Paradise lost: older Cuban American exiles' ambiguous loss of leaving the homeland.

To explore the experience of leaving Cuba, 2 Cuban American émigrés interviewed 20 Cuban exiles aged 65 or older, who left Cuba between 1959 and 1971. The interviews were conducted in New York and New Jersey using a phenomenological approach (Moutsakas, 1994). Themes included feeling betrayed by the Revolution, the inevitability of leaving, the expectation of a temporary refuge, and longing for and idealizing the past. The psychological presence that participants expressed, along with an endless sense of loss, resonates with ambiguous loss theory (Boss, 2006)-themes that have yet to be explored in the literature and that have research and practice implications.