Exile in Miami

Coral Gables-our new & future definite "home town"


Venetian Pool in Coral Gables - where my sister, my cousins Jorge and Patricia and I took swimming and life saving classes, and had lots of fun in the early 60's; and the nearby Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables, and Vizcaya Palace and gardens, both the setting of many parties in the 80s and 90s.

So, in Miami - in Coral Gables more specifically, a temporary exile would become a permant residency and home town to us and future generations, now as old as 46 or 47 years old. I myself studied here from third grade in Elementary School through Ponce e Leon Junior High School, to Coral Gables Senior High School where I graduated from in the early 1970s.

By August of 1960, what would become a permanent exile was all but formed. All of our family on the Melendez side (except our second-time widower uncle Ignacio and us) were already in Miami; in Miami Beach more precisely. Our aunt Alicia Meléndez and her husband, Ñico Calvo and our cousin Maria Teresa went on to Las Palmas de Gran Canarias (in Spain) for a good executive position for Ñico in Spanish, as his English as not very good. They lived for about 4 years before "returning" to Miami in 1964, and work for a family business which was flourishing at the time.

On my mother's side, the only two family members of her generation - Cocó and Carmencita, were also there. Carmencita was doing rather well economically by 1961, along with her then husband. Cocó, however, returned to Cuba in April 1961 after the Bay of Pigs débâcle. Carlos Cacicedo, her "childhood sweetheart" had been sentenced to a very light 5 years of prison after the failed invasion. Cocó returned to the Communist island in order to marry him, in a civil wedding, in prison.

She waited out his 5 year prison term near him in Cuba. Meanwhile she almost was imprisoned herself, participating in underground "anti-revolutionary movements" until her permisssion to leave was granted in 1966. Shortly thereafter, Carlos was released and eventually joined her in Miami. But not after Carlos, luckily a Spaniard by birth, was first allowed to travel to his native Spain.

After several months in Madrid, Carlos finally got permission to travel to the USA, and he joined the rest of his family and Cocó in Miami. A brother of his, however, remained another 14 agonizing years, humiliated and tortured in Cuba's most notorious jails. In Miami, Cocó and Carlos were (again) married in a memorable, though unusual church cerimony at St. Hugh's in Coconut Grove.

I was sent to Miami in July 1961 to live with my godmother Carmencita, while my father planned a way to get the rest of the family - my mother, sister and himself out. My father had a very small savings account in St. Petersburg, Florida - the place he most visited in Florida in his regattas. Also in Florida, he had an offer from the "Fanjul" family to work for their new Sugar refineries near Palm Beach, Florida. The Fanjul's were pioneers in introducing sugar cane in Florida, unknown there before 1959, on the shores of Lake Okeechobee, near Palm Beach. But the extended family was against the move, and trips to Palm Beach in 1962 did not reveal a very happening or appealing town, except during the winter season when it briefly came to faint life, so the Palm Beach option was ruled out; we would not move away from Miami.

So, our family's fate was decided as my father opted for "Plan B."' This plan offered employment in Miami, a dream for Cubans. Though it may seem Cubans always lived in Miami, nothing could be further from the truth. Yes, many came through Miami. But only those who had money and investments in Miami pre-1959 could stay. Most were offered jobs throughout the USA, and immediately resetted throughout the continent. Cubans, in significant numbers, only started to move to Miami (come back as some say- to a new Floridian "Cuba"- la capital del exilio) beginning in the mid 70s, with their savings made up north, from Mexico, from Madrid, from San Juan or from Caracas.

There were no jobs in 1960s Miami, period. That is, except for waiters and hotel workers in season, in a resort ever more challenged by the warmer Caribbean, now just as close as Miami in the jet age - cutting travel times in half. Miami was a sleepy, very middle-American Protestant town, with a Jewish island across the bay, and an impoverished Black Community to serve both "sides." Blacks were, until Cubans started taking over the entire area, the only link between the WASPY Protestant Miami on one side, and the very Jewish Miami Beach on the other. In the late 50s, Miami Beach had a larger proportion of Jews than even Tel Aviv.

But, my father was "lucky" - if working for an in-law can ever qualify as luck. His brother-in-law, Ray Cardenas, Sr had owned one of Cuba's largest travel agencies, Velasco Travel Bureau. While in Havana, the agency's closest "American" business contact was the Eastern Airlines Representative in Havana, Fred D.. Another partner was Do, a Dutchman, who as a citizen of a Castro-friendly country, was able to get considerable capital out of Havana, via Holland, to help buy "Kirsten Travel and Steamship Agency" in Coconut Grove, Miami - which like Havana was full of poor black youth aiming to please men of Fred's persuasion for very little in return.

The previous owner of the agency was German, thus the "Kirsten" name (Christine in German and Nordic Languages). "Do" went back to Holland (I last saw him on Miami Beach in August 1961). But I accompanied my father and uncle to Amsterdam and the Hague on trips as late as 1972/1973 to get the last of the capital Do's family was able to get out of Cuba from Velasco Travel. A relative of "Do's" - a very anti-American nerd called Gerritt spent the summer of 1973 at our Leonardo house in Coral Gables. Now, that was definitely forgettable.

Anyway, the American partner with a penchant for young Afro-American studs, and my uncle had extensive knowledge of the travel business. But, they had very few clients. That's where our father came in. Having been a well-known Havana host and "socialite," he had the clientele the agency desperately needed.My father would be furious if he knew I called him a socialite. He also did have poor, black and Jewish friends, as he made a "point" to show us.

But there can be no denying that even in the worst days of exile, my sister and I found ourselves often in a yacht, in the palatious playroom of some Palm Beach estate, and my parents partied, traveled and cruised extensively - due to their "socialite" standing, never owing to the "minorities" my father so embraced.In any case, one real consequence of the so-called Cuban revolution is that "traditional society" had been reshuffled in ways previously unthought of.

Families who were traditionally very rich had their patriarchs working as banquet waiters at the "Fontainebleau Hotel" if they were lucky, while their former servants now drove Cadillac convertibles, and offered their formerly "rich" bosses a ride back home after work. So the definition of "socialite" had indeed changed.

As an international yachtsman/ sports sailor with friends around the world, as well as his personal friendship with Cuba's richest capitalists who reestablished themselves in Florida (the Fanjul's, the Bacardi's, the Bosch, the Kirsch's), adding his knowledge of aviation and extensive travel throughout the world, our father (almost accidentally) became one of Miami's most successful Latin travel agents during his exile in the USA, from 1962 to 1984.

THE DARK SIDE:
The greedy Rays & the ironically-named Vera. FALSA being her true name

My father's involvement with Kirsten Travel was most fortunate for Ray Cardenas, Jr and his wife Vera Repetti. They lived off the business created for them by Gonzalo Melendez since 1962 and for years after his death in 1984. His initial low salary, due to his lack of experience in the business - OK, the truth - because the Rays could exploit him,was never in 22 years adjusted in the measure the Rays and Fred D's were, throughout the year. In 1963, I remember the first obvious incident of Ray Jr's real character, when he was supposedly attacked by "negros" on his way home from the agency, on the very day he was taking my father's salary and a ROLEX he had borrowed from my father back to him.

A a certain point, all four (the two Rays, Fred and my father) shared the yearly profits equally at 25%. But our father's salary which began low never reached anywhere the Rays and Fred Ds. This in spite the fact that in less than two years, our father's clients represented over 50% of the agency's business, 100% of group and company reunion business, including all of the Bacardi's yearly World Reunions throughout the world - an event which turned any bad year at the agency into a profitable. I know because I worked a few of them in Spain, in Miami and in Nassau, during vacation weeks taken from my regular jobs.

But these Cardenas usurpers were not content with the agency itself. Afraid of what his own father, Ray Sr may leave him (or not) , Ray Jr and his greedy and envious wife, Vera, tried to entirely rob Gonzalo's heirs of all inheritance. This was done in cohorts with a (literally) one-handed Cuban Lawyer, in an amateurish and ridiculous last minute change in our Father's "Last Will and Testament."

The complete "change" leaving control of everything to Ray Jr, knocking my sister out as executress of the will, was done just hours before Gonzalo's death.Our father lay in bone cancer pain, somewhat relieved by morphine, while Ray Jr and Vera schemed behind our backs, and had him sign a new Will giving Ray Jr TOTAL and complete power and authority over our father's estate.

Our father died at the end of June. He worked, he WAS Kirsten travel for almost 23 years. His widow, "Lula" received my father's last salary check (and last payment to him, period) on June 30th. Our father was not even given the severance pay customarily given to an employee when his position (or the person himself) is terminated. A week per year is the average for common employees. For partners, it should be more.Not more, not less. Lula Meléndez never saw one red penny from Kirsten Travel after the date of our father's death.

Our father had been in the hospital 3 weeks. Granted. But to completely cut off a widow like that, on her husband's burial date, went beyond anything I thought Ray Sr, Jr or Vera were capable of.If only to save face after their embarrassing attempt at a last minute change in our father's WILL (which they did anull a couple of months later), why not give the WIDOW severance pay? But they were not even relatively smart sheysters.

Their best clients (my father's friends) were around at this time, and it would have been GOOD BUSINESS, GOOD P.R. to give the widow, say at least 5, 6 months pay. That could have even helped them prove that "they were well intentioned, and did not exercise undue influence" over my father, when he signed the "new WILL," had the new will gone to trial.They're idiots, and still are. American Express gave me a full year's pay when I willfully terminated my employment of only 4 years with Amex.

But our father's 23 years with KIRSTEN, and the family or the widow gets nothing?Well, in a small attempt at "damage control", something was done at the December 1984 (end of year) Board meeting. Fred D, with 51% ownership, overrode Ray Jr and Sr's recommendation not to pay the 1984 net profits to our father's estate, and did pay our father's 25% of the 1984 Profits to his estate.

Ironically, Fred had always been the "americano" my father and the "Rays" had so feared and mistrusted. They had on several occasions planned to separate from Fred, and operate the travel agency as a De Cárdenas - Meléndez undertaking, leaving Fred out.Exposed by my father's second wife, who was asked to leave the hospital room as Ray, the back stabbing and venenous Vera and the "one-handed lawyer" attempted to consumate their treacherous and opportunistic act.

The humiliated (though ever richer) Vera and Ray Jr withdrew their greedy and unethical "claims" one or two months after our father's death. Disgraced and unmasked, the couple was exposed, and surrendered - in hopes of salvaging what little of our father's clientele they could save.They couldn't. But they had already put plenty aside for their retirement while our father was still alive, making money for them.

Plus, much to their delight, Ray Sr passed away, and favored Ray Jr greatly (at the expense of another son of his, I might add). That "insurance money" they wanted to take from our father so shamelessly, foreseeing the possibility that Ray Sr would cut Jr and Vera from his will, not only did not happen, but Ray Sr left all his shares in Kirsten to Ray Jr, who became the new owner of the agency. Meanwhile, the old man Repetti (Vera's father) passed away in Puerto Rico, and left greedy Vera with a handful. Who knows whether she will be able to live long enough to spend all that blood money? That human worm has "been dying" during the equivalent of 2 lifetimes of a couple of some short lived family members, for whom she made their short lives hell with her venom and treacherous schemes.


A MATRIARCH'S TWILIGHT

Ray Jr was a son of our father's older sister Terina. So this story too is, sadly a Melendez Souto story as well. Atually, it's the only one of blatant greed and malice to rob another family member of their rightful inheritance that I know of in this family. That is not bad at all for a family this size, all things considered. This is a family history, and not a fairy tale.

I'm sure both my aunt Terina and father Gonzalo would cringe in their graves with shame if they knew of Ray and Vera's treason. Our grandmother in common, Ynés, did indeed pass away a couple of months after our father's death. Many believe the passing of her second child, combined with the profound disappointment caused by Ray and Vera's greed, caused her death.

Though Ynés left us at age 97, almost 98, she was not ill, suffered no chronic sickness. But, to suffer such a loss followed by so much greed and intra family back-stabbing at her age, may just have "done her in." May she rest in peace. For Vera and Ray Jr are but two (and sad exceptions at that) characters involved in the heritage Ynés left us all.

NOW, to finish. Without mentioning our father's younger sisters - while giving space to opportunistic, canniving thugs like Ray Jr and Vera would be truly unfair. So, let's remember that the Melendez Souto family has two other barely mentioned offspring thus far, our aunts, who (in April 2006) are still alive and well in Miami.

These are our father's two younger sisters: Alicia, and Gloria. Gloria was born in 1925 and curiously, studied and graduated with our mother at The American Domininican Sisters Academy. Coincidentally, our grandmother from the other (maternal) side of the family: "Teté" or "Collita" had been in the school's first Graduating Class in 1919. Our aunt Gloria and our mother "Terina" were life long friends, in addition to being school buddies, sisters in law, and wonderful mothers.