Clutching her doll to her chest with family heirlooms clinking softly in her small shoes, she stood in line to get on a plane headed for the United States from Havana.
But the inspection was more thorough than Yvette Busot’s mother had anticipated. The contents of her shoes were confiscated by the Cuban government, and even the doll’s head was torn off in a meticulous search for valuables.
That was almost 50 years ago.
“(My mother) has not been back since,” said Yvette Busot, a third-year English student and president of the UCLA Cuban American Student Association.
Since the violent overthrow of Cuban government by Fidel Castro in 1959, many Cubans have been affected by this fate, but change may be in the works for Cubans because of the recent resignation of Castro.
On Feb. 19, the 81-year-old Castro announced that he is no longer capable of being the president of Cuba. His brother Raul Castro was named his successor soon after.
Though the Bush administration has said that this “ought to be a period of democratic transition,” some Cubans look at the situation with a more critical eye.
“I share the sentiment that a lot of Cuban Americans do. Symbolically this feels good, but realistically … (it) won’t feel good until free and fair elections and human rights (are recognized),” Busot said.
“People don’t have freedom of speech, no hope for the future; they are stagnant just 90 miles off the coast (of the U.S.),” Busot added.
The current self-imposed government has enjoyed an often self-proclaimed forceful legitimacy and longevity that has become central to Cuban culture, Robin Derby, professor of history, said.
“Change has long been overdue to the Cuban people,” said Mario A. Anaya, a fifth-year global studies student.
In the last 50 years under the Cuban communist government, many Cubans were torn away from their homes, and most of their possessions were confiscated.
Since then, nearly 6 percent of the population has emigrated, Derby said.
Though few were able to visit, Cuban-Americans still think about the land of their ancestors.
“Your roots call you. You feel Cuban American … but (Cuban Americans) in this country left for a reason. I’m American for a reason. … I’m the beneficiary of my parents’ struggle,” Buscot said.
Busot said her mother was uprooted from her middle-class experience in Cuba and came to the U.S. as a teenager. She worked odd jobs to make ends meet from a young age, a stark contrast to the beautiful childhood she said she recalled in Cuba.
Busot’s father was sent to the U.S. alone with Operation Pedro Pan, a Catholic military-style camp for immigrant Cuban children.
Students of diverse backgrounds support issues facing Cubans and Cuban Americans.
“We don’t choose to leave where we’re from,” Anaya said of the immigration experiences of his own family from Latin America.
The Cuban American Student Association is working on informing the campus about the experiences of Cubans.
The representatives from the group are working with Raises de Esperanza, or Roots of Hope, a nonpartisan volunteer organization that seeks to educate youth in the U.S. and get youth in the U.S. and Cuba in contact with one another.
The group aims to create a platform for discussion of the situation in Cuba, educate its members and the community, and empower youth in America to help youth in Cuba.
The group also plans to attend an annual conference on Cuba at Duke University that aims to be a forum for the exchange of ideas between young people from all over the country.
Change is on the minds of many Cuban Americans.