They Escaped Cuba, Now They Welcome Florida’s Move to Warn American Kids
Students in grades 6th through 12th will begin learning about the horrors of Communism, the evil ideology that killed 10 times as many innocents as the Nazis did in the last century.
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by T.J. Muscaro
December 13, 2025
It has been more than 65 years since Cuban leader Fidel Castro’s regime pushed Dionel and Marina Cotanda to leave their beloved Cuba for the United States.
Unmarried and with only $65 between them — because the communists had taken the rest of their money — they found exile in Tampa, Florida.
“They thought this was temporary,” says their daughter, Lourdes Cotanda-Ercia.
However, as the pall of communism settled over their homeland, they made the United States their home, going on to marriage, military service, academic degrees, business successes, outspoken community leadership, three daughters, and several grandchildren.
As interest in communism grows among young Americans, the Cotandas, like other Cuban immigrants, welcome Florida’s decision to create the first school curriculum that teaches the dark history of the ideology that they know all too well.
The Florida State Board of Education, at the direction of state lawmakers, voted on November 13 to add lessons on the history of communism to social studies standards for students in grades sixth through 12th for the 2026 to 2027 academic year.
“Florida’s new History of Communism standards will ensure that students learn the truth about the brutal realities of life under communism and gain a deeper appreciation for the blessings of liberty that define our nation,” Florida Commissioner of Education Anastasios Kamoutsas said in a statement.
As Dionel Cotanda fled Cuba 65 years ago, his heart was torn.
In the airport terminal hung a quote from José Martí: “Solo los cobardes abandonan La Patria,” which translates to “Only cowards abandon the motherland.”
“Am I a coward for leaving?” Contanda asked himself.
But after years of watching Castro rise to power and tighten his influence over the minds of their neighbors and his control over their businesses, Cotanda remained firm in his decision.
Writing in his doctoral dissertation, he said he was sympathetic to Castro at first but soon turned against the communists. He described the takeover as a “revolución de los callos,” callos being the Spanish word for “callus” or “blister.”
“Until they stepped on your toes, you didn’t react,” he said.
Dionel Cotanda was working for the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. at the time. He secured a work transfer to a location in Tampa after the state placed a random shoemaker in charge of the Goodyear factory in Cuba simply because he was a longtime Party member.
Marina Cotanda, who was studying journalism at the time, said that she was against Castro from the start and watched as he manipulated the hearts and minds of her neighbors.
Signs were posted on doors reading, “Fidel, this is your house,” and schools began teaching kids to see Castro as their father. She also recalled watching Castro and his men parade down the street in front of her Havana apartment wearing rosaries to trick practicing Catholics into publicly exposing themselves.
Marina Cotanda said she is concerned about the growing influence of communism across the United States. She said the problem is not limited to young people, and pointed to adults with similar beliefs already serving in politics and education.
“The communists [are here], working little by little,” she said. “I am completely sure. But it is not the time to go out of the closet.”
“They have to stay in the shadows,” she said.
Jose Ramon Perez Campos did not arrive in the United States until 1992, after growing up on the island and working as a filmmaker. Now a grandfather in his 60s, he spoke to The Epoch Times in a Little Havana cigar shop and shared how he watched Castro’s regime steal money and land from the people. Back then, Castro had final say over all his movie productions. Several of his scripts were taken away and have yet to see the light of day.
“The people have a short memory,” he said.
“I lived the experience — and it doesn’t work,” he said. “If you can tell me one country [in which socialism or communism works], I will give some cigars for free. You don’t have any examples anywhere. Not in Nicaragua, neither in Venezuela.”
Changing the Standards
Such sentiments sparked Florida’s decision to put the history of communism on the curriculum.
Just before the unanimous vote, member of the Board of Education Layla Collins recalled a conversation she had with a man who fled socialism and was about to be a father. He told her that he, too, saw the growing favorable trend toward socialism within the United States and that it scared him.
That conversation, along with her own realization of the growing trend toward communism across the country, pushed her to have a talk with her husband, then a state senator.
That talk would result in the writing and introduction of Senate Bill 1264, which Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed in April 2024, tasking the Department of Education with adding the history and dangers of communism to its curriculum.
“I had no idea that we would face this intersection that we’re at right now, where you have political violence on a rise, you have socialism and communism penetrating every avenue of our life and every aspect of our children’s education, but the patterns were pretty profound and obvious,” Collins said.
Although more than 80 percent of Americans still hold an unfavorable view of communism, one in three Americans younger than 30 hold a favorable view of the ideology, according to a recent survey by Cato Institute and YouGov.
The survey also found that 28 percent of big city residents hold a favorable view of communism. These results were published months before New York City voted for democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani to become its next mayor.
“This ideology has led to the oppression, suffering, and death of millions of people, and our students deserve an education that reflects that reality,” Collins said.
Dionel Cotanda said he does not believe that the United States is under threat of turning toward communism and socialism.
“I have a lot of faith in the institutions here,” he said. “I think they’re strong enough to overcome that issue.”
Balanced Education
The next step for Florida’s education leaders is to put the standards into textbooks and instructions to be implemented in the coming year.
“We are adopting these standards today, so that we can then put these standards into courses which the board will be considering,” Paul Burns, senior chancellor of the Florida Department of Education, told the board on Nov. 13.
Yuleisy Mena, executive director of the Bay of Pigs Museum and Library, who also fled communist Cuba in 1992, said she hoped that the curriculum change would bring a more balanced education.
“Students often receive instruction on fascism, particularly through excellent, comprehensive Holocaust education, yet the history and real-world consequences of communism are not always taught with the same depth,” she said.
“To foster true critical thinking, students should be exposed equally to all major political systems, including the documented statistics, human suffering, and historical outcomes associated with communist regimes.”
Mena was a social studies teacher for 10 years, earned her doctorate, and now teaches at Florida International University.
The curriculum changes only affect students through the end of high school, but Cotanda-Ercia said she is concerned about the pro-socialist environment professors maintain at the college level.
“When [my daughter] Alexis went to [the University of Florida], she learned right away how liberal the professors were there,” she said.
If she wanted to get an A, she would write a paper in accordance with the views of the professor, not her own views, Cotanda-Ercia said. Her nephew did the same.
“They did it just to finish the class,“ she said. ”But that was a big thing back then.”
A recent survey conducted at Northwestern University and the University of Michigan found that 88 percent of students pretended to hold left-wing views to appease their professors.
Yet even though they are pretending, the education they’re receiving is overwhelmingly from a communist perspective and worldview. Students cannot possibly have the breadth of knowledge necessary to filter all of it.
But in Florida, they’re no longer on their own.
— This essay is published in cooperation with The Epoch Times.
I feel now more than ever education on Communism is crucial so here are some titles for Dr. Martin to share with his audience and for them to give to their families for Christmas this year if they like:
• Gulag: A History by Anne Applebaum
• The Great Terror: Stalin’s Purge of the Thirties by Robert Conquest
• Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine by Anne Applebaum
• Exposing the Real Che Guevara: And the Useful Idiots Who Idolize Him by Humberto Fontova
• Fidel: Hollywood’s Favorite Tyrant by Humberto Fontova
• Mao’s Great Famine: The History of China’s Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958-62 by Frank Dikotter
• The Berlin Wall: August 13, 1961-November 9, 1991 by Frederick Taylor
• The Jews of Silence: A Personal Report on Soviet Jewry by Elie Wiesel
Thank you to T.J. Muscaro and Dr. Martin for this amazing piece that belongs in the New York Times or the Washington Post! I applaud Governor Ron DeSantis and the great state of Florida are to be applauded for adding a robust curriculum on the history of the evil ideology of Communism! Every state in this country needs to follow suit. I don’t care if your left, right or center, Democrat, Republican or Independent, we can all agree Communism is an evil and malignant ideology that has led to the deaths of hundreds of millions of people around the world. Thank you so much to the Florida State Board of Education.
Communism has long been a plague on humanity! Too many young people and city dwellers think Communism is a good thing. Allow me to educate you. Feel free to go look up Stalin’s purges, the massacre of the Kulaks, the brutal response to Kronstadt Rebellion, the Great Leap Forward, the Chinese Cultural Revolution, the killing fields in Cambodia under Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, the Gulags, the KGB and the Stasi, the assassination of Leon Trotsky in Mexico in 1940, the Holdomor, and the 1953-55 Doctor’s Plot and then comeback and tell me how great Marxism is. I sympathize with these Cuban Americans who saw first hand how evil Communism is under the Saddam Hussein next door, Fidel Castro and his right hand man psychopathic mass murderer Che Guevara.
Let’s talk about Cuba for a second. Cuba before Castro was a first world country with better living standards than much of Europe that Spanish emigrants were lined up around the block to get into. Castro’s predecessor was Fulgencio Batista a major general in the Cuban Army who’d seized power in a coup. Batista was a thug no doubt, but Castro and the Communists would be SO much worse. Also, the Cuban people at least had a greater degree of under Barista than under Castro and he was somewhat of a sympathetic figure because even though he was Cuba’s President, he was not allowed to join the prestigious Havana Yacht Club because he was half-black. His regime did much to assist Afro-Cubans. Also, let’s set the record straight, did the Mafia have casinos and a presence in Cuba? Yes. But the extent of their control and influence in Cuba is greatly exaggerated! Cuba before Castro while not perfect, was a prosperous, industrialized nation where Americans and westerners including movie stars often took their vacations.
After the revolution in 1959 and Castro’s subsequent rise to power, Cuba became a third world h***hole with some of the highest abortion and suicide rates in the world that not even impoverished Haitian migrants wanted any part of. Hundreds of thousands fled Cuba with only the clothes on their back on makeshift rafts to escape Castro’s brutal regime some Cubans even went as far to inject themselves with AIDS because they’d rather die an agonizing death than live under his wanton brutality. Castro locked up more people in his gulags than Hitler and Stalin did in their first three years in power. He was a racist and a sexist, an unabashed admirer of Adolf Hitler for example his infamous “History Will Absolve Me” Speech was patterned after the Fuhrer and was a proud supporter of international terrorism. Returning to my first point, the majority of the people locked up in his gulags were blacks and Mulattos and his Gulags held some of the longest suffering female political prisoners in history.
The Revolution and Castro’s rise to power drove 90% of the nation’s Jewish population to flee the country. That’s a greater percentage of the Jewish population than Tsar Nicholas II expelled from Russia back in the early 20th Century. Some of those who he had fought with felt Castro and his cronies had betrayed the Revolution (which they did) and went into the jungle and launched a guerrilla war against his regime. On a side note, why is it Castro and his cronies get all the praise and attention, but no one talks about these guys? Where’s their Hollywood movie? Cuban democracy would’ve developed all on its own had Castro not butt in! As to Che Guevara, he was far from the great revolutionary and man of the people he was portrayed to be by propaganda.
Che was in reality, a sociopathic monster and mass murderer who enjoyed killing, said hate was a good emotion to feel, urged the Soviets to launch nuclear missiles at NYC during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and hated blacks, Mexicans and gays. He took special delight in torturing gay men. Che was to boot a bad soldier, a coward, a Stalinist bore, and stunk like the high heavens as he cared not at all for his own personal cleanliness. When Bolivian government forces finally caught and surrounded him in 1967, he called out “don’t shoot! I’m Che! I’m worth more to you alive than dead!” He was quite willing to send hundreds of thousands to die in front of firing squads but couldn’t face one himself. As to socialism, it doesn’t work either. Just look at Venezuela under Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro or Nicaragua under Daniel Ortega and the Sandinistas! Returning to Cuba, guess who ran the drug trade on the island for decades? Castro and his brothers. By the way, it was Cuban intelligence who helped Pablo Escobar stay one step ahead of the authorities. That’s right, the Castro brothers helped Pablo Escobar escape justice and keep the murderous Medellin Cartel up and running!