Mike Kallmeyer visited with U.S. Rep. Anthony Gonzalez, R-Rocky River, whose grandparents fled persecution in Cuba when his father was a child.
"They fled the Castro regime after Castro had taken over,” Gonzalez said. “Fidel's people came to my grandfather and asked him to be a judge in one of their provincial courts, sort of like the equivalent of the Cuban supreme court. Of course it was a kangaroo court because it was Cuba and everybody was supposed to be fully loyal to Castro and all that he believed in. That was not my grandfather; my grandfather is a pro-democracy, freedom-loving man. And so, he said no, but at the time, anybody who said no to the Castros was probably going to get killed or put in jail, especially at that high level. So, they made the decision, which was tough, to escape from Cuba. It took them a while to finally get the right documentation and paperwork, but ultimately came here, came to Miami for a few weeks, then up to Cincinnati where they settled for the remainder of my father's childhood and where we obviously have lived in Ohio. We moved to Cleveland for our entire time as a family."