"I used to call the hotels, and if I was a Cuban, I wasn’t allowed to stay. But if I was a Spanish woman traveling with my dog and I said, ‘Look, my dog can’t stay alone. I can’t keep him in a crate, I want him in a room,’ they would say, ‘No, no, don’t worry, you can have him in the room.’ Then I used to say, ‘So a dog has more rights than a Cuban in hotels in Cuba.’ And that was a way—sometimes in a somewhat comical manner but often in a sad way—of revealing this image of the Cuban who had accepted being treated as a fifth-class citizen because they hadn’t seen this other side. Fidel Castro, through it all, maintained that image of himself as a guerrilla fighter dressed in olive green until he was eighty years old. People thought he was an austere man, but he wasn’t."
“I remember that when we were leaving Cuba – even though we already had our passports and visas because one of my brothers was studying here – another man had to go and say he was my father, sign to get the permits, so they wouldn’t know who we were. And everything was very traumatic when we got to the airport. I remember my mother told people, family, and friends not to go to the airport so as not to make it more difficult. Because even though we were told we were going on vacation, we knew the situation was not a vacation. So it was very sad because when we arrived at the airport, we started seeing people from afar—some friends, family members, the people who worked in our house—and that alone was emotional. For me, after this experience, goodbyes feel like… when someone has to leave a place… it’s like… I don’t like seeing a plant being uprooted for replanting in gardening. That process traumatizes me a little, thinking about someone being pulled from their roots, because that’s what I feel happened to us.”
"I was there, and I started: ‘Commander, a few words! Commander, a few words!’ And indeed, he came toward where I was. And when I was there, I asked him, ‘When will the repression in Cuba end?’ His face was in shock because, since everything was controlled, no one in Cuba ever thought something like that would happen. I remember that the officials who were with him were also in shock. Alarcón was there; he couldn’t reach him and stayed back. Then, since he didn’t answer me, and with that silence, the only thing that came to my mind was to shout: ‘Coward!’ But it was a scream. Since he didn’t make a statement, all that was heard was the shout: ‘Coward!’"
"Sometimes when I think about January 1, 1959, those first days when so much blood was seen running on television, when one of my brothers and an uncle of mine were arrested. Going to La Cabaña with my grandmother and seeing that execution wall, which sometimes in the morning still had blood from the night before. They would throw a few buckets of water. And the families of the prisoners had to walk past that spot. They made them think that this could be the fate of their loved ones. It was a system that began with cruelty—cruelty towards the enemy and cruelty towards their families. And the ironic thing about all this is that they started killing after they had already won. This wasn’t a war anymore, and they had already won the battle—they had the country in their hands—and that’s when the bloodbath began. In Miami, shortly after, there were always meetings—Cubans thinking about what they could do. Then we started hearing… I imagine the adults knew… but as children, we knew something was happening. We started hearing about some camps, and my two brothers left, my uncles—three of my uncles. And at first, supposedly… I found out as an adult that it was actually a covert operation."
The important thing is not to remain silent or just be a bystander, but to ask questions and report the crimes that are happening. Informing the public about reality is a way to fight against lack of freedom
Ninosca Pérez Castellón was born on March 15, 1950, in Havana. She lived in Cuba until June 1959, when she moved to the United States with part of her family. Her father was a colonel and had very good relations with students, including José Antonio Echeverría. During one of the demonstrations in 1958, he was shot. At the end of that year, her father fled Cuba along with President Batista, which marked difficult times for the family and led to their emigration to the United States. Leaving Cuba was traumatic for young Ninosca. It was impossible to say goodbye to her entire family, and the journey was filled with fear and uncertainty. At first, the family lived in Fort Lauderdale, but after a few months, they moved to Miami. Some of Ninosca‘s relatives and friends were called in 1961 to participate in the Cuban exile operation in the Bay of Pigs. Unfortunately, not all of them survived the invasion. From Miami, Ninosca Pérez Castellón tried to fight against the Cuban system and participated in organizing campaigns to support political prisoners. In 1987, she married one of them, Roberto Martín Pérez, who was released after spending twenty-nine years in prison.
Ninosca Pérez Castellón became a radio journalist. When her brother returned from the fight, he refused to give her an interview due to the terrifying experiences he had endured. Since 1985, she collaborated with the Cuban American National Foundation, which offered her the opportunity to establish a radio station that would broadcast to Cuba on shortwave. Thus, „La Voz de la Fundación“ (The Voice of the Foundation) was created, a radio station where she made phone calls to Cuba to expose the true nature of the regime and reveal the real political and social situation of the island. The station gained great popularity. Ninosca Pérez Castellón returned to Cuba for the first time in 1994 when she traveled with colleagues to the Guantánamo base, where at that time, there were more than 43,000 Cuban refugees. Over time, the radio station managed to establish contact with opposition groups in Cuba, and La Voz de la Fundación became their voice. The radio station became a space where the crimes of the Cuban totalitarian regime were exposed. On one occasion, Ninosca Pérez Castellón had a face-to-face encounter with Fidel Castro. In 2001, together with other colleagues, she founded the Council for the Freedom of Cuba, although they have yet to achieve their main goal: making Cuba a free country.
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