Accessibility links
Former Talladega prisoners recount the uprising and what brought them to America : White Lies In our final episode of the season, we start researching the names on the secret list of 2,746 Cuban excludables. What we find confirms many of our suspicions about the arbitrariness of how the U.S. government created the list. Our reporting takes us — where else? — to Cuba, to finally track down the men on the roof and hear them tell their own stories. What had they hoped to find in this country and what had they found instead? Finally, our journey takes us to one last interview in a high rise in Vancouver, Canada, where we hear from the man who led the uprising at Talladega, and made the decision to take to the prison's roof to display banners made from bedsheets that read, Pray for Us and Please Media: Justice, Freedom, or Death. Want to hear the first episode of Embedded's next series a week before everyone else? Sign up for Embedded+ at plus.npr.org/embedded.

White Lies

The Excludables

season 2, episode 8

The Excludables

Listen · 1:04:57
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1154909871/1197733025" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript
Enlarge this image

Matias Prieto-Campos (left) and Ernesto Aciego-More were detained in the U.S. after arriving from Cuba in 1980. Chip Brantley/Chip Brantley/NPR hide caption

toggle caption
Chip Brantley/Chip Brantley/NPR

Matias Prieto-Campos (left) and Ernesto Aciego-More were detained in the U.S. after arriving from Cuba in 1980.

Chip Brantley/Chip Brantley/NPR

In our final episode of the season, we start researching the names on the secret list of 2,746 Cuban excludables. What we find confirms many of our suspicions about the arbitrariness of how the U.S. government created the list. Our reporting takes us — where else? — to Cuba, to finally track down the men on the roof and hear them tell their own stories. What had they hoped to find in this country and what had they found instead? Finally, our journey takes us to one last interview in a high rise in Vancouver, Canada, where we hear from the man who led the uprising at Talladega, and made the decision to take to the prison's roof to display banners made from bedsheets that read, Pray for Us and Please Media: Justice, Freedom, or Death.

Want to hear the first episode of Embedded's next series a week before everyone else? Sign up for Embedded+ at plus.npr.org/embedded.