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In this Sept. 23, 2015 photo, Olea Lastre, left, whose husband and son fled to the U.S., poses for a photo with her daughter Olia Cardenas and a family friend outside her home in the Porvenir neighborhood of Camaguey, Cuba. In February, Olea and the other women in the neighborhood whose husbands were in the U.S. hired a teacher to come to the house twice a week and teach them English for $5 a month. They learned greetings and phrases to help them look for jobs. Still, there are days Lastre fears she will never see her son or husband again. (AP Photo/Christine Armario)![Cuba_Left_Behind_Llen__1_]()
In this Sept. 23, 2015 photo, Yainis Souto, 25, poses for a portrait holding a photo taken of her with her then-boyfriend Jose Fuentes Lastre, before he fled Cuba with his stepfather on a raft in Camaguey, Cuba. After the news that Lastre and eight other men had landed in Florida, dozens of other young men and women in the familys neighborhood in Camaguey began building rafts, further accelerating the division of families and couples. Souto and Lastre broke up while they tried to maintain a long distance relationship. (AP Photo/Christine Armario)![Cuba_Left_Behind_Llen__2_]()
In this Sept. 23, 2015 photo, stickers of Mickey and Minnie Mouse decorate a refrigerator in the home of Yainis Souto in Camaguey, Cuba. Souto shared the home with her then-boyfriend Jose Fuentes Lastre before he fled Cuba on a raft to the U.S. with his stepfather Antonio last year. Souto and Lastre broke up while they tried to maintain a long distance relationship. (AP Photo/Christine Armario)![Cuba_Left_Behind_Llen]()
This Sept. 23, 2015 photo shows Yainis Souto's portrait when she was 15-years-old, as well as a photo of her with her then-boyfriend Jose Fuentes Lastre, inside her home in Camaguey, Cuba. Souto and Lastre broke up while they tried to maintain a long distance relationship, with Lastre in the U.S. and Souto in their childhood neighborhood of Porvenir. (AP Photo/Christine Armario)![Cuba_Left_Behind_Llen__4_]()
This Sept. 23, 2015 photo shows the living room inside the Cardenas home in Camaguey, Cuba. The two Cardenas men, Antonio and his step son Jose Fuentes Lastre, are part of a wave of migration unseen in at least a decade. Those without money or relatives to help them, like the Cardenas men, flee on rafts. The wave has devastated Cuban neighborhoods, exacerbated the countrys exodus of workers and professionals and accelerated the division of families. (AP Photo/Christine Armario)![Cuba_Left_Behind_Llen__5_]()
In this Sept. 23, 2015 photo, Olea Lastre, a hairdresser, shows a photo of her husband Antonio Cardenas with her son Jose Fuentes Lastre, taken in the U.S. after they survived 10 days at sea on a raft in the Florida Straits, on her cell phone in Camaguey, Cuba. The men fled last year and now live in Portland, Oregon, where they were resettled by a charity and her husband works in a meatpacking factory. (AP Photo/Christine Armario)Divided families the legacy of surge in Cuban immigration to U.S.
The Cardenas men from Camaguey, are part of a wave of migration unseen in at least a decade. On Sept. 14 of last year, nine Cuban men pushed their scrap-metal raft into the Florida Straits, started up its tractor-trailer engine and disappeared north into the night. A few days later the rumors started in Camaguey, leaving their family to wonder.
Move Forward
- Divided families the legacy of surge in Cuban immigration to U.S.
