What do you think?
Rate this book
CUBA ADIOS: A Young Man's Journey to Freedom
Between 1960 and 1962 more than 14,000 Cuban children escaped Fidel Castro’s communist regime as part of an airlift known as Operación Pedro Pan. LORENZO PABLO MARTÍNEZ was one of these children. In CUBA, ADIÓS: A Young Man's Journey to Freedom, Martínez vividly recounts his participation in a program that bridged two different cultures and achieved great political significance over the years. At eighteen, he forfeits a music scholarship to Prague to accept an unknown future of exile in America without knowing the language, money to pursue an education, or family to help. Plagued by guilt around his sexual identity and having to care for a younger brother, Martínez forges ahead to become the composer of his future; later he opens the doors that enable his sisters and parents to join him after a harrowing sojourn in Mexico City. With the same determination, he attends college and pursues a music education, obtaining a master’s degree from the Manhattan School of Music, then a doctorate from Columbia University. Even after his music compositions are published and performed on television and at international festivals, Martínez feels restless and spiritually unfulfilled. Until, that is, he is able to define the true music of his freedom. CUBA, ADIÓS is a poignant, thoughtful account of one boy’s survival and self-acceptance, written with unflinching honesty and a wry humor.
284 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 11, 2014
4 people are currently reading
12 people want to read
About the author
Lorenzo Pablo Martinez
4 books8 followersBetween 1960 and 1962, more than 14,000 Cuban children escaped Castro's communist Cuba. Martinez was one of those children. In his memoir Cuba, Adios, he explores his participation in a program that bridged two different cultures and gained great political significance over the years. The book received first prize in the International Latino Book Awards, was a finalist in Reader's Favorites, and named "most relevant book of 2016" by the Houston-based group "Conversing Through Poetry." Martinez's writings have appeared in several online literary magazines and has been featured in the "Miami City Herald." Martinez is President of the board of Write Space, a Houston-based non-profit organization that nurtures emerging writers, helping them to network with other writers and to received training from professionals in the publishing world.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
November 14, 2014
Cuba Adios: A Young Man’s Journey to Freedom by Lorenzo Martinez Book Review 11/11/14
Cuba Adios captures the historical event, Operation Pedro Pan, where thousands of Cuban children were sent to the United States between 1960-1962 to protect them from Castro’s communist regime. Written from the personal perspective of a young man, Lorenzo, it is both a riveting and an enlightening account of the challenges and heartaches experienced by these young children.
Martinez was a brilliant 17 year-old pianist with leanings toward Castro’s revolution when he was forced from a country he loved. His well-meaning, loving parents instructed him to take care of his younger brother as the two of them set off for America and an unknown experience. The plan was to eventually reunite the family in America.
Martinez’ writing is mesmerizing. With uncensored and lyrical prose, he pulled me into his experience and kept me turning the pages until the end. His use of music as a metaphor is very effective: “My heart sped at a setting no metronome could track.” There were times when I could almost hear his music in the background as he led me through his heart wrenching challenges and onto his journey of freedom:
“When I left Cuba, my core lost its music and it took a while before I heard the rumblings of a melody wanting to come through. When it emerges, it came with lyrics written for me. Now, I wanted to write my own, to be the composer of my own future.”
His writing and his story left me in awe of all he endured and overcame. Cuba Adios is a beautifully written personal tears-to-triumph story that sheds light on the realities of Operation Pedro Pan, a part of America’s and Cuba’s history that few of us who lived in that time knew much about. Martinez delivers a fine performance in this heartbreaking and transformational memoir. I experienced the heart and soul of a courageous young man in search of his freedom in a story that flows like a symphony.
Cuba Adios captures the historical event, Operation Pedro Pan, where thousands of Cuban children were sent to the United States between 1960-1962 to protect them from Castro’s communist regime. Written from the personal perspective of a young man, Lorenzo, it is both a riveting and an enlightening account of the challenges and heartaches experienced by these young children.
Martinez was a brilliant 17 year-old pianist with leanings toward Castro’s revolution when he was forced from a country he loved. His well-meaning, loving parents instructed him to take care of his younger brother as the two of them set off for America and an unknown experience. The plan was to eventually reunite the family in America.
Martinez’ writing is mesmerizing. With uncensored and lyrical prose, he pulled me into his experience and kept me turning the pages until the end. His use of music as a metaphor is very effective: “My heart sped at a setting no metronome could track.” There were times when I could almost hear his music in the background as he led me through his heart wrenching challenges and onto his journey of freedom:
“When I left Cuba, my core lost its music and it took a while before I heard the rumblings of a melody wanting to come through. When it emerges, it came with lyrics written for me. Now, I wanted to write my own, to be the composer of my own future.”
His writing and his story left me in awe of all he endured and overcame. Cuba Adios is a beautifully written personal tears-to-triumph story that sheds light on the realities of Operation Pedro Pan, a part of America’s and Cuba’s history that few of us who lived in that time knew much about. Martinez delivers a fine performance in this heartbreaking and transformational memoir. I experienced the heart and soul of a courageous young man in search of his freedom in a story that flows like a symphony.
September 9, 2014
A gripping, must read memoir -
In "CUBA, ADIÓS: A Young Man's Journey to Freedom," author Lorenzo Martinez writes about his participation as part of the secret exodus, a mass migration of children from Cuba, known as Operación Pedro Pan in the early 1960s.
Told from a historical perspective as well as from personal experiences, Martinez's vivid memoir grabbed me and drew me in right from the start, into his life in Cuba, his family, his relationships. The story begins when Martinez's world is shattered with a telegram. A letter taking him away from his music, the music that defined him, all in the name of freedom. A communique that ensured his place in history as a Pedro Pan.
The story, engaging and lyrical continues with Martinez's exodus to the United States along with his brother, Beni. Throughout, I'm in their corner, hoping for the best for them as Martinez says, "adiós" from one locale to another, shedding relationships. He paints a picture of his life in camp, the feeling of isolation in different foster homes, the mixed emotions of his college years at Washington State University and his reuniting with his family. The story wouldn't let me go. It continued with his move to NYC with all of its experiences until his final "adiós" on the last page.
Like all great stories, I wanted it to continue. I can't say enough about Lorenzo Martinez's fascinating memoir that takes us from fear and hopelessness and loss, to happiness, optimism, and finally to freedom and peace within himself, a composer of his own future.
In "CUBA, ADIÓS: A Young Man's Journey to Freedom," author Lorenzo Martinez writes about his participation as part of the secret exodus, a mass migration of children from Cuba, known as Operación Pedro Pan in the early 1960s.
Told from a historical perspective as well as from personal experiences, Martinez's vivid memoir grabbed me and drew me in right from the start, into his life in Cuba, his family, his relationships. The story begins when Martinez's world is shattered with a telegram. A letter taking him away from his music, the music that defined him, all in the name of freedom. A communique that ensured his place in history as a Pedro Pan.
The story, engaging and lyrical continues with Martinez's exodus to the United States along with his brother, Beni. Throughout, I'm in their corner, hoping for the best for them as Martinez says, "adiós" from one locale to another, shedding relationships. He paints a picture of his life in camp, the feeling of isolation in different foster homes, the mixed emotions of his college years at Washington State University and his reuniting with his family. The story wouldn't let me go. It continued with his move to NYC with all of its experiences until his final "adiós" on the last page.
Like all great stories, I wanted it to continue. I can't say enough about Lorenzo Martinez's fascinating memoir that takes us from fear and hopelessness and loss, to happiness, optimism, and finally to freedom and peace within himself, a composer of his own future.
September 12, 2016
Cuba Adios: A Young Man’s Journey to Freedom is a memoir by Lorenzo Pablo Martinez, one of the thousands of young Cubans brought to the United States of America through a clandestine operation called Pedro Pan. When Fidel Castro won the revolution and subsequently closed every school in Cuba, ostensibly to start a comprehensive educational reform, Lorenzo's parents are determined to leave the country and, for the eighteen-year-old Lorenzo, life is going to take a completely different turn. A talented pianist looking forward to a scholarship in Prague, he suddenly finds himself facing an uncertain future as an exile in the US, accompanied only by his younger brother Beni, with the mission of helping the rest of his family flee Cuba while temporarily finding a home for him and his younger brother. Unwilling to leave his friend and mentor, Jorge Luis of La Casa de Cultura, the rest of the family and Santiago, his beloved city, the reluctant Lorenzo sets off and shapes his own destiny.
As a young man, Lorenzo Pablo Martinez seems destined to become a noted pianist in Cuba when his friendship with Jorge Luis of La Casa de Cultura blossoms and he moves into the rarefied world of Cuba’s foremost artists. This was not to be, however, and Cuba Adios: A Young Man’s Journey is his life story. Written in the first person perspective, and dotted with sardonic wit and steadfast honesty, this is an extraordinary journey that unfolds during a momentous time in Cuba’s history and continues long after the height of the US-Cuban crisis. It is indeed difficult not to empathize with two boys flying into an unknown life with just three changes of clothes in their suitcases. As Lorenzo and Beni move from a camp to Washington State and live with two American families - while trying to stay together, get an education and bring the rest of the family to the US - one cannot help but cheer them on. Going full circle, Lorenzo goes back to Cuba, to the city and a friend who has touched his life forever. Lorenzo Pablo Martinez's creative writing style is simple, inspired and lyrical and his story will certainly win your heart and mind.
February 19, 2015
I found this memoir to be engrossing and beautifully written. Lorenzo Pablo Martinez was one of the thousands of children forcibly exiled to the US in the early 1960s from Cuba—via the Operacíon Pedro Pan airlift. Sent by well-intended parents so that their children would have freedoms thwarted by Fidel Castro’s communist regime, Martinez and his brother find themselves in an alien world of temporary camps, predatory adults and foster homes—prisoners themselves in the “land of the free.” Martinez further experiences the collision of his two worlds in 1962 as the US threatens nuclear war with the Soviets over the Bay of Pigs missile crisis, and his parents’ situation in Cuba worsens. This coming-of-age story, while filled with loss and pain, is a brave account of resilience by a remarkable man who—against tremendous odds—discovers his true self and his rightful place in the world.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews