I cannot forget
Welcome! The purpose for putting this page together is to share with
my family and friends some of my memories from my childhood. Behind
the houses and the buildings are deep memories of who we were as a family
and the effect of who we are now. In addition, I want to be able to
use them as a resource for my friends and students.
I was born in Cuba in 1945 and lived there until 1960. In November
1960, my parents made the most difficult decision of their life, to
send their three oldest children to the United States. Up to that day,
we were never separated as a family. In fact, when my dad needed to
travel anywhere, he tried to do it during our vacation time, so the
whole family could go with him. The reason for their decision to send
us to the United States was that Cuba was going to change the school
system and all the schools were going to be run by the state. In other
words, they were going to not only teach from their own books, but also
indoctrinate the students with socialism/communism. My parents were
devout Catholics and did not believe in the Castro government, indoctrination
of their children was not acceptable. Soon, after the Bay of Pigs invasion,
my mother, younger brother and later my father came to the United States.
I returned to Cuba in 1996 and later in 1998. Even though Cuba had
gone through a dramatic change, I felt at home there, a feeling I had
not known existed for me anymore. When I returned, I had an aunt living
there, my father's only sibling, his sister. She never married and chose
to live in Cuba but visited us in the United States often. I have not
returned to Cuba since she passed away because she was one of the main
reasons for my wanting to return to Cuba. The thought of going to Cuba
and not having my aunt waiting outside the airport gates, has been impossible
to overcome.
Most of these pictures I have taken in my two trips back to Cuba and
are of places where my family and relatives lived in Cuba before coming
to the United States. I have tried to pair them with pictures we had
taken prior to our departure for the purpose of comparison.