Bienvenidos

Nikki Gamer: Hi everyone, this is Nikki Gamer for Catholic Relief Services. And welcome back to Behind the Story, a podcast series that invites you to celebrate the people behind 75 years of our history—the people we serve, our partners, our staff … and especially the supporters, like you, who make our work possible. In our last episode we spoke to Donal Reilly, our director for humanitarian response, about how we’ve become a leader in emergency response. But today, we’ll be talking about a little-known piece of our history—one that helped more than 100,000 people right here in the U.S.

Nikki Gamer: We’ll be talking about the 1960s, when CRS worked with other Catholic agencies, and churches across the United States, to welcome and support Cuban refugees. From our office in Miami’s Freedom Tower, CRS registered more than 124,000 Cuban refugees and resettled more than 57,000 between 1961 and 1965. Thousands of them were unaccompanied children. This was our last refugee resettlement project in the United States. We’ll be talking to the Trujillo family about their experiences … Michael Trujillo, a relationship manager in our Church Engagement department, and his parents, Annie and Raul Trujillo of Atlanta, who were both helped by CRS in the early 60s.

Nikki Gamer: Annie, Raul, Michael Trujillo, welcome to Behind the Story. We are so glad to have you.

Raul Trujillo: Oh, thank you for having us.

Nikki Gamer: All right, so I’ve noticed you have a very playful dynamic. And so I wanted to just start with Michael. Tell us about your parents.

Michael Trujilo: Yes, my parents have been together for more than 50 years, but I think what’s awesome about them is they can be serious when they need to, but also be fun when they need to. So sometimes I’ll come up here to watch the Latin awards shows, and my mom and I will dance, but then we can also be serious, and then we can go and celebrate God at Mass or different cultural celebrations.

Nikki Gamer: Wow. Okay. Fifty-four years of marriage, Raul and Annie. Raul, how does a relationship last for so long?

Annie Trujillo: A miracle.

Raul Trujillo: I give her a medal for patience and understanding, but I mean, it’s been great.

Nikki Gamer: I see you shaking your head, Annie. What’s your take?  How have you lasted?

Annie Trujillo: Well, I think you had to learn how to listen more than talk, have to remember only the things really made you get together and pray a lot.

Nikki Gamer: Yeah, faith plays an important part of your family. Does anybody want to talk about that?

Michael Trujillo: My Dad is the official prayer person anytime we get together as a family.

Nikki Gamer: All right, Dad, you’re up.

Raul Trujillo: I think the faith has been ingrained in our lives from when we were kids. We both went to Catholic schools.

Raul Trujillo: When we came to United States, I think we saw the fact that the Church in Atlanta was really kind of a small community. We’re only three percent of the population of Atlanta, and we were involved in some of the activities, especially when the Cuban exiles came to Atlanta.

Nikki Gamer: Annie, do you have anything to add?

Annie Trujillo: I think what really kept us together, it was the same faith and practicing the same faith—we didn’t have to fight for that. That you have problems like everybody else, but faith put us in the same road to keep on going.

Nikki Gamer: All right, so Annie, I want to talk