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Historic surge in Cuban emigration divides families

In this Sept. 23, 2015 photo, Olea Lastre, a hairdresser, shows a photo of her husband Antonio Cardenas with her son Jose Fuentes Lastre, taken in the U.S. after they survived 10 days at sea on a raft in the Florida Straits, on her cell phone in Camaguey, Cuba. The men fled last year and now live in Portland, Oregon, where they were resettled by a charity and her husband works in a meatpacking factory. (AP Photo/Christine Armario)
In this Sept. 23, 2015 photo, Olea Lastre, a hairdresser, shows a photo of her husband Antonio Cardenas with her son Jose Fuentes Lastre, taken in the U.S. after they survived 10 days at sea on a raft in the Florida Straits, on her cell phone in Camaguey, Cuba. The men fled last year and now live in Portland, Oregon, where they were resettled by a charity and her husband works in a meatpacking factory. (AP Photo/Christine Armario)

By Associated Press 7 min read

CAMAGUEY, Cuba (AP) – On the 14th of September last year, nine Cuban men pushed their scrap-metal raft into the Florida Straits, started up its tractor-trailer engine and disappeared north into the night.

A few days later the rumors started in Camaguey.

A broken raft had washed ashore without a passenger in sight, one neighbor said. State security had arrested a group of male rafters, said another.

Olea Lastre did the math: The engine could push her husband, son, son-in-law and their companions through at least 10 miles of sea a day. It would take, at most, 10 days to reach Florida.

“I wondered if my father was cold or thirsty,” Lastre’s 30-year-old stepdaughter Yusneidi Cardenas recalled, her voice cracking. “I worried if they could even swim.”