Time hasn't healed all wounds of Cubans here

Seven-year-old Orlando Miranda clung to his mother's leg, screaming, that day in 1959 when Fidel Castro's regime took her away.

Miranda's father, a popular Cuban radio announcer, had fled the country because he feared government reprisals for his outspoken support of democratic ideals. Miranda's mother was picked up simply because of her affiliation with him, he said.

Now 55, Miranda -- president of Chicago-based Miranda Hispanic Marketing and former president of the Cuban American Chamber of Commerce of Illinois -- said he remains bitter about how his family was treated.

"No child should see what I did when my mother was taken away," the Elgin man said. "Those memories are ingrained in my head."

Miranda and his mother, who eventually were reunited with his father in the U.S., were among the emigres who left Cuba in the late 1950s, some of whom came to Chicago.

Castro's retirement has been a long time coming, Miranda said.

"I have no love for this man," Miranda said. "Good riddance."

The Chicago area's Cuban population is modest compared to urban areas in Florida, New York and New Jersey. At around 20,000 people, the Cuban American count here is even modest compared to other Hispanics, U.S. Census data shows.

Bartlett resident Jerry Campagna, whose mother, Juanita, left Cuba in 1958, said the Cuban American community here has stayed relatively stable, largely because the original immigrants have gotten older while the younger Cuban Americans have acculturated into America society.

Juanita was working in Cuba in the late 50s when she met wealthy vacationers from Barrington who sponsored her into the U.S. She intended to work here temporarily and send money back, her son said.

"She was going to work for a couple of years and go home," Campagna said. "But in the middle of that a revolution happened."

After Castro, the door closed behind Juanita and all the others. It was 20 years before she could get a visa to visit her homeland.

"If you were born here of Mexican descent you'd still be going home every summer," Campagna said. "But Cubans were not allowed that option."

The result, he said, is that Cubans melded more quickly into American culture and learned to profit from it. The first wave of immigrants were mostly the wealthy, who lost everything when Castro nationalized the industries.

"They ended up in Miami washing dishes, where in Cuba they might have owned the hotel," Campagna said. "What they brought with them, though, was the knowledge of how to be in business."

Campagna, the former president of the Daily Herald's sister publication, Reflejos, is of that mold. He is president of MST Latino Inc., a marketing firm working with Latino businesses.

He anticipates the gradual opening up of Cuban society will continue.

"Even the staunch (anti-Castro) Cubans in Miami expect the society will become more open of sorts," Campagna said.

And while Campagna and his mother Juanita, now 70, occasionally travel to Cuba to see family, Miranda has never returned.

"I am grateful for the life I have in this county," Miranda says, "but (Castro) took away my birthright simply because my parents didn't have the same political opinion."