Worm : A Cuban American Odyssey

When Edel was nine Fidel Castro announced his surprising decision to let 125000 traitors of the revolution or 'worms' leave the country. The faltering economy and Edel's family's vocal discomfort with government surveillance had made their daily lives on a farm outside Havana precarious and they secretly planned to leave. But before that happened a dozen soldiers confiscated their home and property and imprisoned them in a detention center near the port of Mariel where they were held with dissidents and criminals before being marched to a flotilla that miraculously deposited them overnight in Florida.