The Cuban Experience in Florida: Revolution and Exodus
Gustavo Alonso de la Torre to Fern M. Pence, August 4, 1961

Text from letter:

Miami, August 4, 1961

Mrs. Fern M. Pence
Welfare Department
Cuban Refugee Center
Miami

Dear Mrs. Pence:

This letter is the official notice of my resignation as a Social Worker of the Department, to be effective the 20th of the present month of August.

As you know, I am resigning because I have accepted an appointment to the teaching staff of the Lower Marion School District, Pennsylvania, begining [sic] September 5.

I can’t leave the Welfare Department before expressing my gratitude to you, to the Supervisors, to the Social Workers and all the other employees for being so friendly and kind in these past months. Also, I wish to congratulate you all for the humanitarian work you are doing helping us, the Cubans, that have abandoned everything we possessed fleeing from our country with tears in our eyes and sorrow in our hearts, to show the world we believe in democracy and in the Western Christian civilization.

I know that some day in the near future we will return to our county with the help of the Americans, and may I say to you that the friendship between our countries that was sealed with American and Cuban blood in San Juan Hill in 1898 cannot be destroyed by the hate of a demagogue who is only a toy-puppet handled by the communists.

To end this letter, I wish to express that I have been lucky to work under Mr. McCutcheon. He is intelligent, capable, and always has a nice work for the social workers of his unit.

Thanks and good luck.

Very truly yours,

Gustavo Alonso de la Torre