The Opa-locka Experience by Paul V. Montesino

The Opa-locka Experience
A chapter from “Pablito: a Cuban with a Boston Accent”
© by Paul V. Montesino

“The Opa-locka, FL, US Navy Air Station became for Cubans who arrived with a visa waiver during the nineteen sixties, the equivalent of Ellis Island, NY, during the European immigration to America of the late nineteen and early twenty centuries. There were differences, of course; Irish, Italian, Jews and other European nationalities provided their names, often Americanized-spelling versions of their original given or family names. They also had to prove they were in good health.

For us, the script of the drama was different. The moment travelers from Cuba arrived in Miami, the immigration agents checked our visa status. Those who had regular visas would go through the inspection area where the luggage, usually with limited clothing stuffed in the notorious lightweight satchel “gusano” bags was inspected. Then, after a few formalities, they were allowed to leave with relatives and friends. Those of us with a visa waiver, or other visa irregularities, would take a ride to Opa-locka for vetting.

Opa-locka was a treasure trove of intelligence for the United States. We went through intensive debriefing before we could forget issues of critical value to the United States like names of Castro sympathizers, activities or, plain rumor mongering- known in Cuba as “bolas.” Without the eyes and ears of its lost embassy, the US had to collect, sort out and evaluate quickly all the information it could from our constant human exodus.

As far as I know, at least what I could witness, women were considered less dangerous and could enter the country immediately if they were received by relatives, and I was not aware of a situation where they weren’t or whether any of them had been lodged in special camps. This is in no way a chauvinist comment and someone may know better; the insurgence in Castro’s Cuba certainly included dedicated women who sacrificed, risked and lost a lot as well, like their lives, but I never heard of an Opa-locka-like camp for women until recently.

The station at Opa-locka had already lost its former commission as a military installation. It was a Second World War facility located near Hialeah, Florida, and the property and responsibility of the Miami-Dade County authority.

There were administrative offices where Cuban refugees were registered, processed and interrogated and there were military type barracks where we slept, ate, bathed, walked and talked… a lot of free talk finally!

I’m sure informal conversations between the exiles were also part of intelligence gathering by the CIA and the FBI. Loose talk for some is tight intelligence for others. The place wasn’t a hotel, on the contrary, but it was comfortable.  As in many self-sustained military facilities, residents were supposed to maintain the installation, cook, and go to bed at certain hours. The airport itself serves today as an executive airport with ample capacity to allow Boeing 747 cargo planes from FEDEX and UPS to land and as an aviation school.

In the few days of my stay at Opa-locka I met all kinds of people from back home, the young, the old, the healthy, the strong, the sick, professionals, businessmen, workers. As far as I can remember, everyone at Opa-locka believed to have been genuine threats to Fidel Castro until they left. Some were former journalists and executives. Others had well-known media or political names, including those who had backed the Castro regime passionately and later changed their minds when the idealistic rubber hit the reality road.

Those had a difficult time surviving the inconvenience of leaving the country, some even more than once, when they left Cuba, and had a tougher time trying to convince our American hosts of real change in their political outlook. The CIA wasn’t taking any chances. That was a time when Cuba really mattered strategically. Today it doesn’t, and we still don’t want to face the sad reality that Uncle Sam is not willing to go beyond an economic embargo to punish Cuba and please the South Florida political establishment.

When we arrived at Opa-locka we learned the rules of our stay. We were required to work on chores assigned based on physical ability or knowledge of the task. The supervisor who oversaw maintenance was a former Cuban émigré with permanent US residence who had lived in the United States until Castro took over and then decided to repatriate; bad impulsive choice unfortunately for the guy. He disillusioned of the new regime and decided to return to the US “pronto.” He was technically a “trustee” in a prison: a prisoner himself given certain duties and benefits requiring him to keep the place in shape, but a prisoner nevertheless.

He had been at Opa-locka for several weeks trying to prove his new intentions to US Immigration, but the feds weren’t buying. If he couldn’t convince them within a reasonable time he, like others before and after, would be transferred to a more restricted federal facility in El Paso, Texas, and be deported to Cuba in a Pan Am flight full of empty passenger seats. At the time, flying between Miami and Havana was a one-way proposition; no tourists needed to apply.

In the work allocation process, I ended in the “mop brigade.” I didn’t know how to cook and my responsibility was to mop the floors. I hadn’t mopped a floor in my life. The military and industrial style mops in Opa-locka were for use in large work and military facilities, not in regular homes, and were long and heavy. My supervisor, obviously familiar with the task, took pains to explain to us how to hold and use the mop. It was a rotating move of the tool touching the floor just so slightly covering as much space as possible with every pass. “It’s all in the wrist,” he explained with certain pride.

Well, wrist or no wrist, unfortunately I wasn’t getting it, and he wasn’t amused. This fellow obviously considered mopping floors some sort of sophisticated and skillful art. Years later, as I practiced the mind concentration and meditation techniques of Zen Buddhism, his effort would’ve made sense to me, but not yet. I tried and tried, without success. The more I did it, the more I failed. Finally, he said in desperation, “You know, you better learn how to use a mop, because in this country, mopping floors is probably all you are going to do for the rest of your life.” He had figured out the plan for my entire life and it was his own limited vision.

What a view of America! I thought, destiny!  I listened patiently to his philosophical ramblings and responded: “Well, you know, I’ve come to this country and I’m a foreigner, but mopping floors long time isn’t in my plans. As a matter of fact, I’m sure I’ll be teaching at a university someday.”

The “supervisor” looked at me, seriously first, laughing condescendingly later, and then announced to the others who were watching the mopping demo: “Well, here, here, we have a professor with us. Ok, professor, you may teach later, but for now you’d better mop the floors.”

From that moment, for the two or three days I was at Opa-locka, I didn’t have a name, I had a new profession; he always referred to me as “the professor.” I was his opposite, the “ying and the yang,” of mopping the floors

That day, to this fellow, the evidence of his reality and mine were closer to the simple physical mop he was familiar with and not the complex hyperbolic dream of my ever being a college professor and what it could take to get me there. It’s easy to touch the parts of a mop; more difficult to touch the details of a teaching career. Here I was without a visa, without a college education, no money and, above all, no knowledge of the local language and the culture. Moreover, here he was as well, having experienced only a success measured and dependent by a stick and a wrist of the hand, not a sophistication of the educated mind. We reap what we sow.

It wasn’t about “what he could be;” it was about “what he thought he could be,” evidenced by his life experience. Our friendly argument had taken place in March of 1962. I never knew what happened to him; he never knew what happened to me either. He may have been sent to Cuba, perhaps allowed to enter the US legally, settled somewhere, his mop skills still in use, who knows? I hope he made it. If he ever ran into one of my electronic books he would not recognize or remember my name anyway: Montesino?  Mop?  No way.

I didn’t stay at Opa-locka for long. Three days after my arrival and clearing, I joined the ebullient Cuban community of South Florida and never looked back. Opa-locka ceased to be a place of interest to me.

Sixteen years later, as I entered my first classroom assignment at Bentley College (now University) the memory of my “optimistic” supervisor suddenly came to me. But not his name though.”