Former Cuban Refugee From South Jersey Reacts To Death Of Fidel Castro
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Reaction to the death of former Cuban dictator Fidel Castro is diverse. World leaders are offering official messages of sympathy, but that sentiment is not shared among many people who used to call the island nation home.
Leaving everything behind, Joe Jimenez of Margate, New Jersey and his parents and siblings left Cuba for America in the early 1960s. Jimenez says his mother and father saw the writing on the wall.
"That it was going to be a suppressive regime," he said. "They made the decision overnight and they were able to get out luckily after that, and the exodus was so big that Castro closed the doors."
Jimenez says he had relatives put in jail, including an uncle who got two years for getting married in a church.
"Everybody had to bow down to the Castro regime. Churches were closed, synagogues were closed, gays were locked up. My one uncle on my mother's side, who was a journalist, got put in jail for 12 years. Another uncle of mine who got married at a closed church in the middle of the night, because he was Catholic in 1965, was put in jail for two years for opening up a church and getting married in a church," he said. "It shows one leader can take power and can take a great country and can really ruin 9 million families."
Jimenez says out of respect for his diseased father and 96-year-old mother he would never consider going back to Cuba while Castro was alive -- but now, with Castro's passing, he is considering a visit to Cuba with his family.
"My wife right now, she is looking at flights and how we are going to get there and visit the roots of my parents," he said.
