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Coming to America
On my first day of school, I didn't speak a word of English. I felt lost and terrified when I set foot in the classroom. Lucky for me, my teacher that year was Dorothy Collins.
My family had fled Cuba in 1959. I was only a year old at the time, but I remember the pain of leaving my country and my grandmother—whom I loved dearly—so abruptly. My father, Jose, had been a military policeman under Batista and was working in the palace when Castro's forces invaded. My dad was jailed the night of the takeover and blacklisted after he was released, about five months later. With little chance of getting a job, he knew that the best hope for his family was to start over in America.
We headed to Miami, which was just a sleepy tourist town back then. Shortly after we arrived, my father disappeared in the night. He left my mother, Gloria, a cryptic note, saying he had to go, that something big was happening, something he couldn't tell us about yet. He promised she would receive $150 each month and that he would be in touch as soon as he was able.
What he couldn't reveal was that he was part of the Cuban exile forces being trained by the U.S. government for the Bay of Pigs invasion. When the infamous attempt to reclaim Cuba failed, in April 1961, my dad was again taken as a political prisoner by Castro's forces. Since I was so young, my mother told me my father was on a farm. I think she was trying to fool us both into believing it. But I understood what was going on.
In Miami my mother and I settled in a cluster of apartments with other Cuban women and children who had immigrated. It was like living in a commune. The women were close-knit and supportive. While I felt safe, I was also isolated. We all spoke Spanish, and I rarely heard English.
Finally, when I was five, my father was released from jail through a deal brokered under JFK. He was given a captain's post in the U.S. Army, and in 1963 we moved to San Antonio. I was so happy our family was together again. My little sister, Becky, was born that year, and I started first grade at Winston Elementary, near the military base.
I'd been looking forward to school, but that initial day was complete shell shock. I came home and told my mom I'd learned my first English word: stupid. It was the nickname a boy had given me.
In every way possible, I was set apart from my classmates. I was the only Hispanic student. I couldn't communicate in English. While the other kids ate bologna sandwiches for lunch, I ate tortillas made from scratch. Like any traditional Cuban mother, my mom was overprotective. She wouldn't let me walk to school by myself.
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