The Díaz-Balart family is a
Cuban-Americanpolitical family primarily composed of the descendants of Cuban politician
Rafael Díaz-Balart, and including two members of the
United States Congress. The family came to the United States in January 1959, having been in Paris when
Fidel Castro overthrew the Cuban government the previous month.[1] In 2003, the family was voted "Best Power Family" in the annual Miami New Times "BEST OF MIAMI" issue, which asserted that the family managed to "carve out a new U.S. Congressional district expressly for an ambitious family member", and also claimed that the father and grandfather of the U.S. politicians "were important members of the ruling oligarchy during the fearsome reign of
Fulgencio Batista".[2]
Members
Members of the family include:
Rafael José Díaz-Balart (c. 1899 – 1985), Cuban politician and mayor of the town of
Banes; with his wife América Gutiérrez had two sons and a daughter:
Rafael Díaz-Balart (January 17, 1926 – May 6, 2005), Cuban politician; with his wife, Hilda Caballero Brunet, Díaz-Balart had four sons:
Mirta Díaz-Balart (born 30 September 1928), sister of Rafael, was the first wife of Cuban leader
Fidel Castro; they had one son and then divorced prior to the
Cuban Revolution; she then remarried, to Emilio Núñez Blanco, with whom she had two daughters:
With Fidel Castro:
Fidel Castro Díaz-Balart ("Fidelito"; September 1, 1949 – February 1, 2018), Cuban physicist; Fidel Castro's first-born son. With his former wife Natasha Smirnova, he had three children:
Mirta María Castro-Smirnova (born 1984), lives in Spain, and teaches applied mathematics at the
University of Seville;
Fidel Antonio Castro-Smirnov (born 1980), became a specialist in biochemistry and molecular biology.