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Selected Works by Mirta Ojito
No
human being is `illegal'
By Mirta Ojito.
mao35@columbia.edu
The Miami Herald - May 24, 2006
"'Illegal
immigrant'' does not tell the reader how how Rosanna, from the Do-minican Republic,
overstayed her tourist visa a decade ago and settled in New York. Or how
Angelita, from El Salvador, crossed three borders before arriving, 10 years
ago, shoeless and famished, in Texas. Or how Eduardo Suñol, a native
of Cuba, arrived at Miami International Airport without documents 6 ½ years
ago, spent five days detained in Krome and last week graduated at the top
of his class of nearly 300 students from Columbia University's Graduate
School of Jour-nalism.
I am aware that in journalism words count, especially at a time when readers
are said to be suffering from diminishing attention spans and newspapers have
ever shrinking news holes. I'm not proposing that reporters write the biography
of every immigrant they quote in a story or refer to in passing. What I'm proposing
is that reporters refrain from qualifying human beings according to their immigration
status."
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article
My
Enemy, My Friend
By MIRTA
OJITO.
The
New York Times - April
10, 2005
I
had been searching for Mike for three years, but I had wondered about
him for more than two decades. In the spring of 1980, when Castro allowed
thousands of Cubans to leave the island in what came to be known as
the Mariel boat lift, Mike, who had sailed to Cuba on a humanitarian
mission, rescued me and took me to Key West aboard his boat, Manana.
For years, I did not know his name, only the name of his boat.
Through a combination of luck and hard work, I found him, still aboard the Manana.
His eyes crinkled and a shy smile curled up his thin lips as he took my hand
to help me board his boat, moored in New Orleans. ''I had always wondered what
happened to you and yours,'' he said.
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article
POINT
OF NO RETURN: A
Mariel immigrant remembers the
Cuban exodus that shook two nations 25 years ago.
Hispanic Magazine - April 2005
BY MIRTA OJITO
Farewells from the sea
are both definite and impossible to replicate in their romanticism. When the
boat pulls away from shore, from the land you thought you’d never leave,
you feel a detachment like no other, like the severing of a limb. Alone in that
boat, though surrounded by people, you become your own small island, a chunk
of land that floats away from the mainland. And though you may come back, as
I did, the shore has reshaped in your absence, and the piece that was torn, the
one that took you away, can never quite fit again.
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article
THE
MAKINGS OF MARIEL: Child of
Mariel
The Miami Herald - April 3, 2005
BY MIRTA OJITO
You are going to el norte," my aunt, standing next to my mother,
said that
morning. A sharp pain pierced my heart as I thought, "Today is the day I
leave Cuba forever." I was 16 years old, and I understood then that a heartache
is not just a romantic metaphor but a real physical phenomenon, the roots of
which may have something to do with the fact that a teenager who holds her breath
for a long time may stop the flow of blood to vital organs. Not long enough to
die, mind you -- though I can see how one could -- but long enough to cause some
long-lasting damage. The pain, somewhat diminished through the years, is still
there.
view article
The Long Voyage
From Mariel Ends
By MIRTA OJITO.
The
New York Times
-
January 16, 2005
The distinction was
this: Up until last week, any Mariel refugee who had not become an American
citizen
or legal resident could be detained indefinitely after completing a jail
term for even the smallest crime. The lack of normal relations with Cuba
makes it impossible for them to be sent back, unless they were on a 1984
list that allowed for the deportation of 2,700 (most of whom have been
deported). That deceptively small detail left many Mariel Cubans feeling
stigmatized and especially vulnerable -- no longer in Cuba but not fully
accepted in the United States, either. In the eyes of the law, in fact,
Marielitos had technically never reached American shores -- they had simply
been saved from the sea.
Last week the Supreme Court changed that, ruling that open-ended detention of
Mariel Cubans was illegal.
view article
Best of Friends,
Worlds Apart
HOW RACE
IS LIVED IN AMERICA -- Second article of a series.
By MIRTA OJITO.
The New York Times - June 5, 2000
Havana, sometime
before 1994: As dusk descends on the quaint seaside village of Guanabo, two young
men kick a soccer ball back and forth and back and forth across the sand.
The tall one, Joel Ruiz, is black. The short, wiry one, Achmed Valdes,
is white.
They are the best of friends.
Miami, January 2000:
Mr. Valdes is playing soccer, as he does every Saturday, with a group of
light-skinned Latinos in a park near his apartment. Mr. Ruiz surprises
him with a visit, and Mr. Valdes, flushed and sweating, runs to greet him.
They shake hands warmly.
But when Mr. Valdes darts back to the game, Mr. Ruiz stands off to the side,
arms crossed, looking on as his childhood friend plays the game that was once
their shared joy. Mr. Ruiz no longer plays soccer. He prefers basketball with
black Latinos and African-Americans from his neighborhood.
The two men live only four miles apart, not even 15 minutes by car. Yet they
are separated by a far greater distance, one they say they never envisioned back
in Cuba.
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article
Havana Journal:
A Sentimental Journey To La Casa of Childhood
By MIRTA
OJITO.
The New York Times - February 3, 1998
This is the moment
when, in my dreams, I begin to cry. And yet, I'm strangely calm as I go up
the stairs to the apartment of my childhood in Santos Suarez, the only place
that, after all these years, I still refer to as la casa, home.
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article
The World: Four
Decades of Revolution Bring Cuba Full Circle
By MIRTA OJITO.
The New York Times - February 1, 1998
...the
people who made the Cuban revolution, who for the most part genuinely believed
they
were
building a better world, know the revolution was supposed to be much more
than that. The country was not supposed to just survive, but to prosper.
It was not supposed to alienate its best sons and daughters, but to convert
ordinary citizens into social idealists. And finally, after all the years
of scarcities and slogans, it was not supposed to depend, once again, on
the Yankee dollar.
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article
The World: Lessons
on God and Power; Castro, the Pope and Me
By
MIRTA OJITO.
The New York Times - November
24, 1996
The
teachers, who clearly expected that no one would admit to such a thing,
looked at each other
and ordered, "And now, those who go to church raise your hands." My
friend and I kept our hands up. And right there our fate for the rest of
the year and -- as I later came to understand -- for much of our lives,
was sealed.
The teachers mocked us mercilessly and said that intelligent children did not
believe in things they could not see. They asked us to describe what God looked
like. At the end of sixth grade, I was denied entry to the country's top high
school. The blemish on my record followed me until I left the country seven years
later.
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