Palm Beach Post April 10, 2005

A personal and political tale of exodus from Cuba

By CHARLES PASSY

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- When Mirta Ojito describes her harrowing journey from Cuba to Key West on May 11, 1980, during the height of the Mariel boatlift, she relies on the raw power of memory.

"I heard the sounds of the harbor: the Cuban officers barking orders through bullhorns, the thick lines of the sailboats - ting-ling, ting-ling - as they hit the masts, the waves lapping up against the sides of the (boat) with a deafening whoosh, whoosh," the Miami-based author recalls in "Finding Mañana," her newly published "memoir of a Cuban exodus."

The book's release is tied to the 25th anniversary of the boatlift, a signature event in South Florida - and U.S. - history that saw more than 125,000 refugees leave Communist Cuba for the shores of the Sunshine State.

But as it turns out, Ojito, 41, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who attended Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton and has worked for the Miami Herald and The New York Times, still had much to learn about Mariel. She could rely on her memories only to a point: There was a larger story to be told about the series of political events that led her family to Manana, the ship that brought them to the United States.

The result is that "Finding Manñana " is no mere memoir. It's a personal account that weaves in the broader story, revealing a wealth of details about how Mariel was set in motion. Publishing trade journal Kirkus Reviews has already hailed the book as "a skillful melding of individual personalities with the grand currents of history."

Those "personalities" go beyond Ojito and her family members. They include Hector Sanyustiz, who crashed a bus holding a small number of would-be refugees into Havana's Peruvian embassy, thus setting the stage for the larger exodus. And Bernardo Benes, a prominent Cuban-born Miami businessman whose clandestine meetings with Fidel Castro made it possible for the U.S. and Cuba to communicate with each other. And Mike Howell, the humanitarian-minded boat captain of the Mañana.

The process of researching the book began as a quest to find Mañana and Howell, one of many American captains who went to Cuba to transport refugees. Of course, Ojito, who left Cuba when she was 16, didn't know that was his name. All she could remember was that he had a prosthetic arm.

"What led to the book was a very simple thing - I had to find this guy and thank him," says Ojito, speaking between sips of cappuccino at a Coral Gables bookstore not far from her home she shares with husband, Arturo Villar, and three sons.

But then it occurred to Ojito that the captain wasn't acting alone. So she became determined to unravel who was really behind Mariel, who was linked in what she calls her "chain of gratitude."

She knew about such key figures as Benes, a fervent anti-Communist who nevertheless reached out to Castro in an effort to secure the release of Cuban political prisoners. But others were a mystery to her. Indeed, until Ojito found out about Ernesto Pinto, the Peruvian diplomat in Cuba who refused to turn his back on the initial group of refugees, his key involvement in the Mariel saga was largely unknown.

But Pinto's desire to safeguard the refugees - and Castro's desire, in turn, to make him pay a price for it - resulted in thousands of Cubans flooding the embassy. That led the United States to eventually allow Cubans to come ashore in Florida after leaving Mariel, Castro's port of choice. Castro attempted to tweak the situation to his advantage by pooling "undesirables," including hardened criminals and mentally ill individuals, with the refugees.

All this added up to a political drama that was bound to be a page-turner, Ojito realized.

"I really wasn't interested in writing a book that did not involve reporting. I didn't just want to write about my life story," she says.

At the same time, Ojito's story is hardly irrelevant. If anything, it helps humanize the larger events.

As she tells it, her parents had always intended to leave the Communist nation. Her father, an ambitious fabric salesman who was forced to become a truck driver under the dictates of Castro's revolution, never jibed with a political system "where government edicts, not (personal) wishes or abilities, decided the kind of job he would perform for the rest of his life."

There was also the matter of faith: The family believed in God and encouraged their children to attend church; Castro, on the other hand, saw to it that the country refused to recognize Christian holidays.

But as Ojito's family waited for the opportunity to leave - the opportunity that would emerge with Mariel - she found herself nearly seduced by Communism in school. "You are made to feel special. You are made to feel that you belong to a group and that your life has a higher purpose," she says of the political philosophy's influence on her.

And as Ojito describes it throughout the book, the fact that Cubans are asked to make such extraordinary daily sacrifices, doing without the most basic household necessities, becomes part of the bonding process.

So what led to Ojito's eventual break with Communism? A maturing sense of her own political philosophy, shaped in part by her parents - and the fact that her fifth-grade teacher ridiculed her churchgoing habits. Writes Ojito: "How does such an intelligent girl believe in God? (the teacher) asked me in a mocking tone. Does God put food on your table? Noooo, Fidel does. Does God give you your books and pencils so you can come to school? Noooo, the revolution does."

Strangely enough, Castro is not a significant figure in Ojito's book. His presence is always there, but Ojito mostly confines her discussion to describing his part in the boatlift. That's because, she argues, Castro wasn't really the "story" of Mariel - he wasn't part of the series of events, so much as a political figure forced to react to the series of events. The same goes for the U.S. government, then under the leadership of President Carter.

And what about after Mariel? In the book, Ojito discusses the problems Cuban immigrants faced, particularly the fact that some were detained in U.S. prisons for years. She also notes the stereotype of "undesirables" that was forever attached to the Marielitos, despite the fact that many were ordinary Cubans seeking political freedom.

For her part, Ojito struggled in her first few months in the United States, fearing that her dream to become a journalist would never become a reality in an English-speaking country. "She was a little bit upset," recalls Oswaldo Ojito, the uncle responsible for helping bring the family over. "I said, 'Mirta, you can go anywhere you want in this country.'"

And so the would-be reporter followed her uncle's advice. She learned English and advanced to the point where she was awarded a scholarship to Florida Atlantic University, where she eventually became editor of the student newspaper. "That's when I really discovered journalism," she recalls.

From there, her career was launched. But as much as Ojito wrote about the Marielitos - and life in Cuba - in articles for The Miami Herald and, later, The New York Times, she never told the story of Mañana, the boat. Thus, she quit the Times to work on the book project three years ago.

Boat captain and Vietnam vet Mike Howell is particularly glad she finally tracked him down - after an exhaustive search - at the end of a pier in New Orleans. "It was like an unfinished piece of business," the now retired captain says. "When we brought these people to the United States, we felt like we did something profound, but we never knew what happened to them."

And what about another unfinished piece of business - namely, what will happen to Cuba in a post-Castro era? Ojito says it's anyone's guess whether the country will continue to hold true to Communism or embrace democracy.

But she is certain about one thing. When change finally comes, the inquisitive journalist wants to be there to cover it. "It's a really great story," she says.

Charles Passy writes for The Palm Beach Post. E-mail: charles_passy(at)pbpost.com