Transcript of interview with Otto Merida by Claytee White, May 18, 2017

AN INTERVIEW WITH OTTO MERIDA An Oral History Conducted by Claytee White Latinx Voices of Southern Nevada Oral History Project Oral History Research Center at UNLV University Libraries University of Nevada Las Vegas ii ©Latinx Voices of Southern Nevada University of Nevada Las Vegas, 2018 Produced by: The Oral History Research Center at UNLV – University Libraries Director: Claytee D. White Project Manager: Barbara Tabach Transcriber: Kristin Hicks, Maribel Estrada Calderon, Nathalie Martinez, Rodrigo Vazquez Editors and Project Assistants: Laurents Bañuelos-Benitez, Maribel Estrada Calderon, Elsa Lopez, Nathalie Martinez, Marcela Rodriquez-Campo, Rodrigo Vazquez iii The recorded interview and transcript have been made possible through the generosity of a National Endowment for Humanities (NEH) Grant. The Oral History Research Center enables students and staff to work together with community members to generate this selection of first-person narratives. The participants in this project thank University of Nevada Las Vegas for the support given that allowed an idea the opportunity to flourish. The transcript received minimal editing that includes the elimination of fragments, false starts, and repetitions in order to enhance the reader’s understanding of the material. All measures have been taken to preserve the style and language of the narrator. In several cases photographic sources accompany the individual interviews with permission of the narrator. The following interview is part of a series of interviews conducted under the auspices of the Latinx Voices of Southern Nevada. Claytee D. White Director, Oral History Research Center University Libraries University of Nevada Las Vegas iv PREFACE When looking back on his legacy in the Latinx community of Las Vegas, Otto Merida (1945 - ) takes great pride in being a Latin Chamber of Commerce [LCC] co-founder with Arturo Cambeiro. With the LCC, they forged a powerful economic entity that continues to provide the local Latino community with social and political influence. Growing up during the 1950s in Havana, Otto Merida fondly remembers his childhood despite living under the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. There were the murmuring sounds of explosions from afar on the way to baseball games, but also the warm Sunday family meals of Cuban soup with fideos. In this interview, he talks about the rising communist powers inspired by revolutionary Fidel Castro and the events that led his family to place him in the Peter Pan Program in 1961. The Peter Pan Program sent unaccompanied Cuban children to the United States to avoid potential instruction by Castro’s government. Merida still holds on to his mother’s final request upon leaving Cuba—“I want you to remember the address where we live and the phone number: Josefina 68—entre primera y segunda—La Víbora, Havana con el teléfono X4304.” As a part of the Peter Pan Program, Merida experienced a nomadic childhood living in barracks in Miami and a three-story home in Wilmington, DE. The only connection he had to his family were a series of letters he exchanged with his mother, until they reunited years later in Miami. For Merida, life on 79th Street and Biscayne Boulevard in Miami was defined by the values of his family and other Cubans and African Americans in his neighborhood. v Merida earned his bachelor’s degree in Political Science from the University of Florida. He credits his sister-in-law with a pivotal role in his decision to pursue a higher education. His engagement in politics continued through his involvement with the Cuban Circle, the first Hispanic community to be involved with politics in Las Vegas. He describes the migration of Cubans to the casino scene of Las Vegas and the presence of Cubans in the community. His work with the Cuban Circle inspired him to develop a political presence for Hispanics in the community. While travelling across the United States before settling in Las Vegas, Merida made many significant relationships while working with associations such as the Fitchburg Chamber of Commerce and Volunteers in Service to America [VISTA]. Living in Las Vegas, Otto Merida worked as an educator and community organizer. In the late 1970s, Merida and Arturo Cambeiro collaborated to create the Latin Chamber of Commerce of Las Vegas. For Merida, the Chamber consistently goes above and beyond the vision he and Cambeiro had created when they first opened their doors. From the creation of the Latino Youth Leadership Program at UNLV to their work alongside political figures such as Senator Catherine Cortez-Masto, Merida is extremely proud of the various accomplishments of the Chamber. Now as President Emeritus, Otto Merida continues to dedicate himself to the Chamber as a volunteer and serves as one of the many Latinx Voices of Southern Nevada that have shaped the greater Las Vegas community. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Interview with Otto Merida May 18, 2017 in Las Vegas, Nevada Conducted by Claytee White Preface………………………………………………………………………………………….iv-v Discusses his childhood in Havana, Cuba; life of his parents in Güira de Melena; el Instituto Edison; Dictator Fulgencio Batista; New York Mets; Sunday meals; Piadat; fideos; local perspective of Fidel Castro before 1959; Santiago de Cuba; El Moncada fort; Che Guevara; Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic; the end of the Batista regime in January 1959; beginning of the Castro regime; La Cabaña; cousins Luisíto and Danny (sons of Luis Merida); Soviet Union; Peter Pan/Pedro Pan Program in 1961 ..........................................................................1 – 7 Describes his arrival to the United States; life in the barracks of Camp Matecumbe in Miami; Catholic Church in Wilmington, Delaware; Salesianum sect; Father Walsh; friendships with Cutto and Guerra. Talks about reunion with his family in Miami; exchanging letters; living in Biscayne Boulevard; Miami racial demographic and food culture; Cuban racial demographic; hard times for his father, Rau?l; Deauville Hotel; Gainesville, Florida; New York; value of family................................................................................................................................................ 7 – 14 Reflects on his education; working at Beomen and Company in New York; Empire State Building; encouragement from his sister-in-law to go to college; North Florida Junior College; University of Florida; Political Science. Speaks about his time working with Volunteer in Service to America (VISTA); Leominster, Massachusetts; Fitchburg, Massachusetts; Fitchburg Chamber of Commerce; his first car, 1972 Vega; Lawrence, Kansas; repercussions of the Vietnam War on veterans; connection to come to Las Vegas ...............................................14 – 17 Talks about travelling across the country; relationship with alcohol and drugs; Amarillo, Texas; recreational marijuana; psychologist Fred Gillis; working with the Southern Nevada Drug Abuse Program; advising at Roy W. Martin Middle School; the Department of Education ............17 – 20 Discusses Cubans in Las Vegas in the 1960s & 1970s; nightlife in Cuba under Batista; Napolitano; working as a card dealer in Las Vegas; Cuban sandwich; Circulo Cubano/Cuban Circle; Cuban Circle political involvement; Mike O’Callaghan; Domingo Cambeiro; Arturo Cambeiro ...............................................................................................................................20 – 23 Reflects on starting the Latin Chamber of Commerce with Arturo Cambeiro in the late 1970s; mission of the Latin Chamber of Commerce; Chamber Luncheons; Senator Dean Heller; Congresswoman Dina Titus; Congressman Ruben Kihuen; Congresswoman Irene Bustamente; Assembyman Edgar Flores; Senator Catherine Cortez Masto; County Commissioner Manny vii Cortez; Mob Museum; Small Business Administration; Arturo Cabeiro Senior Center; Arturo Cambeiro Elementary School; Latino Youth Leadership Program; Cuban-American culture in Las Vegas; Latin Chamber of Cuban Circle; LCC Scholarship program ..............................23 – 27 viii This is Claytee White. It is May 18th, 2017. I am here this morning at the Latin Chamber of Commerce. Could you please pronounce your name the way you want me to pronounce it and spell it for me? My name is Otto Merida. Otto is O-T-T-O. Merida is M-E-R-I-D-A. I'm going to call you Otto— That will be fine. —so that I don't get your last name incorrect. Please tell me about growing up as a young boy in Havana and what that was like, and your family, tell me about your family as well. My father and my mother were born in Güira de Melena, which was a city outside of Havana. It was a farm town. They were poor, but like many other people, they didn't know it. My father, even though he had. . . maybe a sixth grade education, he was an entrepreneur. He was a very bright person. My mother was always a housewife. They met in Güira de Melena. My mother was a very pretty lady from what they told me and my father was very handsome. He took her to Havana because he had moved to Havana and he started to develop a transportation company in Cuba. I was born in 1945 and my childhood was very good. Eventually, by the time I realized it, my father was doing very well. We were in the middle class, upper middle class of Cuba. I had a very happy childhood. I went to school at el Instituto Edison, Edison Institute, as in Thomas Alva Edison. I never finished high school there because at the time that I was going into my eleventh year, it was interrupted by Castro and the Castro revolution; therefore, all the grades that year were canceled by the government. Before we get there, tell me what day-to-day life was like for a young teenager or a younger boy. For me it was very good. It was very happy. What did you do? Did you play games? Did you work? No, I never worked. The first time I worked was here in this country. Again, it was a happy childhood. For example, I remember that my father had two brothers and they would meet on Sundays in my house and they would talk about politics, about what's going on. The issue of politics was always very much in my house, as well as all over Cuba, because at that time we have a dictator, Fulgencio Batista, and everybody was talking about how to get rid of Batista. Even though my father was doing very well and so forth, he realized like many other people that Batista had to go. One of the things I remember also listening to, as I was sitting there, maybe on the floor I think, while listening to all the grown-ups, was some of the people would say, "Rau?l, 2 maybe the thing that comes after will be worse than what we have now." So people were frustrated even a businessman like my father and they thought that the promise of Castro was one that we thought where we will have a democracy and eventually elections and things will be much better. So my childhood was a childhood that was going to the movies on weekends, going with family and friends to parks, going to baseball games. I loved baseball; I still do. As a matter of fact, on the new stadium of the Mets, because we are Mets fans, New York Mets, we have a block—what is it?—un ladrillo [a brick]. A suite? No, no. When they were building it. . . We were paying a hundred dollars and then they will put. . . a brick. So if you go to the Mets station one day, you go look and see if you can find it, because I don't think it's by alphabetical order, and they have Merida family. Wow, that's great. So we helped build the new stadium of the Mets. It cost my brother—he was the one that paid—a hundred dollars. How many brothers? I have one brother and one sister. I cannot tell you much about my childhood because it was very nice. I didn't have to work. My father was the head of the household. My mother was a housewife. We were going to school. My mother was like the head of the household in terms of what's going on in the household. My father would go out there and make the bucks and bring the bucks. Every time my mother says, "I will tell Rau?l what you did," people panic because he would sometimes bring the sandal, "I will hit you with this sandal if you did something bad." What is it called, a paddle? No, not a paddle. It was a shoe. But it wasn't a shoe, it was the thing that you use at home that you walk. Oh, like a slipper. A slipper. So he would take his slipper and he would hit you hard. We didn't have that problem about child abuse. You misbehave. . . I was a very good student, my brother was the worst student, and my sister was in the middle. My brother is older than I am. My sister is a few years older than I am. I'm going to be now seventy-two years old, coming up on September first. 3 And you're the baby. I'm the baby. I'm still the baby, yes. Unfortunately, my parents died a while back in Miami. We had a childhood that was. . . I hope many individuals and many kids can have a childhood like ours. We had both parents. My father was able to sustain his family. He was able – also to help his brothers. He was the one that found jobs for his brothers. They all lived a middle-class life, so we were doing very well. Tell me about those Sundays. Did the women all go into the kitchen and cook? No. In that way we were not like a regular family; my mother was never a cook. She never liked the kitchen. What she would do is take care of the house, clean up the house, sweep every day, whatever, wash the clothes. But at that time we had a lady that we brought; it was a Black; her name was Piadat and Piadat was a friend of my mother in Güira de Melena. Güira de Melena was the town that she was born in, so she brought her with her when she was very young. Piadat was like family. If Piadat says something. . . Piadat can actually hit us if we misbehave. She could discipline, also. Yes. We considered her like another mother. Eventually, as we grew up she was a fixture of the house. She was a great cook. I was raised eating steaks in the mornings and afternoons because we would go to school, come home for lunch from the school, and we would have a tremendous lunch. I mean, I don't know how we didn't die of – Then at night around eight o'clock we would eat again. My father was a believer that you need to eat meat because meat will give you proteins and make you strong, so I was raised by eating meat every day. Then my sister would eat like the very lean meat, but I liked the sirloin steaks. I was kind of spoiled. I didn't know I was spoiled because that's all I knew. Of course, another thing was the soup; we have Cuban soup that was outstanding. It was great. What is in Cuban soup? Cuban soup is a soup that has chicken and has all kinds of fideos [noodles], the name of the things that you have in the soup when you're eating soup, fideos. Noodles. Noodles. Then we have potatoes and things like this, very good. It was outstanding. Piadat would do that. Again, she would do croquettes and she would do tamales. She also cooked good desserts. By the way, my father's mother lived with us. Since I remember. . . she lived with us. It's funny because she became a widow early in life and she was left with the three kids. When my father moved to Havana, he brought her with him at the same time that he brought his brothers. He got 4 them jobs working, not for him directly, but for the company. He was really the backbone of the family; that's what he was. Tell me what the government is like under a dictator, Batista. To me, it didn't affect me that much. I remember being at baseball games, for example. Eventually my parents allowed me, even though I was only like fourteen years old, to be able to get a bus, which was fairly close, to go to the stadium. One of the things that you would hear as you were walking to the stadium, for example, were explosions. They were putting bombs in different places; like the revolution will do that to scare you so you will not go out and so forth, which is very common when you're trying to get rid of a dictator. So you were trying to overthrow? Trying to overthrow – you will hear bombs in the streets and all that. Did you know about Castro before 1959? Yes. First, he was very well-known. He was a student at the university; so he was a rabble-rouser even though people say that he was a bad student. Many people, which I don't know, but many people said that this is a true story—the way Castro actually graduated what it was with a pistol in his. . . and he went to you as the teacher and said, "Give me the grade," because he didn't have time to go to school. He wanted to be a lawyer. He was a great speaker at that time, so that's what he did. Eventually, with a group of maybe fifteen or twenty, he attacked in the eastern part of the country in Santiago de Cuba; he attacked a fort called El Moncada. At that time they failed; he was arrested at that time and put in jail. What happened with many of them – sometimes many of our dictatorships – because I think Castro stayed in jail for maybe four or five years and then eventually he was released and they said, "You have to go," and so they sent him out. He went to Mexico with others, like with his brother. That's where he actually met Che Guevara. Che Guevara was like a mentor for him. So, yes, we have heard about Fidel Castro. Then, of course, when actually he invaded—not invaded—but he went with Granma, which is a boat that he named Granma, and then he went to Cuba and went into the mountains; that was very well-publicized and people knew that this was going on in the east of Cuba, and that thing grew and grew more and more, very popular. Eventually in January 1959 the revolution won and Fulgencio Batista took off for Santo Domingo, which is the Dominican Republic. Eventually, he [Castro] was able to travel all through Cuba and into Havana and gave a very famous speech where they had some doves—I don't know if you have seen that; it's on YouTube—doves came in as he was speaking. A dove came in and actually landed on his shoulder. 5 Did that really happen? That happened, yes, that's true. But they say that they trained those doves. So anyway, without a doubt people wanted to have change. They thought that Castro was the person that actually would bring that change. He spoke as a true Democrat. He offered elections after a year or two or something. One of the things that people started to become concerned about is that – for example, the firing squads, Che Guevara was in charge of that. When you see people with Che Guevara, because you see a lot of those T-shirts all over the world—Che Guevara is a very well-known revolutionary all over the world—Che Guevara was in charge of the firing squads and sometimes there was no trial. They would say, "I know that you did this." Well, you haven't proved that. They would take you to a place called La Cabaña, which was like a jail, and then at La Cabaña they would do a firing squad and kill you. They killed thousands of people that way, without trial or anything. Some of them, yes, they were guilty, but others were not guilty. They were guilty only of being, for example, in the military or being against him. So they were trying to get rid of people that they thought, perhaps, could be leaders someday in the future and so forth. So in terms of my youth, it was a great youth. Every time I cried because my brother did something or my sister, I would go to my mother and then my mother would protect me. As a matter of fact, right now, for example, when we get together, my sister will say, "You were a lloron – a crying baby; you will be crying all day long because something happened or you didn't feel well. You were a pest because you were the baby." I would go to my mother and then my mother. . . It was funny because one of the things then, my mother would be sitting in the rocking chair and then I would sit next to her. They would say, "Give me your. . ." And then I would do this. . . I don't know why I would do this. And this would calm me down. Really, really strange. I don't know why, but that's what I would do with her. Then I would do this. Then my mother, "Okay, come on, okay, calm down." I was crying like something happened. It's because my sister did something that looking back it was insignificant. But I thought she was picking on me or my brother was picking on me. My story in Cuba, it was really without any. . . Because of my age, I was young and so forth, I had a great youth. It was very nice. My father was the provider of the house. He did very well. He helped others. He helped his family; he got them jobs. On Sundays, he would have the family come in. Like I said, he was the backbone of the family. My cousins and my father's brothers would bring the kids. How many cousins? Let me see. We had three in the family. We have two with Luis Merida, Luisíto and Danny. Then Evelio, had one kid. Then Evelio and Luis already died. They passed away years ago. My father was the last one that actually passed away. 6 When did your father decide to leave Cuba and why? Well, actually what happened is that things were getting really...After the revolution my father very slowly lost everything. Tell me how it happened. What happened is everybody had property or everybody that was an owner, basically the government will take away—sometimes with reason because maybe they had done something wrong. I remember my father saying—because people would tell him—"Listen, Rau?l, you need to leave Cuba because they're going to come after you." And he would say, "I don't have to leave Cuba. I didn't do anything wrong. I didn't steal anything. All the things that I did...I work, I work, all the way from coming from Havana and driving a bus for many years to organize then a transportation company that will organize all the buses in Havana. Then I got other individuals to join me and that's how we did this company and so forth. So there's no reason why I will have to leave." But anyway, Castro started intervening and taking over all the buses. Eventually they took everything from him. So how did they do it? They came to the house and just said...? Basically they would go to the place of work and they will say, "The government is now taking over this business and you have to leave." It's like if I fire you now from here, then I will accompany you to the streets. So they actually escorted him out of his own business. That's right. That's correct. And took it over. That's correct. So they sent people in to start running the business? Then they will have people that were with the revolution. Sometimes they have some expertise; others didn't know shit. What happened to many of those businesses, they were run into the ground because they didn't know anything. So he lost everything. Then at that time he started thinking, maybe we have to leave. So at that time there was a program. We're now talking about 1961. Castro took over in 1959. So in 1961, there was a rumor that the government would take kids at a certain age and send them to the Soviet Union to be indoctrinated so they would come back and be the future of the revolution 7 because he was communist. That was what the government thought was the best thing to do. It didn't matter if you were for Castro or against Castro, they took all these kids. So my parents, especially my mother, had a contact, and they actually went ahead and. . . The program was available in the United States and Cuba called Peter Pan or Pedro Pan. Peter Pan was where kids came to the United States without parents—so I was one. August 21st— There were some kids going to Russia and some kids coming to the United States? What we were doing was something that was kind of—it was legal, but the government had to catch up. So what we do is we're getting visas. . . at that time we still have the American embassy and they will issue visas to all these kids. So now, the kids going to Russia; that was sponsored by Castro? Yes. Now, the kids going to Russia was after we left; because this was something people heard and that's why many Cuban families reacted that way. So August 21st, 1961, I left Cuba. First, we landed in Miami. I remember seeing my mother; she was crying because she thought, I don't know if I see my son again. How old were you then? I was fourteen years old. Then she would say to me, "Listen, remember, I want you to remember the address where we live and the phone number. If anything happens and you end up in Miami and nobody is there waiting for you, talk to the pilot so he will take you back to Cuba,”—because there was supposed to be people from Catholic Charities waiting for you. I remember. So that's why, even though I'm losing my memory a little bit, I have never forgotten my address. Josefina 68—entre primera y segunda—La Víbora, Havana con el teléfono X4304. So I have never forgotten my address. As a matter of fact, when I went to Cuba in 2009—that was after my parents died I went to Cuba to visit for four or five days—I remember I told the person in the taxi cab, "I want you to take me here." He said, "How do you know that address?" I said, "Because I remember it from my mother." So I left Cuba. We went to— So now, what about your brother and sister? They left later. They were older. My sister eventually after maybe a year or two, she went to Florida and then a family that my parents knew, took care of her. My brother left a little bit later. He married his high school sweetheart and then he came and then also he went to Miami. Tell me about when you arrived. What happened? So when I arrived there were people waiting for us. 8 How many children were in the group? In the group, well, they left at different times. When you left how many were there? There were maybe ten or fifteen kids. So when we got there we went to a camp. But we didn't know each other. I might have known one person, but it's not like we were close friends or anything. It was organized that people would leave. People were so afraid of also talking that maybe you have a friend that was leaving also next door and nobody will know, and you are here. I went to this camp. At that time there were maybe eight hundred kids at that time. It's called Camp Matecumbe. Matecumbe at that time was a place in Miami and there were barracks and we would actually sleep in those barracks. They were, I think, former barracks from when the war was going on at one time and so forth and they were left. They were rehabilitated. I stayed there for one month and then eventually I was sent with another nineteen Cubans to Wilmington, Delaware. Why Wilmington? It's like anything else. We were a political refugees, so you depend on people that will sponsor you. We were sponsored by the Catholic Church in Wilmington. It was a sect called Salesianum. It's a group of priests. The Salesianum is like different groups within the Catholic Church. They owned a private school there called the Salesianum High School, which was probably the best in Wilmington, Delaware. So before you go there, tell me more about the barracks. Well, these barracks at one time—by the time we got there they were already free. But they were in the middle of nowhere. Now if you go to Miami now, it is full of homes and everything because we're talking about 1961. But at that time it was like a forest and in the middle of nowhere, was this camp. Girls and boys? There were also girls that came, but they were in another section. The same camp, but another section. Yes, that's correct. So how did they take care of you? Who was in charge? Each barrack we have a person in charge and he was the one telling you, "Okay, let's go and eat, now." Then they would organize games, baseball games and things like this. They would take 9 you sometimes to the beach. They tried to make it—but people that stayed there stayed there for a short term. It would be like a month to two months and then they would move you out. Then the people that would sponsor—it’s like when you see political refugees, for example, like the Syrians now, for example, they will say they're going to be sending you to Omaha and you will have maybe forty people in Omaha. Now, for example, in Minnesota you have a lot of people from Somalia. So you have maybe hundreds of people that were moved. Why am I there? Well, that's where—some people or maybe a church, somebody that actually would sponsor a hundred people or two hundred people or whatever. Who did you live with in Wilmington? We lived in a three-story house all together. We lived there and we would walk to school, which was maybe a couple of miles. We would then come back, eat there, study there and so forth. So that's where you lived, in a three-story house with other Cuban kids. The same Cuban kids that we came with. Then we had a father in church—a priest, a father—and then another brother and they were the ones who lived there. Did you make friends? I still have friends. As a matter of fact, among the kids. . . that we have now. I still have e-mails from people that I met back in '61. For example, we had a father called Father Walsh, which was the one in charge of the home, who has been going through cancer and has been very sick. We have people that still live in Wilmington and they're the ones that tell me what's going on with Father Walsh. He's now retired. He has been sick for a while now. We still talk. We have also, maybe two or three people or maybe more that have died already that were part of the group. A few years ago, maybe like fifteen years ago, we met with a guy by the name of Cutto—he's doing very well financially—in Miami and then we went to his house and we had a party. Maybe out of the. . . Forty? No, no, we were not forty. We were like twenty kids. We had maybe fifteen that came. One has died. Another was in jail. Amazing, the brightest of all of us was a guy by the name of Guerra and Guerra became a doctor and he was doing very well, but at the same time he was caught by the federal government because he was misusing Medicare or Medicaid. Eventually, he ended up in jail for four or five years for stealing from the government. Putting, okay, I had ten patients today, and I actually only had one and this type of thing. He was caught in that type of mess. We had another that died. This guy Cutto is doing very well in real estate and now he's retired. Every time I get an e-mail or maybe from Facebook, he's in Guatemala; he is in Rome; he is running around all over. So he's traveling quite a bit now these days. 10 Wonderful. But you were one of the ones who left Wilmington. I left. How did you decide to do that? Because my parents came, eventually. So you were staying in touch? Yes, of course, yes. Writing letters? I would send a letter. I remember my mother saying after I saw her again—no, the mailman that would come to the house would say, "You have this kid that sends you letter every day. Who is he?" And my mother would say, "This is my son that is in. . .” I would write her every day. Then he said, "Wow, he must love you quite a bit because you're getting a letter every day." Did the family keep the letters? They are now gone. I think when they left, they left all of that with another family. If he did. . . I don't remember. I will have to ask my brother because I don't know. I know that I have never seen any of my letters. If your brother has some of the letters. . . That will be nice, yes. Yes. We would love to... As a matter of fact, I remember—well, that wasn't a letter from my brother. It was a letter from a friend from Cuba that we kept in touch for many years. So did you keep the letters that the family wrote to you? No. I wasn't too smart. I should have known that you were going to come by. Yes, exactly. When did the family decide to come? A couple of years later they came, my father and my mother. Before that my sister came and stayed with this family that was related to my father, in Miami. Then my brother and his wife, his sweetheart from high school, came. They all went to Miami. 11 So the sister and brother were already in Miami and then the parents came. No, my parents came first and then my brother and his wife came, later. We're talking about a few months in between. Once the program was notified that the parents were here in the United States, they would send you back. They would send you back to where they lived, Miami. They said, "Okay, you have to go back with your parents." So they sent me by train. It's funny. I remember this because my brother told me. My father said, "Oh, Otto is coming by train, s