From Pedro Pan to Power of the Pen: An Interview with Amarilys Gacio Rassler
by Carmella Guiol
Amarilys Gacio Rassler, Cuba native and Tampa resident, came to the United States as a Pedro Pan child in 1960, not knowing when or if she would ever see her parents again. About a decade ago, she turned to writing to help share her story with the world. The author of Cuban American, Dancing on the Hyphen, as well as several award-winning poems, Amarilys is currently at work on a memoir that explores Cuban Spiritism, Beyond the Veil.
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Carmella Guiol: You arrived to this country as a Pedro Pan child in 1960. What were you thinking when you got on the plane with your sister and cousin?
Amarilys Gacio Rassler: Were we really going away without our parents? My sister was twelve, our boy cousin, eleven, and I was ten. Was this really a good thing to do without adults? We were very sheltered as Cuban girls. The only boy we were allowed to socialize with was our cousin, who was now leaving with us. My sister and I never slept at anyone’s house except our grandparent’s house. This trip was a shock. No parents or grandparents to supervise us. And where were we going? We only knew our parent’s friends, who were offering their homes to us, from what our parents had told us about them.
CG: Can you tell us a little about your situation upon arrival at Miami?
AR: We were separated from our cousin right away. The lady who agreed to keep him, a relative of a friend of my cousin’s mother, was there ready to take him. None of us knew her. Mr. and Mrs. Victor Lopez, who had been friends of our father in Cuba, came to get my sister and me. I don’t remember a great deal about the airport except that someone gave us bubble gum and I was scared. Feeling lost. Years after, Mrs. Lopez, who became a very good friend of my mother, said she remembered that I cried often at night before going to bed.
CG: What was most striking to you about life in the states?
AR: For me it was seeing how much freedom children seemed to have. They played in the neighborhood without being supervised. The sons of the Lopez family, a fourteen-year-old and a ten-year-old, could go downtown on their own. A few days after our arrival the family allowed my sister and me to go with their boys to downtown Miami to see a movie. The four of us took a bus without adults! Boys and girls going to school together was another culture shock for us. And the new language to learn was so different, challenging. The American food made a big hit. It was wonderful. Those Mc Donald burgers, so delicious!
CG: I read that you were in the occult in the 70’s. Do you mind elaborating on this spiritual relationship?
AR: My grandparents practiced Spiritism in Cuba. It is a religion that believes in communicating with the dead. They had a strong involvement with it all through my childhood. They brought me into it when they took me to mediumistic healers seeking cure for me when I was four. I had been stricken with polio. What I just stated is part of the story I’m writing about now. After my grandparents died I wanted answers about what happens to a person after they die. I went into occult studies and practiced some of what my grandparents practiced. I opened myself to a dark realm, which turned out to be very dangerous and evil. I almost lost my mind. It was only through turning to God for help, without any medical help or medication, that I was able to survive it. I’m writing a book about that now, Beyond The Veil.
CG: How has your relationship with your country changed over the years?
AR: As a young person in the states I concentrated on being American, fitting in. About ten years ago my husband took me on a cruise where I was able to see Cuba while on the ship, from a distance. That meeting with my first land, the land of my birth, opened me up emotionally. I was overwhelmed with love for the island and its people. This experience showed me that something within me had not healed. That’s when I began to write my book, Cuban-American, Dancing On The Hyphen. I wrote it out of the pain I felt dealing with my past … all that had been taken away from me and my immigration experience. I dedicated it to my mother and father and the land of my birth. The land I still love very much.
CG: What are some ways you stay connected with the culture you left behind in Cuba?
AR: Social media has been a wonderful way to stay connected to the Cuban culture. The Cuban culture, as I knew it, is still alive, pulsating very strongly in the heart of other, now grown, Pedro Pan children and other Cuban-Americans who were forced to leave their homeland in other ways, for freedom’s sake. I belong to Facebook Pedro Pan Groups and stay in touch with Cuban-American blogs and blog radios. I have been able to share my story in some of them. We remain linked! I also try to stay informed through books, blogs, newspaper articles, Cuban author friends and the Internet about what presently is going on in Cuba.
CG: Have you returned? If not, do you ever plan to return?
AR: No. I have not gone back. I will not physically return. I will honor my parents who have both passed away. They did not want to support Castro and Communism in any way. My parents believed it would only feed the Beast of Communism to return and leave money in Cuba. For years other tourists and countries have been to Cuba and the money they spend there does not get to the people like it should. According to the people that recently arrive here from Cuba, the people I speak with, the money goes into the same special pockets. The authorities are the ones that get it and control it. So while the present regime is there I will only return through the stories I write. And I’m there often in that way.
CG: Your bio says that you recently came to writing as a way to tell your story. What got you interested in the strange and wonderful world of writing?
AR: I became interested in writing in high school when my English teacher read my stories and encouraged me to enter them in a school contest. One of them won a prize. She said I had a gift I should explore. I wanted to write, needed to write, after I saw Cuba from the deck of that cruise ship. I wanted to place a book in my mother’s hands that honored her and gave her back some of the land she would never see again. God granted that wish to me. While writing the book, Cuban-American, Dancing On The Hyphen, I discovered how much I love writing and the fellowship of other writers. Indeed it is a strange and wonderful world! I also think a writer is like an actor on stage. He loves to get feedback from the audience, his readers. What a blessing to get comments from readers … that in some way I have touched their hearts. I only wish my mother had experienced how Cuban-American, Dancing On The Hyphen was enjoyed by students this last year at Oregon State University for class material on Cuban culture.
CG: What other projects are you currently working on?
AR: Currently I’m working on finishing my spiritual memoir, Beyond The Veil. I’m also writing a speculative fiction novel on demonic transference, Commuters. It is very easy for me to often stop within my current projects and write those Cuban theme short stories that are in my heart. I just finished a flash fiction tale inspired by a true story, dealing with five Cuban rafters. And, of course, there is always room for poetry.
_______
Carmella Guiol: You arrived to this country as a Pedro Pan child in 1960. What were you thinking when you got on the plane with your sister and cousin?
Amarilys Gacio Rassler: Were we really going away without our parents? My sister was twelve, our boy cousin, eleven, and I was ten. Was this really a good thing to do without adults? We were very sheltered as Cuban girls. The only boy we were allowed to socialize with was our cousin, who was now leaving with us. My sister and I never slept at anyone’s house except our grandparent’s house. This trip was a shock. No parents or grandparents to supervise us. And where were we going? We only knew our parent’s friends, who were offering their homes to us, from what our parents had told us about them.
CG: Can you tell us a little about your situation upon arrival at Miami?
AR: We were separated from our cousin right away. The lady who agreed to keep him, a relative of a friend of my cousin’s mother, was there ready to take him. None of us knew her. Mr. and Mrs. Victor Lopez, who had been friends of our father in Cuba, came to get my sister and me. I don’t remember a great deal about the airport except that someone gave us bubble gum and I was scared. Feeling lost. Years after, Mrs. Lopez, who became a very good friend of my mother, said she remembered that I cried often at night before going to bed.
CG: What was most striking to you about life in the states?
AR: For me it was seeing how much freedom children seemed to have. They played in the neighborhood without being supervised. The sons of the Lopez family, a fourteen-year-old and a ten-year-old, could go downtown on their own. A few days after our arrival the family allowed my sister and me to go with their boys to downtown Miami to see a movie. The four of us took a bus without adults! Boys and girls going to school together was another culture shock for us. And the new language to learn was so different, challenging. The American food made a big hit. It was wonderful. Those Mc Donald burgers, so delicious!
CG: I read that you were in the occult in the 70’s. Do you mind elaborating on this spiritual relationship?
AR: My grandparents practiced Spiritism in Cuba. It is a religion that believes in communicating with the dead. They had a strong involvement with it all through my childhood. They brought me into it when they took me to mediumistic healers seeking cure for me when I was four. I had been stricken with polio. What I just stated is part of the story I’m writing about now. After my grandparents died I wanted answers about what happens to a person after they die. I went into occult studies and practiced some of what my grandparents practiced. I opened myself to a dark realm, which turned out to be very dangerous and evil. I almost lost my mind. It was only through turning to God for help, without any medical help or medication, that I was able to survive it. I’m writing a book about that now, Beyond The Veil.
CG: How has your relationship with your country changed over the years?
AR: As a young person in the states I concentrated on being American, fitting in. About ten years ago my husband took me on a cruise where I was able to see Cuba while on the ship, from a distance. That meeting with my first land, the land of my birth, opened me up emotionally. I was overwhelmed with love for the island and its people. This experience showed me that something within me had not healed. That’s when I began to write my book, Cuban-American, Dancing On The Hyphen. I wrote it out of the pain I felt dealing with my past … all that had been taken away from me and my immigration experience. I dedicated it to my mother and father and the land of my birth. The land I still love very much.
CG: What are some ways you stay connected with the culture you left behind in Cuba?
AR: Social media has been a wonderful way to stay connected to the Cuban culture. The Cuban culture, as I knew it, is still alive, pulsating very strongly in the heart of other, now grown, Pedro Pan children and other Cuban-Americans who were forced to leave their homeland in other ways, for freedom’s sake. I belong to Facebook Pedro Pan Groups and stay in touch with Cuban-American blogs and blog radios. I have been able to share my story in some of them. We remain linked! I also try to stay informed through books, blogs, newspaper articles, Cuban author friends and the Internet about what presently is going on in Cuba.
CG: Have you returned? If not, do you ever plan to return?
AR: No. I have not gone back. I will not physically return. I will honor my parents who have both passed away. They did not want to support Castro and Communism in any way. My parents believed it would only feed the Beast of Communism to return and leave money in Cuba. For years other tourists and countries have been to Cuba and the money they spend there does not get to the people like it should. According to the people that recently arrive here from Cuba, the people I speak with, the money goes into the same special pockets. The authorities are the ones that get it and control it. So while the present regime is there I will only return through the stories I write. And I’m there often in that way.
CG: Your bio says that you recently came to writing as a way to tell your story. What got you interested in the strange and wonderful world of writing?
AR: I became interested in writing in high school when my English teacher read my stories and encouraged me to enter them in a school contest. One of them won a prize. She said I had a gift I should explore. I wanted to write, needed to write, after I saw Cuba from the deck of that cruise ship. I wanted to place a book in my mother’s hands that honored her and gave her back some of the land she would never see again. God granted that wish to me. While writing the book, Cuban-American, Dancing On The Hyphen, I discovered how much I love writing and the fellowship of other writers. Indeed it is a strange and wonderful world! I also think a writer is like an actor on stage. He loves to get feedback from the audience, his readers. What a blessing to get comments from readers … that in some way I have touched their hearts. I only wish my mother had experienced how Cuban-American, Dancing On The Hyphen was enjoyed by students this last year at Oregon State University for class material on Cuban culture.
CG: What other projects are you currently working on?
AR: Currently I’m working on finishing my spiritual memoir, Beyond The Veil. I’m also writing a speculative fiction novel on demonic transference, Commuters. It is very easy for me to often stop within my current projects and write those Cuban theme short stories that are in my heart. I just finished a flash fiction tale inspired by a true story, dealing with five Cuban rafters. And, of course, there is always room for poetry.
