Page 53 - ATA 13 NOV 2015
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WORLD NEWSFriday 13 November 2015
In Cuba, searching for a lost past and finding a family
CHRISTINE ARMARIO This Armario Oct 1, 2015 family photo, courtesy of Associated Press reporter Christine Armario, to live on this street and
Associated Press shows Christine, left, and her cousin Sonia Armario as they pose for a photo in Sonia’s home in Ha- someone just told me you
HAVANA (AP) — I was born vana, Cuba. Christine Armario’s father lived in the same home as a young child. On a recent trip have the last name Arma-
in the United States, but my to Cuba, Armario knocked on the door and discovered she had distant relatives with the same rio.”
family never let me forget last name still living in the home. “Yes,” she said. “I am Sonia
that we’re Cuban. Armario.”
My mother cooked Cu- (Family photo provided by Christine Armario via AP) “This will sound strange,” I
ban dishes like picadillo told her. “But my last name
and ropa vieja. My grand- six months studying at the My father’s family home in Margarita, had buried her is Armario, too.”
parents spoke almost only University of Havana. When Havana had been turned jewelry in the courtyard She looked just as con-
Spanish. I told people I was born into a school, its contents before she and my grand- fused as I did and invited
But we never visited Cuba, to Cuban parents in Mi- emptied. In Cienfuegos, father fled with my mother me into her home. Bit by
had no contact with rela- ami they said, “Welcome the southern city where my and her two siblings. It had bit, we began connecting
tives there, no heirlooms back.” But when it came to mother was born, I found been converted into a resi- the dots of our fractured
besides a handful of black- links to the past, I came up the house where relatives dence for port workers, the family.
and-white photographs. empty-handed. said my grandmother, courtyard covered in ce- She was the daughter of
My family left virtually ev- ment. my great-grandfather’s
erything behind when I returned again this year as brother, a man I had never
they fled Cuba in the early five decades of diplomatic heard of named Francisco
1960s. They decided exile animosity between the U.S. Armario Caro. Francisco
was preferable to commu- and Cuba began to close. and my great-grandfather,
nism and vowed never to I spent two weeks reporting Manuel, were incredibly
return until Fidel Castro left on the island around Pope close, she said. They both
power. They seldom spoke Francis’ trip to the country. worked on Havana’s once
at length about the lives Armed with skills from 13 elaborate system of street
they once lived 90 miles years as a reporter, I as- cars and were, “like one,”
from Miami, where my par- sembled a new list of old she added, words that
ents met and I was born. addresses and squeezed struck with a pang of sad-
Growing up, I longed for in trips to the homes where ness as I imagined what
a link to the country that my family once lived. it must have been like for
formed such a crucial part When I got to San Lazaro them to part.
of our identity. I couldn’t Street, where my father Even sadder, their story
have imagined it would once lived in Havana, a had almost entirely been
take more than a decade woman approached me lost.
to begin to uncover my and asked who I was look- When my grandfather left
family’s past. ing for. I explained that my Cuba, his father continued
In 2003, at age 20, I spent father and grandparents to live in the same house
once lived in a house on with his brother. When all
the street. his children were in Miami,
“What was their last my great-grandfather left,
name?” she asked me. too. He and his brother
“Armario,” I said. never saw each other
“The Armarios?” she said. again. “They couldn’t stay
“They live right there.” in touch,” one of my cous-
She pointed to an aqua- ins, who was among those
colored house across the gathered in the living room
street. A petite woman of the old family home,
with white hair answered a told me. ”
knock on the door. Sonia took me through the
“Hi,” I said. “My family used house, a small, well-kept
home which, she said,
looked nothing like it did in
the 1950s when my father
and his family lived there.
The furniture had been re-
placed, the rooms remod-
eled. The ceiling to the
front living room collapsed
in the 1970s, destroying al-
most all its red and gray
tiled floor. “The only thing
left is us,” she said.
Sonia took out a plastic
bag filled with black-and-
white photographs, some
early shots of relatives I
knew in Miami but had
never seen in their youth,
and others of family mem-
bers I never knew existed.
It was Francisco’s face that
haunted me the most.q
