Iliana Maresma - Rogina

Iliana Maresma

On Friday, November 22, 1963, Iliana Maresma left Cuba via Mexico with a visa a friend of hers in Miami manage to get her, so with a good passport in hand and a false visa she took off to Mexico, in other words the passport was good but the Americans had already closed down the embassy and the consulate so there was no one there to sign her papers to leave Cuba, so she had the signatures falsified with signatures dated prior to the closing of the embassy.
Iliana did not know anyone in Mexico but had a friend who knew a married couple in Mexico, the gentleman was Italian and the lady was Mexican, her friend in the USA contacted the friends in Mexico and told them that Iliana was on the way to Mexico City, but she did not know anyone. She met her contact in Mexico and spends time with the family before continuing her adventure to Miami.

The day Iliana arrived in Mexico she recalls a newspaper boy at the airport calling out “Extra , Extra, President Kennedy has been shot” knowing that she was going on to the United States now due to the Kennedy assassination the US embassy and consulate shut down, so the fear now was being held in Mexico City. But after three days in Mexico because she had the Visa from Mexico, she could now go to Miami. In Mexico she went unnoticed but once arriving at the airport in Miami, she can recall that at immigration they called out ”the ones with good passports get on this line, the ones with false passports get on this other line” . The Americans knew that many Cubans were coming over with false paper work. So she got on the false passport line and forfeited her passport, but the worst of her fears was over, because she was now in the USA instead of Mexico where she knew no one and they would surely send her back to Cuba. She recalls that a lady which she had met on her flight with a baby who was divorced when arrived in Mexico the authorities looked at her passport and recognized that the passport was false, because she did not have the release from the father to take the baby out of the country, Iliana wanted to speak up for the lady but knew that it would bring unwanted attention to her own false papers.

Iliana’s passage from Cuba to Mexico and then on to the USA had been paid by her parents, who were living in Puerto Rico at the time. The reason she had to go via Mexico was due to all flights directly from Cuba to the USA had been cancelled for some time. Once in Miami, she had her brother sponsor her in New York. The US Government gave her $100 and flew her to New York to meet her twin brother with the USA paying for the flight.

At this time her parents were in Puerto Rico because they decided to go due to the ease of the language for a couple in their late 40’s who were professionals, Iliana’s father was an accountant and his brother an architect, and another brother also an accountant. Also in Miami were Iliana’s Aunt, uncles and cousins. While others went to Puerto Rico soon after Castro ousted the regime of Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista on January 1st 1959.
Years later Iliana’s parents moved to Miami after their new grandsons Tony and Sergio were born; they spend sometime living in Miami and also New York. Iliana’s nucleus in time all came to the USA, starting with her younger brother who came to get away from having to be a soldier in Castro’s army. Iliana’s grandparents were able to leave by plane with Cubana Aviacion due to age and their health state and finally her sister was able to leave Cuba but had to spend 13 months in Spain before being allowed to meet her family in Florida. Iliana’s father passed away in 1994 and her mother currently lives in Miami with her daughter Martha who came to the USA a few years after Iliana. Her complete family lives in the United States.

(Right : Iliana with her twin brother Armando, who lives in Miami, he came to New York about three years before Iliana)

Iliana currently lives in Carrollton, Texas with her husband Antonio Lopez-Rogina.

July, 2012 - Story was written with permission and consent of Iliana Rogina

Copyright 2012 - www.lopez-rogina.com

Red Cross Crossing - Rosa, Antonio and Xiomara

December, 1962

In the first stage of an agreement with the United States, Cuba releases 1,113 Bay of Pigs invaders in exchange for $53 million in medicine and baby food which would be delivered by the Red Cross.
Antonio was able to find passage for himself, his mother Rosa and sister Xiomara on those same Red Cross boats that were returning to the USA after the boats left supplies for children and medicine in May of 1963.

At the time Antonio worked at the airport for American owned Pan American Airlines where he started out with in 1955 in the Clipper Passenger Club and in time moved to customer service until 1963 when he left Cuba. Antonio, because of his job, knew many people in important positions at Embassy and Ambassadors to Cuba as they traveled through the Jose Marti Airport in Rancho Boyeros, but the one person that he went to was a friend who worked for the Swiss Embassy. Antonio knew of the boats coming to Cuba and that in return Cuba would release many of the prisoners from the Bay of Pigs invasion and anyone else who had sponsorship in the USA, up to a certain number.

Antonio’s first wife Isabel had left earlier in the year with their son Antonio Alberto “Tony” who was 3 month old Isabel had relatives in Miami and was able to leave Cuba first with their support and sponsorship.
Xiomara tells me she was 16 years old at the time and did not want to leave; she was living in Cuba with her mother Rosa,her father Jose Fernandez along with her maternal grandmother Josefina (left: photo of Josefina Lopez Carbonell) which she loved very much as well as Antonio. Her father Jose ended up staying because his family owned a house and a store and did not want to lose their properties. At the time, most Cubans thought that they were leaving to return soon and under Castro’s regime once you left you lost all your belongings, including your properties.

Antonio, Xiomara and Rosa were able to get on the penultimate boat leaving Cuba. Xiomara remembers spending all day at the immigration docks in line with no food other than what they had brought. From her account 8-10 hours of waiting while the processing went on. She remembers uncontrollably crying, which was natural for a 16 year old leaving behind her father, grandmother and all the friends she as a teenager had at that age. Xiomara tells me that Antonio actually had to slap her " una cachetada" to control her emoyions and make her come to her senses that the decision they had made to leave Cuba was the right one. Xiomara tells of the overnight trip to Florida, that that night mattresses were given out to the refugees to lie on the floor of the cargo ship to get their sleep. The 3 of them spent a day in the refugee center at Port Fort Everglade before being cleared to go with their relatives. Once in the USA they lived in the apartment, which Isabel had with son Tony.
( Right : Isabel and Xiomara reading the newspaper at the apartment in which they lived in Hialeah)

June, 2012- Story was written with permission and consent of Antonio Lopez-Rogina & Xiomara Juchiewicz


Copyright 2012 - www.lopez-rogina.com