Juana de la Caridad "Juanita" Castro Ruz (/ˈkæstroʊ/ KASS-troh, Latin American Spanish: [ˈxwana ðe la kaɾiˈða(ð) xwaˈnita ˈkastɾo ˈrus]; 6 May 1933 – 4 December 2023) was a Cuban-American activist and writer, as well as the sister of Fidel and Raúl, both former presidents of Cuba, and Ramón, a key figure of the Cuban Revolution.
[1][2] She was the fourth child of Ángel Castro y Argiz and Lina Ruz González and had three brothers — Ramón, Fidel, and Raúl — and three sisters — Angelita, Emma, and Agustina.
When the two revolutionaries insisted on including the family plantation in their agrarian reform program to limit private land ownership, their older brother Ramón, who had been maintaining the property, angrily exploded, "Raúl is a dirty little Communist.
"[3] In this climate, Juanita Castro started collaborating with, and receiving paychecks from, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) after being recruited by someone close to her brother Fidel.
[6] Time magazine reported that "after the mother Lina Ruz died in 1963, there was a violent episode when Fidel decided to expropriate the family land once and for all.
"[8] A Spanish court ordered Fernández and her publisher, Plaza & Janes, a Barcelona-based division of Random House, to pay Castro the equivalent of US$45,000.
[8] On 25 October 2009, Juanita Castro told Univision's WLTV-23 that she had initially supported her brother's 1959 overthrow of the Batista dictatorship but quickly became disillusioned.