Fifty years ago, a deal between the United States and Cuba changed some families’ lives forever. Orlando Gutierrez-Boronat tried not to squirm as he sat in a bunker in Havana’s airport in 1971, waiting to board the DC-3 that would jet him and other Cuban nationals off the island. He was tense, as they all were. Eyes darted. His mother felt scandalized because authorities had seized her wedding ring just before the flight. His father felt battered; he had done two years in a work camp before being able to request leave. Orlando and his family knew that this flight would finally mean relief from Fidel Castro’s dictatorship. They also felt like they were leaping off a cliff. “Between 1968 and 1973, they finished wiping out whatever resistance had remained,” says Gutierrez-Boronat, who now lives in Miami. Once that plane took off, he and his family soared over the Atlantic toward Spain, free from repression — but also exiled from their home. | 
