Freedom Tower, Miami's bastion of hope for thousands of Cuban refugees
Miami's Freedom Tower became known as 'The Refuge' to 450,000 Cuban refugees who passed through its doors from 1962 to 1974. Volunteers offered food, medical care, financial support.
Miami Herald Staff
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Search the Freedom Flights database
The Freedom Flights represent the largest and longest resettlement program of political refugees ever sponsored by the U.S. government , offering an escape from Fidel Castro's Cuba to 265,000 people. This is an effort for people who were on the Freedom Flights to find their names, as well as their families, complete their records, and reconnect over the memory. This is the only public record of the Freedom Flights at this time.
Can't see the database search box? If you can't see the database, click here .
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Christina Acosta Sutter
Dear Ms Yanez,
My heartfelt thanks to you and the Miami Herald for you article and posting of the Freedom Flights database. Coincidentally, today is the 42nd anniversary of my family’s arrival from Cuba on the Freedom Flights. I remembered first thing this morning and was pleasantly surprised to see your article on the front page of the Miami Herald. Several years ago I heard mention of this database but had never been able to access it. I was thrilled to find it this morning on your paper’s website.
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Miami Herald database tracks those who came on Freedom Flights
The gray-haired woman pressed two arthritic fingers against the computer screen to better focus her 73-year-old eyes.
''There we are!'' exclaimed Maria del Carmen Guzman of Hialeah, her eyes filling with tears. Right there, on the master passenger list of Cubans who fled the communist island on the famed Freedom Flights, she spotted her name and those of her late husband and two sons.
Now, other Cuban exiles in South Florida and across the country who arrived penniless and with less than a week's worth of clothing in their suitcases can experience the same sense of personal history with Wednesday's launching of The Miami Herald's Cuban Freedom Flights Database Project.
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Mayra Fuentes
To whom it may concerned:
Reading the Miami Herald on line I came across the Freedom Flights database - I searched for mine and my parents names, but I was not successful. We arrived at Miami International Airport on Wednesday, May 3, 1967 on the second flight of the day: Mayra Rodriguez Varela -- 10 year old child (me), my father: Antonio Rodriguez Alfonso - deceased 10/23/1993, and my mother: Blanca Sara H. Varela Lorenzo - deceased 01/07/1993. My brother, aunt and uncle where living in Miami at the time so we stayed, my parents till their passing and me till 2002; I now live in Arlington, Va 3.5 miles from the White House. I married a Cuban like me who arrived on May 1972 via Freedom Flights -- I did find his/family names in the date base, we have an adult daughter that was born and lived in Miami until she left for college in 1996. She now lives with her husband (an America of English/Scottish descend) and infant son in New York City. Please ad my name and my parents names to the database. I am
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Freedom Tower hosts launch of Miami Herald database on Freedom Flights
Fifty Cuban flags hung in rows inside Miami's Freedom Tower -- one for each year since the triumph of Fidel Castro's revolution.
Wednesday night, more than 200 people marked the five decades at the iconic Freedom Tower, the very place where tens of thousands of Cuban exiles were processed during the building's years as a refugee center.
It was the night of Dec. 31, 1958, and into the early hours of Jan. 1, 1959, that Castro toppled Cuban strongman Fulgencio Batista, an event that changed both the island and Miami forever.
The database -- an Ellis-Island style registry -- contains the names of Cuban exiles who entered the U.S. through the Freedom Flights, between 1965 and 1973.
The unique, searchable database obtained by The Miami Herald, is believed to be the only one now available to the public.
The personal information it contains was mainly entered by immigration workers at Miami's Freedom Tower. One oddity of the list is the designation of ''Boat'' as the mode of entry -- that's because most freedom flight passengers were initially claimed by relatives in the U.S. during the Camarioca boatlift of 1965.
In such a massive list, there are errors and omissions. The Herald is asking freedom fliers to help make corrections and enhance the database by sending photos and memories from their early days in Miami, or last days in Cuba to FreedomFlights@MiamiHerald.com
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