17 Nov 2016 Conway officer recalls leaving Cuba on a raft for U.S.

by Sonja J. Keith

It’s been nearly 21 years since Lazaro “Laz” Castillo left Cuba on a handmade raft in search of a better life in the United States. He spent 14 months in a refugee camp, overcame a language barrier and was nearly homeless. Today, he is giving back to the community he loves as a member of the Conway Police Department.

GROWING UP IN CUBA

Born in 1974, he is the oldest of five children.  He grew up on his dad’s family’s dairy farm. When Laz was 4, his parents divorced and his mother moved to the city. At age 12, he joined her in the port city of Mariel to continue his education.

In the eighth grade, Laz developed an interest in kayaking, a popular sport in Cuba. He remembers the coach finally giving him a chance to try out after he showed up every day to watch the team practice. “I started running and lost a lot of weight. The following year I came back and I got to go to the national competition. I got fifth.”

Laz participated in sprint kayaking, which is an Olympic sport, and was invited to attend a special academy. The sport helped motivate Laz to complete high school and attend college, and to become a kayaking instructor. He was a national champion in four kayaking distances and a member of the national team. “I looked at it as a challenge because they told me I couldn’t do it because I was chubby and too short at the time,” he said.

“I haven’t kayaked since I left Cuba.”

Laz thought he would probably be involved in kayaking and coaching in Cuba for the rest of his life. But, when he was in college, he learned more about the United States and was intrigued by the opportunities outside of Cuba. “Even though my situation was not bad, I realized it could be a lot better. I started getting disappointed with the way things were in Cuba.”

DECISION TO LEAVE

In the summer of 1994, word circulated that a tanker ship from Greece would be leaving the port for the U.S. “By that weekend, 1,500 people were on top of the boat and I was one of them. We sat on the boat for two days until the food and water ran out. Military came and surrounded the boat, and the tugboats were told to keep the ship from leaving.”

Laz and others were forced off the tanker. “A lot of the people who stayed and did not leave Cuba went to prison, so I knew I had to leave. My mom told me she would prefer for me to live in the U.S. and be free than to be in prison in Cuba.”

Laz hid from authorities as he and others spent the next week scavenging plywood, inner tubes and other materials for a raft. “I hardly knew the people I was on the raft with,” he said. “It was the 19th of August and we had the raft ready when they put the news over the radio that (President) Clinton had said that nobody was going to make it to the United States and they were going to start sending everybody to a refugee camp so stop leaving Cuba. There were so many leaving Cuba at that time.”

Laz and his group were undeterred and devised a plan. If stopped before reaching the U.S., they would say they were unaware of Clinton’s directive. “I was 20 years old at that time. Bad stuff only happened to other people. When you’re that young, you’re invincible,” he said.

It was starting to get dark on Aug. 21 when the group of eight men and one woman, all in their 20s except one 18-year-old, set out.

“When I first got on that raft, I felt like I was going camping. I didn’t get worried until it got really dark and I couldn’t see the land anymore…When you don’t see land anymore, especially at night, those were the longest nights ever. You’re only relying on a compass and you’re hoping that compass is right.”

Some in the group had never been on a boat before and some did not know how to row. “Probably within the first mile or so, we lost two paddles. It was pretty scary.”

The woman kept up with the compass while the men rowed. Sea sickness became a problem, especially for one of the men. There was talk about cutting the sick man loose on an inner tube to float back to Cuba, but Laz wouldn’t allow it and volunteered to row for him.

On the second night, the group encountered a storm. “We had to tie ourselves up with a rope to the raft just in case it capsized.” The group also thought they saw sharks, but they never got too close.

Rowing was constant as the group battled the sea current to remain outside the Gulf of Mexico. Laz said a lot of people died after getting lost in the gulf. “We were trying to land mainly on the east side of the Florida Keys and we tried to stay as far as possible from the Mexican gulf.”

PICKED UP AT SEA

The group was spotted by a news helicopter in the afternoon of the third day, and picked up that night. “We were so tired. The wind was blowing from the north, kind of against us.” Although they had plenty of water, some of the men acted like they were about to pass out in hopes that they would be picked up quickly.

The group kept rowing, very slowly, to stay in the same area in case their coordinates had been reported. “We saw another raft in front of us so we caught up to that raft and tied both together. I think there was another, smaller raft that later came up and tied up to us.”

Supplies including flares and MREs (Meals Ready to Eat) were dropped for the group, now about 15. As it got dark, Laz and the others worried they would not be found. “I felt like we had been sitting there on that raft for a long time without paddling.”

The group spotted three lights in the distance and Laz held one of the flares to communicate the group’s whereabouts. The lights grew bigger as the ships moved closer. “When I realized it was the U.S. Coast Guard, I did fear for my life,” Laz said, adding that he had been told that the U.S. military was a “killing machine.”

“The Cuban government had lied about a lot of things, but what if they were telling the truth about this?” Laz said. “I’m in the middle of the ocean, in a little raft, no witnesses, what if they just start shooting us?”

The Coast Guard arrived and threw a rope to secure the raft in the choppy water. “I remember looking up and there were several crew men with M-16s.” The Cubans were searched and some items, like lighters, were confiscated. “We were surrounded by the crew of the Coast Guard. I didn’t know what was going to happen. All of a sudden I see one of the guys come to us with his hands full of blankets. Another one had a tray with cups with rice and beans. So by that time I didn’t think they were going to shoot us if they were going to feed us.”

The rest of the night was spent picking up others on rafts. “By the following morning, the boat was pretty full. We picked up a lot of people in the sea.”

REFUGEE CAMP

The Cubans were taken to Guantanamo Bay on Aug. 26. The refugee camps, which held about 3,000, had military tents surrounded by barbed wire fence, which was patrolled by armed Marines with dogs. The original nine split up, except three men who stayed together until they left the camp.

“It was pretty scary, too,” Laz said. “Nobody could tell us how long we had to stay in the camp or if we were going to be sent back to Cuba. We didn’t know what was going to happen to us at that point. We only knew that Clinton had said we were not coming to the United States.”

Laz said the living conditions were rough in the beginning, with little water and portable toilets. At mealtime, some got food and others didn’t. “The military was trying to do the best they could with the amount of time that they had to prepare,” he said. “They were receiving boat loads of people every day.”

Laz recalls there were many hardships, including trying to secure the tents at night during a hurricane. “It was another part of the adventure.”

As the influx of Cubans slowed down, the living conditions improved.

Laz recalls in the mornings, the Marines would run and pick 10 to 15 people to join them. “Every morning I would go and stand by the gate and try to get picked to go run with them.” Otherwise, time was just spent waiting. “It seemed like a long time because all we could do was read and just wait. We never knew what was going to happen.”

Ultimately, the Cuban and U.S. governments decided in the spring of 1995 that the refugees would be allowed to leave Guantanamo Bay for the United States. According to Laz, a 1966 U.S. law allowed “any person coming from a communist country to seek refuge in the U.S.”

Laz was at Guantanamo Bay for 14 months.

HEADED FOR THE U.S.

Laz said a lottery determined the order that the camps would leave and his was second or third. “It was a lengthy process,” he said, adding that each person had to meet with immigration and FBI personnel, be fingerprinted again and go through interviews. If any problems turned up, they were investigated.

“They even searched our bodies for tattoos, because in Cuba at that point, the only people who had tattoos had been in prison,” he said, adding there were good tattoo artists at the camp. “If you had any tattoos you would be sent to the back of the line to wait until further investigation. A lot of people got tattoos while they were at the refugee camp so they got held back.”

Laz did not have any problems during the process. He explained that while he has tattoos now, at the time he did not, thanks to his mother. He remembers getting in trouble with her as a teenager when he drew on his arm with a pencil. “My mom had never spanked me in my life until that day,” he said.

After processing was complete, the Cubans were loaded on a boat and ferried to an airport to fly to Miami.

Laz wasn’t certain what his next move would be in the U.S., but he met a priest at the camp who was from the Little Rock Air Force Base who offered help. “I became pretty involved with the Catholic church at the refugee camp,” he said. “Since I didn’t have any family in the states, he coordinated with a family in Jacksonville and the Catholic church to sponsor me to come to Arkansas.”

In Miami, Laz had to wait about a week for processing. “They put me up in a hotel. It was pretty scary because I didn’t know the language and they put me in the only part of Miami where nobody spoke Spanish,” he said, adding that he stayed in his hotel room, watching TV.

Not knowing the language and having to change planes was also scary, but Laz made the trip from Miami to Atlanta and then on to Little Rock. He arrived in Arkansas in November 1995.

LIVING IN ARKANSAS

Laz and another refugee lived with the priest and Laz got a job at the Base Exchange at the Little Rock Air Force Base. Noting this was before 9-11, Laz said it would be unlikely today that someone from a communist country would be allowed to work on a military base.

His first job was in the candy department and one of his first tasks was to remove Halloween candy from the shelves and replace it with Christmas candy. “Coming from Cuba, we didn’t have Halloween or Christmas. We only had one candy and it was hard candy,” he said. “So when I went out there I was like, ‘What’s the difference?’ For the longest, my lunch and my snack were candy. I wanted to try every type of candy.”

When Laz moved out on his own, he faced tough times. His pay was $4.96 an hour, so there were times that Laz slept in his car so he could afford gas. He got a second job that he worked in the morning and early afternoon. After getting off work at night at the BX, Laz would find a place to park his car and sleep. He used his free gym membership at the BX to shower.

Laz was unhappy and wondered if things would get better. In Cuba, he was poor but he had family and he enjoyed being a kayaking coach. “Over here, I was by myself and sleeping in my car, working two jobs. I didn’t know the language so it was tough,” he said. “Sometimes I questioned did I make the right decision, but I guess it was another challenge.”

Laz met his ex-wife, who lived in Conway, while working at the BX. She had learned about Laz sleeping in his car and invited him to live with her. “She helped me a lot. She taught me a lot of my English and when I was in a tough spot, she was helping,” he said. “That’s how I got to Conway.” The couple, together for 10 years, has three daughters.

Laz decided to look for a better paying job and got a Spanish-English dictionary to submit applications throughout Central Arkansas at every business he came across. He was hired at the Walmart Distribution Center in Searcy, where he worked for six years until he decided to go to beauty school and open his own salon.

A few years after he divorced, Laz met his wife, Amanda, in June 2009 at the Conway Regional Health and Fitness Center, where she works. The couple married Oct. 16, 2010.

A NEW ADVENTURE

While having lunch with Amanda in September 2014, the couple saw an ad on Facebook for tryouts for the Conway Police Department. While hesitant at first, Amanda said she would support him.

Laz applied and was one of seven selected to go to the Arkansas Law Enforcement Academy.

“I felt proud of myself, after everything I’ve been through. I have always wanted to help people. I’ve been able to help the people in the community where I live,” he said, adding that his co-workers at the police department are like family and he thinks the Conway department is the best in the state. Amanda said she has never seen her husband so happy and excited. “He does love what he does. He is so passionate about it.”

In 2004, Laz’s mother, brother and sister immigrated to the U.S. to live in Conway. His dad has also been to visit in Conway.

Laz has also returned to Cuba and visited with family he had not seen in a long time. “It was a little big nostalgic,” he said. “Cuba doesn’t change very much. Poorer places don’t change…It was like time didn’t pass very much.”

In addition, through Facebook, Laz has been able to re-connect with nearly everyone who was on the raft. “Everybody is doing great.”
Looking back on Cuba, his journey to the United States and his life in Arkansas, Laz said there were a lot of things to overcome. “I do like a challenge,” he said. “I’m one of those people who like to figure things out.”

Today, he is living the life he envisioned when he set out for the U.S. on a raft with only the clothes on his back. “I was poor in Cuba. Now, I’m not rich by any means but I have a beautiful family and a wife who loves me and supports me. I have most of my needs met,” he said. “I love Conway.  I’ve been here 20 years now. I love my job and I love working for the Conway Police Department.”