Political repression was what led Mirta Ojito’s family and many others to emigrate from Cuba, and it is this memoir’s most overt and important theme. Ojito provides a detailed account of Fidel Castro’s failed promises of democracy, Cuba’s lack of basic freedoms, its state-sponsored surveillance culture, the ideological indoctrination of schoolchildren, and the violence with which the Castro regime silenced its dissidents.

Pre-revolutionary Cuba was characterized by deep inequalities and the exploitation of Cuban land, labor, and resources for the financial gain of the (mostly foreign-born) elite classes. Castro and his army were responding to a pronounced need for change, and the revolution enjoyed widespread support on the island. One of Castro’s central claims during the years leading up to his takeover was that he would deliver a free, equal, and democratic Cuba to its people. His post-revolution turn away from democracy and toward authoritarianism thus came as a shock to many Cubans. Some still supported him, while others, like Ojito’s parents, felt betrayed. Castro had indeed tipped the balance of power, but he’d consolidated power within his inner circle rather than giving it back to the people in the form of a democratic government and free elections.

What followed was a series of crackdowns that dissidents found unbearable. Ojito recalls her father and others being unable to select their careers. Forced to work menial and unfulfilling jobs that they knew would never lead to economic prosperity, many Cubans further soured on Castro-style communism. In Castro’s Cuba, even the fruits of personal labor belonged to the state, and Ojito recalls people being jailed (or worse) for the crimes of growing their own food or raising their own livestock. Ojito’s parents had to undergo a difficult, secretive journey to bring a butchered pig back to their home, knowing that if they were discovered, they would be punished for bypassing the state rationing system.

In addition, the state was always watching. Castro’s regime successfully encouraged its citizens to spy on one another, and each area had its neighborhood watch group. These groups monitored residents to gauge the sincerity of their support for communism and the revolutionary project, and regularly informed on individuals who were deemed insufficiently zealous. Ojito’s parents were often the targets of suspicion because they did not take part in enough demonstrations or speak out loudly enough in support of Castro and the revolution. Mirta Ojito was part of a generation raised after the revolution, and she recalls how thoroughly the state’s indoctrinatory apparatus worked within the education system:

In the Cuba of the 1970s, even children knew that no loyalty was more important than that owed to Fidel Castro and the revolution. Before I learned my multiplication tables, I memorized Che’s final letter to Castro, the one in which he tells him that he has to leave Cuba because he was made for the struggle, not for the spoils of victory (21).

She and her fellow students were given much better access to education than her parents’ generation, but in addition to learning subjects like math, science, and literacy, they were educated on how to be effective revolutionaries and supporters of the state. Mirta Ojito herself experienced difficulty in school because, although a dedicated and intelligent pupil, she was religious and not as pro-Castro as many of her classmates. Ojito and other young people like Hector Sanyustiz could see that many of the revolution’s promises were hollow: They were told that they were the beneficiaries of a more egalitarian system, but they could see that ordinary people lacked basic freedoms, choices, and self-determination.

Mirta Ojito also details the consequences of defying the state. The Castro regime suppressed dissidents mercilessly and often violently. People were arrested and jailed for even the most minor of crimes against the state, such as growing their own food, and Ojito remembers: “When I was little, I heard a story about a young man in the neighborhood who was sent to jail and later executed by a firing squad for conspiring against the revolution” (33). Such tactics were an effective means of controlling the population: Many people lived in fear of these repercussions, and public knowledge of the violent consequences of defying Castro did much to keep citizens in line. This kind of repression continued even during the Mariel boatlift, and while she and her family were awaiting permission to leave, Ojito recalls that “some people were killed, hit on the head with clubs or stones” (170). Overall, Castro’s Cuba was not a place where Mirta Ojito’s family felt that they could be happy, successful, or free.

Ojito’s depiction of the way that Cubans who immigrated to the United States maintained deep ties to their relatives still in Cuba is noteworthy both for the way that it depicts the lived experiences of many Cubans and for the way that it speaks to the political implications of these family bonds. Early Cuban émigrés settled primarily in South Florida and the first few waves of immigrants were quick to find a foothold in their adopted country. They remained in close contact with Cubans in Cuba despite the various challenges imposed on these relationships by the Castro regime. Through this continued contact, Cuban Americans preserved the importance of family within their culture and provided financial support to their relatives. When, in the 1970s, travel restrictions were eased and Cuban Americans were allowed to return to visit their families, they became a sharp indicator of the wealth disparities between the United States and Cuba. Finally, family networks played an instrumental role in the Mariel boatlift.

Cuba’s was a family-oriented culture, and the revolution did not alter that. Although Castro sought to divide families by characterizing those who left as gusanos, traitors, and undesirables, Ojito’s family maintained close contact with her uncle Oswaldo in South Florida, and this relationship became an important source of strength and resilience as they faced persecution in Cuba for their political and religious views.

Cubans like Oswaldo who found relative prosperity after leaving Cuba were able to provide their family members in Cuba with additional money, food, medicines, consumer goods unavailable in Cuba, and items such as glasses. This economic assistance was greatly helpful to Cubans, whose access to these items was limited. Cubans with relatives abroad were better off financially than those without, and this flow of both money and cash into the island from the United States helped catalyze the Mariel boatlift by indicating that Castro’s regime was failing to deliver on its pre-revolutionary promises.

The flow of goods and cash only increased as exiles began to be allowed to return home for visits toward the end of the 1970s. Now Cubans could see for themselves how their families in the United States were faring. Although state propaganda showed the US as being characterized by decay and decline, affluent and even middle-class Cuban Americans were financially better off than their Cuban counterparts: “A Miami carpenter […] returned to visit his family […] and discovered that he was immensely richer than his brother, a medical doctor who had stayed in Cuba” (137). The return visits of so many exiles became a further source of disillusionment and fueled a mass desire to emigrate, whose result was Mariel.

Cuban émigrés in Miami with family in Cuba became instrumental in designing and orchestrating the Mariel boatlift. People like Vilaboa, who understood the political ramifications of the exiles’ return trips, could see that the networks of Cuban and Cuban American families had begun to fuel a serious interest in emigration. Using both informal and formal communication networks in South Florida, these people were able to popularize the idea of an American flotilla. Cuban family networks across borders thus functioned not only as a source of financial support for Cubans at home, but also facilitated many Cubans’ safe passage out of the country.