Word: cuba
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...three sisters had to sleep in one bed. I slept in the kitchen with four brothers. None of us had any money, and if we had, there was nothing to buy. I and my friends often talked secretly about leaving Cuba. The problem was how. We weren't ex-political prisoners, who could get out. We were just prisoners...
...Castro who largely decides whether refugees can start streaming toward the U.S. Why the latest exodus? It seems that Castro is using the episode as a way to vent some of the anger and frustration that have been rising in Cuba. Economic conditions have worsened after some improvements a few years ago. The selling price of sugar on the world market has fallen from 660 per lb. in the mid-'70s to a current low of 60. The tobacco crop has been nearly wiped out by blue mold. Cuba today survives on a Soviet subsidy of about $8 million...
When crowds of Cubans began clamoring to leave, and Castro decided to let them go, he publicly berated them as criminals, derelicts and misfits. Cuban officials did their best to bear out such charges. Anyone boasting a prison record could get priority passage out of Cuba: indeed, some Cuban officials did a brisk business in selling forged prison papers...
While they spoke of political oppression in Cuba, they often seemed even more concerned about the scarcity of jobs, food and clothing. They complained of the dreariness of life on the island. Neither poverty nor boredom, of course, met the legal requirements for entry into the U.S.; yet many of the refugees offered poignant reasons for their flight. Some examples...
...There is nothing in Cuba. You cannot express what you feel. The only ones who have a good social life are the Communist leaders. They have cars, nice houses. In the last couple of years there has been a lot of hunger, little clothing. Sometimes we don't get soap for three months...