The Jenny Beth Show

Cuban Refugee Family: Her Parents Waited 10 Years to Have Children | Driena Sixto

Episode Summary

Cuban refugees twice over. Driena Sixto's grandparents left Franco's Spain for Cuba, built businesses and bought property there, and lost all of it when Fidel Castro took power. Her father was arrested on the island as a political dissident. Her parents married in Cuba and stayed married ten years without having a child, because they refused to raise one under the dictatorship. When her father got out of prison he walked into the United States embassy, told them he was an actual political refugee, obtained a visa, came here legally, and never went back. Driena Sixto and her sister were born Americans because of that decision. She grew up in Hialeah, the city with the largest Cuban population of any city outside Cuba, going to remembrance events where children learned about boats full of women and children shot down by the Castro dictatorship. Jenny Beth Martin sits down with her for the whole story, and for what she has built with it. Sixto is Spanish Media Director at the Lincoln Media Foundation and hosts a weekly Spanish-language news program on Claro y Directo América. She spent six years at Turning Point USA starting in 2016, then helped build the ballot chasing operation at Turning Point Action. Also here: why she says our side handed Spanish-language media to Univision and Telemundo, her case for abolishing the Department of Education, and the line she keeps returning to, that freedom can be lost in a single generation. More at jennybethshow.com and teapartypatriots.org.

Episode Notes

Driena Sixto is Spanish Media Director at the Lincoln Media Foundation, where she has run the Spanish-language media operation since November of last year. She hosts a weekly Spanish-language news program on Claro y Directo América, appears regularly on Fox Noticias, and spent six years at Turning Point USA beginning in 2016 before helping build the voter registration and ballot chasing operation at Turning Point Action. She grew up in Hialeah, Florida, and this is her second appearance on the show.

Jenny Beth Martin hosts. This is the long-form conversation about how Sixto came to be who she is, rather than the news of the day.

Key topics:

• Her grandparents leaving Franco's Spain for Cuba, and everything the family built there before Fidel Castro took power
• Her grandfather dying young of a heart attack, and what her father believes caused it
• Her father arrested as a political dissident, and the refugee visa he obtained at the United States embassy after his release
• Why her parents stayed married ten years in Cuba and refused to have children until they could leave
• Remembrance events, and learning as a child about boats full of women and children shot down by the Castro dictatorship
• Growing up in Hialeah, the city with the largest Cuban population of any city outside Cuba
• Why Cuban Americans are, in her account, the only Latino bloc that votes majority Republican
• Ten years in the movement: Turning Point USA starting in 2016, then Turning Point Action
• Why she says the right ceded Spanish-language media to Univision and Telemundo for decades, and what that cost
• Losing the mother tongue, assimilation, and why she believes learning English is a matter of respect
• Using artificial intelligence to translate and dub American political clips so Spanish speakers hear the words directly instead of reading captions
• Claro y Directo América, and where Spanish speakers can watch daily news without a left-leaning filter
• The hardest part of her job, which is finding one politically fluent Spanish speaker who can also create content
• Taking a camera out to Doral and to the Versailles restaurant to let Cubans and Venezuelans speak for themselves
• The Cuban American entrepreneurs organizing capital in South Florida to rebuild the island the day it is free
• Her case for abolishing the Department of Education and ending federal student loans and federal grants
• Tuition outrunning inflation, and holding universities accountable for degrees with no career prospects
• Why Republicans were wrong to stay off TikTok, and how young audiences actually take in news
• Why she says conservatives left academia to the left, and the two ways she thinks it gets taken back
• The clip of an assistant professor telling future school staff that parents are not to be trusted
• Why she plans to homeschool, and what she says parents give up at the door of a private school
• The Chinese student at Florida Atlantic University who would only speak about the Chinese Communist Party with his face blurred
• Immigrants who, she argues, hold more American values than many Americans
• Jenny Beth Martin on the border sheriffs, and what happens when the world learns the door is open

Timestamped breakdown:

00:00 — Cold open: a family that escaped two dictatorships

00:42 — Meet Driena Sixto

01:12 — Take it all the way back

01:38 — Franco's Spain to Cuba, and what Fidel Castro took

02:19 — Her father, arrested as a political dissident

02:35 — Ten years married, and no children in Cuba

04:05 — Finding Turning Point in her last year of college

06:10 — Hialeah: Cuba with freedom

07:14 — Freedom can be lost in one generation

08:08 — Spanish Media Director at the Lincoln Media Foundation

10:56 — Nature abhors a vacuum

13:39 — Her weekly Spanish-language show

14:30 — Claro y Directo América

14:50 — Training the people who will replace you

18:54 — Let them say it in their own language

20:30 — Who is actually watching

21:52 — Out in the street with a camera

24:37 — The Cubans organizing capital to rebuild the island

26:10 — Reaching young people who think socialism sounds good

31:03 — Abolish the Department of Education

35:49 — Why academia was left to the left

37:54 — The professor who said not to trust the parents

39:00 — Why she plans to homeschool

42:09 — The Chinese student who would not show his face

46:43 — The era of information

47:06 — What she watched happen in Ceuta, Spain

53:41 — What the border sheriffs told her

Links: jennybethshow.com, teapartypatriots.org