says.
Abel, Adelina’s son-in-law is 58-years-old and graduated with a degree in economics. He left Cuba in 2002, after the Special Period, and is now a U.S. citizen. “Things were getting bad. I had less and less work. One day a group of friends and I got together and set out on a boat.” His story is typical of many people who left Cuba in those years and later became sponsors. Adelina, who managed to get through one crisis after another, is the other side of the coin.
If the money is there and the paperwork goes through, anyone with a “patron saint” in the U.S. can emigrate.
The Biden administration launched the parole program in January 2023 at the height of the migration crisis. By the end of May, more than 105,000 had benefited from it. The program has since redefined the relationships of those still living on the island and their relatives abroad. If the money is there and the paperwork goes through, anyone with a “patron saint” in the U.S. can emigrate. continue reading
The problem, Adelina says, comes later, when someone from Cuba sets foot on American soil. It is not easy to start over from scratch if you are of a “certain age” or to interrupt the lives of your family living in the U.S. For her husband Luis, who is ten years older, the challenges of adapting to a new environment are several times greater.
Luis’ life is split between two cities: Havana, where he left the cafe that he and Adelina ran together, and Miami, where he works as a custodian in a condominium. For her part, his wife is a cashier at a supermarket in Doral.
“State-run cafes were few and very bad,” recalls Adelina
It was hard for both of them to leave the cafe behind. When they opened it in 2010, self-employment was synonymous with prosperity. “State-run cafes were few and very bad,” Adelina recalls. They saw an opportunity and took it. Initially, they sold breakfast items and some snacks. Everyone in the neighborhood was a customer. “We were expanding. There was an area in the house with a cement floor but no roof. We built a little wall around it, added an entrance, and bought some umbrellas and chairs.” It started out as a cafe but later morphed into a bar.
Both Adelina and Luis are reluctant to completely give up on their joint venture. The pandemic dealt their business a mortal blow. “People started leaving for the mountains. The neighborhood was emptying out. But we were still managing to get by.” Their children… not so much. Their daughter Nidia was in the third year of her medical studies and their son Kendry was going to the Polytechnic University. Both crossed the Mexican border.
They had to be resourceful. “We had to buy a lot of our supplies on the black market. It was crazy. And very risky. We didn’t know what was legal and what wasn’t,” says Adelina. Just as things were at their worst, the parole program was announced and their son-in-law filed the paperwork.
Abel is relieved that Adelina and Luis have suffered relatively little culture shock since their introduction to the American way of life. They already had some money when they arrived, which gave them a certain degree of comfort. His own story is very different, though he did have help from his brother, who was already living in Florida. “If it hadn’t been for his support, I wouldn’t have had a job or a roof over my head,” says Abel. “I didn’t even have money to buy food.”
The language opens doors up north
The only thing he had going for him was that he knew English. Until he arrived in the United States, he had never heard the well-worn Cuban saying, “The language opens doors up north.” It turned out to be true. Because he was able to communicate with his brother’s friends, he moved up the ladder, but not before “busting ass” for two years in construction and an auto repair shop.
He ultimately got a job at a car dealership in Coral Gables. With his engaging personality, it only took a few years for him to become a senior manager. “As soon as I found out about the parole, my wife and I decided to go for it and immediately did whatever we had to do to bring my in-laws over,” he says.
Money? It didn’t take much, explains Abel. The ticket from Havana to Miami cost $121. The rest of the process involved him demonstrating that he had the means to provide financial support and filling out the forms correctly. The arrival was not difficult either because Adelina and Luis had brought with them a little money of their own.
On the other hand, his house has rooms that have seen many family members’ come and go in the process of settling down in the U.S. “Now the family is reunited,” he says with satisfaction, though he is still trying to bring over Adelina’s father, who is living under precarious conditions. “Like most Cubans,” he adds.
Luis is waiting for the first opportunity he has to go back to Cuba, admits Adelina. “He wants to reopen the business if things get better and if he feels confident he can get supplies from Miami. It would be a matter of going back there from time to time. To be honest, I prefer what we had there to what we could have here. Plus,” she adds with a certain impishness,
“Miami will always be close by.”
Cuba is already very far away for 64-year-old Amelia, who left Havana two decades ago. Last year she got a distress call from Pinar del Rio, where her nephew Ernesto lives. Overnight she became a sponsor. The paperwork, however, has been awaiting approval since January 2023.
Fully aware of her country’s desperate situation, she does not want Ernesto — a 25-year-old high school teacher — wasting his youth on the island. His father, Amelia’s brother, receives a pension of 1,800 pesos a month and is still working, doing plumbing and electrical work on the side.
U.S. elections in November are keeping parole applicants in suspense
Amelia, who lives comfortably off rental income from two apartments, believes her nephew deserves a chance. She describes him as “brilliant” in several subjects, especially mathematics. If he does manage to leave Cuba, she hopes he might get into a university in Florida. “I am all about studying,” Ernesto says, “and helping my dad, who will stay in Cuba.” Both Amelia and her nephew regularly check the U.S. government website and the Inmigreat app, where the results of parole applications are posted. So far they have had no news.
U.S. elections in November are keeping parole applicants in suspense. Both parole applicants and their sponsors believe their future depends on who occupies the White House in the next four years.
Meanwhile, the Cuban parolees arriving in Miami are not without some anxiety. Very few want to talk to reporters and some already have plans to return to Cuba for a visit once their immigration status is fully resolved and they have some money. However, most hope to settle down in the U.S. and prosper. The island’s history suggests that today’s refugees will be tomorrow’s sponsors.
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