Bay of Pigs to Baseball: Mario Cartaya's Cuban Journey

Mario Cartaya: my subconscious buried all that in a place that it keeps so that we don't think about the trauma of yesterday, especially a child, but we concentrate on our future. And that's what happened to me. I hardly have ever thought about Cuba. I hardly have ever thought about my relatives They

Moore to Consider: Mm-hmm.

Mario Cartaya: got wiped out. That's the place I call the vault. The vault is

Moore to Consider: Mm-hmm.

Mario Cartaya: a place where you keep your precious memories. That's where you keep your precious offerings, where you keep your precious properties, that's where wonderful things go to be protected. And in my case, the vault was protecting me. So wonderful things are happening to me. I'm a well known architect. Well received everywhere I go. I d I'm helping American presidents, throughout my career, governors, senators. I've had a wonderful life. And then one day I I realized I know who I became. I know exactly who I became, but I don't know who I am. I'm missing those formative first eight years. So I decided to go. It was like a siren song. was born inside of me, calling me back for me to put my whole life together.

Moore to Consider: Welcome to Moore to consider. Today I have on Mario Cartaya. He is Cuban born, was away from Cuba for some time and had an opportunity to go back. He's written a book, Journey Back into the Vault. And it's about his story of, you know, again, being born in Cuba, being away in nineteen fifty nine and coming to the United States, having a great deal of success, and then wanting to go back and really s sort of rediscover his roots. How are you today, sir?

Mario Cartaya: I'm doing fine. How about yourself?

Moore to Consider: I'm s I'm so pleased to have you on. So let's go ahead and talk about that story. You were born in in Cuba in nineteen fifty one, correct?

Mario Cartaya: Yes, sir.

Moore to Consider: Okay. How much I mean you're a kid. You're a kid, you know, nineteen fifty one, you're you're born. I know that some of Castro's first movements were as early as fifty three. So there had been this kind of upheaval going on for quite some time that culminates in I think January one fifty nine when the revolution when Batista leaves the country. And basically the revolution is at that point one. There may be some instability, but that's sort of the history there. How much were you aware of it as a child, six, seven years of age, that what was going on?

Mario Cartaya: Very much so because I in the book I talk about how I was a awakened by all this noise in the street outside and my grandfather came to my bedroom and hoisted me in the air and and said, Maito today's a great day. Maito is Mario in like a diminutive name, right? Like Johnny for John. this is a great day for Cuba. We we're The rebels have won and the b and the dictator is gone. From now on, you know, we're gonna be enjoying democracy. And of course, we were wrong. Within a year, I I would have to leave the island.

Moore to Consider: I've always wondered about that too. and I mean, I'm aware of this because I'm a history buff. I'm aware of I found it on YouTube. Right after 1959, Ed Sullivan is with Castro. And he goes down to interview Castro. And I think the American feeling at the time was, yeah, Batista probably did need to be out, although there were certainly powerful, there were people with powerful positions in the US that wanted him there. But I think the first read of the US government was, okay, he might actually bring some reform there, then he turns the other direction. Some have said it's the rejection of the United States policies that led him to Khrushchev and going towards the Soviet Union. But as your grandfather was saying, I guess there was a lot of people as the revolution ended that thought it was gonna be really it was gonna work out well for the Cuban people, only to find that it didn't.

Mario Cartaya: Yeah, the the final couple of years of Batista's dictatorship became very difficult to bear. But Isa

Moore to Consider: Mm-hmm.

Mario Cartaya: decided not to fight the Castro rebels up in the mountains because because that was guerrilla warfare and he wasn't equipped to fight a guerrilla warfare. So he decided to fight them when they came down into the cities. So they knew you know what happened. A lot of a lot a lot of those guys died, but a lot of innocent people died. So when the bodies began to stack up. That's when he lost Eisenhower's protection. And

Moore to Consider: Uh-huh.

Mario Cartaya: Eisenhower did a couple of things that in retrospect were mistakes, but he didn't know at the time. And that one, he he cut any kind of of of help to the Cuban government. But number two is he put tariffs on on Cuban products. those two things combined destroyed the Cuban economy, which made it easier for the people to accept Castro as he

Moore to Consider: Yeah.

Mario Cartaya: can. Now he he he came in saying that he wanted to have democracy, he wanted to have, you know, elections within eighteen months and all that stuff. It never happened.

Moore to Consider: Mm-hmm. Okay, so you come to the United States in nineteen sixty?

Mario Cartaya: Nineteen sixty, yes.

Moore to Consider: Okay. where did you first come to? Where did your family first come to in the United States?

Mario Cartaya: Miami.

Moore to Consider: Miami. Okay. Where did you go from there? So you're like third grader age wise, you're in that kind of third grade range. What do you did you enter the public schools in Miami or how did that all play out for you?

Mario Cartaya: It was easy for me to adapt quickly. I had gone to a school in Cuba called Institute Edison for Thomas Alba Edison, where they taught you English as well as many other things, right?

Moore to Consider: Right.

Mario Cartaya: So by the time I came here, I did speak a little English, just enough to get by. So I was able to almost immediately get into my my fourth grade classroom and proceed from there. becoming an American was easy. Because everything that I liked in Cuba, whether it is Cowboys and Indians, whether it is baseball, whether it is all this stuff, had roots here. Rock and roll, right?

Moore to Consider: Right, sure.

Mario Cartaya: It had roots here. So coming here was just continuing my lifestyle here, except for the family. to me, the worst thing about the Cuban diaspora is the separation of families. I I left Cuba. I never saw my grandparents, my uncles, my aunts, my cousins. I never saw them again until they all died.

Moore to Consider: I'm sorry. That's bad. That's bad. Yeah. So, yeah, it's gotta really shape somebody at that age to be in the, you know, the fourth grade range and you've actually seen well, this is off I was teaching in college several years ago, and I had a young lady in cra class that was phenomenal. Well, I say it's twenty-five years ago. And she got out of Saigon in seventy five with the US troops and ends up growing up in the US. And I asked her, I said, like, what do you remember seeing? She goes, I'd get up to go to school in the morning when I was in the first grade and there's bodies in the streets. And then I was like, you know, that's just not an that's not a thing that a lot of young people in the United States can really grasp. That people grow up in war-torn parts of the world, and this is their experience at that age. They've seen that. And I know based on what you're telling me, you saw a lot as a as a kid. Now you come to the United States, and you're coming into the Eisenhower administration, passing on into Kennedy. I wrote my master's thesis on the Kennedy assassination. So I've really studied a whole lot of this and the different views that people had. And certainly one of the connections to the people that believe in conspiracy involved in the mob was they wanted their casinos back and you know they they wanted back in, so they were upset with the Bay of Pigs. Now the Bay of Pigs is happening where you're old enough. What do you have memories of that? That the the failed Bay of Pigs invasion? Do you have memories of that?

Mario Cartaya: Of course, that's in nineteen sixty three. And I watched it on the news here with my father almost every night. We watched to see what developed and all that. And there was a point that my father tend turned to me and said, Mario, our exile just became permanent. He knew

Moore to Consider: Uh-huh.

Mario Cartaya: that after that failed agreement and he knew that The United States did not support the Cubans who went there. So he knew that there's is now a precedent for not wanting to attack Cuba, for just leaving it alone. he understood that. And he was right when he turned to me that day and he told me that. And and in the book I talk about that moment and how that's when I realized this exile that we thought would be short. will not be short. This will be five times.

Moore to Consider: So you're you're you're a young man less than twelve years of age and you're kinda realizing it's probably not gonna be any going back. That was it. Yeah.

Mario Cartaya: Yeah. I know it.

Moore to Consider: So you go on, tell tell me your story. So you go on, you know, you're in you're in grade school in United States. So what's your next experiences going forward?

Mario Cartaya: Well, I I went to Miami Springs, middle and high, which was a perfect school for me. Because back then it was not just a school of excellence, but it was a school that was divided into the different skills that the students may have. You know, how far advanced were you in math, how far advanced were you in science. So they would put the kids that were more advanced in more advanced courses. So I was able to go through the number five skills. Which were the most ad advanced kids. And by the time that I finished, then I came here to UF, University of Florida. I became an architect. So I've all I've always wanted to be. I graduated from my architectural practice, Magna Cumulat. And then pretty soon thereafter, I started my architectural business in Fort Lauderdale called Cartaya and Associate Architects, a company I had from 1979 when I founded it up until 2022. When I sold it and I moved back up to Gainesville to be a writer. but during those 43 years that I fronted the company and designed all the projects that the company got, I did well enough to have my history read into the US Congress and then also have a flag flown over the US Capitol by the US Congress in my honor, for having

Moore to Consider: Wow.

Mario Cartaya: achieved what I what I achieved. All the awards and Everything else that I received. It was a beautiful way to to finish my career as an architect.

Moore to Consider: And so this this whole time, again, you're you're in the United States by the circumstances that led you here. When did it really and again you you just said like after the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion and the new Kennedy administration and what all went to happen you know, Cuban Missile Crisis a year later, you start to see as a young man you've taken on 'cause you're hearing it from dad too. There's probably not gonna be any going back, but I'm sure all through these next decades you were like, maybe something's gonna turn, maybe something's gonna happen, maybe something's gonna bring it back. But I'm sure your longing when did when did the longing to go back really start to go? I mean, when did it really start to increase?

Mario Cartaya: Well, that's an interesting question because what happened to me, the reason why I went back, is that after I came here, right around that moment that my father said this is not going to be permanent, the trauma of being removed from your family, meaning my grandparents

Moore to Consider: Mm-hmm.

Mario Cartaya: and my uncles and and everything else, coming here, watching them die, because there was no communication with Cuba. There was no telephone. phone call that you would make, there was no letters that could make it. You know, when when when you did receive a letter, they were highly redacted, that kind of thing. You know? So there was very little communication. We only found out about our relatives through telegraphs. And even the telegraphs were limited to seven words. So things like your grandfather died yesterday. That and that's how you knew. You know, horrible, horrible displacement, horrible news. So all that What I know now is that my subconscious buried all that in a place that it keeps so that we don't think about the trauma of yesterday, especially a child, but we concentrate on our future. And that's what happened to me. For 56 years, I hardly have ever thought about Cuba. I hardly have ever thought about my relatives because I didn't remember. They

Moore to Consider: Mm-hmm.

Mario Cartaya: got wiped out. That's the place I call the vault. The vault is

Moore to Consider: Mm-hmm.

Mario Cartaya: a place where you keep your precious memories. That's where you keep your precious offerings, where you keep your precious properties, right? that's where wonderful things go to be protected. And in my case, the vault was protecting me. So wonderful things are happening to me. I'm a well known architect. I'm Well received everywhere I go. I d I'm helping American presidents, you know, throughout my career, governors, senators. I've had a wonderful life. And then one day I I realized I know who I became. I know exactly who I became, but I don't know who I am. I'm missing those formative first eight years. So I decided to go. I have to go. It was like a siren song. was born inside of me, calling me back for me to put my whole life together. And I did go.

Moore to Consider: And what year was that?

Mario Cartaya: two thousand sixteen.

Moore to Consider: Two thousand sixteen. Okay, right. Fifty six years from nineteen sixty. Okay, so I've I have a friend. I practice law and I'm an attorney and I had a friend of mine who's visited Cuba twice, maybe. I never really got into the particulars of how you get there and what all the he loves the people, but he's been there a couple of times and he brought back pictures. I'm like, man, it looks like paradise. It's such a beautiful country and so with Castro I God, what year did Castro die? Twenty tenish? How long has he been dead?

Mario Cartaya: No, he died around twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen. What one

Moore to Consider: Okay, so it's twenty eight okay.

Mario Cartaya: he he died right after I I came back.

Moore to Consider: Okay, so yeah, that's what was gonna ask. So he was still alive when you went. Okay. So what were the mechanics of I I guess things have been eased quite a bit as far as travel there, or is it still real difficult to get in and out?

Mario Cartaya: Well, I happened to return during a year that Cuba was doing much better than ever before under the Castros.

Moore to Consider: Okay.

Mario Cartaya: Twenty sixteen was the Obama rapproachment. they had already created thousands, hundreds of thousands of private businesses on the island. And everywhere you went they had food, they had drinks, they had nightclubs, you know, everybody was celebrating what they used to call El Cambio. Which means the change. People there thought everything had changed already. It was only gonna get better. And I kinda I I got a a part of the book where I went to this private nightclub with my two friends who went with me. And I I say all night, I I dreamt with the dr the dreamers and I drank with the doers. You know, I kind of molded with these guys their enthusiasm,

Moore to Consider: Mm-hmm.

Mario Cartaya: their hope. for tomorrow were so palpable that it was beautiful. And then after that it all went downhill. It was it was horrible how it went from being so well to then being now worse than ever.

Moore to Consider: So you're saying that at the end of the Obama administration, with policies the US had made and the time that you go, the people there are seeming to view that maybe things are getting better and then

Mario Cartaya: yeah.

Moore to Consider: Castro dies a year later. Is it when Castro dies the government kind of starts to clamp back down?

Mario Cartaya: I think it was many things. I think that

Moore to Consider: Mm-hmm.

Mario Cartaya: Russia got really spooked, that the US and Cuba were again getting so close, right? China got spooked as well. So

Moore to Consider: Right. Mm-hmm.

Mario Cartaya: there were things happening that maybe they think that Cuba has gone too far. So they they start to to make it difficult. At the same time, we have a new president that comes in and brings the embargo. Tougher than ever before by punishing

Moore to Consider: Mm-hmm.

Mario Cartaya: any country that's doing business with Cuba cannot do business in the US. That was new. That makes everything difficult again. And

Moore to Consider: Right.

Mario Cartaya: then you got COVID in 2020.

Moore to Consider: Yeah.

Mario Cartaya: And COVID was like the last straw. You know, no one was sending Cuba any syringes, even though they developed their own medicine, you know, their own shots. they didn't have the syringes to be able to administer them. So it was a very difficult time for them, as it was for many other countries. And they've never recovered. Tourism stopped going there. and then as the embargo kept being toughened, you know, they named Cuba what do you call it state, a terrorist state. You know, all these things happen, right? And to most people, the words to the Cubans, it means that every time that an American president says something like that, people back off. So now you lose your your tourism, you lose your business, you lose everything. And it's it it's led to what we see today.

Moore to Consider: Let me let me ask you this because, you know, I'm guy that Anglo Saxon Protestant grows up in Virginia and I'm heavy into baseball. So really my first experience with Cubans was in baseball. And it it was a kid out of Miami that I dearly loved him. I coached him in junior college. He kind of told me his story. And then I had a kid this last year And I really didn't know his background. So we get to talk and I was like, tell me your story again. He goes, I was born in Cuba. I'm you were born in Cuban. He goes, Yeah, he goes, my mom's Cuban, my dad's Italian. So my dad ended up in Cuba and you know, he had to get out and he got out. So he's the kid's twenty, twenty one years old. And you know, I love this kid and he's telling me his story. And, you know, certainly in Florida, with a lot of the guys I've run with that that are Cuban background, they're very, very, I would say pro free markets. They're, you know, they've come out of this experience. So I see I see what you're saying about at the time Batiste has gone overboard with the dictatorship. And this is starting to look like something. I I think about that very same thing in this country. I tend to think that US people tend to skew a little bit more towards freedom, but when the haves and have nots become a big enough disparity, you never know what's coming next. And it sounds like that's a lot of what was going on in Cuba. It's not that these weren't freedom loving people, et cetera, et cetera. But under the circumstances, what Castro was saying sounded pretty good. You know, and then it goes a different direction. And it seems like what you were saying in 2016, you could almost start to see the light. Well, which makes me wonder with his death, were the maybe the some of the people in his orbit like, well, wait a minute, wait a minute. If we go too far, we're gonna lose control of this. We need to and all the other circumstances you say that are going on at the same time. But I think Castro's death probably triggered a little bit more of the the control thing. So where I'm going with the question is, where do you think the rank and file Cuban is today? Do you think they want reforms? Do you do you think many are really supportive of the structure of the government or they just don't think they can overcome it? Where where do you think the people on the ground are, if you know in any degree, where do you think they are?

Mario Cartaya: Well I think they're all over the place.

Moore to Consider: Really?

Mario Cartaya: yeah. They they know that Cuba needs to make major changes, not minor changes. They need to make major changes. They need to go to a capitalist economy so that they can participate

Moore to Consider: Right.

Mario Cartaya: with the world's economy. Although

Moore to Consider: Right.

Mario Cartaya: you you you can't survive just being yourself anymore. You gotta be part of the global economic

Moore to Consider: Mm-hmm.

Mario Cartaya: system. So they they have to join, and to join it. There's only one way to join it, and that is through having a a a capitalistic system. Go through the World Bank and begin to get all those loans and all those things that you need the banks and everything else in order to be able to facilitate the flow of money from one place

Moore to Consider: Right.

Mario Cartaya: to another. So until until they do that, nothing is gonna happen. And they're starting to do that. They they just passed a law yesterday where they're now allowing people to have 100 employees or more before they couldn't. so they're starting to loosen up a little because they have to. So I think the rank and file knows that a major change is coming. It's just what can we as the United States do to help facilitate that to happen? And what happens once they allow this to happen? Of course, what I think that should happen is that we should ask them actually make it something that would be it to their benefit to bring back the 1940 constitution that Batista abolished when he went back to Cuba from West Palm Beach and became the dictator in in 1956, right? So bring that back because that one has the the home ownership business ownership land ownership as a human right

Moore to Consider: Mm-hmm.

Mario Cartaya: and that's something that is very difficult to take out right Is is it's not that you have the right that the government gives you the right. It's a human right. It's a whole different level of of security. And with that and the changes that they're doing, maybe we can get a part of of the embargo release where we trade with the island. And Americans can go back and begin to reclaim the lands that were confiscated. The Cubans can go back and begin to reclaim the lands that were confiscated. We c we can do that. But we're gonna have to both Cuba and the US begin to set a trust. Nothing

Moore to Consider: Right.

Mario Cartaya: happens, no friendship can happen, no partnership can happen unless you build the trust. And that's what's missing. So somewhere down the line, we have to start talking about how do we build a trust? What do we do? What do they do? What do we do? What do they do? In that matter, in order to build a trust. And then maybe from there. We can move on to a new future. The past is over. And I think

Moore to Consider: Yes.

Mario Cartaya: everyone there and here understands it. Now it's a matter of what road do we take? Do they take it alone? Or do we walk that road with them, holding hands like friends, and help them achieve what they want and what we want? It's possible, but again, you have to establish trust.

Moore to Consider: So let's get back to 2016. You go back, and now let's see, you are you know roughly in your mid-sixties, fair, mid to late sixties. And you're separated by 56 years from that context. So I think as you said, as I I looked at some of the reviews on your book or some of the story of the background of your book, you're looking for the places that you grew up. You're you're looking for actual buildings. You're so you did you get a chance to like enter rooms that you had had been in as a child that were you able to find these things?

Mario Cartaya: That and so much more. every place I went, my subconscious releases the memories. But since I had

Moore to Consider: Mm-hmm.

Mario Cartaya: never remembered those memories for 56 years, they weren't corrupted. Anytime that you remember something, you remember the last time you remembered it. And so in my case, that never happened.

Moore to Consider: Right.

Mario Cartaya: two, three years after after coming here, all those memories were stored. I could never get to them, so therefore I couldn't remember. So I I would go there and the memories came back like movies. It happened the day before, but more than just movies, I could hear the voices, I could smell the food, I could see my family, I could also feel the way that I felt when I was that age. You know, that wanting to impress your teachers, that wanting to please your parents, you know, those feelings, those That innocence that you had as a child returns to me everywhere I go. It was just a beautiful, beautiful experience. And your memories that you can't think of yet lead you to these places that you normally would have not gone. I'm in my school. I got I got I got allowed to go walk through the school with my friend, and I tell my friend, let's go upstairs for a minute. I didn't know why. I just did. And I got there and I opened the door. Luckily, there was nobody inside. But when I walked in, there's a sign that says, Welcome to the fourth grade. That was the same fourth grade classroom from where I had left. Very quietly, 56 years before, because I was warned not to tell anyone that I was leaving in order to avoid the vitriol and the violence. That would happen to those who were leaving the island. And there I was, same room, same desk, same chalkboard, nothing had changed. And it was like that throughout. Everywhere I went, the siren song reminded me: go here, open this door. You know, it was beautiful just to trust these memories that were coming back, but I did not feel yet, but they they were guiding me to where I needed to go. in order to really fulfill it.

Moore to Consider: So was it painful or was it more did it regenerate you more? Which which direction did that go?

Mario Cartaya: Well, my fear, which is the fear that that you just expressed, is that the demons are still there. Those demons belonged to fifty-six years ago. A child, not to be as an older adult. no. they there were emotions. Some emotions were very happy. I would say most of them. Some were kinda sad, but I would say the vast majority. of the emotions. Imagine if you could see your father again as a younger man talking to you, your grandfather talking to you, your family

Moore to Consider: Right. Right.

Mario Cartaya: seated and having dinner together. Imagine all that. To me, the big, the big sadness, the big tain, but again, it was a good thing, was when I went to the cemetery and I saw everybody buried, right? And then I I I kneeled to pray for for their soul, to pray for for them. And all of a sudden, I I remember I had promised my father when my when my grandfather died, he was the first to die. I promised my father that I would not cry because he wanted me to hold it back so that my grieving mother wouldn't suffer for me too.

Moore to Consider: Mm-hmm.

Mario Cartaya: Child, right? And I realized, you know, I never cried. And that realization brought, you know, such an explosion of tears that it took me by surprise. But the beauty of those horrible tears, that I couldn't be there for them. I couldn't tell them how much I always loved them. I couldn't tell them goodbye. But when that ended, there's this beautiful vision of my family sitting outside my house, the men. Would sit to drink their beer. My uncle Marcolin had his deco art glass. He was the only one who drank his beer from a glass, it was an art deco glass, and you know, and then inside my mother was playing the piano, my grandma, my my grandparents were cooking. It was that beauty of seeing them, or I guess imagining them, you know, in their caskets, right in front of me. At the same time. This beautiful memory comes back of them celebrating life. So there's a beautiful contradiction, but at the same time, a realization that the past is the past and the present is the present, and I would rather remember them as it was than as dead people.

Moore to Consider: Th there's definitely something about presence and being somewhere. Like I said, all the things you could have still been in Florida and you could have thought through a lot of things, but to be there and to be where they were actually buried and to be in the w in that world that you grew up in. And to shed the tears, to have that opportunity to let that go. I mean, I think that I don't know, I'm no no specialist in that field, but I I certainly know there are certain procedures to grief that we kinda have to go through. And I don't know. I think that that's that's it's a beautiful story, but at the same time it's like I could understand fifty six years removed from somewhere. Because everything I hear you saying, there's definitely that grieving you have over the place that's your homeland. But the greater aspect of it was that also reflects its family. It so it you know, our nations are made up of people, not governments, you know what I mean? So When we think of the borders of where we grow up or what our homeland is, it's our homeland because that's where our people are. So you get separated from your people, which is hugely painful. And even though you went on to have, you know, a very productive life and all the rest you stay in the United States, it doesn't remove the fact you're still from Cuba and you still have that connection to the people there. So and I I wondered about this too. It's weird, but I gotta ask. I remember as a kid at my grandmother's house in the mountains of Virginia. There was a room that I would have sworn as a kid when I used to sleep in this bed that had belonged to my grandfather when I stayed at my grandmother's house. I would have thought it was about a hundred feet from the door to that corner of the room where I slept. And I remember going back there years later when I was adult. And the room is tiny. And I used to think, man, when I was a kid and I and I slept in that corner bed in that room, I used to think it was a mile back to the door when my grandmother told me goodnight. And then I get in there and I'm like, man, my memory of what this was like. So I gotta ask you that. How much of that, you're leaving as a nine year old, how much of it was the places like you saw the school? Did things look tiny and you're like, wow, I don't remember it like that? How much of the architecture and the landscape did you look at and go, Man, I didn't remember it like this? I mean, it brought back memories, but how about that? How much of the size differences did you really go through?

Mario Cartaya: Well the the good thing is that in Cuba things have not changed at

Moore to Consider: Okay.

Mario Cartaya: all. In the homes that I left looked exactly the same. the streets look exactly the same. Nothing has changed. Ver very few buildings have been built.

Moore to Consider: Right. But did you perceive it did you perceive it I'm just saying, did you perceive it a little bit different because you were nine versus now?

Mario Cartaya: Well, the the the things that that I began to remember as as as I looked at, no forget, I had no memories of this stuff before I went. Once I get the memories come back, in my mind I'm seeing something a little different than what I'm seeing, but it's the same thing. It's just that what I'm seeing, like you're saying, is at a different scale. For us architects,

Moore to Consider: Uh-huh.

Mario Cartaya: it's a scale, right?

Moore to Consider: Scale, right.

Mario Cartaya: distance, if you scale it down. begins to come down. So it was a different scale. The hill in front of my house where I used to chase after the mosquito fumigation trucks. You

Moore to Consider: Mm-hmm. Right.

Mario Cartaya: know crazy st crazy stuff you did as a child, right? that hill seemed like it was such a steep hill in the network yet I'm looking at it

Moore to Consider: Mm-hmm. Right.

Mario Cartaya: and it was like a half of the of the steep

Moore to Consider: Sure. Yeah.

Mario Cartaya: The same way, the train tracks where I jumped on a train once. I ended up in a town a couple of miles away and I had to call my father and say, Can you please come pick me up? And he was so upset at me that I jumped on a train at age seven, right? Well that train that I thought was pretty close, no, you gotta go past a farm plus a a river, all this stuff to get to that train. So you're right, distances that seem closer or sometimes even further away. are changed because as a child you perceive it based on your feet, right? How many steps does it take? What

Moore to Consider: Right. Right.

Mario Cartaya: you eight steps as a child, now it takes you three steps as an adult.

Moore to Consider: Yeah. Yeah. And it it does change that whole perspective thing. Now that's twenty sixteen, you go back. I'm I'm assuming from from what we've our our discussion so far, you haven't been back since or have you been back?

Mario Cartaya: No, I I went back in twenty seventeen.

Moore to Consider: okay.

Mario Cartaya: See, the first time, because I've I've had a lot of of dealings with American presidents Clinton and then and then when when Kerry ran, I did his Cuba policy, and then later I helped Obama go to Cuba, you know, all that. So because of my relationships with American governors and senators and and and presidents, I knew. That the moment that I went back to Cuba, I would have a tail. And that's exactly what happened. I got there, and there's a guy following me everywhere I go. He was the

Moore to Consider: Mm-hmm.

Mario Cartaya: worst spy in the world. Because after the third day, I waved at him in a restaurant and he waved back. But I knew what he was doing. It was nothing nefarious. Here comes Mario, who has these contacts, these friends. He's in Cuba for the first time in 56 years. Why? Where is he going? What message is is he bringing to someone? So they want to

Moore to Consider: Mm-hmm.

Mario Cartaya: it's a repressive government. Where what is Mario doing? They're not going to ask me, so they're going to follow me to see what I do. And of course, the guy got tired because I kept going to homes and parks and schools and this type of thing. so I was never in any fear, but I went with with two buddies of mine. I was gonna go alone. But my two buddies said, you're not gonna go there alone. We're gonna come with you. Second time, the next year, I brought my wife. And now I'm showing her what I saw the year before. And then a couple of years later, I brought my my son and my daughter to see the same thing. And there were three different trips, but basically doing the same thing so they could see my life and what made me the way that I became.

Moore to Consider: Any desire to go back again soon? Yeah. Any plans for it? Okay.

Mario Cartaya: Of course. Of course. no. No. Not not yet. Now is not a good time to make plans. There's things happening. I'd rather see them play out. And then I would go.

Moore to Consider: Where do you see Cuba in five years?

Mario Cartaya: Well, I see Cuba as a socialist country that's that would have a capitalistic system. I mean I I think that that's the only route out. Not because we're screaming to them from here, but because the world has changed and now they've realized that they cannot remain the same hardline communist country. they need to bring in a capitalistic system. How they do that, if you're gonna tax people or something else, that's up to them. But I think that they'll be closer to a northern European country than they would be to a China, even though

Moore to Consider: Mm-hmm.

Mario Cartaya: China is very capitalistic today, but still they don't really allow religion and all that. And they they will allow religion because they already have. And that's already set in. So I I see a country more aligned with that, the Northern Europeans, even though it may still have a government that is more socialist than what we would like to have.

Moore to Consider: So I'm looking at pre-relate right quick. You're like as you say, Castro dies twenty five November twenty sixteen. now I I'm just kind of as as the best I followed in the news. Didn't his brother pretty much step into his role?

Mario Cartaya: Yeah. And he still is in but he's still alive.

Moore to Consider: And he's still alive. How old is he now?

Mario Cartaya: He is in no condition. he's in his 90s. He's in no

Moore to Consider: Right.

Mario Cartaya: condition to lead any country. So he has allowed a couple of guys to lead the country. One is his his grandson, and the other one is this engineer, Miguel Canel. and they're the ones who are calling the shots. Now, Raul, his brother, is always in the background with the military watching. The people that fear change the most are not the people of Cuba. It's not really the civilian government of Cuba that fears the change. The military are the ones that fear the change because they have been a corrupted organization for many years. And they also have had almost 70 years of abusing the Cuban people. So they're afraid

Moore to Consider: Mm-hmm.

Mario Cartaya: for their lives. They're afraid for their their corruption, right? That somebody would then come back and want to claim all of those monies back. So right now, Raul is

Moore to Consider: Okay.

Mario Cartaya: quiet, but he head the military and they're watching carefully. They're not going to let this go too far.

Moore to Consider: Do you see major reforms upon Castro's death? I just looked up, I think he's ninety five. So when he passes, do you think that I I see what you're let me let me back up and say this too. I see what you're saying though too. When you look at, you know, other countries that have been, you know, historically like I remember the story I think that's pretty well accepted with Stalin. Stalin always had to kill off a group of people that knew his dirt. And then he had a new group, and he's like, Well, now they know the dirt of me killing the other ones. And he just kept taking people out because I think what you're saying about they've formed a government or they're they have supported a government or they've been a part of a government that they've propped up. It's not much room for reform because people too many people know what they are. They almost have to keep a death grip on the structure because they can't afford to give up the structure. So You know, it's it's but I kinda wonder can there be enough natural death from the leadership that maybe something new steps in, maybe somebody realizes the things you're saying about in a modern twenty first century, you know, or quarter of the way through this twenty first century, if we don't change, we don't survive. Is that an open

Mario Cartaya: Well that's exactly that's exactly what they're going through now.

Moore to Consider: Mm-hmm.

Mario Cartaya: the the military has a civil arm to it, believe it or not. It's called Gaetsa.

Moore to Consider: Right, right. Sure.

Mario Cartaya: And Gaetsa owns all those properties in old Havana. The ones where every tourist goes to. The hotels, the restaurants, you know, the the nightclubs, you know, they own all that. So every I wouldn't say every petty, but most. Of the expenditures from the tourists in Cuba goes to the Cuban military through this

Moore to Consider: Uh-huh.

Mario Cartaya: Gayetsa corporation that they own. That's where the corruption comes in, right? And so now that Cuba is changing into a more private you know economy, it's hard to ignore the tourism sector in Cuba. It's a very large sector. And most of that is going now to the military. So how they handle that in the coming weeks, in the coming months, is going to be a very interesting future. It'll determine what Cuba will become. Something needs to give on the tourist sector so that private enterprise can make up some of those profits and and then pay in taxes to the government, not the military. See, Cuba is two things, right? You got the government, and then you have the military. And the military oversees the government. You can say whatever you want, but in the end, if we don't like it, we'll close you down. Like they did the first time. You know, the the government joined, not the government, the military joined the Russians and the Chinese and saying, this has gone too far. We need to slow it down. And they basically slowed it down and then COVID shut it off.

Moore to Consider: Mm-hmm.

Mario Cartaya: Here we go again. How far would the military let all these discussions that are going now in Cuba, not with the US? You know, everything has been through Diaz Canel, who keeps talking on TV, on Cuban TV, that they need to change, that they need to bring in, that the the revolution needs to change. That includes military, right? So he's using that word. They the revolution needs to change. It needs to bring in a more capitalistic economy because times have changed. So he's verbalizing that. That's a very good sign. Now we'll see how the military reacts. But that was a perfect question you ask. Very, very

Moore to Consider: Yeah, well I Yeah, I mean there's a lot of stuff that fascinates Okay. And I gotta go down this road with you a little bit. Because again,

Mario Cartaya: please do.

Moore to Consider: I'm a baseball guy. It fascinates me Okay, good. Okay.

Mario Cartaya: You know, how am I, buddy? So you I I grew up playing baseball. Baseball is like in my bones.

Moore to Consider: Well, and we wonder that history. Now, I've heard different reports on Fidel Castro and his actual abilities. But I know he got like a a heavy workout with the Washington Senators, and there was always this kind of rumor that, hey, what if he'd signed professionally in baseball? He wouldn't have been around for the revolution. But I was t I was talking to a friend the other day. I mean, I just got back from the Dominican Republic and this was a gift from a guy there who was a vendor that I mean, I loved the people. I've worked with a tip ton of kids in the DR. And the Dominican Republic represents about twenty percent of major league baseball and it's less than two percent of the US population. And I was talking to some guys this spring and I go, Well, think about Cuba. There's there's, you know, thirty major league clubs, twenty-six man rosters now, and there's easily one team full, you know, r you could roster an i entire team of Cubans of guys that have had to escape the country and all the rest of like, God knows how many baseball players would come out of Cuba and play at the major league level if allowed to. So there's been So it must be, and I know it from from from the culture of the friends of mine, the Dominican, they come out of that culture. We're the best players in the world, we're gonna prove it. And I think it's pretty much probably the same thing with Cubans because there's been so many stars to come out of that. So how much is that a national pride thing? You know, which your knowledge of of of how Cuba plays baseball, how baseball has grown in that country?

Mario Cartaya: Well, I just published a new book. It's called Before the Revolution. the Untold Story of a Hundred Years of Friendship Between the US and Cuba. And I have

Moore to Consider: Yes.

Mario Cartaya: a chapter dedicated to just baseball. the first Cuban to play in in the US professional baseball league. This this is prior to Major League Baseball, right? was this guy in eighteen seventy six. First guy. And then from there, you know, Cuba opened the Cuban Professional League, and that became the best baseball play in the world.

Moore to Consider: Uh-huh.

Mario Cartaya: All these black players came, yeah, then the Negro leagues to play

Moore to Consider: They went there. That's exactly right. Mm-hmm.

Mario Cartaya: here. Many of the white great American players like Babe Ruth is they came to play in Cuba. So

Moore to Consider: Came to play in Cuba.

Mario Cartaya: if if if you were a a young kid. And you wanted to sharpen your skills, Cuba was the place to go. So the number of great players, the Willie Mays and all these guys, Tommy La Sorda, all these guys that went through Cuba, Americans

Moore to Consider: Yes.

Mario Cartaya: to play was beautiful. Every the Cuba had two seasons, too. Cuba had the professional baseball league that played in the winter. My team was the Almendares, there was the Havana, and there was the Marianao. and they played during the winter. And then during the summer, we had major league sanctioned teams. We had first

Moore to Consider: Mm-hmm.

Mario Cartaya: the the the Cubanos, and then later we got the the the sugar Cuba Kings who played in the AAA. And I I was fortunate enough, and it it's in the book. I was fortunate enough to go to the deciding game seven of the 1959 Cuban Sugar King versus Minneapolis Millers. the game to decide the winner of the International League.

Moore to Consider: Wow.

Mario Cartaya: And I was there when Cuba wins this game. And half the players for our team were Americans. When my father's friends from the U.S. I'm talking the CEOs of Frigid Air, the CEO of Sylvania, the CEO of Emerson. Since my dad was their accountant, there was like two, three times a year that they would travel to Cuba, or my father would travel, you know, to their their states and meet. You know, where are we going? You know, what can we do business-wise? This kind of a thing. but whenever they came to Cuba, they would always end up in my home because my grandmother used to cook delicious. So they would always come, they would always have dinner with us, and then from there, they, my father and I would all go to the baseball games together.

Moore to Consider: Mm-hmm.

Mario Cartaya: Watch the Americans and the Cubans play together and play against each other. We played with or against each other for almost a hundred years. That's how tight baseball is in the heart and soul of both countries. So is it any wonder then? That Cubans want to play baseball. Is it any wonder then that they want to eventually come here? The baseball. It's no different than when they used to go to Cuba to play there back when the major leagues the blacks couldn't play.

Moore to Consider: Exactly.

Mario Cartaya: If if you're a ball player like you were, like I was, you want to play the best. The best is has been here since the 1940s. But for 40 years before that, the best was there. Because you had a little bit of everything.

Moore to Consider: No, there's there's no question. Well, I mean, I think about all of really North America. How much of the the different pockets I just thought about I got a friend of mine in born in nineteen forty seven that pitched in the big leagues and he was telling me the story about going to Venezuela to play winter ball.

Mario Cartaya: Yeah.

Moore to Consider: And he said, People were wonderful. He goes, But we show up at the ballpark one day and there's all these armed kids out front, you know, with with automatic weapons thrown over their shoulder. So I looked at a teammate and I'm like, what the hell's going He goes, They a revolution going on. So it's the time, you know. This was I guess late sixties. And he said, you know, sometimes when you went to places in the world to play winter ball, you didn't really know what the politics were, what was going on, you know, at the time. and I had a coach buddy of mine, we grew up together in Virginia. And he said sadly a few years ago, with a lot of what was going on in Venezuela, they couldn't kid they couldn't send kids to play winter ball. And a lot of the Venezuelan players were getting their families out because, you know, certain powers that be in Venezuela would find out that they had like a rich son or something playing and they'd go be they would be kidnapped and it was bad. You know, it was bad. So Venezuela was a place that they stopped really playing a lot of winter ball. But I've worked with a bunch of Venezuelan kids too. And There's another country. Look look at the number of guys in the big leagues that are famous from Venezuela as well. So this it's Venezuela, Cuba, Dominican Republic. it's just been a lot of players that have come out of there. And it's greatly enriched Major League Baseball. But for the listeners that are listening now, Mario is referring to is a lot of the great black players that would barn storm would would play in Cuba. They would they would go down to play in Cuba and there was a lot of minor league baseball connection to Cuba. And it was different times, but it's it's not like And I've made this point a lot. It wasn't like people in the US didn't recognize if you unleashed the black talent that was there into the major leagues. They would be dominant players. And they were after Jackie Robinson. You saw the color barrier break and you saw the players that came out of that era. The Aaron's, the Frank Robinsons, Willie Mays. And many of these guys had history playing in the Negro Leagues before they came into the major leagues. So I do think that's one of the beautiful things. I think baseball unites all. I think I I do. I think that that's one beautiful aspect of baseball is it is international, it's interracial, it the ethnic, it none of that matters. You score a run, you score a run. Everybody looks at the you know, it's always ninety feet, the diamonds the same, it's you know, it's all God's children playing it. So So Mario, this has been a wonderful like we're about about fifty minutes right now. So here's what I want to ask you. I want to give you open here at the end, how can people Find your books. How can they find documentaries or anything else you've done from that? How can people reach you and any other closing remarks you want to make about your journeys back to Cuba?

Mario Cartaya: Well the the book that we've been talking about, which is Journey Back In into the Vault is this one here.

Moore to Consider: Okay.

Mario Cartaya: this book has already received three in international awards as best book and then two American Writers Award as best best book. This book is becoming a movie. There's a group in in in

Moore to Consider: Why?

Mario Cartaya: Hollywood that is doing a movie and we're as far now as as having the investors documents. So anyone who wants to be a part of this, I'll be more than happy to get him the book, get him the screenplay. And if you want to be a part of this beautiful story of finding peace for a child, then please let me know. But you can pick up this book anywhere. You can pick it up in Amazon, Barnes and Noble. You know, there's like 60, 70 outlets around the world that are selling it. And then my my brand new book that just was published two weeks ago is this one. This one is the result of me spending a year in the Library of Congress. You know how I told you that they read my history into Congress and they flew a flag all over the Capitol from my architectural career. Part of that was to give me the same access as any setting senator or congressman to get into the Library of Congress and review up to a certain category. Right? So I did. I spent a year researching anything. That was Cuba and and US related. And from those documents that I found comes this book about friendship. That's what hit me the hardest is the friendship that developed and that stayed true for almost a hundred years, up until the Americans were kicked out by by Cuba's new regime. So this one just came out already. I'm gonna be reading from this book in four different countries. I'm gonna be reading in about twelve different universities. It's a wonderful book that if you ever wanted to know the true story, you know, without any right wing or left wing, you know,

Moore to Consider: Right. Right.

Mario Cartaya: pick this up. It's a book about friends and how friends that live nearby can both help each other to become their very best.

Moore to Consider: Well, God bless you, sir. Mario Cartaya and you you've talked about your books here, you've talked about your history here. I'd love to have you back again sometime. We'll just do a whole show on baseball maybe sometime.

Mario Cartaya: You know what? I'll take you up on that because I have a whole chapter on this book on baseball. And I played baseball myself through college. So, you know,

Moore to Consider: Yeah.

Mario Cartaya: I I love the game. It's it's the it's the glue that has kept our family together. And I had the pleasure of of having that kind of a glue with my father and then later with my son, who also played baseball, also was old county, also was everything else. Baseball, like not to quote the movie, but I will. reminds reminds us of all that was good and could be again. It's such a wholesome way to live, playing for the team, playing for yourself at the same time. leaving it all in in the field, knowing that you get to live it again the next day. Not the next week, the next day. Just like life. You live it all on the field with your friends. you you you defeat the other team and when you do, you you go shake their hands and then later you do it again the next day. It's a lifestyle of being able to to live in a certain way. And that's I

Moore to Consider: You know, that that's

Mario Cartaya: think what makes it special.

Moore to Consider: that's what bothers me the most about what's going on. I see it at the major league level. Man, I was when I was coming up, and I think you probably feel the same way, you competed like mad on the field, but you respected your opposition. There was things you did not do, you didn't cross certain lines, you didn't show people up, you didn't do all this dancing around and doing

Mario Cartaya: I know.

Moore to Consider: stuff like that. It just wasn't part of the game. You celebrated to some degree your success. But you respected the game and you respected your opponent and I see a lot of that lost. Okay, again, sir, God bless you. I greatly appreciate you having on today. Anything else you want to say to the audience in closing?

Mario Cartaya: Be happy because you're here.

Moore to Consider: I appreciate you, man. I really do. God bless you, sir. This has been more to consider. Please like and subscribe. those of you that do more of the listening on Apple Podcast or the Spotify, go in and leave me a nice review so we can do more shows like this. God bless you all. Sir, have such have a great day and I really do appreciate having you on. We'll get together again soon.

Mario Cartaya: God bless you.

Moore to Consider: God bless you.