Should I Stay or Should I Go? Tío Junior Escapes Cuba...Twice!

I recently read a book review in The Atlantic entitled “What It Feels Like When Fascism Start.” The book was written in the late 1930’s by Lion Feuchtwanger, one of Germany’s best-known historical fiction writers. The book recounts a family’s time during the Nazi’s ascent just before World War II. The book, The Oppermanns, has just been translated anew, and, apparently, the new translation being released during our world’s current geopolitical climate merits fresh consideration in The Atlantic and otherwise. Like the story’s Oppermanns, many an exile and immigrant, like, say, Ukranian and Central American families nowadays, have a set of tough choices many of us can only imagine. Should they leave their homes, all they know and have, and flee to a new country with nothing but the shirts on their backs? Or should they stay and hope things get better before they get worse. The central choice could be cheekily surmised by the Clash’s ‘Should I Stay or Should I Go?’ but, for the sake of this episode we’ll go ahead and quote the book review by saying “Identifying the point at which all is lost is not that easy.” Neither is identifying the right time to leave, if leaving is what one wants to do.

This episode recounts the story of my mother’s stepbrother, Tomas Honan - otherwise known by me and my sister as “Tío Junior” Tio Junior had come to the U.S. well before Castro’s revolution took hold, but he decided that life in New York City did not suit him so he returned…just in time to watch many of his friends and relatives head the way he came from, leaving Cuba for the U.S. because Fidel’s revolution did not seem all that it had been cracked up to be during its triumphant early days. Junior eventually managed to get himself out of Cuba in one of craziest ways possible: by way of Newfoundland and on the Cuban Communist Party’s dime. Now let Rita go ahead and tell you more.

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