Cubano in the 'Cajun Country - Latin American Studies

cessions. They have picketed communist and
other left wing speakers, written books, appeared
on television and radio, debated at universities,
and addressed high school assemblies and civic
clubs.
In keeping with the spirit of the time and the
place, over seven hundred Cubans met in Morgan
City in 1969 and adopted a "Declaration of Louisiana"
call ing for a Cuban Exi Ie government
patterned after General deGaulle's Free French.
A copy was delivered in person to Secretary of
State William Rogers.
Four years earlier Cubans and US folk formed
a "Caribbean-American Freedom League" to
combat Castro propaganda. When the Cuban
Red dictator indicated he would airlift dissident
Cubans out of the captive island, the League
sent him a cable suggesting that Castro's Army
a Iso be a !lowed to evacuate and offered to marshal
planes and vessels from Acadiana to assist
in the exodus.
To free Cuba is a bi-partisan goal of the exiled
Cubano. He notes that his staunchest advocates
have included Southern Democrats and
Northern Republicans. Someof Louisiana's Democratic
congressmen have been if' the forefront
of inviting public attention to the seriousness of
the problem. Among them have been Waggoner,
Jr., Caffery, Hebert and Rarick and the late
Congressman George Long. And it was the late
GOP Senator Everett McKinley Dirksen who
wrote Dec. 19, 1967." ••• Perhaps even more
tragic than the tyranny Castro has imposed upon
them is the ominous growth of his ties with what
now appears to be Russian and Chinese masters.
Equally tragic and menacing are his conspiratorial
plottings to overthrow established regimes
elsewhere in Latin America.
"The people of the United States feel eVtlr
more strongly a spirit of sympathy for the people
of Cuba, and despite the darkness of these days
in that once peaceful land, hope fervently that
freedom, now long absent, wi II soon return. The
United States continues towarmly welcome those
Cuban refugees able to flee and seek asylum with
us, ever hopeful that such fl ights from oppression
wi II soon become a thing of the past."
The Cubano has found a haven in Acadiana,
albeit temporary. This Profile of families chosen
at random in the Cajun Country mirrors the fate
of over seven hundred thousand who have now
fled the unhappy island to all parts of the world.
Espinosa, Reunited With Family, Tells
Of Horror Of G-2 Prison In Red Cu ba
Christmas, 1970, was the first time in nine
heart-breaking years that Oscar Espinosa was
able to gather with any members of his family
around the traditional yuletide tree.
This picture of Oscar, 50, and his son, Steve,
his daughter, Christina, 16, and Steve's wife,
Miriam (left) was taken in Lafayette, Louisiana,
December 5, 1970, two months and twenty-five
days afterOscarwon his freedom from the nightmare
of a communist Cuba.
His fami Iy expected him home for Christmas
in 1968 after frantic efforts to secure his release.
What hiswife and fivechildrendid not know was
that their father was in a communist G-2 jail on
Christmas Day, 1968.
On that Christmas--and for sixty-three other
days--hewas imprisoned in awindowless cell six
feet wide and ten feet long wi th up to five other
persons ata time in a room built to accommodate
two people. He lost forty-three pounds in iai I.
His crime? He was falsely accused of being
an agent of the United States Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA).
Some men went mad in the prison. One of
his school mates, a lifelong friend, died in iail.
Acadiana Profile 9