“We just want to be part of the American dream”: Cuban exile talks troubled past and hopeful future

Published: Jan. 25, 2023, 11 a.m.

In the 1990s, Osvaldo Durruthy was so desperate to get out of prison that he concocted a plan to kill the most hated man behind bars in Wisconsin. He thought the attack would get him deported to Cuba, a country he hadn’t stepped foot in since 1980, when he left as part of the mass exodus known as the Mariel Boatlift.