Lakeland College

Interview with Marta Loyola

Title: An Interview with Marta Loyola

Project: Lakeland Oral History Project

Interviewee: Marta Loyola

Interviewer: Dale Yurs

Interview location and date: Marta Loyola's Office Lakeland College, Sheboygan, Wisconsin on February 29, 2008

Length of interview: 43 minutes

Name Index: Marta Loyola, Dale Yurs, Fidel Castro, Raul Castro, John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Batista, Berto, Blanco, Che Guevara

Introduction: Marta Loyola is a professor of Spanish at Lakeland College. The interview focuses on Marta Loyola's family's experiences in Cuba during the Castro revolution. This is a very interesting story about how her and her family had to escape Castro's Cuba.

The transcript of this interview has been edited for easier reading. All verbal hesitations, stutters and false starts have been deleted. Certain questions and answers unrelated to the focus of this interview have also been edited out.

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Dale Yurs: First of all I wanted to talk about what Cuba was like pre-revolution during the Batista government?
Marta Loyola: Pre revolution … Can I go back a few more years. Cuba has been independent since 1902 and we have had a few unstable governments but they all somehow including the Batista government did a lot of good for Cuba, despite the fact that they were in some cases dictatorships, they were really mild dictatorships compared to others that are really bad. And so during Batista there was a lot of improvement there was a lot of progress. He could sell the same amount of sugar to the U.S. as he was selling to Russia, so I mean everything was just fine … Not everything! I am thinking of the progress economic progress, medical progress, progress in so many other fields.

What was wrong with it? The fact that he had done a coup d'état. He had taken the government by force six months before elections. Elections were supposed to be Nov. 1953 and on March 10, 1953 he took the government by force. He had been president years before and he wanted to be again and so that definitely was not in the best interest of the Cuban people and the Cuban Government, which was kind of a new country, right, only like 50 years old.

A lot of people were against it, and some killings began to take place. And so my father among other professionals, most of them were members of the middle class, when Castro landed in December 1956 supported him. So is there anything else you want to know specifically about Cuba?

Dale: How was your day to day life before the revolution?
Loyola: It was very peaceful. Like in a sense that my parents had been warned that they could not participate anymore in the kind of things against the government. Except for the fact that our house and his pharmacy had been searched we continued to live very peaceful lives. Like my oldest siblings were away in Havana going to school and coming back home. You had freedom compared what it is now which is a prison, you had freedom to leave the country you had freedom to do whatever you wanted with your lives whether you wanted to be religious or not or just do whatever. [Student interruption]

We went to school; I was in elementary school at the time, my younger sister as well. I remember that during one week there was strike and my siblings came home and we were all there and that was the time that our house was searched. It really wasn't such a big deal … I remember that at one point in August my mother's brother's jeep was searched as he was going to the countryside. He had a very tiny tiny little thing like the size of a house in the country I mean very tiny house and a very small farm very tiny, he used to sell medicine to the peasants among other things, but he was actually taking medicine to the people in the mountains alright, Castro's rebels. And so he was caught and he was told that he was going to be taken to this place where some people had been killed that had been put in prison, and he was able to simply run away. In a place like after Castro he would have been executed there is no chance of anybody getting by because those in the family knew the mayor or something and my parents were friends with the mayor of my home town and so they were able to save his life and nothing happened he didn't even spend one single day in jail, that is unthinkable in Castro's last fifty years.

Dale: So, how did Castro start getting his name out? How did his guerillas start to form?
Loyola: Ok, its interesting first of all in July 26, 1953 just a couple of months after Batista's coup de at Castro was already a lawyer but he was kind of a rebel, he gathered a few people including his brother who is now president and they attacked the Moncata solders barracks in Cuba. A few people were killed on both sides and then the 17 that survived, there weren't many people to begin with just a few maybe few couple dozen people, that had done that the arch bishop of the Province which is where I come from and where they come from implored to Batista not to kill them right and they said please just take them to trail. So Batista did, he took all these 17 people and put them on trial gave them a year and a half the judges gave them a year and a half of no not a year and a half they only served a year and a half 18 months but they were scented for about 10 15 year for rebelling against the government. And a year and a half later 1955 Batista gave general amnesty to everyone that was in prison on account of political reasons all they had to do was leave the country.

So in 1955 Castro went to Mexico and in Mexico he meets Che Guevara and so they started the whole thing of trying to come up with a revolution and so they landed I Cuba in Dec. of 1956 there were some 80 people most of them were killed. They landed very close to where I live some four hours away, but in the mountains so it is not really four hours because it is not straight driving or anything so in Feb. of 1957 my father's employee left for the mountains. And so what they did in order to divert to not be caught they separated different groups Castro Fidel stayed with a few people, Guevara stayed with a few including my father's employee Berto and then Raul Castro stayed with a few others and they would of course be together but that is how it all started.

They were in need of medicine in need of people who had been wounded but then few months later, we didn't know about this though people did not know we all simply tried to support them we cannot know that executions had already started in the mountains under the suggestion of Che Guevara they would execute peasants that would not cooperate if anybody if anyone had already said ok I am going to be working with you I have come up and left my house but then all of a sudden had second thoughts and would like to go back he would also be executed, but nobody knew that nobody knew what was going on in the mountains all that we knew especially the middle class was that we wanted a democratic government and castor what he was promising was a democratic government and that is how my family my uncles and a lot of other people supported Castro's revolution.

Dale: Did the people in the towns hear about what was going on in the mountains or go to the mountains was there some sort of literature or was it word of mouth?
Loyola: I think both, I think that I don't know much about literature being passed around but it was basically word of mouth. They somehow got a radio as well so pretty soon they had a radio called and they would call I remember that because we used to listen to it quietly in our houses and it would be Rebel Radio Free Territory of America so you would hear the news but that took a little while, it didn't happen right away but they were being helped more people were joining them and they had more resources like they had the radio then Batista started fighting them but they weren't that successful really it was not a war it was just like these people were in the mountains and they would just sometimes come down to certain towns around and try and do something but they simply Batista just quit on Dec. 31 1958 he just flew away he didn't want anything to do with it and Castro simply just a couple days later enter Havana so they did advance it wasn't like there was a war there or a revolution there was but it was minor.

Dale: So it wasn't like a large scale war or anything?
Loyola: No no.

Dale: When did your family start becoming skeptical of what Castro was doing?
Loyola: Very good question, that happened in August of 1960. At first we were kind of in denial remember that only the people had been affected by the agrarian reform were actually against it which meant that owners of land and so we thought ok well fine there is a price to pay but maybe it is good Castor promised to give the land to the peasants, which he never did, he just kept it for them and for the government for himself actually he is very wealthy, but we were in denial we thought that all of that was for the benefit of the Cuban people right and eventually we would have honest and democratic elections.

By 1960 August 1960 a year and a half after Castro took over the same arch bishop the arch bishop, I have a picture of him by the way, who had saved his life and 16 other people in 1953 when he asked Batista to have clemency on those 17 people wrote a letter what is called a pastoral letter that was read in all the churches under his jurisdiction and when we came out of the church and in that letter he said that I believe that we need to be careful because some elements of the government have shown tendencies to be communist and to be and the he said atheist. Is that how you pronounce it?

Dale: Atheist.
Loyola: Atheist, doctrine and so that was a warning that he said. Right away the government reacted back and attacked him people were on the street trying to throw things at us as we were coming out of church.

Dale: This was Castro's government right?
Loyola: Right. And so that was the first that was a huge red flag for my parents the minute they went against the church it was true what they said.

I have something interesting to tell you my oldest sister was in Havana in you know like she was it was a school where she was studying high school but it was the same private school we had in our home town so there was this student there that had arrived a few years before like in 1956 she was from Hungary right and she had arrived with her parents two months two months into that must have been Feb. or March right after he had taken over in January 1959 they left the country she said to my sister this is communism but of course we didn't believe it but people there were many people that saw the things he was doing already as bad.

I think my parents totally went against him in August 1960. There were several things that really we disagree with and those were the executions there were mass executions of people that were actually innocent they took people that search our home had never killed anybody he killed them he had them executed there were airplane pilots that had never done anything bad of the Batista government never had killed anybody, I mean the air force had really done nothing. The judges found them innocent there were 8 pilots and he went back and removed the judges put other judges in their place and said lets try them again and they of course found them guilty. It was incredible. These trials were actually shown on T.V. I remember one by the name of Blanco. But it was just incredible there was no it was a trial but there was no defense layer that could have been affective at all. That left us with a lot of doubts; my dad kept saying I don't understand why all these people who haven't killed anybody were being executed we could not understand it but we were still in denial we just could not believe that we had fought so hard and supported this group so much and still not have a democratic government so we wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt.

So after August it was all downhill for us, I didn't know that my parents had thought about leaving the country. I don't think it happened then until in 1961 in January Castro and the U.S. broke diplomatic relations that is what started it all that is what made my parents realize this was a communist regime and he did not want his children to grow up in a communist regime.

Dale: So when did you first hear about leaving Cuba?
Loyola: A week before we left my hometown. They did not tell us anything I am sure my grandmother knew but not even my dad's siblings knew about it. Nobody we just didn't trust anybody.

Dale: Was it dangerous to try and leave at that time?
Loyola: Yeah well it was dangerous for many reasons they were putting people in jail for no reason whatsoever and my dad at the time the Cuban economy was so it is so incredible the comparison now (laughs) was so good that a Cuban dollar was at the same A Cuban peso had the same value as a Cuban dollar. American money could simply be used in the islands. My dad had a pharmacy he had saved some money that became a crime you could not own American money which is now ok but then it was a crime and you could be sent to jail for years for 20-25 years you just didn't tell people, you just didn't tell people. All of a sudden you had a mistrust of everyone. So when my parents finally a week before said you can put whatever you can in this suitcase each of us had a suit case we were limited to 66 pounds and that was it. At least we could bring things like I brought memories and things form when I was little and pictures and whatever but we never thought we were going to stay here at this time we thought it would be overthrown like it had a couple times before and we would be able to come back home, that was our home and my father had his pharmacy that he had so diligently worked for 25 year seven days a week we just never thought it would be a forever thing you know.

Dale: Could describe the journey from Cuba to the United States and the events that took place with that?
Loyola: If we were told that we were leaving a week before that must have been around April 8 April 16 we got on bus my father never had a car he didn't like it, his brothers did, but he never liked driving so we got on a bus and a 12 hour trip to Havana and when we got to Havana it was April 17 actually it was close to April 17 which is when the Bay of Pigs happened. And so when we got there we took a taxi and the taxi driver said there was something wrong because whatever he started giving us all these details I think my parents had an idea that there was an invasion being planned we just didn't know that it was then right. And then we got to the hotel and in the hotel it is the same hotel that we would stay whenever we would visit Havana our grandparents or my sister and brother in school we would stay in this hotel and my father said since we are going to lose all this money we should rent, I men not rent check in to this suite. There were six of us right?

Dale: Umm hmm
Loyola:So we checked in to this suite it had two rooms and all of the suitcases were spread out around the room and my parents opened up the one that was theirs with American money and titles of any property they had in my hometown and they wanted my father's aunts to take care of the titles of the properties. When we get there some militia men come and knock on the door and say we need to search you. My father said why we just checked into this hotel you can check the books downstairs that we always check in here at least once or twice a year when we come to Havana we stay at this hotel. They said we are going to search you anyway. So they started checking all of the suitcases we started opening them up. The lieutenant asked did you check this one which was my parents and they would have been sent to jail and they said that one had already been checked. It was a huge break from God. I mean we had no idea. It was only when they left my parents all of us got together in the middle of the room and we said we need to pray and give thanks to god and then we found out everything that was in the suit case.

Also at the same time they had burned the equivalent of one of the best stores let's say it was a Macy's in Havana and they had burned it everything was supposed to happen at the same time so the government would fall but it didn't because the night before the landing of the invasion Robert Kennedy convinced JFK not to give them aerial support and so of course they had no way of winning and about 1000 Cubans got killed and then the rest of the 1000 there were about 2000 altogether were put in jail so we had to stay in Havana for about a month until May 25 because they cancelled all of the flights everything was cancelled my mother my two sisters and I left Thursday May 26 1961 had to come and get my brother what's called then a visa waiver because his visa expired we had tours visa we had come to this country I had come to study for a year in Junior high and so and my dad wanted to go back to my hometown and fix everything there was a pharmacist there and he told the pharmacist what to do with the money that they would get every day. He gave them instructions on what to with pharmacy send this much money to my grandmother who stayed in the house send this much to her, pay all of the bills make sure everything is paid and the money that is left over you can divide among yourselves. The pharmacy was open 6 or 7 months after my father left.

The events were fine I mean my mother for the journey you were put in a place that was so plastic that was at the airport and then you go through they will search you. My mother who was a dress maker had put all this American money belts she opened them up she sewed them back again in the hems of dresses and whatever and I think she had the amount of 200 or 300 dollars in traveler's checks that they had not cashed she had bought them when she brought me to school in St. Augustine FL in 1959. But they never cashed thinking they would never use it. We had about 400 dollars which was a lot of money at the time. My mother put them in the seams of coats and everything I mean jackets we didn't have any coats jackets whatever suites it was eventful then we got to Miami and it was a crude reality to go all of a sudden from having a certain standard of living to living in a one bedroom apartment with cockroaches all over the place that was the beginning but it was a very good experience my parents never complained about anything so we simply admire them because they left everything they left their business that was doing very well at the time and comfortable home and everything for us for them too but they were guided for us we were their first concern.

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