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.
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