Finding Mañana

Ojito’s family did not support the revolution. Her parents were critics of the Castro regime, although they largely kept their political views to themselves. They were also practicing Catholics, and although they did not deny their faith when directly asked about it, they also refrained from speaking openly about their religion, as it was frowned upon by Castro’s communist government. Ojito’s uncle Oswaldo left Cuba first. He’d had high hopes for the Castro government, but they were dashed when Castro abandoned his promises of a free, democratic Cuba and moved toward an authoritarian dictatorship. Oswaldo was forced to work hard labor in sugar cane fields to be granted permission to leave—this was, at the time, standard practice for Cubans requesting exit paperwork—but he completed his service and eventually was able to settle with his family in Hialeah, Florida.

Ojito’s parents and Oswaldo remained in close contact after he emigrated, and their relationship speaks to the strength of family bonds across exile in the Cuban diaspora: Ojito’s uncle and other family members regularly sent money, goods, and medicines that were unavailable in Cuba from the United States. Eventually, Oswaldo helped the family to leave Cuba, arranging for their passage to Florida.

Bernardo Benes was a Cuban man whose Jewish father had immigrated to Cuba from Russia in the 1920s. His father arrived in Havana with very little, but he found success as a cloth merchant. Bernardo grew interested in politics as a teenager and watched the overthrow of President Fulgencio Batista with eager attention. He believed the young Fidel Castro’s promises of a democratic Cuba and began working as a legal advisor in Castro’s treasury department. When it became clear that Castro instead intended a communist takeover of the island and confiscated Benes’s father’s business, Benes fled to Miami with—like his father—very little money and few prospects. He found a menial job in a bank once he arrived, and from there, he rose through the ranks to a position of prominence. Benes became the vice chairman of the board of the Continental Bank of Miami in addition to becoming a rising star in the local Democratic Party in Miami with a host of important political connections. In part because of his high-profile status in the Cuban American community of Miami, he was approached by a group of Cuban men looking to improve relations between Cuba and the United States. He agreed to meet with Castro and was part of the negotiations that led to the release of a wealth of political prisoners in Cuba, and a reversal of the policy that prohibited US-based exiles from visiting their families in Cuba.

Mike Howell was the captain of the Mañana, the boat that took Ojito and her family to Florida. Mike grew up in New Orleans with his mother, an abusive stepfather, and several step-siblings. He’d joined the Catholic church as a teenager, his birth father’s religion, and then the Army at 17. Both institutions took him away from his chaotic family and gave him purpose. When the United States began sending troops to Vietnam, Mike volunteered. He became a helicopter pilot. After flying many missions without incident, he was critically wounded in a firefight, and his arm had to be amputated. When Mike returned to the United States, he enrolled in college but encountered difficulty among his classmates because he had been a soldier in a war that was very unpopular, especially on college campuses. He quit just six credits shy of earning a degree, got married and then divorced, and then drifted, unsure of what to do. Finally, he decided to buy a boat and gave chartered cruises. He had some experience boating on Lake Ponchartrain as a child and thought he would enjoy the work. He was moved to help Cuban refugees out of humanitarian desire and initially did not want to charge for his services. It was because of thousands of men like Mike Howell that the Mariel boatlift was possible, and Ojito was happy to track him down years later to say thank you.

Ernesto Pinto was in charge of the Peruvian embassy at the time of the refugee crisis. He had been sent to replace another diplomat who’d been deemed too pro-Castro in his political orientations by the Peruvian government. Pinto was the son of a Peruvian man and a German woman; his parents met while his father was working in Germany. The family had chosen to stay in Europe as Hitler rose to power and left only when the ravages of post-war Germany seemed so severe that Pinto’s father thought the nation might never recover. Having seen the damage that war could do, he began a new career in diplomacy. He passed this value on to his son Ernesto, who became a diplomat as well. Pinto brought his diplomatic skills to bear in a series of negotiations with Castro and his inner circle, and he managed the refugee crisis in such a way that it did not damage his career. Like Benes and Vilaboa, Pinto is a historical figure who played an important, instrumental role within the dialogue surrounding what would become the Mariel boatlift. These figures are often left out of public discourse surrounding Mariel, and the author’s choice to include them is a deliberate attempt to provide a more thorough, well-rounded account of Mariel.

Héctor Sanyustiz was the bus driver who famously drove a bus through the gates of the Peruvian embassy, bringing the asylum crisis to an inflection point. Although the Peruvian embassy crisis has garnered much attention over the years, Sanyustiz’s name is often left out of the story, and Ojito’s interest in detailing his identity and his role in the Mariel boatlift represents a concerted effort on her part to educate her readership about the Cubans who played a role in what would become the largest mass migration in Cuban history.

Born in the Cuban countryside, Sanyustiz moved with his family to a series of impoverished neighborhoods in Havana as a young boy. He was bullied because he was white (in predominantly Black neighborhoods) and because he had not grown up in the city. Eventually, he dropped out of school entirely and began spending time on the street with a group of people whom the Castro regime would have branded “undesirable” because of their lack of gainful employment and support for the revolutionary ideology. He quickly caught the eye of the neighborhood watches that the regime had installed in every quarter. This angered him: He had been taught that the revolution was meant specifically for poor, disenfranchised people like him, and instead he felt persecuted. He strongly believed that the revolution eroded his freedom and sharply limited his possibilities. Although he eventually got a job as a bus driver, a run-in with a government official made his work so unbearable that he eventually resigned. He was moved to storm the Peruvian embassy in the hope of gaining political asylum because he felt he had no other options. Sanyustiz’s experiences were common and his story speaks to an entire generation of young Cubans who sought to escape the strict confines of Cuban society. Sanyustiz did eventually make it to the United States. He settled on South Beach with many other Mariel refugees and although he suffered from lifelong heart problems, he was able to remain, as he desired, in the US.