Escape From Tyranny featuring Rafael Catasus's Music Video

We the People: Freedom Song: Music Video by Rafael Catasus is followed by his testimony as a first-generation immigrant from Cuba.

Rafael Catasus was born in Havana, Cuba, on February 21, 1956. A short three years later, in 1959, Cuba fell to Communism. Rafael and his father, mother, and two older sisters, with extended family members and countless other Cubans, were displaced from our homeland as we fled the bondage of lies and tyranny of the Castro regime.

What seems to be eerily familiar now is that to change from a democracy to a Communist dictatorship, you must destroy the political, economic, social, and educational institutions. That is what happened in Cuba. Life was drastically changed when businesses were confiscated, dissenters were imprisoned, bank accounts and safe deposit boxes were frozen, people were killed by firing squad, and many people were simply disappearing. It was a frightening time for everyone. Class hatred was encouraged by setting up block-by-block citizen-informer groups; children denounced their parents and friends; property deeds were destroyed; collective farms were established; religious and private schools were closed, and textbooks were burned.