Finding Manana | Random House Publishing Group

About the Book

A vibrant, moving memoir of prizewinning journalist and New York Times reporter Mirta Ojito and her departure from Cuba in the Mariel boatlift—an enduring story of a family caught up in the tumultuous politics of the twentieth century.

Mirta Ojito was one teenager among more than a hundred thousand fellow refugees who traveled to Miami during the unprecedented events of the Mariel boatlift. Growing up, Ojito was eager to fit in and join Castro’s Young Pioneers, but as she grew older and began to understand the darker side of the Cuban revolution, she and her family began to aspire to a safer, happier life. When Castro opened Cuba’s borders for those who wanted to leave, her family was more than ready to go: they had been waiting for the opportunity for twenty years.

Now an acclaimed reporter, Ojito tells her story and reckons with her past with all of the determination and intelligence—and the will to confront darkness—that carried her through the boatlift. In this stunning autobiography, she sets out to find the people who set this exodus in motion, including the Vietnam vet on whose boat, Mañana, she finally crossed the treacherous Florida Strait. In Finding Mañana, Ojito and tell the stories of the boatlift’s key players in superb and poignant detail—chronicling both individual lives and a major historical event.

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Praise for Finding Manana

“It’s impossible not to admire the boldness, the candor, the moral toughness of Ms. Ojito’s writing. In this wonderful memoir, she ransoms herself from the seductions of nostalgia, and reclaims instead the beleaguered Cuba of her childhood—a Cuba that is all the more interesting for not being looked at through the prism of longing and desire.”—The New York Times

“In Finding Mañana, Mirta Ojito goes a long way in righting the Mariel story and bestowing some belated dignity on this ragged stepchild of exile history.”—The Los Angeles Times

"Ms. Ojito's book is filled with the anguish of separation and the tragedy of living under a merciless regime. But it also celebrates familial bonds and undying love—not to mention freedom itself, a gift too often taken for granted by those of us who have never had to live without it.”—The Wall Street Journal

“The insight Ojito brings to bear, coupled with the crispness if her prose…make this memoir required reading for anyone interested in the history of post-Batista Cuba or Cuban-American relations.”—The Washington Post

“New York Times reporter Mirta Ojito melds the personal with the political in a moving account of her family's departure from Cuba. She also provides a solid historical context for those five months in 1980 when 125,000 Cubans arrived in Florida, a mass exodus that came to be known as the Mariel boat lift.”—People

“Ojito’s historical reconstruction is fascinating... (She) has created a poignant and poetic memoir of an important moment in Cuban and US history.”—The Washington Times

“…this is much more than one Cuban exile’s bittersweet tale; it’s the memoir of an entire era.” —Times-Picayune

“Ojito's book…is unlike most entries in the genre of the modern memoir. More than a novelistic exercise in creative recollection, it’s a skillful blend of reportage and family history about a pivotal international event.”—Sun-Sentinel

“Like many Cuban exiles, Ojito says she left part of her soul in Cuba. The good news is the rest of it came over with her intact. Plenty of it went into this book.”—St. Petersburg Times

“… a political drama … bound to be a page-turner.”—Palm Beach Post

“A thorough and exciting account…a suspenseful story…A skillful melding of individual personalities with the grand currents of history.”—Kirkus Reviews

“...fast-paced and riveting…Ojito uses her formidable research, eye for detail and interviewing skills to lay bare the behind-the-scenes machinations…through her writing, she has opened a window for others, and offers a fine introduction to the human face of history.”—Bookpage

“…a rich, but nuanced picture of life in Cuba under Castro and the intimately personal nature of politics.”—Library Journal

“Until I read this book, the Mariel refugees were headlines in a newspaper, stereotypes fed by political rhetoric. In Finding Mañana, Mirta Ojito has given me a peek behind the headlines, and a sense of how history affects the individual." —Esmeralda Santiago, author of When I was Puerto Rican

“Finding Mañana is a strongly written, straight-shooting and affecting memoir about one family’s experiences leading up to the Mariel boatlift out of Cuba. Rich in detail and concise in its capturing of that chapter of Cuban history, the book is also a touching tale of a young woman’s coming of age during a time of great political turmoil and personal travails.”—Oscar Hijuelos, author of The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love

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Excerpt

Finding Manana

From Finding Manana by Mirta Ojito

The police came May 7, 1980, when I was about to have lunch: a plain yogurt, sweetened with several spoonfuls of sugar, fried yellow plantains, and an egg and ketchup sandwich on half a loaf of Cuban bread. I was wearing a bata de casa, a housecoat, over my painstakingly ironed school uniform: a blue skirt with two white stripes around the bottom hem, signaling I was in eleventh grade, and a starched white poplin blouse, which I didn’t want to stain with grease.

I was just sitting down when I heard the steps on the stairs. Heavy, loud steps. One, two. One, two. One, one, two. I could tell they belonged to a woman and two men. Years of listening to people climb the twenty polished steps that led to our apartment had trained my ear for the idiosyncrasies of footsteps. By the way she paused after every other step, I knew the woman was our downstairs neighbor and la presidenta del comité, the president of the neighborhood watchdog committee. The men were agile and led the way. They skipped several steps and got to the door before I could alert my mother.

A knock.

On the red plastic clock above the television set it was fifteen minutes past eleven in the morning. I looked at my mother, who was straightening her skirt at the door to the bedroom, where she had been sewing a dress. Her maroon skirt was littered with pieces of yellow thread. I waited for a signal from her. She heard the knock too, but did not move. Then our neighbor spoke.

“Mirta,” she called out to my mother, a little out of breath. “Open up. It’s the police. You are leaving.”

My mother swallowed and opened the door. A burly officer, unshaven and dressed in olive green pants and a white T-shirt with large sweat rings under his arms, walked in. Without introducing himself, he read our names out loud: Orestes Maximino Ojito Denis, Mirta Hilaria Muñoz Quintana, Mirta Arely Ojito Muñoz, and Mabel Ojito Muñoz.

“Are these the names of the people who live here?” he asked. My mother, who had started to tremble, said yes.

“There is a boat waiting for you at the port of Mariel,” he said, pausing a bit to gauge our reaction. He went on, “Are you ready and willing to abandon the country at this time?”

“Yes,” my mother said, her voice merely a whisper.

About the Author

Mirta Ojito

Mirta Ojito was born in Havana, Cuba, and came to the United States in 1980 in the Mariel boatlift. She has received the American Society of Newspaper Editors' Award for best foreign reporting, and she shared the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting, for her contribution to the series "How Race Is Lived in America." Her work has appeared in several anthologies, including Written into History: Pulitzer Prize Reporting of the Twentieth Century from The New York Times, edited by Anthony Lewis. Ojito has taught journalism at New York University, Columbia University, and the University of Miami. She writes for The New York Times from Miami. More by Mirta Ojito

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