Tony Montana was not a Marielito. Yes, in "Scarface," he arrives in Miami during the Mariel boatlift from Cuba, but it is important to remember: "Scarface" was just a movie, meant to entertain, not to educate; and Tony Montana was just a cartoon.
The real Marielitos and Marielitas are people like my friends Patsy Feliciano and Betsy Gonzalez, who arrived here 31 years ago this spring and summer with little more than with their families and with their ganas to build a better life.
And how they have succeeded.
I like "Scarface" as entertainment, but I concede that the film, and the violence and the cocaine and the misogny depicted, probably has had an undue influence on what many think about Marielitos and Marielitas, and Cubans in general. There's not much I can do about that ignorance.
But because of what I have learned from my friends, and from others whose stories are told in a new documentary, "Voices from Mariel," I admire most Marielitos and Marielitas for two reasons:
First, how they overcame everything they risked and lost in coming to America to build new and fruitful lives. Like the Cubans of my parents' and grandparents' generations, they have made this a better country as they built their American dream for themselves and for their families.
And secondly, their commitment to doing whatever they can to ensure that their home, their Cuba is one day free again.
For that, I am proud to call some of them, like Patsy and Betsy, my friends.
And for that, America should be proud to have them.
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