If memory serves me well, when we finally left Cuba for good and returned to Miami in 1962, I remember my father —whose family was Sermidesi from Northern Italy— had said to my mother's father—whose family was from Atlanta, Georgia— the following words:
"I'm glad our family is leaving for safer grounds. Cuba is entering a very dangerous phase. It's Mussolini all over again. Fidel Castro arming all those people, dressing them in Blueshirts, and calling them militias brings to mind Mussolini's Blackshirts. Worn out by their constant presence everywhere, as if they were just another adornment to the landscape, the Italians became too complacent and stopped reacting against them. Il Duce then turned his Blackshirts into battering rams against his own people. Then it was too late for the Italians to react against him. Hitler similarly used his paramilitary Brownshirts. I'm glad my children are going to a country where that can never happen. "
The Professor
