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♪
Welcome.
Welcome to the Avalon in Hollywood.
It is a privilege to be here tonight
to celebrate the life of this extraordinary woman
that I'm just so touched by...
By her soul
and her spirit
and then, her story just blew me away.
She represents a generation.
Perhaps our greatest generation of Cubans.
So without further ado, I would like to introduce
the members of Angela Alvarez's Orchestra.
Let's meet the band.
♪
Ladies and gentlemen, please join me
in finally making a teenage girl's dreams come true
and welcome the star of tonight's show,
singing her own songs,
the extraordinarily talented
and the sublimely beautiful
Miss Angela Alvarez.
Angela Alvarez is just weeks away
from her first professional concert
in Hollywood.
At the age of 90,
she has waited her whole life
for a chance to perform her songs.
I like to move, that's why I feel so well
because you see how I walk,
I don't walk like an old lady like this.
I walk like this.
I dance with the broom
and then make... I put the broom
like this and I make exercise.
Exercise like this.
♪
I have all these songs that I composed
I pass on.
These were in this old, old book
and then all the songs
when I wrote a long time ago, August 8th, '62.
- Yes. - This one's very old.
Yes, they are very old.
I think that music is the language of the soul.
Yes.
♪
This remarkable journey begins many years ago
on the island of Cuba.
The largest and most important island
of the West Indies is Cuba.
♪
Strikingly picturesque metropolis
of three-quarters of a million people,
Havana is a blend of the cosmopolitan and the native,
the ancient and the modern.
I grew up in a little town in Cuba
and my life, when I was a little girl in Cuba,
was very beautiful.
I was a very, very happy girl.
My grandfather and my grandmother.
My mother's parents.
He died 110
and she died 105.
And they are... they have 16 children.
My father have a big farm
in a town close to Elia,
that was the name of the Cuban mill where I was living.
Sugar is king.
♪
It is the heart of the island's economic life.
I love United States when I was a little girl.
At that time, we don't have TV
but I hear in a radio station about New York,
about everything United States.
Glenn Miller, I like him.
You are a little girl,
you learn very easy any language.
♪
And then I like to sing...
♪ Pardon me, boy ♪
♪ Is that a Chattanooga Choo-Choo ♪
I didn't even know what I said
but I sing all the songs in English.
♪ Chattanooga Choo-Choo ♪
♪ Won't you choo-choo me home ♪
♪ Chattanooga Choo-Choo ♪
I start to learn to play piano
when I was eight years old.
When they put me in the private school,
there was a person who come
to teach guitar.
And then I wrote a letter to my father,
"I want to learn to play guitar,"
and then he say, "Okay."
And then that's why I started to sing.
♪
I was about 15 years old
and I said to my father,
"May I sing a song with the mariachi."
And then he'd say, "Okay."
And then I talk with the mariachi, I sing the song,
and then the mariachi say, "Wow, we like that you sing for us
we now full mariachi."
♪
I feel that I could be famous
but my father say, "No, no."
♪
Well, I remember she was always on the guitar.
It was always... any gathering with any...
It didn't matter how many family members were there.
So my earliest memories of my grandmother
would be her on the guitar
and just cranking out a tune.
♪
If we were at a restaurant and there was a piano
or a guitar, somehow she made herself
up on that stage.
♪
All the time when I see an opportunity to me sing,
I find it, I talk with everybody.
♪
My father one day told me that he wanted to talk to me.
He asked me, "Well, now it is time
that you are going to leave for university.
May I have an idea of what you have in your mind to do?"
"Oh yes, I'm going to tell you
that I want to be a singer, a star."
"Oh, my daughter, no.
I like to hear you sing, I love you so much.
No, I don't want that for my daughter."
I love him very much and then I keep that in my mind
and in my heart.
I tried to forget about it.
But always was sing in me, yes.
♪
She was a wonderful mother and a wonderful wife
and a wonderful grandmother,
but this underlining tone
where this dream, that was just on the back burner.
♪
It was always during family gatherings
that we would... you know, after dinner or...
A lot of time when the family was together on holidays.
She just... she just wanted to entertain
after every meal or whenever she was there.
So it's just this collage of memories
that I have of her just always playing.
I don't know, I just had some kind of epiphany
where I called her and I said,
"Nana, I'm gonna fly out to Baton Rouge
and I want you to sing every song that you've ever written
for me, I want to hear them all.
I want to hear what they're about
and just so that we can have them in the family.
And I'm going to stick a microphone in front of you
and I just want you to play your songs."
♪
Now that I have these recordings
I can become more familiar with the songs
and even when we were recording them at her house,
I just remember I kept having this reaction
to how incredible the melodies of her songs were.
It was almost like we had heard them before
but they had never existed anywhere.
Well, I composed a song in Cuba.
I was 14 or 15 years old
and at that age you would dream a lot.
And it was a...
a guy that was my friend
and then I liked him
but he don't pay attention to me.
I write a song about how beautiful is love.
So tell us who that boy was.
Well, it was my husband.
And I composed a lot of songs thinking of him, yes.
Now that these songs have been discovered
and you see the writing, you see the emotion,
you see all that was in there,
you see how it was her coping mechanism.
During those times, she just expressed herself
through song, through composition
and it's just beautiful.
My husband, Orlando,
he came to LSU, Baton Rouge, Louisiana,
and he graduated mechanical engineer
to work in sugar industry.
When he come back with a degree,
he told me one day he want to talk with my father
because he wanted to marry me.
This is a very special and unusual thing
You know, these songs mark moments in her life.
♪
The company, when we married they give us a house
because that was the style in the sugar mills
and then I have four children.
José, Maria, Orlando and Gerardo.
I was very, very, very happy with my children.
It was a very happy life that I had at that time in Cuba.
♪
What I remember, they all lived in a little town
in Cuba called Guáimaro.
My mother had had my sister, my third brother, Orlando,
and my young brother, Jerry, or Gerardo.
♪
They had a farm too so we go there, you know, too
and play with the horses, cows.
All the animals, chickens.
But it was a happy life?
It was, it was.
♪
I remember, the first memory of her singing,
she would get my brother Jerry and myself
and she would sing a lullaby that involved a race.
And then my horse would be winning
and then Jerry would start complaining
and then she would change the song on the fly
where Jerry's horse should be winning.
This is me in Varadero, Cuba, with my children.
It was a beautiful...
A beautiful beach.
This is a good memory.
When we was living in that sugar mill,
José come from the school very happy.
Marucha take piano class.
Orlando liked to help the man who clean in the yard.
And Boby, all the time he asking for food
because he like food.
Yes, very happy.
But suddenly, Fidel took the country.
♪
Exiled revolutionary Fidel Castro
landed in Cuba in 1956,
in an attempt to overthrow the corrupt government
of Fulgencio Batista.
I was in boarding school so, you know,
we lived in a big dorm with about 100 people,
100 kids.
One of the Jesuit Brothers
during lunch said to us,
I remember this very vividly because it was really
quite revealing at that point,
he says, "I want to show you a film
and I want to show you a film that you cannot talk
to anybody about."
And I said, "Well, what is it?"
He said, "You'll see it."
So we went into where there was a classroom
where they had a projector
and he showed us a film
about communism.
And then he said, at that point he said...
- Sorry. - It's okay.
He said at that point,
"This is what's gonna happen in Cuba."
Batista, that's not the one to admit
that he is incapable of defeating us.
One night, we um...
The town was attacked.
My father kind of sensed that this was gonna happen.
I guess he got word
that they were going to have a big push
into the town to try to drive out the Batista forces.
I remember right at sunset the first shot went out.
There was gunfire.
That was sort of the earliest strongholds of Batista
that Fidel was able to take
because it was right at the foothills where he was.
And they would fight at night
and my father would get us all together,
put us in like the bathtub and put a mattress over everybody.
Our house was the furthest away from the Batista Army Barracks.
So because of that, I think that's why they established
their control center there.
I could hear throughout the night them talking
and instructions and what have you on the walkie-talkie.
Going to school the next day,
seeing the shells, the bazooka shells
and stuff like that on the...
On the street.
I remember seeing the bullet holes in the houses.
The concern now was,
well, this is gonna happen again.
It was just a matter of time before they came back.
So for safety, my father then made arrangements
to fly us out.
The only thing that was coming in and out
was the mail by air.
And it was one of those single-prop planes.
We flew out one morning
and we didn't take anything with us.
It was just what we were wearing at the point
'cause it was very quick.
So we flew to Havana.
We stayed in Havana and I started listening to the radio.
And then, all of a sudden, the announcement comes out
that Batista has left.
So I run in, I say to my father,
"Batista has left" and he said, "Be quiet,
you're going to get us in trouble here."
Because, you know, there was a lot of hush-hush
back in those days.
♪
Joyous followers of Fidel Castro
sweep triumphantly through the Cuban capital
hours after their rebellion had toppled
the regime of Fulgencio Batista.
It was chaotic, after that, I mean,
the streets were full of people firing shots
and there was... The normal citizenship
went out onto the streets
and there was celebrations
and Castro drove in.
He came in with a tank
and the troops and what have you.
And he had a parade going down the Malecon
and we were on the third floor looking at it.
So I was very close.
At first, he promises free elections.
He acknowledges many of the traditional rights
of citizens and the established institutions of government.
But the elections never take place
and the government quickly becomes an instrument
of coercion.
Batista left and Fidel took the power.
I never seen worse change.
♪
Fidel Castro's new regime wasted no time
in making radical changes to the country.
♪
In the school where my children was,
they put new people to teach them
and one day, my children come to say they have a new teacher,
they don't like her,
what she teach that day.
And she start to teach the children about socialists.
The teachers say, "Well, children,
do you believe in God?"
"Yes."
"You believe in God because God is good.
Close your eyes and ask a candy from him,
and repeat with me,
'God, because You are good,
put a candy in my desk.'
Open your eyes." No candy.
"Now ask Fidel.
Fidel loves Cuba,
Fidel loves you,
Fidel loves the revolution
and then close your eyes
and say, 'Fidel, because you love me,
you love my parents and you are good,
put a candy on my desk.'
Open your eyes."
Candy was there.
I wasn't going to school.
My father didn't want me to go to school
because the school became sort of...
the way to indoctrinate the kids.
So he says, "You're not going to school.
You're gonna stay away from the schools."
I do remember that there was a dirt road
that you could see from the house,
maybe about a half a mile, three-quarters of a mile,
and we would always be cognizant
if there was a car coming
that it would be someone we knew.
Because we were afraid they would come and ask
about why aren't you in school.
I was thinking, why is this happening in Cuba
that they have a change, you know.
And then I was thinking I would like to break that.
But... and then, I have the inspiration to sing about that.
Most of the time, when I compose a song,
the inspiration comes to my mind
or something happened in my life
that touched me very deep.
With just 15 days before her concert,
Angela and Carlos begin rehearsing songs
at her home in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Okay.
I have a grandson that is the son of José,
my oldest son.
Carlos, he went to Boston
and make the master in music
and I feel very proud of him.
We have a lot of connection
because we understand very well together
because they love music and I love music.
The thing about Cuban music is
it really is a fusion of European tradition
mixed, infused with this African tradition.
So, so much of what makes Cuban music
sound the way it does are those two worlds coming together.
♪
Perfect.
Bring in the rhythm section as we go here.
The bass is always really, really, really important
in Cuban music.
♪
The rhythm she picked and the style she picked,
there's just... There's nothing more Cuban.
Whenever she talks about this song,
she talks about she wishes there was a way
to calm the anger and the hate.
Along with drastic social, political, and economic changes
rumors were rife of children being taken away
to be raised by the state.
All the laws start to change
and Fidel make a law that he'll send your children
to Russia for two years
when they are under 18.
When President Kennedy hear that,
he opened the door for Cuban people
to send the children to the United States.
♪
It became obvious that we were going to leave.
Life changed a lot
when we need to make the decision
that we have to leave Cuba.
Then the process of trying to get out,
I believe, began.
And when you made known to the government
that you were going to leave, they will come
and do an inventory of your possessions
to make sure that when you left Cuba
all those possessions were still there.
And then, once you have done everything
you have to go back and wait for the announcement
of your leave,
and that happened in 1962.
I remember being at the farm and my father said,
"We gotta go to Havana, we're leaving."
He wasn't leaving, he was going to stay.
At that point, he was working for the Castro government.
What Castro did with the sugar mill industry
is that he turned it into regional productions.
Blessed day, blessed sugar day.
The United States bought the huge sugar cane crop,
that is, when Cuba was good and obedient.
But on the state farms, they are harvesting without worries.
You are not buying because we are no longer
a good little Cuba.
It doesn't matter, others will buy.
He had no choice but to really work for him
at that point in time.
You couldn't reveal your hand that you were leaving.
You could... the fact that we were leaving it was okay
but the fact that he was not applying to leave Cuba,
he never did apply, then that was okay.
You know, he was safe.
This is my husband and me.
When we take the picture
is when we made the decision that I have to go
to the United States with my four children.
And I told him that I wanted to go to a studio
to make a picture with him
because when I left Cuba he stayed in Cuba
and then I go to United States
and I told him, "I want to keep a memory of that moment
because I don't know when we are going to see each other."
♪
They send you a telegram the day that is your flight.
I went to the airport with my four children.
Well, the plan was... and they were all at the airport,
my grandmother and all of the children
and they did understand that they would never come back
to Cuba, it just wasn't an option.
It wasn't a vacation.
It was the end.
They all had like four pairs of underwear,
three pairs of pants, five shirts.
Whatever they could carry with them because that was it.
They weren't allowed to carry too much out of Cuba.
The airport was very sad in a way
because we knew that our dad wasn't coming.
Being so young, I didn't know really what was going on
but I knew it wasn't right
because we were leaving our home.
What do you remember about that day?
That's gonna be tough to...
to say... sorry, it always happens and...
- Take a minute. - Wow, give me a second.
Anyway, the reason this is difficult
is because...
I don't know this is possible.
That was when we got separated, you know,
and I think, um...
I think a lot of the junk in my life,
you know, in terms of how things changed,
I can trace it back to that moment.
We left on May 23rd, 1962.
I'll never forget the day.
When we check in
the man who check say, "For the five passengers, one can't go."
And then I said, "Who is that?" "Angela Alvarez."
"That's me, why I didn't go, why I can't go?
Because I fix all my papers
in the same plane with my children."
"Well, listen, don't make any questions to us.
We always are right.
If I say you can't go, that's it.
Don't ask me any questions."
I mean, at the last moment before we boarded the plane
they said she couldn't go.
The guy from the government looked at us, he says,
"This is no good so you can't leave."
So at that point in time, it became sort of
a decision as to whether we were going to go or not.
She asked me and asked Boby, you know, my brother.
We're the younger ones, she said, "What do you want to do?
Do you want to go or you want to stay?"
And I wanted to go, I mean, get on a plane
So that's when I said, "I want to go,
I want to ride the plane."
It felt like an adventure to me.
The man told me, "You can go tomorrow
if you go to that place and fix the mistake.
What are you going to do?
Are you going to send your children?"
"Yes. They can go?"
"Yeah, they go."
My grandmother had to make a split second decision
because she wasn't allowed to call my grandfather.
She... So the children stay or they go on their own
but she was not able to go.
I've always been in awe of that moment for her
that she could do that.
When they was walking to reach the flight,
my husband and all my family was in the terrace looking
and they see them by themselves.
They don't see me and my husband's uncle say,
"Where is your mother?"
"No, she can't come, they don't let her come,"
and they go in the airplane.
♪
Immediately, I call a friend of mine
and tell her what happened
and then she told me that she'll go to the airport
in Miami and take my four children to her house
until I go there next day.
The flight, which is only, I think, 45 minutes,
or something like that, I mean, you don't get to think
much about the flight because you leave Cuba
and you're landing in Miami
shortly afterwards, so.
They gave us gum on the plane, which we hadn't seen gum
in Cuba for about probably two years.
Bubble gum,
and they gave us like... I think they gave us a ham sandwich
and we hadn't seen ham in a long time either.
We were excited.
So the children, I would imagine,
was like, "Okay, Mom's not coming but we'll see her soon."
And soon to a child, you know,
doesn't really have any concrete meaning.
- It's just soon. - It was okay.
I mean, at that moment it was okay for me.
But looking back, that was I think really
the moment that really, I think, changed my life.
You know, being without her.
Next day, we went to the place
and the man say, "I don't know why they say you that
because everything is right."
"Well, I can go today?" "No, you can't go today.
You need to... we send you telegram again.
Could be a month, six months, or year."
We were well received and well cared for for a few days
until they had to kind of give us up
to the welfare system.
♪
Operation Pedro Pan
was the Catholic church
and the US Government's extraordinary exodus
of 14,500 unaccompanied Cuban children.
♪
Between 1960 and 1962, kids as young as five
arrived at Miami Airport
and were taken to special camps nearby.
♪
These are copies of the airport logs.
They arrived on May 23rd of 1962.
Alvarez Portilla, Maria,
Gerardo, José, and Orlando
and their birthdates.
It's important to realize that these were commercial flights.
There were no Pedro Pan flights.
You had two flights per day going out of Cuba
and everybody wanted to leave.
So getting a seat on a plane was like winning the lottery.
♪
We end up in Florida City.
It was an Air Force base compound
with many apartments.
All the apartments were turned into living quarters
for kids.
We wanted to mark the camp
as a very special place,
not only for us, but for all the children
that were in the camp.
On that side of the street,
all those were boys and girls houses.
This at night was a lot of activity
because that's where...
It was like a park because in Cuba
we had central parks and so this was our park here
in the United States.
And that's why we had it named Pedro Pan Place
because it was our place,
our very special place.
♪
The place was fenced so you couldn't get out,
the whole compound.
We stayed in an apartment
and the room that we were was probably
not more than 10 by 11.
There were bunk beds three levels high.
There was probably about 15 people living in the room.
I think in our apartment, which was a three-bedroom apartment,
there might have been 40 kids or something like that.
Oh, it was chaotic.
But at night, when our heads hit the pillow,
everybody started crying at the same time.
You could hear, you know, a choir of crying in the room.
Because at that point, we couldn't avoid what to think
what is happening to our parents in Cuba.
There were no cell phones or any way to communicate.
Sometimes a letter would take two months.
So there was no real-time information
of what was happening in Cuba.
At the time that I was there,
there were maybe 3,000 kids
in Florida City.
They would stay there for a while
and then they would fly them out to different places
around the United States.
When her papers were not gonna go through,
when it was going to take some time,
something more permanent had to be decided
and that's when they were shipped off to Colorado.
The welfare called me to Cuba
and they told me if my children can go to Pueblo, Colorado,
where they found... They have a cousin there.
And I told them, "If you promise me don't separate,"
I said, "okay," and they send to Pueblo.
They call us up one morning,
they said, you're leaving.
And there was a bus of about 30 people... 30 kids
that were going to the same place that I was going
in Pueblo, Colorado,
to the orphanage.
Children were sent to a Catholic archdioceses
throughout the United States.
We are still researching the number
but we have like 48 states and over 100 cities
where the children were sent to.
They've never been separated from their mom,
now they're in an airplane to Colorado
and you just get there and it is what it is.
Boys go to one side, girls go to the other,
and just a realization of, "I'm all by myself."
♪
The children arrived at the Sacred Heart Orphanage
in Pueblo, Colorado.
It was a mix of Cuban refugees and troubled children
from all over the country.
When the children flew over, her and her three brothers,
the boys stayed together on the boys' side of the orphanage
while my mother was alone in the girls' side
and she experienced some unpleasantness there a lot
because it was a home for...
It was an orphanage for abused children.
So she was going into an environment unknown
in Colorado, and she comes from an island.
There's a pecking system, almost like a small prison.
You know, right off, the first day,
I went to eat breakfast and they were taking the food
off my plate.
So I confronted that kid,
you know, at recess.
I went to him, I didn't say anything at that moment
but I confronted him and we got into a big, big fight.
But there was nobody there to solve this.
This is a fight and they would just let it...
Pretty much, they would just let it go to its normal conclusion.
My mom, very quickly, as an older child
at nine and ten and eleven, she was, in the orphanage,
she was assigned little ones to take care of
so that mothering came in and she would say
that was her job.
She had duties to do.
She was very good at ironing
so she had ironed all the priestly robes
and all the children's clothes.
She had a little girl that was rescued
out of an abusive situation
and that was her little girl that she took care of
and it was her baby, it was her child.
So sort of an instant growing up,
"I'm no longer a child, there's no time for that.
Now I'm a motherly figure to this child
and I must help that child."
That was my mother's heart,
"I must help, I must comfort.
I must make this better."
My youngest brother was seven.
I want to say Orlando, I want to say eight or nine,
in that range, yeah,
and my sister was a year and half younger than me.
You were looking after them and being responsible for them
and keeping them safe.
My brothers were there, and José,
you know, to me, he's my second dad.
José was... was, he put the pants of a father
and he did a good job.
Do you remember being aware of a sense of responsibility
that you had for your younger siblings?
Yeah, of course.
Yeah, that was... I was always there
and it was always something
that took a toll on my childhood.
I'm sure, because they're asking you questions
that you can't answer.
Right.
And it was really the responsibility
of playing that role.
Yeah.
After months of agony, Angela finally received
the telegram allowing her to travel to the United States.
They left Cuba May 17th, 1962,
and they send me the telegram for come to the United States
August 8th, '62.
You can't take with you anything.
They don't let me bring a suitcase,
just my dress on and no money and no English.
When I go into the flight,
on Pan American flight to come over here
to United States and the airplane go up,
I was sitting in the window
and I look down,
and I saw Cuba there, I say,
"Goodbye, Cuba.
I don't know when I'm going to see you again.
But I'm going to keep a good memory in my heart for you."
And then, when I sit straight, I start to sing,
"Que linda es mi Cuba"
and then I compose a song.
These songs, in a way, were almost like a coping mechanism
for... she lived this really dramatic life
and she had to make decisions that no mother
should ever have to make.
Angela tries out some of her songs
with Carlos' new arrangements
and local friends and family.
How many more do you want to do?
One many more?
♪
She is someone who ultimately
is about celebrating life,
no matter how difficult.
So you're hearing these lyrics and they're difficult
and she's just celebrating life underneath it all.
♪
The song itself and when she performs it,
it really does show us who she is.
How positive of a person she is
given everything she's been through.
♪
Angela arrived in Miami, Florida,
with just the clothes on her back
but her children were 2,000 miles away in Colorado.
I immediately, I went to see my friend who pick up them
and talk with my children by phone
because I don't have phone.
I say, "Mommy is here in United States.
We are going to see each very soon."
♪
I need to find a job.
The welfare told me, "Mrs. Alvarez,
if you find a job in Miami,
we promise you to bring the children to you
because you need to sustain them."
At that time, all Miami was full of Americans.
They don't have Latin people there.
You need to speak English
to find a job.
For me, it was very hard
to find a job.
And a friend of mine,
he told me, "I have a job for you, Angela."
"Are you crazy?
I don't speak English!"
"No, you don't need to speak English.
It's picking tomatoes in the field.
You don't need to speak English with the tomatoes.
You pick the tomato, put it in the basket."
They give me a big hat,
and then,
I wash the tomato with my tear because
it was very hard for me.
And all the time when I pick up a tomato, say,
"God, why you did that to me?"
And I remember writing letters to her,
of course, it was in Miami,
Lord knows, working,
probably making ten cents an hour or something like that,
and we'd write her letters...
and her letters sounded pretty normal
coming back, you know.
And my grandmother was just that spirit,
she picked tomatoes, she was a waitress,
and didn't speak the language.
She just did everything she had to do
to get her children back,
and I think the children knew that.
My mother knew that, my uncles knew that,
that it wasn't for lack of love, or abandonment,
or any of that, it was just the circumstances,
and that sort of helps you persevere.
This is not a forever situation.
Really tough situation to be in,
but it wasn't forever.
The first check that they pay me,
I went to the welfare and said, "Look, I have a job."
"Oh, good for you, Miss Angela, that you have a job,
but you don't make enough money
for support your four children here with you.
If we found a job for you in Pueblo,
you go over there?"
"Yes."
And they sent me to Pueblo.
♪
Angela finally made it to Pueblo, Colorado,
and was reunited with her children.
This is me in the airport of Pueblo
with my children.
♪
Look at them!
- Show us who is who. - He, he asked her,
"Who is she?"
And then I said, "I'm your mother!"
And then, "Oh..."
- He forgot to speak Spanish. - That's Boby?
Yeah, Boby, yeah, yeah.
I forgot to speak Spanish.
By the time my mom came,
I couldn't communicate with her.
I didn't know when she came to...
I didn't recognize who she was.
I asked my sister, "Who's her?"
"That's your mom," you know, and then I realized
it was her.
It was a very touchy moment there,
but it turned out to be
the greatest moment in our lives.
♪
Somebody was there with a camera
when my grandmother reunited with her children,
and just the rawness of that moment
in my mother's face...
So, my uncles were together,
and I know that the oldest,
José, sort of took charge,
and sort of protected his brothers
'cause that's always been who he is as the oldest.
But my mom, by herself on the girls' side,
and just the emotion of that picture,
sort of this joy, but then intense realization
of breaking free of all that she lived
and just feeling it.
You just couldn't feel it in the orphanage.
There was no time for that.
You just survive, you just push through.
But seeing her mother,
and just feeling the rawness, the hurt,
the pain of that moment,
that picture just is worth a thousand words too.
She was very much hugging the young ones
rather than me, so, you know,
I was already 15 or whatever, 16, so,
her concentration... Which makes sense...
It was mostly with Jerry and Orlando.
It was really a gift from God that,
that she was able to come to us.
But this was no happy ending.
♪
The job that they found for me
is clean a bank after the people left
in the town of Pueblo.
And then he'd take me every day at 5:00,
and I'd be there for clean the bank.
♪
Still not earning enough money,
Angela was only able to see her children at weekends.
She soon became a mother figure to many of the other children
in the orphanage,
who would join the visits at her tiny basement apartment.
They'd keep my children in the place.
And then every weekend,
I bring my children to my apartment
Saturday and Sunday.
And always I like to bring
a Cuban boy and a Cuban girl.
I cook for them.
Did you sing them songs?
Yeah, we're singing, and then we...
Everybody was happy because we see each other.
♪
She played a huge role in our life.
She was our mother in absentia
because our parents were in Cuba.
So, the weekends were looked forward to.
- So fun, affection? - She always...
Fun and affection, but always a song.
♪
On some of our Sunday visits,
she would play the guitar
and sing Cuban songs, Cuban melodies,
and sort of wrap up
the visit with her singing, yes.
This one is Juan del Aguila
with here in my little apartment,
in the basement on Christmas time,
the first time in Pueblo, first year.
I cook for everybody,
and then we celebrate Christmas.
It was just a very lonesome time,
so she particularly took on
a very important role
in our life there.
And then, afterwards,
because we've had reunions,
and we keep in touch,
and there's a bond that was created
that nobody will be able to break,
or anything.
To tell you the truth,
I don't know that I was mature enough
at the time... even 12, 13, 14...
To realize the radical
change that we had gone through.
It had a decisive
and irreversible impact,
not only on our lives
and that of our families,
but indeed on our entire community and nation.
This is a Cuban American story.
It's an immigrant story.
And it's a story of displacement,
and a story of having to start over again,
and longing for your home
and where you come from.
♪
When I left there,
we were told we were going to Miami,
I thought it was a vacation, you know.
I was five and a half years old, so...
They never said "We're leaving Cuba,
we're never coming back."
There's an adventure aspect... There's many kids
from Pedro Pan who never saw their families again.
Some of their families were then imprisoned
and gone to jail,
and they were separated for life.
In the case of Angela,
she didn't come here and say, "Oh, now I can sing."
No, she had to pick tomatoes.
She had to do whatever she had to do,
along with her husband and that generation,
to immediately make do for their family.
It wasn't a question of, "No, I don't wanna do
that kind of job," it's like,
"What's the job that's open today,
and I will do it."
♪
I went to a place
that they have a beautiful garden.
When I see the flowers, different colors,
different sizes,
I compare the flowers to my children.
I promise to myself
giving them more attention and more love than before
for the separation that we have.
That they miss me, and I miss them.
♪
And then I composed a song,
"En Mi Jardín."
♪
"En Mi Jardín," which is "In My Garden,"
it's more of like a song and a bolero.
It has that kind of ballad, dance feel,
but some of the percussion's playing
more out of a song tradition, and then towards the end here,
we break into
a full-on song right here.
♪
Through a contact in Miami,
Angela managed to get a letter to the president of Mexico.
She begged him to help get her husband out of Cuba.
The president intervened,
and Orlando was sent to a sugar mill in Mexico.
♪
We received a call from my husband from Mexico.
When the telephone ring, I talk with my husband.
I cry a lot.
Emotion because I...
He gave security to me because I was living by myself.
And then he told me,
"I wanna talk with the children."
And then, each child talked to him.
My daughter, everybody was crying.
Everybody was crying.
That triggered
the thing that we were gonna leave, eventually, the orphanage
because now my father is able to,
to support the family.
I'll never forget that day.
It was a very emotional day.
We rode the train
from Pueblo, Colorado, to Mexico,
and he met us in Mexico City.
My husband was waiting for me
in Mexico in the station,
and it was a very, very beautiful moment
to see each other.
♪
So how long did all of that take?
Oh, it took about two years.
♪
As the show date approaches,
rehearsals move to a live studio
in California.
This song was another one
that I got to really,
through talking about it with her
and working with her on this song,
I got to experience
her love for my grandfather.
One, two, three...
It's just so poetic,
and it's so romantic and beautiful.
My father has a very romantic voice,
and we've kind of agreed
this would be a great song for him to sing.
♪
- That's a take. - Huh?
That's a take.
♪
Reunited at last,
the Alvarez family then followed Orlando
to sugar mills around Central America.
♪
My father, he told us that he wanted to,
he wanted to leave Mexico
and come to the United States.
He gets a job in
a sugar mill called Talisman
an hour and a half from Miami.
So, we moved to Miami.
♪
It was a program on radio
in a station in Miami
that in the morning they say,
"If you wanna sing and be a star,
you can enroll in the program."
And one day I called.
It was in the morning, I was in the kitchen.
My children was at school, my husband was at work.
And then I sing, and I won the first prize!
And then, the man told me, "Well, the next step is
you are going to sing in a club."
And then one day,
my husband come early from the sugar...
Talisman, and I told him,
"I've been disobedient with you
because I did something that I know you are not going to like."
And he was looking at me like,
"Please tell me what you did."
I went to singing, and I placed, and I told him everything.
And he told me, "Well, it was okay what you did,
but night club?
No, you don't sing in the night club."
I just stopped.
A year, a year and a half, he got a word that
there was an opening in Louisiana
in a sugar mill, Cora Texas.
So we moved to Louisiana
to a little town called White Castle.
♪
And I said when I became an American citizen,
when the ceremony finished,
the judge come and give to each couple
an American flag.
And then he asks, "Well, I wanna ask you a question.
During the ceremony, all the time you were
smiling, smiling, you have to have a big reason."
"Yes, I have a big reason.
You know what?
Before, I'm a Cuban lady
who don't speak English,
but now I am an American who speaks fluent Spanish."
The Alvarez family finally settled down
to make their life in Louisiana,
but then news came that Orlando was ill.
He smoked a lot,
and then he have cancer in the lung.
He died 53.
Very young.
Well, when my husband died,
I was living here in this house
thinking of my husband
how, how I'm going to be in my life
because I'm walking without...
I didn't know where I'd go,
and then I composed a song,
"Camino Sin Rumbo."
That I walk without, I didn't know where I'd go.
Yeah.
♪
It takes time to boil the water to come up.
Many people ask me why I didn't marry again
when I became widowed.
Because I promised to the Lord that
I wanna be a good mother with them.
The rest of my life that I'm going to be alive,
I'm going to dedicate to them.
There are my four children when they were
around five months,
José, Marucha,
Orlando, and Boby.
My daughter Marucha,
her name is Maria, but we call her Marucha.
When she lived in Spain,
she told me that she don't like Maria.
In Spain, people call people Marucha, Carmucha.
When she was preparing her wedding,
she told me, "Mother, do you think you can
compose a song to me about my wedding?"
And she said, "I want you to sing in my wedding."
I said, "Okay," but that day, I couldn't do it
because when I saw her walk in,
I started to play the song,
but I can't because I start to cry.
I couldn't sing in the church.
Yes.
♪ Maria ♪
♪
She died of cancer
in 1999,
and she was 46 years old.
To me, it was a very, very hard moment
to lose my daughter.
But God always gave me peace.
♪
I think it did represent some closure for her,
you know, singing this song.
Towards the end here, she says she wishes that
she'd never brush against a thorn.
♪
When my mother passed away,
it was her and I in the hospital when they wheeled her in.
And my grandmother, her words to me,
"We're just gonna hold onto the Lord."
♪
The person that I became
as a result of that experience, it's good.
I mean, I think the strength
and the ability to overcome,
it's been a good thing for me
without a doubt.
And I said, "Given the choice,"
I would tell my mother,
"Do it exactly the same way.
That was the right decision."
♪
My father said, "Why don't you come down
and work for me?" and I did that,
so I got my Master's in Business Administration.
I heard of the job in Florida,
then I moved to my current position
where I became general manager,
and I've been since 1989.
It's going into 28 years.
♪
Mr. Gatti's Pizza.
I've been working here for 36 years.
Does your mom come here?
Yeah, she comes here every day
- and just watches me. - Oh, does she?
- Yeah, she does. - She comes here every day?
Yeah, and she's adopted everybody as her grandchildren
when she's here.
Everybody loves her here.
♪
I put this pillow here
because if I don't use the pillow,
I look that I'm driving like this, like an old lady.
And then I put this pillow because that way,
I'm straight.
Angela worked for the state of Louisiana
until her retirement at the age of 60.
Then she took a job as a babysitter,
housekeeper, and cook to a local family
for the next 30 years.
I quit to work with them in June.
And then, now I'm a free person.
I can do whatever I want.
Asking someone in their 90s,
who's never given a professional concert in her life
to get on an airplane, fly to Los Angeles,
sing in a historic theatre
with a world-class band in front of,
in front of an entire audience,
is pretty much a bad idea.
For her to say yes,
it's extraordinary.
♪
At a production rehearsal in Los Angeles,
Angela performs her songs with a full band
for the first time.
Nana, Nana,
I want you to meet Andy Garcia.
Oh, my goodness, no, that's not true.
My goodness!
Ay, ay, ay!
Oh, my God.
You are my hero, my hero.
- You're our hero. - Okay.
Thank you.
I heard you needed a bongo player.
Okay.
Oh, my Lord!
This is the most beautiful thing that could happen in my life.
Yeah, but we're gonna have a little rehearsal on the night.
Did you take a wrench outta here?
This project has been 75 years in the making.
She literally has been waiting for this moment
her entire life.
Okay, everybody, ladies and gentlemen,
please welcome Angela Alvarez.
Okay.
One, two, three...
♪
Just about every musician on this project
has either won a Grammy, or been nominated for a Grammy.
We're very lucky to have this band.
When I walked in, man,
it's just the love in the air.
♪
It was just amazing.
This project is incredibly all about love.
That's the way I look at it.
♪
When I met Nana,
it was very special for me, I mean,
knowing that she wrote all these lyrics
and the stories that she start telling us,
it was like,
it's a lot of love in that room.
I was astounded when I heard her music... first of all,
when I saw her sing, just the sophistication
and beauty of her lyrics,
and how they were formed musically.
It shows how dedicated she was
to the music of her culture, and how much she's enjoyed it,
even though she never had a chance to sing professionally,
it was still, music was so alive in her
throughout her life.
This is a real discovery here,
and I'm honored to be a part of it,
to be asked to just lend my support.
She's still the real deal from that era.
You can listen to it in her melodies,
in her chord structure.
It's of the era, it's very authentic,
and it's like, "Wow!"
One, two, three, four...
When she said yesterday, "My birthday's
the same day of the concert.
I'm gonna be 91," and we're like...
I said, "Well, everything in its time.
It's never too late, you never know."
This is the perfect example, look at this.
♪
She's amazing, 91,
and with a beautiful voice, a beautiful spirit,
and really strong.
She's standing up in the rehearsals,
and it's amazing!
She has more energy than all of us!
Yeah, Nana's done singing until the concert.
The biggest unknown and challenges,
there's no rulebook
for what a 90-year-old voice can do,
especially someone who doesn't have
a lifelong career of doing this.
And so, trying to gauge
when we've pushed her too far,
physically, you know,
and it's hard to know that
'cause she's always just a yes to everything.
She's working harder than anybody here.
There's just been a lot, and I've had doubt.
In the beginning, I was very excited,
very nervous, but now I'm relaxed
because I know everything is going to be okay
'cause I trust in the Lord.
Yes.
I feel so happy, my life,
for many, many years ago,
I don't feel like I'm feeling now
because this is something that, like,
the program is going to be my dream
come true.
♪
After a 75-year wait,
the theatre is booked,
the band is ready,
and Angela's big day
has finally arrived.
There's so many people here.
♪
Wow!
♪
Wow.
♪
Once upon a time,
and nearly a lifetime ago,
on the Caribbean island of Cuba,
a father asked his teenage daughter what she wanted to do
with her life.
And the little girl said, "Father...
I want to be a singer,
and I want to be a songwriter."
And he said, "Oh, no, my daughter.
That is not suitable for you.
That is not a suitable life for you.
You sing for the family and for your friends,
but no more."
And the dutiful daughter obeyed her father.
That teenage girl's name was Angela Alvarez.
So tonight, we're here
to celebrate on her 91st birthday.
Ladies and gentlemen,
please join me in finally making
a teenage girl's dreams come true,
and welcome the star of tonight's show
singing her own songs,
the extraordinarily talented,
and the sublimely beautiful,
Mrs. Angela Alvarez.
♪
Angela Alvarez.
We are going to sing for first time together the song.
My only daughter, Maria, when she
have plans to marry,
and then the day that
they have the wedding in the church,
he told me to sing the song for her
that I composed for her.
And then I can't do it because I feel too emotional,
and then I start to cry when I start to sing the song.
But I'm going to sing here today.
♪
♪ Maria, Maria ♪
♪ Maria ♪
♪
♪ Maria ♪
♪
Give a round of applause for this extraordinary band!
♪
I'm going to tell a little bit in English
because my English is not too good.
Angela Alvarez!
♪
Angela Alvarez!
♪