Francisco R. Angones: the first Cuban-born president of The Florida Bar.

• Author: Pudlow, Jan
• Position: Testimonial

Francisco Angones will never forget the day he arrived in America--Tuesday, June 13, 1961--a frightened boy alone in a new country, landing at Miami International Airport carrying only a duffle bag stuffed with the allotted 40 pounds of clothes and instructions to "ask for George."

George Guarch's fulltime job was to pick up unaccompanied children fleeing Cuba, as many as 200 a week, and deliver them to camps.

In a chain-smoker's raspy voice, George called out "Francisco Angones," along with the names of three other kids Francisco had never met before.

George led them to a station wagon and drove down a narrow road, to S.W. 76th Street and 107th Avenue to Kendall Children's Home, on the grounds of the Dade County Welfare Department. Father Bryan O. Walsh, who ran the Catholic Welfare Bureau, a small childcare and adoption agency, rented the place to help Cuban children sent ahead by their parents to America to be free.

Here, on the edge of Miami, Angones became another Cuban child sleeping in rows of bunk beds, uprooted from all that was familiar, in a country with a foreign language and different culture, wondering what to expect next, remembering his father's last words to be brave as he finally fell asleep.

Less than two months after the Bay of Pigs invasion, one month shy of his 11th birthday, Angones fought back tears as he hugged his parents and baby sister goodbye at Havana's Jose Marti Airport earlier that day. Because his father could only obtain a single visa waiver, only Francisco boarded the Pan American plane bound for Miami, and the Angones family split apart with no guarantee they would ever reunite.

"My dad told me to be tough and they will try to join me as soon as possible. They had done everything they could, but now it was up to the Cuban government to see when they could leave," Angones said.

"My parents could come the following week or they could come years later."

Fortunately, the wait for Angones' parents to arrive in Miami was only three months. At the airport, Francisco anxiously greeted his father, Francisco Jose Angones, a lawyer in Cuba, and his mother, Maria Lydia Angones, a teacher, along with his little sister Lidia, not yet two.

"I remember the first thing I saw was my sister. She used to call me 'Achi! Achi!' She's running toward me and I'm catching her and embracing her, and picking her up."

All these years later, Angones still gets emotional and grows silent remembering that precious family reunion.

He knows he's one of the lucky ones, out of 14,048 Cuban children who came without their parents during Operation Pedro Pan. Some Cuban children did not see their parents for many years, others never again.

While Angones' story was repeated thousands of times, it is a unique history for a president of The Florida Bar.

That the 56-year-old Miami civil trial attorney, a co-founding partner at Angones McClure & Garcia, is the first Cuban-born leader of Florida's 80,000 lawyers is "a huge deal" to partner Leo Garcia.

"Frank's presidency of The Florida Bar is a triumph for every minority and for every Cuban-American who practices law," said Garcia, who came from Cuba in 1966 as a four-year-old. He tells how his accountant father, who lost everything, bartered two Cuban CIGARS, THE ONLY THING HE HAD LEFT OF VALUE, TO BUY HIS BOY A COKE AND SNACK ON THEIR EXODUS FROM CUBA TO JAMAICA TO SPAIN TO MIAMI.

"I DON'T KNOW IF IT SAYS WE'VE ARRIVED. But it shows we are accepted. It shows how this country has come a long way. It shows how the Bar membership has come a long way," Garcia said. "It says: 'Do the right thing, work hard, and you can reach your wildest imagination of a goal.'"

Angones' proud Cuban heritage and patriotism for his adopted country is at the heart of his desire to better the community of Miami he embraces as home, and to serve the legal profession in Florida he loves. "Frank is an inspiration and a hero to me--because of what he has accomplished, where he came from and how, the noble manner in which he has arrived at the place in life where he is, the way he treats people, just the way he lives his life," said longtime partner John McClure, who has worked with Angones since 1979.

"We just could not be in better hands for the next year." Ramon Rasco, chairman of the board of U.S. Century Bank and a lawyer, first met Angones in law school at the University of Miami, but already knew of him because their fathers were lawyers in Cuba and Rasco's mother and Angones' mother were classmates at Lourdes High School in Cuba. That bond grew into a friendship that is as close as brothers.

"Frank has a huge heart. What he really enjoys in life is giving back. Frank takes on difficult causes. He finds justice where it is difficult to find justice," Rasco said.

Two defining cases exemplify Angones' passion to do the right thing: Cuban American Bar Association v. Secretary of State Warren Christopher, when he helped prevent the forced repatriation of 130,000 refugees to Cuba, trapped behind barbed wire in legal limbo at Guantanamo Bay, and Alejandre, Costa, and de la Pena v. the Republic of Cuba, when Angones dared to sue the Cuban government for violating human rights of three U.S. citizens (one his high school friend), known as the Brothers to the Rescue, shot down by the Cuban Air Force while flying a humanitarian mission, over international waters, rescuing Cuban rafters at sea (see sidebar).

A Fence-mending Ambassador Angones is "very proud of being an American without having surrendered his ethnic heritage. When you talk about the perfect balance between a Cuban--hyphen--American, you think of someone like Frank," U.S. District Judge Federico Moreno said. In introducing Angones as president-elect at the Bar's Annual Convention last year, Moreno said: "Frank is such an American name. Frank!"

With the melodic lilt and the rolling "r" of the Spanish language, Moreno said with a flourish: "It's Francisco Ramon Angones del Monte. That's a great name. You should hear his great, great grandfather's name: Pedro Felipe 'Perucho' Figueredo. He was the author of the Cuban national anthem."

When Figueredo, a lawyer, landowner, poet, and musician wrote the song in 1867, he called it "La Bayamesa." Three years later, fighting as a general in the Ten Years' War, he was captured by the Spanish and executed in Santiago de Cuba.

Now it's Frank Angones' turn to make history as the first Cuban-born president of The Florida Bar. Garcia, his partner, said that Angones wants "to build unity among lawyers, not just Cuban lawyers or African-American lawyers. He wants to build unity among all the bars. Frank tries to help where he can. He builds bridges; he doesn't tear them down."

Miami, Garcia said, is "a diverse community with people of many races and cultures. It's tough at times to build bridges, but some way, somehow, Frank does it. He fits in everywhere."

Cesar Alvarez, president and CEO of Greenberg Traurig in Miami, called Angones "the nicest, fairest, caring individual that I know. He has always been of a public mind, trying to do the right thing at all times. I have gotten involved with him in a number of public projects, and it has been always, always a pleasure. He is always thinking about how to do good for other people.

"To me, it's obviously a sense of pride to see a Cuban-American who has been recognized to be president of The Florida Bar," Alvarez said.

"But from the real perspective, he is going to be a great president of The Florida Bar who happens to be Cuban."

H.T. Smith, an African-American Miami lawyer and former president of the National Bar Association, witnessed Angones at work to build better relations in Miami--such as when Nelson Mandela was refused the keys to the City of Miami because he was photographed smiling with Fidel Castro--where racial and ethnic clashes have sparked riots and boycotts.

"Frank Angones is a sensitive, solid, and secure bridge between the various racial, ethnic, and religious groups in Miami-Dade County," Smith said. "I am confident his inclusive leadership style and pleasant personality will make him a great ambassador for Florida's 80,000 lawyers and the cause of justice.

"While Frank's ascension to the presidency of The Florida Bar carves for him an indelible legacy as the first minority lawyer so honored, in my considered judgment his consistent commitment to excellence, common sense approach to problem-solving, and his caring sense of history will hasten the day when other minority lawyers will be so honored.

"It is important who is first," Smith continued. "Like Jackie Robinson, we wouldn't be where we are if he wasn't that good. That will be an even greater legacy."

Starting Over in Miami

"Still, all in all," Smith added with a smile: "Frank's greatest achievement was marrying his incredible wife, Georgie."

Georgie Angones, assistant dean of Alumni Relations & Development at UM School of Law, is Angones' better half. Together they make each other whole, bonded by the shared experience of being Cuban exiles in the '60s, and a love that has lasted since Angones asked her to the first dance of his senior year in high school.

At age 10, Georgina Alfonsin arrived in Miami September 16, 1961, with her 78-year-old grandmother and her three-year-old sister. Georgie's mother was so upset she had to send her loved ones away without her that she refused to leave the airport. Three days later, Georgie's mother was authorized to leave for Miami, and Georgie's father joined the family 18 months later.

Georgie's parents, like Frank's and many other Cuban parents, were willing to take drastic steps to save their children. They feared the Cuban government would interfere with their children's education and indoctrinate them with communism.

Both Georgie's and Frank's schools were taken over by the government. Frank remembers the mass to say goodbye to the Christian Brothers, a religious order of teachers, banished from his school. Neighbors spied...