A LONG-TERM consequence of Fidel Castro’s policies in the early 1960s is a thriving Cuban- & #233;migr & #233;-owned food processing industry in the Los Angeles area that serves a growing market nationwide for Hispanic foods, the New York Times reports.

The founders of half a dozen companies that make and distribute beans and rice, specialty groceries, cheeses, coffee and baked goods left Cuba in 1961 and 1962, sometimes through a program called Pedro Pan in which more than 14,000 children were sent to Florida and cared for until their parents could follow.

Miami was crowded at that time with more Cuban immigrants than there were jobs to occupy them, so Catholic Welfare Services and other charitable groups sent some families to California. “We went to Long Beach where there was a house for us to stay in and my dad had a job to go to in the morning,” Jorge Rodriguez recalled. His father, Graciliano Rodriguez, went to work waiting tables in a private club and doing janitorial work on a second job.

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