Rafael Cruz at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference

that red as state in the union you want the home runs rock well I'll tell you it

is a blessing to live in America I didn't always live here I grew up in Cuba on

the right very oppressive military dictatorship and of course a revolution started in the high schools on the university's I

found myself involved in a revolution as a teenager as a result of out I was capture was imprisoned was tortured but

in spite of the fact that I thought I would be killed god had other plans for me and I've even

though I didn't know him he knew me and so I will I was released and they not I had to

leave the country and so I wrote to three universities in the United States a purse one boss at me was a university of Texas and

so without a Septimus letter I was able to get a four year student visa and

come to the United States legally as a student went to university of thanks are so I got a job full time as a dishwasher work full

time went to school full time I remember when I was in Cuba that was these young charismatic leader in

the revolution talking about hold and change his name was Fidel Castro and you know we all followed him we thought he was going to be our liberator or little

did we know well anyway I went to the university of Texas then when he took over in fifty nine I

win bark at the end of the semester the end of me I'm boy did I get a shock the same man that had been talking about hope one

change was now talking about how the rich were evil about how they oppress the poor and

about the need to redistribute the wealth they began confiscating private property attacking freedom of the press attacking freedom of religion I

just left totally disappointed never to go back to Cuba but so glad to

be in the land of the free and the home of the brave I am so proud to be an American this is the greatest country on the face of the earth you

to institute policies that reminded me of that beer that dictator you remember the Carter years double

digit unemployment double digit inflation lines around the block to collect at the gasoline twenty

two percent interest rates eight government so weak in foreign policy that he ran became soy emboldened I capture eighty

two Americans and held them hostage for four hundred and forty four days it was not coincidental that they got released that day president

Reagan was inaugurated so I remember I used to tell Ted my son dead you

know Ted when I lost my freedom in Cuba I had a place to come to if we lose our freedoms here where

are we going to go and you know that's a very sobering quest United we have

to ask ourselves today because we are on the verge of losing our freedoms our freedoms are being eroded more