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With her mahogany-hued skin, Cary was a beneficiary of the revolution’s much-improved race relations; she had been a stalwart Fidelista, a Russian-trained engineer who rose to a vice minister’s post.

“I’m a Fidelista, entirely in favor of the revolution,” declared Meraldo Nojas Sutil, 78, who moved to Hershey when he was 11 and worked in the plant during the 1960s and ’70s.

"Everyone here is sad. Everyone is a Fidelista," said Anaida Gonzales, a retired nursing professor in central Camaguey province.

“We Cubans are Fidelista even if we are not Communist.”

The airport worker is a devoted Fidelista who still drapes a revolutionary flag from his apartment window on national day.