Bend woman plans long-delayed return to Cuba

It’s been 44 years since Bend resident Teresa Lawrence used her Cuban passport.

With new hope stemming from this week’s major announcement, she hopes to change that in the new year.

“I want to learn about my heritage, visit my family and enjoy island,” Lawrence said Thursday.

The early Christmas present was not delivered in a sleigh, but on TV Wednesday, when President Barack Obama announced an historic decision to begin repairing the U.S.-Cuba relationship after over a half-century split.

“I saw it in English, I saw it in Spanish — I saw everything, and it was great!” Lawrence said of the president’s address. “Everyone was texting. I got texts from Miami, texts from New York, from LA.”

Stretching across the U.S. and all the way back to Cuba, most of Lawrence’s tight-knit family is excited. For others, a half century isn’t long enough.

“The reaction to this news is very generational,” Lawrence said. “My father is not pleased by this news. He will never return to the island.”

That’s because when Lawrence last used her passport in 1970, it was no vacation.

“My entire family left Cuba with $4, and it’s by the grace of God that we all made it,” Lawrence said.

She was just 4 when the family of six fled to Spain. Her father was an enemy of the state

“They played the Communist national anthem, and my father did not stand up,” Lawrence said. “He was sent to prison. He was stripped of everything. He was tortured.”

It only made the family more determined to not just survive, but thrive.

“We’re resilient people — that’s who we are,” Lawrence said.

Eventually moving to the U.S., each family member either become a doctor, lawyer or engineer.

Now, Lawrence is excited to return to her roots. She’s also eager to bridge the gap between cultures, generations and those 90 miles so close, yet so far away.

“It is the exchange, it is visiting people, talking to them, that’s going to change things — not isolation,” Lawrence said. “We have to forgive — both sides — and move on. That is the only way to move forward.”