The Experiences of Pastor Palomino in Cuba

At the age of sixty-seven, Pastor Palomino now resides in North Hollywood. After living under the communist rule of Fidel Castro for thirty-three years he was able to find a way to escape to the United States, where he did the only thing he knew how to do well, construction. Slowly he was able to raise enough money to bring his two daughters, his wife and his son into the United States and finally settle in California. Now retired, Pastor lives his days in peace, enjoying his family.

I came from a small town in Cuba. It was called Yara and there were only seven thousand people there. We couldn’t say anything negative about the government. If you were in the Communist Party of Cuba, you were free to do what you wanted but if you weren't you’d be taking a great risk. If you weren’t in the communist party [the police] could arrest you without you doing anything wrong, other than not supporting Castro.

There were a lot of police everywhere, you know? People called them meniciano and they were everywhere. They also had this one official called the comisar de defensa who was responsible for a certain section of the neighborhood. He would order everyone to be checked. They would check to see if there were any criminals in the area or see if anyone would do or say something suspicious. For example, they’d check certain people from six o clock to eight and others from eight to ten, you know? They’d do it like that. Now, if the police didn’t like you and wanted to arrest you, they would find drugs to use as evidence against you. Late at night, one of them would sneak onto your property and hide the drugs somewhere. Then during the day they would send someone to search your house, charging you with drug dealing or drug possession. The police would search your house and one of them would go to the spot where they hid the drugs in, that’s the way it was.

People could be arrested without having a trial. But there were trials for some of the people who were arrested. They called it “popular court”. They would bring you to a park or any other [public] place. There, somebody would read your sentence and then they would put you in jail. You know, in jail they didn’t let you just sit there either. They took you to clean or trim the chubracan¹. And they wouldn’t take you directly to the chubracan, they’d bring you to the general area and that’s it. They didn’t care how far you had to walk to get to the place. The jailers did whatever they wanted to the prisoners. Really, all kinds of torture exist in Cuba. If they were looking for certain information they had this type of torture where they give a laxative to the person until the person gets desperate for it to stop. If that doesn’t work they’ll put the person in a refrigerated room, if the person doesn’t want to freeze they talk. You talk or you die.

The Cuban government regulated everything. They have a policy called “La Liberta” for rationing out food. For example, a family of four would only be able to buy a certain amount of food, low quality food. Very often people would try to grow their own food or even have their own livestock even though that was usually illegal. I used to bike eighteen kilometers to people I knew had fruit trees. And I would buy however many pieces of fruit I could. After work I would make jelly from the fruit for my two kids. If you wanted you could try buying things from the the black market but you really had to know the people you’re going to buy from. It’s not like how it is here. When you dealt with people in the black market, you’re dealing with people who rob people in the market and even the workers in the market without anyone noticing. They steal a little from someone here, a little more from someone there and later they meet up and sell whatever they’ve stolen.

The government provided education as well but that depended on who you were. Schools weren’t segregated, but if you weren’t part of the communist party you weren’t given an education. You had to be part of the communist party or a woman in the federation of women. And the schools only taught subjects that Castro approves of. And the only subjects he approves of, promote communism. They used to teach English in schools but they stopped that and began teaching Russian during the time of the Soviet Union. I don’t know what they’re teaching now but they stopped teaching Russian. But students would come study in Cuba and later they would return to their own countries. But Cubans who became doctors, or gained a high education, can never leave Cuba. I knew a woman once who had a daughter in Argentina. The woman wanted to go visit her and her family but Fidel Castro told her that she could only go if she left her head in Cuba. Castro told her that her brain was his because she was a highly educated woman.

There was a lot of propaganda in Cuba, Castro himself would appear on the television and even on the radio broadcasts. The government only allowed people to watch television at a certain time as well as listen to the radio, even the newspaper is restricted. The government would only sell towns a certain amount of newspapers. Everything was censored by the government, they controlled everything. In Cuba they have about two or three voting elections. You would go vote alone but not for another candidate. You vote for Castro because he would be the only one on the ballot. The only reason they have people vote, is so that they cannot say there are no elections in Cuba.

In the beginning there was a lot of work in Cuba. Not any more though, now there is very little work to be found. But there is one job that a lot of people doing, you know? And that’s farming. A farm will call asking for people and they will go for three months out of the year. It doesn’t matter if your in school or something, It doesn’t matter if how old you are either, they don’t care. And, no one can own their own business. Everything is controlled by the government. The supplies you would need to start a business are even controlled by the government.

There aren’t any real unions in Cuba. They say Fidel Castro is the union. His political party controls everything. The government says there is a union but that isn’t so because they are the ones who push people to work. They are the ones who make everyone work seven days a week. In Cuba, you work for five and a half days. You stop getting paid for the work you do after twelve o clock on Saturday. The rest of the day is called “voluntary [labor]” and so, on Sunday it is said you are doing “voluntary [labor]” but really you are forced to.

The living conditions were truly a disaster. At one point you could own land, but those days are gone. Four years before Castro came into power I built a house for my mother when I was about fifteen with my brother and my father. After Castro came into power my family and my brother’s family were fined heavily because I had told the officials that my mother owned the property we were all living on. If they had found out that the land was mine they would have fined my mother as well.

People could travel wherever they wanted but they had to use the buses. But you know, there aren’t many places to go. Some people went to the big cities like Havana or Santiago where they would spend the entire day but that’s it. There isn’t a lot of transportation in Cuba. No one has a car unless they are someone important. The only way to get a car is if your relatives have one or you’re in a high position in the communist party. It was dangerous to travel anyway. You know, once I knew a man whose family came to the United States. His family went to Chicago but they left him and his sister in Cuba. One day he needed to go to immigration to fill out some papers so he could visit his father so he took the bus. This man who said he was a police officer stopped him and the son explained where he was going and what he was going to do. The man told him he would not go visit his father. Then he took his gun and shot him in front of everyone.

You know, I didn’t have that much trouble living in Cuba to tell you the truth. That’s because I was second in charge in a big two-million dollar construction project. I didn’t go through that many hardships. If my shoes were a little damaged my boss would give me a note to take to the office and they would give me new shoes, new pants, new everything, you know? But everyone else wasn’t as fortunate as I was. The people in charge didn’t care about the rest of the workers of if their clothing was torn and worn out. I came to the United States for my daughter. I couldn’t give her anything with life the way it was in Cuba. I knew I needed to get here one way or another.

Interviewed by Nik Alvarez