3.) Cruz’s father, Raphael, was born in Cuba in 1937.
As a young man he was inspired by Fidel Castro’s anti-government resistance movement and “became a guerrilla, throwing Molotov cocktails at the buildings of Batista’s regime.” When he was 17, an informant turned him in. Raphael was arrested and “taken to jail, where forces loyal to Batista held him for several days and tortured him. Soldiers broke his nose and bashed his front teeth in.”
He fled Cuba in 1957 and settled in Texas. He was granted political asylum, “learned English binge-watching movies at a nearby theater,” and got a math degree at the University of Texas. (Source: Yahoo! Politics)