title: Paradise lost: older Cuban American exiles' ambiguous loss of leaving the homeland.
abstract: To explore the experience of leaving Cuba, 2 Cuban American émigrés interviewed 20 Cuban exiles aged 65 or older, who left Cuba between 1959 and 1971. The interviews were conducted in New York and New Jersey using a phenomenological approach (Moutsakas, 1994). Themes included feeling betrayed by the Revolution, the inevitability of leaving, the expectation of a temporary refuge, and longing for and idealizing the past. The psychological presence that participants expressed, along with an endless sense of loss, resonates with ambiguous loss theory (Boss, 2006)-themes that have yet to be explored in the literature and that have research and practice implications.
authors: a Graduate School of Social Service , Fordham University , New York , New York , USA.
authors: Rose M
authors: RM
authors: Perez
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D003469:Culture; D004641:Emigration and Immigration; D005008:Ethnopsychology / Q000379:methods; D005260:Female; D006630:Hispanic or Latino / Q000208:ethnology / Q000523:psychology; D006801:Humans; D008016:Life Change Events; D008297:Male; D009515:New Jersey / Q000208:ethnology; D009518:New York / Q000208:ethnology; D036301:Qualitative Research; D013995:Time