Miami • Andy Vila’s mother remembers her son as a bright, rebellious child who enjoyed Harry Potter books and dressing up as the U.S. president. But when he began to embrace the same ideology his family had fled in socialist Cuba, she pleaded in vain for him to stop his political activism.
His socialism made Vila an outlier in his Miami community and opened deep rifts with relatives. He was briefly exiled from home, and his mother entered therapy to bridge their differences. To mention socialism at family dinners, "that's a no-go," Vila said. Relatives would "look at me funny and say, 'We've escaped that.