 Hi everyone! It's Jorge Suarez and Mary Key-York. Hello! Key-York English Mom. How are you today? We wanted to talk about... Mary wanted me to talk about my journey from Cuba to the States, which I didn't do by myself. The way it worked is my mom she filled out what I think is still called a lottery visa. There's an agreement between the States and Cuba that a certain amount of people can go to the States after being approved and doing paperwork. And I believe she's filled it out in 1998, if I'm correct. Sorry mom if I wasn't correct but 1998 and back then it wasn't on the computer, it wasn't on the internet, it was by hand on paper and you have to fill it out and send it by mail. And sorry to tell you, but this was also... I know that this still exists and it's also in other countries too. I know like Haiti, I believe. I don't know if it's like certain types of countries that are more... where more people want to leave or I'm not sure. I think it's a matter of countries that are like oppressed. Right. That type of stuff. To give an opportunity. Right, right, right. So a certain amount of people is like not everybody. I guess approved. So she filled it out in 1998 and it's one of those things that you fill out and you kind of forget about it because it takes a while to get a response back. And if I'm correct, we got a response about nine years later 2007. That's really long. Yeah, I believe we'll take about eight, nine years. Of course by then we have moved, we moved houses, I was in school. What city were you living in? Havana. In Havana. Luckily everybody knew the response, the mail back will come in this particular manila envelope, like a yellow envelope. Everybody knew what that meant. Right. It meant that whoever got it has an opportunity to leave the country. So luckily the people that got it at the previous house at the original address, they were kind enough to actually search for us and find us and tell us, hey, you're living in the country. You got this. You've received this. But that means it was on someone's desk for like eight years. Yeah, I'm not sure what the logistics behind it are, but yeah, it took a long time. I mean, I don't know if I have any documents on my desk, like I've had it there for eight years or even in like a shelf on a shelf for eight years. I think I honestly don't remember if it goes, if the application goes to the US or to go to Cuba or the or the embassy in Cuba of the US, whatever it is, it gets stuck in some kind of loop forever until eventually comes out of it. The dark abyss of immigration. So back then, it's not the same now. Don't call me on now. But back then, once you receive this application of approval to leave the country, you're pretty much considered an enemy of the state. You're a traitor, right? Cusano in Spanish. Cusano? Cusano, like a worm. Oh, so you're so nice. Yeah, but that's the communist behavior and the communist trend of life. Yeah. So as soon as you receive that, you are supposed to quit school, quit your job because you're leaving. There is an inspector that goes to your house. There's an inspector that goes to your house and they note everything that you own because now it's property of the state. So when you got the letter, you had to advise the government of Cuba. You got it or you already knew you got it? Well, I was a kid. I was about 15, 16 at the time. I believe so because you have to start some paperwork on the Cuban side. Okay. So they are aware that you're going to, that you're planning to leave because some people receive it, but they choose not to patrons. Right, right. Most people do leave. So yeah, you're supposed to leave everything behind. So Cuba being Cuba, what you do is, well, you pay money to the inspector. You only put down XYZ, this and that. You try to sell the rest so you have some money when you actually leave to the states. That's the kind of stuff that works in Cuba. That's the way it works. And this whole process, it didn't just, when you got the approval, you weren't leaving any time soon. It still took a while. Oh yeah. Yeah, it took about two to three more years. I had to miss school. I had to leave my school. So my parents have to leave the work. That must have been hard. Yeah, it was pretty hard. I had a girlfriend back then and I weren't too happy about it because the parents were communists. So they would like to see, were your parents communists? Maybe they were, but after they saw the lights. Just to add on that, like I know that I've been to Cuba twice and on the travel traveler that likes to, a lot of people, I talked to the hotel, I made friends with my friend. We went to, people are so nice. And I had this understanding like, oh, it's really hard there, but people really appreciate what they have and despite the difficulties, they thrive or the best they can. And over here in North America, we are not grateful for what we have. And you don't think? Well, part of that's true. It is true. Not just because I'm Cuban, but most people that meet Cubans, they admire the resilience and the way of working and the way of thinking because we come up with solutions, I don't know where, I don't know nothing because that's the way you live in Cuba, make the best of whatever, what you'll have. But on the same, on the same thought, people that tell me like you did at the beginning, I love Cuba and it's awesome and this and that. Yeah, you're seeing the Cuba from the tourist perspective. You're seeing it from the tourist set of eyes, which is fine, but it's not the real Cuba. You have to go to Havana, you have to actually talk to the people that, you know, have their daily day-to-day and the way of, again, there's nothing wrong with being a tourist and enjoying it. That's what it's for and people might get living out of that. But the kind of stuff that you told me that I had no idea about was periods of time where there was literally no food? Oh, well, yeah, the special period in the 90s right after the USSR fell. The USSR, I believe, was the only friend that the Cuba had because of communism and it was the only country that had an import export at the time and it was one of the biggest allies. Well, when it fell, all that export importation kind of fell through and there was a lack of everything. If there was anything, it was very expensive, extremely expensive in dollars, which Romual people don't make money in dollars. At the time, it was US dollars. You make money in pesos and I believe back then, back then it was 25, 26 pesos for a dollar. So if you make 100 pesos a month, you make four dollars. So basically, if a piece of meat costs, a piece of chicken costs, two and a half, then you're just having a salary. So that kind of stuff. And that reminded me, my background is Armenian and I traveled to Armenia after three times. I went there in 2006 and I volunteered there, lived there for about three months and when you were telling me, when you tell me these stories, there's a lot of resemblance between Armenia and Cuba because same as Armenia, it was under Soviet rule for so long. And in 1991, I believe when they turned independence, it was such a great moment. But at the same time, it was some of the darkest moments in Armenia because there was no light, no food, no electricity. And it's very similar and in a very eerie way. And for me, when I went to Armenia, when I went to Cuba, I remember I saw the materials, like the door handles, just the way things were made at restaurants, government buildings were the same, exact same as in Armenia because Russia would ship materials to Cuba. So it's just, and also between in our relationship, sometimes we have similar things that because just the way our parents were, we just the background of communism. And it was interesting because I obviously, I'm not a communist, you're not a communist, but there's ways that we have that are come down from communism. Yeah, they're in grace, right? So leaving a building don't want it that way is so kind of the factor. And it's interesting because I mean, I'm born in Canada, Armenian parents, you're born in Cuba. We could not be further worlds apart, but in a way, there's this, there are these similarities that are interesting. Yeah, so okay, so let's get back to... So the 90s, we were talking about the 90s, how bad it was. I was a kid. I was, I was born in 1988. So I was, you know, five years old, six years old. And but I remember my mom telling me later on that it was very bad because there was a lack of food, lack of everything, like your basic needs. And one of the things she reminds me is that people were selling pizzas with no cheese. The cheese were actual melted condoms. This is, every time you say that it's so, I just, I mean, I just can't wrap my mind around that. Yeah, I mean, I even googled it to see if it was true. I didn't find anything, but I think you have to be there to have seen that. Yeah, I'm pretty sure it wasn't like the whole island was doing this, but you could, you have to be careful where you went. Because it wasn't like, it wasn't like they're saying, hey, you know, here's a piece of condoms. No, of course not. It shows that this particular place couldn't afford bad cheese, so they opted for something similar. And you know, it's when I hear stories like this, that I'm just like, like, I just can't wait for Cuba to just one day just get better and better. I mean, yeah. It has gotten better in the last years. I haven't been back to Cuba in the past three years, now two years. I started going back in maybe five years ago. I was going for about a year every month. And I did notice that there were a lot of businesses because people in Miami or people from outside are putting money in and they're opening new things. So that's good. But still, you're still like, no, of course, there's still oppression, there's still nafri on the speech propaganda. I was telling somebody that in the States or anywhere else, you see like right now, I see advertisement signs for what that is, turbo or whatever. Over there, everything has video space on it. So that's the advertisements. I remember seeing that. It's just terrible, but that's the way it is. And I remember when you first, this kind of the tangent, but when you came to Canada first time and you saw all these ads in the metros, in the streets like vacation, go to Cuba, go on vacation, it was weird for you because you don't have that in the States. Yeah, it was very weird because in the States, people go to Cuba, they do different ways to make it happen. But yeah, you don't see that. It was very odd for me, all the scene, like how about a club in the grocery stores? It's like you. It was very odd for me to see that. So I mean, I was really, it was nice. But at the same time, I was like, wow, this is odd. Seeing Cuba being advertised in the metro, go to Cuba, enjoy the beach. So going back to the time where you and your family decided to finally, you were able to leave. Yeah, well, it took a long time to about two to three years. First of all, one of the things I was hindering was at 18 years old, there is mandatory service with the army. So I didn't do that because I got that opportunity to leave right before. So I was okay not doing it, but the army had to approve it. So that piece of paper with that stamp took a while, took a long time, took a, I don't know how many trips for my mom and I to go to this one office. And it was in La Amigura to go and check every single Sunday after we were going. It's done, it's done, it's done. It took so long that at one point, at one point my friends were like, are you sure you're leaving because it's been so long. Are you sure you're actually going to the States? Yeah, I think so. And it's just a 45 minute flight. I know. We had the passports and everything. And what I was saying before with the money is as soon as you're ready to go, all the paperwork, all the stamps, everything is in dollars. The passports in dollars, everything, everything is in dollars. So yeah, you're approved, but if you can't afford all the paperwork and you afford to pay it, you're not going anywhere. So that's when people rely on their family in Miami and the States. So you were lucky because you had an aunt in Naples. I had an aunt in Naples, Florida, and she supported us, but also my mom had saved all this kind of stuff, so she had money. We were in a situation, we were okay. My mom was actually working in tourism, so we were okay, but the main reason she left was because of me, because she knew that me working in IT, me working in computers in the States, would only mean one thing eventually, me going to jail, because most people that work in IT or work in the Canada environment, they end up stealing, not because they really want to steal, but it's because it's the way it works. Stealing to sell it for more, and then you make money for your family. Right, because everybody does that. At some point, or they do that. Black market underground. And the government knows that people do that, it's just like... Well, but if you get caught, you get caught. There's only so much pain you can do. Right. So how did you feel when you got on the plane? Very nice for us, because we were able to go ahead and start your life and see what we can do. Get a job and maybe support us, whatever. So he left before, before of us, and we saw him. The first thing he had in his hand was a large fry from McDonald's. For you? That was the first thing I ate. What's the name of the state? And to this day, he enjoys McDonald's very much. I do. That's sometimes, yeah, I do. Yeah, and everybody asked me what was the most shocking thing and the most shocking thing that happened to me when I landed in the States was going to the garage. It was nighttime, I believe it rained. And seeing how shiny all the cars were, how the lights was everywhere, all the cars were nice and shiny, with nice clear coating, nice painting, good quality, everything was nice and shiny. Because in Cuba, everything is pretty much all the way around, so everything's made nothing. And the cars were super old. The cars were old and round down old. So that was like the wake-up, like you're not in Cuba. Yeah. Yeah. What an interesting story. I always loved hearing it again. Yeah. Thank you for sharing. No problem. And maybe next video, we can talk about your arrival to the U.S. and your integration, because that's interesting too, what you did and what your mom did. Yeah, we'll do a part two. Yeah, stay tuned. Thank you. Bye.