Rafael Bienvenido Cruz y Diaz was born on March 22,1939 and is a Cuban-American evangelical preacher and father of Texas US Senator Ted Cruz.
16 Facts About Rafael Cruz
2.
Rafael Cruz has served as a surrogate in his son's political campaigns.
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Rafael Cruz's father, named Rafael Cruz, was a salesman for RCA, originally from the Canary Islands, Spain.
4.
In September 1956 at age 17, Cruz enrolled at the University of Santiago.
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Rafael 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 to and was accepted by the University of Texas in August 1957.
6.
Rafael Cruz obtained a student visa after an attorney for the family bribed a Batista official to grant him an exit permit.
7.
Rafael 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.
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Ted Cruz 8.
Rafael Cruz graduated from UT with a degree in mathematics and chemical engineering in 1961.
9.
Rafael Cruz remained regretful for his early support of Castro and expressed his remorse to his son on numerous occasions.
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Cruz and Wilson were married in 1969, and shortly after were sent to Calgary, Canada, where their only child, Rafael Edward "Ted" Cruz, was born on December 22,1970.
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Rafael Cruz left the Catholic Church in 1975 and became an Evangelical Protestant after attending a Bible study with a colleague and having a born again experience.
12.
At the New Beginnings Church in Irving, Texas, in August 2012, Rafael Cruz delivered a sermon where he described his son's senatorial campaign as taking place within a context where Christian "kings" were anointed to preside over an "end-time transfer of wealth" from wicked people to the righteous.
13.
Rafael Cruz urged the congregation to "tithe mightily" to achieve that result.
14.
In 1959, at age 20, Rafael Cruz married Julia Ann Garza.
15.
In 2005, Rafael Cruz renounced his Canadian citizenship to become a naturalized US citizen.
16.
From 1993 to 2009, Rafael Cruz was a top salesman for Mannatech.