Frances Robles

from the United States with boats to pick people up.

Like, okay, we can go, let's go.

He also emptied prisons and mental institutions.

But the thing that's really important to note is that it's a technique that the Cuban government has used periodically for the past 66 years.

Got it.

But it wasn't the only way that they survived.

The other thing that was a really important issue was that they were able to turn to the Soviet Union and the Soviet Union kept Cuba afloat.

But the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.

Right.

And that launches a really, really horrible time for Cuba, which is known very euphemistically as the quote-unquote special period.

And it's a time of really severe food shortages, just a lot of suffering throughout the entire island.

In fact, it launches another migration episode.

So it's just yet another moment in this history where everybody thought, wow—

It can't get worse.

Look at how bad this is.

This is absolute chaos.

Everyone was convinced that it had to be the end.

That's absolutely right, Natalie.

You know, and the end result of that is this huge Cuban-American community in South Florida that has become a really powerful movement that has Congress people who have always helped dictate Cuba policy.

And you have a lot of people who were supporters of this idea that the U.S.