Rafael Bienvenido Cruz

Rafael Bienvenido Cruz
Rafael Cruz at 2013 FreedomWorks Youth Summit in Washington, D.C.
Born	Rafael Bienvenido Cruz y Díaz (1939-03-22) March 22, 1939 (age 78) Matanzas, Cuba
Residence	Carrollton, Texas, U.S.
Nationality	Cuban(1939–present) Canadian(1973–2005) American (2005–present)
Education	University of Texas
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	Julia Garza (m. 1959, div.) Eleanor Elizabeth (Darragh) Cruz (div. 1997)
Children	Miriam, Roxana, and Ted
Parent(s)	Rafael Cruz, Laudelina Diaz

Rafael Bienvenido Cruz y Díaz (born March 22, 1939) is a Cuban-American Christian preacher, public speaker, and father of Texas Senator and former presidential candidate Ted Cruz. He is described by various media outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, as an acting surrogate in his son's political campaigns.

Cruz was born in Matanzas, Cuba, in 1939. His father, Rafael Cruz, was a salesman for RCA, originally from the Canary Islands, Spain. His mother, Emilia Laudelina Díaz, was a teacher.

Cruz attended Arturo Echemendia primary school in Matanzas. Cruz states he joined the Cuban revolution as a teenager and "suffered beatings and imprisonment for protesting the oppressive regime" of dictator Fulgencio Batista. Cruz enrolled at the age of 17 at the University of Santiago in September 1956. According to Cruz, as a teenager, he "didn't know Castro was a Communist". Cruz has stated in interviews that he was jailed by Batista for several days in June or July 1957 and after he was released he applied and was accepted by the University of Texas in August 1957. He obtained a student visa after an attorney for the family bribed a Batista official to grant him an exit permit. Cruz said he left with $100 sewn into his underwear taking a two-day bus ride from Florida, arriving with little or no English to enroll at the University of Texas.

He graduated from UT with a degree in mathematics and chemical engineering four years later in 1961. Cruz states he worked his way through college as a dishwasher, making 50 cents an hour and learned English by going to movies. When he arrived in Austin he gave dozens of speeches in support of the Revolution to various clubs, but later after a visit back to Cuba in the summer of 1959 he became a harsh critic of Castro after "the rebel leader took control and began seizing private property and suppressing dissent". Upon returning he revisited the same groups to give lectures opposing Castro and the Revolution. Cruz recounts that his younger sister fought against the new regime in the counter-revolution and was consequently tortured. He remained regretful for his early support of Castro and expressed his remorse to his son on numerous occasions.