The oppression of the communist regime on my family started with my grandfather. With his hard work (and inheritance), he had 3 houses before 1959, but the dictatorship expropriated 1 of them without any compensation. The house that he paid for and built was given to a person who never paid a single peso for it.
I also knew a friend whose uncle’s grandfather had a small parcel of land, and it was expropriated by the regime. He wasn’t a great landowner and wasn’t a foreigner. As you can see, communism is stealing not only from the rich (which is also wrong), but also from the middle class and hard workers, to give it to a person just because they support the regime.
My mother graduated and became a dentist and a specialist, but because of communism, she couldn’t have her own private business, because in Cuba, professionals are slaves of the government. It can be demonstrated by the fact that a person who works in a private restaurant earns more money than a dentist with a doctorate.
As for my father, he worked for more than 20 years at the airport. During the July 11th protests in Cuba in 2021, the Security of State (like the FBI in the U.S.) wanted my father and his coworker to participate in the oppression of Cubans who were demanding freedom and an end to the dictatorship. After refusing, more than a few times they told my father that he would never be working again at the airport.
As for myself, I refused to go to the rigged demonstrations of Cubans supporting the dictatorship. The government forces students to go there and say that they support them; if not, you will never be able to study at a university. When I refused, the principal of the school came personally to me and threatened me with no career, no matter what grades I had.
I ended up leaving with my family to the U.S., not for economic reasons, but for political oppression—because of my political views and simply for not collaborating with the communist dictatorship that has stolen materials, values, and hope not just from my family but from my whole country.
That is why, as far as I can, I will always work to make those who don’t know communism aware of the suffering it brings—not just for the rich people, but also for the working class they claim to defend, while they steal their values, their future, and their dignity.
DEATH TO COMMUNISM!
Signed,
(Anonymous)