I’m from Cuba and I’ve Survived Worse
HAVANA TIMES – I’m getting ready for my last day as a dishwasher. Luckily, my schedule will be different starting the next week – a new position, and no more working at night.
I can’t stand waiting until the afternoon to work and then going to sleep around 3 in the morning. It alters my Circadian rhythms, and I suffer from insomnia.
I have an hour left, and I only need 45 minutes to reach the restaurant on the electric scooter.
When I’m just about to leave, I get a call from David, the manager. He asks me to go to Carrollwood, a more distant location. They have an emergency and they need me.
I can’t refuse. He’s a good boss, and I have this job thanks to him.
I hate having a boss. My dream is freedom, being able earn my money without depending on a job and an authority who tells you what to do. I’m taking the steps, but, for the moment, it’s my turn to be a sheep and David is a nice guy. I go to the place, do the work, and finish very late, well after midnight.
Back home, I put on the TV and turn to the news, specifically that having to do with the topic of immigration.
There’s one particular item I’m waiting for, and it’s the Supreme Court decision regarding the Humanitarian Parole program.
A district judge had ordered a temporary halt to the Trump administration’s revocation of these benefits, but now the government has appealed.
So, okay, I look at the headlines, that are not at all pleasant, then click on one. In effect: the Supreme Court has just allowed the government to eliminate the legal status of those of us who entered via this program, pending a final decision on the merits of the case.
This means that thousands of us will be left with no legal basis to remain in the United States of America, and I, at least, lose my work permit.
I read a post from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem celebrating the ruling. (The same person who killed her dog, according to her because “he was disobedient”) .
To these xenophobes of the extreme right, an individual like myself constitutes a danger to the security of the United States.
More than a month has passed since then, and now I’m here at a downtown apartment, contemplating the city while I write the final words of this chronicle for Havana Times.
The storm is growing stronger, but I feel at peace. I’m from Cuba and I’ve survived worse things.
Read more from the diary of Pedro Pablo Morejón here on Havana Times.
I wish Pedro Pablo Morejon the best of luck in his quest to stay in his present home – the United States – and for him to continue to positively contribute to the United States economy.
Like thousands of other like minded Cubans and other nationalities he came to the United States legally, and I underscore the term legally, under the Biden Parole program.
It is extremely difficult to fathom how these hard working Biden Parole program immigrants who contribute positively to the United States economy as menial workers, as cooks, as cleaners, etc. are, in Pedro’s words “. . . a danger to the security of the United States.” I agree with him. Ya, how exactly?
In his present precarious state, Pedro has a lot to worry and think about. Assuming, on my part, and it probably is not an assumption but a real fact, that the American Supreme Court decision allowing the Trump government to eliminate the legal status of those immigrants who entered via the Biden Parole Program, Pedro will be left with no legal basis to remain in the United States of America, and to add insult to injury, he will lose his work permit as he clearly states, thus his ability to continue to earn a living.
Does he now voluntarily give himself up to the authorities Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) who will definitely deport him hopefully to his home country – Cuba – or does he stay in the United States defying America law – so then – illegally?
If he chooses the latter and caught by ICE authorities again he will probably be imprisoned initially and eventually deported to who knows where like Sudan, Africa or another unwelcoming foreign land. Pedro certainly has a lot to consider.
Metaphorically, for Pedro as he states in his own words, the storm is growing stronger. Yet in his calm soothing demeanour he says “he feels at peace”. He emphatically emphasizes: “I’m from Cuba” the island, to continue the weather metaphor, which has suffered and survived many, many catastrophic storms and cyclones not to mention his unbearable lived Cuban experience on the island in its present economic catastrophic mess – yet again he reinforces the fact that he is a survivor. So according to him his present United States predicament seems to pale in comparison.
Certainly wish Pedro the best of luck in whatever direction fate has in store for him.