Posted on 04/10/2005 11:46:14 AM PDT by wagglebee
When Isidoro Vilarino fled Cuba with his wife and two young children in the 1980 Mariel boatlift, he was like most of the other 125,000 refugees - destitute, with few job skills and only the clothes on his back.
Vilarino had worked on his father's livestock farm in the rural mountain town of Buey Arriba, near where Fidel Castro based his revolution to take over the country in the 1950s.
Life was comfortable until Castro nationalized Cuban land and his father's farm in the early 1960s. Vilarino had to quit school and get a job working in a bar as a teenager. They eventually got a small piece of the farm back, but it wasn't enough.
"We were like prisoners on that piece of land," said Vilarino, now 57.
So, he jumped at the opportunity to leave for Key West in the boatlift. At the time, many people said the so-called "Marielitos" would never amount to anything.
Sitting at a table in at his La Casita restaurant near Miami's Little Havana neighborhood, Vilarino reminisced about his struggles to beat the odds.
"I came with a lot of dreams and aspirations," he remembered. "But I didn't think we would arrive at this point."
Vilarino, his wife, Elena, and his children, Isidoro Antonio and Annia, left Cuba on May 27, 1980 on an overcrowded boat. They arrived in Key West on May 28 and he quickly realized that the journey still wasn't over.
"We all arrived here without even knowing where we were going to stay. A strange country, not knowing the language. We didn't have any family already here," he said.
They stayed with friends at first, but financial pressures came soon. Vilarino and two of his brothers who also left during the boatlift decided to have their families live together for about a year to save "every last penny."
Vilarino's first job on the way to prosperity wasn't glamorous - he packed oranges into crates. At a time when many Mariel refugees were shunned by businesses as deranged criminals, Vilarino was lucky to get a job by a fortunate coincidence: the packing company's owner knew his father in Cuba.
"When he found out about us, he said, 'Call them, find them and give every one of them a job,'" Vilarino recalled.
But the work was tedious. Vilarino and his brothers knew they wouldn't achieve their dreams this way.
"We always had it in our heads to do something and get ahead. We didn't always want to work for other people," he said.
So he and his brothers decided to pool their money together to open a fruit store about a year and a half later in West Palm Beach, about 60 miles north of their homes in Miami. They had just $2,800 to start the business, enough for only a three or four months' rent, inventory and expenses.
Business was OK, but the high cost of keeping the shelves stocked meant they didn't earn that much money. The brothers started brainstorming.
In 1984, they opened a restaurant serving Cuban food near Fort Lauderdale, which is about 20 miles north of Miami and has much fewer Latinos. They figured the restaurant would seem more exotic there. The only problem for Vilarino - he had always depended on his mother or his wife to cook.
"I didn't know how to make white rice or even fry an egg," he said with a laugh.
Vilarino spent much of his time in the kitchen, learning how to make Cuban staples like shredded beef, plantains and fried cassava. The restaurant attracted Hispanic customers because there was little competition at the time.
A few years later, Vilarino was confident enough in his culinary skills to try his hand in Little Havana, in the heart of the Cuban exile community in Miami. He bought a run-down place called La Casita in a forgotten strip mall on Calle Ocho (Eighth Street), this time without his brothers. But he would still get help from his family.
Annia and Isidoro Antonio were blending into American life without problems, speaking English and making friends. Because they were young, they didn't experience the discrimination that many other so-called "Marielitos" did.
But they both knew the struggles that their parents were going through to provide for them. So they were eager to help at the restaurant.
"You couldn't see Annia above the tables yet and she was already working here," Vilarino said.
"I was the host, my brother was the bus boy, my mom was the cashier and my dad was in the kitchen," said Annia, now 32. "When we left school, we were here. On the weekends, we were here. Always."
Isidoro Antonio, now 30, exudes a laid-back pride when he says: "Whatever position needs to be filled in the restaurant, I can fill it. Cook, dishwashing, cleaning tables, waiting on tables, at one point I was managing some of the restaurants."
With the whole family focused on fixing up the restaurant, and about six months later people started pouring in. Vilarino still smiles about the four-star rating they got from a restaurant critic in The Miami Herald.
They eventually opened four other La Casita restaurants, which he sold about two years ago for "good money."
The family still has the original La Casita, which Annia now manages as it serves about 400 people a day. Vilarino and his son run other family companies that buy real estate and develop homes.
But Elena makes sure her husband doesn't lose his skills in the kitchen at home.
"Now whenever we have visitors, she wants me to cook," he joked.
But he doesn't mind too much, because those years of struggling alone for long hours in the restaurant's kitchen are over. He can relax more now that they're established.
"In reality, it's gone very, very well for me," Vilarino said.
Many Cuban-Americans talk fondly of moving back to their homeland when Castro is gone. But when Vilarino thinks about it, he says he only wants to visit when that day comes.
"I have never regretted for even a minute having come to this country," he said. "I feel at home here."
"I have never regretted for even a minute having come to this country," he said. "I feel at home here."
America will always be the Land of Opportunity!
Inspiring story.
Those "many people" are known as "Democrats". They are racists who don't think any non-white can amount to anything unless the almighty Government gives them everything.
However, it doesn't appear that this family received any government aid.
They are not admitting it looks better this way.
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