It's not the label balsero, rafter, that bothers Alain Landrian. I don't think that's right. Alain was one of more than 3,000 children who five summers ago escaped from Cuba with their families on flimsy homemade rafts, setting off the most massive exodus from the island since the Mariel boatlift of 1980. Unlike most other Cuban refugee children who resettled into new lives relatively quickly, the balseritos endured long months in isolation and legal limbo, living among strangers under drab-olive military tents at the U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. They lived through very difficult times.'' For this report, The Herald visited several Miami-Dade County families who spent months in the refugee camps in Guantanamo.
Success stories abound Most of the children are doing remarkably well.
Success stories abound. Most have picked up English with amazing ease. The ordeal was too much for his mother, who ''went like crazy and started screaming, 'We're going to die. We started rowing to them. We had a raft tied to our boat in case we started to sink, and we thought we could help them.