A Boy, an Orphanage, a Cuban Refugee by Tony Dora
“I became a man when I was nine. My other option was death.”
Why would parents send their children, alone, to a foreign country with no guarantee they would ever see them again? In the early 1960s, over 14,000 unescorted children fled Cuba for the U.S. Under Castro’s tyrannical regime, the state confiscated people’s property and bank accounts. Food, clothing, and medicine were rationed. Houses of worship were attacked. There was no freedom.
When Tony and Norma boarded the plane, they had no idea what the future would hold. This memoir chronicles their emotional journey through Tony’s eyes as he and Norma navigate life for six weeks in a refugee camp and a year in an orphanage, until they are reunited with their mother. Purchase at https://bit.ly/3VMro6i.