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The Villages
Friday, May 3, 2024

Father of U.S. Senator Ted Cruz to speak in The Villages next month

Rafael and Ted Cruz
Rafael and Ted Cruz

The father of U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, R-Texas, is coming to The Villages next month.

Complimentary tickets to see Rafael Cruz are available but are going fast, according to the Tri-County Tea Party which is hosting the event at 6:30 p.m. Nov. 22 at Savannah Center.

Complimentary tickets can be obtained by going to:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/raphael-cruz-son-of-ted-cruz-tickets-13798476615

You must have a ticket to attend as seating is limited.

Cruz, who since his Republican son took office has toured Texas and beyond with a conservative activist message, said a survey in 1989 showed half of evangelical Christians were registered to vote. And half of those actually voted, he said.

“It is about time that pastors be concerned about being Biblically correct rather than politically correct,” he said, citing the now-partially withdrawn subpoenas seeking sermons and other communications of Houston pastors.

Born in Matanzas, Cuba, Mr. Cruz grew up in the Cuban middle class in the 1950s, as the son of an RCA salesman and an elementary-school teacher. As a teenager, he grew to detest the regime of Fulgencio Batista. He and some of his schoolmates frequently clashed with Batista’s officials eventually, linking up with Castro’s guerrilla groups and supported their attempts to overthrow Batista, according to a biography supplied by the Tri-County Tea Party.

By age 18, in 1957, he knew he needed to get out of Cuba, and a friend essentially bribed an official to secure him an exit permit.  Soon after, with his parents still in Cuba — they wouldn’t come to the U.S. until 1966 — Rafael Cruz arrived in Austin, Texas, where he began to study mathematics and chemical engineering at the University of Texas. He had little more than $100 to his name, and he could barely speak English. But, by working seven days a week, he was able to graduate in 1961.

Mr. Cruz moved to Canada to work and became a Canadian citizen.   However it was his dream was to move back to Texas, which he did and became a permanent legal resident, and in 2005 that he formally became a U.S. citizen. “Oh, I know I should have done it sooner,” he says. “I love this country so much, but you cannot change the past.”

It was also back in Texas, in 1975, when his life changed. After attending a Bible-study meeting with a colleague, he became a born-again Christian, leaving his days as a non-practicing Roman Catholic behind.

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