My Almost Castro Cuban Connection Thing

I live and work in the Princeton, NJ  area.  Besides Princeton University, there are a number of well established schools  near here.  The other day I was talking to a friend who graduated from one of these schools, The Lawrenceville School to be exact.  We were talking  about the many different Spanish dialects in the Caribbean, when the conversation centered on Cuba and Castro.  My friend then proceeded to tell me the story of how he met Fidel Castro.

It seems that back in 1960 Fidel came to New York to attend the opening session of the United Nations.  He stayed at the Hotel Theresa, which is located in Harlem.  I remember this because, as a young boy, my father had taken me to 125th. Street in hopes of maybe getting a glimpse at the Cuban revolutionary.  I can still remmember the crowds and how they converged on the hotel.  But we never got to see Castro.

After he spoke at the UN  and before heading back to Cuba, Fidel made a few stops.  One was to the Lawrenceville School in Lawrenceville, NJ where he came to give another speech.  All my friend can remember from that day, he was only about eight or nine years old at the time, was how the school rolled out a red carpet and how Fidel threw a lit cigar on the carpet and then crushed it with his boot, as he stepped out of the car.  At least my friend got to see Castro.  All I saw was a window of a hotel room in Harlem where supposedly Fidel Castro was staying,  but after speaking with my friend I was reminded of another “Almost  Castro” situation I had.

A few years ago I worked as a consultant to the Port Authority of NY & NJ.  There were several Cubans who worked on my floor.  One of them was an older gentleman named Frank, who I would have lunch with on occasion.  Frank was a tall, slender person in his mid to late 60’s.  He would always talk about his planned retirement or his home in Westchester.  But what I found slightly strange was that he almost never mentioned Cuba, except that he was from Oriente Province.

One day I happened to mention to my dad, who was living with me at the time,  that I had lunch with a fellow Cuban from Oriente.  My father’s curiousity was aroused.  He asked me several questions about my friend Frank which I couldn’t answer.  The only thing that I knew was that his last name was Diaz- Balart.  My father’s jaw dropped.  He looked at me and asked “your friend’s name is Frank Diaz-Balart?  Do you know who your friend is?  Your friend is Fidel Castro’s ex father-in-law”?

The next day I asked Frank about my father’s revelation.  All he said was “there just are somethings that a man does not talk about”.  But my dad was wrong, for Frank went on to explain that he was not Fidel’s father in-law.  He was the brother of Mirta Diaz-Balart Fidel Castros first wife.  I kept having lunch with my friend and every once in a while he would bring in some old newspaper clippings and photographs from Mirta’s wedding to Fidel and from the baptism of his nephew Fidelito.

The name of Diaz-Balart was a name well known in Cuban politics.  Rafael Diaz-Balart was elected to the Cuban House of Representatives in 1936.  He died in Key Biscayne, Florida in 2005. He was the father of Rafael Lincoln Díaz-Balart y Gutiérrez (a Majority Leader of the Cuban House of Representatives), Frank Diaz-Balar (my friend) and Mirta Diaz- Balart (Castro’s former wife) . Today Licoln Diaz-Balart, his grandson, is a United States Congressman from Florida.

I no longer work with the PA and Frank finally retired, sold his house in Westchester and moved to Florida to be closer to his family in Florida.  It’s the Cuban Thing to do.