My family is from Cuba, where they owned a sugar cane plantation that later was taken over by Castro as part of his new communist regime. In 1959, at 19 years old and having just finished high school, I suddenly became poor after we lost our properties in Cuba. I asked my father, “Dad, now that I am poor, what can I do?”

RUSTIC ROOTS: The author is seen here at age 10 in 1948 with his parents and sister on the family’s sugar cane plantation in Cuba. He thought he would one day take over the operation, but things didn’t work out that way. (Photo courtesy of Mariano Molina)

He responded, “I have a cousin who is a professor in Chapel Hill, N.C. I will put you on a plane and send you to the USA.