After fleeing Cuba at age 15, an older Floridian is telling his voting story and sharing wise advice with younger Hispanic voters

Jorge “Doc D” De Diego remembers Nov. 12, 1961, well. It was the day he arrived in the United States from his revolution-torn homeland in Cuba on one of the “Operation Peter Pan” flights supported by officials of the U.S. government and the Catholic Church.

De Diego, then 15, would have to wait 18 years until he was reunited with his father. But in his early 20s, after becoming a U.S. citizen, he took an important step while living and working in Los Angeles: He registered to vote.

“I came to the United States to get freedom,” says De Diego, now 71 and a well-known pediatrician in the Miami area. “I knew that after coming to the United States, I had to have my voice heard. (Registering to vote) was one of the ways, and maybe the only way, I could do that.”

De Diego enrolled in Oklahoma University and got his medical degree.  He remains a proud alumnus of OU. “I’m a Cuban Okie,” he jokes.

But for De Diego, registering to vote is not a joking matter. “The vast majority of the Peter Pan exodus from communist Cuba embraced this beautiful country. We became professionals, and we are proud to honor the privilege to vote in every election held,” De Diego says.

AARP Florida is working to equip all eligible Florida residents with the tools they need to register and participate in the 2022 elections. For complete information on voter participation, please go here: (https://states.aarp.org/florida/election-voting-guide).  

For many people born and raised in the United States, registering to vote, and participating in elections, is a civic chore, and sometimes gets lost amid the demands of more pressing daily concerns. In 2016, the U.S. ranked a dismal 30^th in voter participation out of 35 nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), according to a Pew Research study.

Even in 2020, when vote totals reached historically high levels, only 62 percent of the U.S. voting-age population turned out to vote, putting the U.S. below the OECD average. That year, the U.S. turnout was tied with the United Kingdom and ranked below voter turnout in Spain.

But the right to vote is often taken very seriously by those naturalized Americans who’ve emigrated here from countries that do not enjoy American political freedoms. “People who come from places that are communist in nature, they really enjoy being part of the United States of America,” says De Diego.  “I lived in a country where there is no liberty, no freedom of religion, no freedom of anything.”

He’s far from alone. Hispanic/Latino voter registration in Florida has grown a whopping 59 percent since 2014, far outpacing overall voter registration growth, according to according to the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO), a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization. 

Yet what really matters is not how many people are eligible or even registered to vote, but how many actually turn out to vote. Again, Florida Hispanic-Latino voters are setting a fast pace.

Hispanic-Latino voter turnout is projected to be 74.5 percent in 2022, according to NALEO.  That is more than 10 points higher than overall voter turnout of 63 percent in the last midterm election in the state in 2018, according to the Florida Division of Elections.

“Register and vote with your heart and vote for this country that has given you liberty and a chance of getting ahead in life,” says De Diego. “You have to love this country, and you have to vote for whatever is right for this country. Please vote for liberty, vote for happiness, and vote for justice for all, not for some.”