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My parents met at St. Brendan High School in 1981 just a short walk from my mother’s childhood home in the 92.4% Hispanic/Latino neighborhood of Westchester, Miami. I’d say it’s divine fate that my parents attended the same high school, and sat beside each other in most of their classes, but the truth of the matter is that many of my friends’ parents went to that same high school, grew up on the same block, and even shared my parents’ last name. 

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My siblings and I often heard the romanticized story of how my goofy Dad, and popular class-clown Mom, met in class, fell in love, got married, had five children, and lived happily ever after. Now I know that there was so much more to the story–to my story–and it all begins in Cardenas, Cuba. 

 

My grandmother’s name is Marina Rodriguez Alvarez. Everyone in my family jokes that her middle name is “perfecta” because from the moment she came to this country, she has been obsessed with her family being perceived as perfect instead of the refugees they really are. Like countless refugees worldwide, my grandmother concealed the complexities of her journey in pursuit of societal acceptance and normalcy.

 

My grandmother grew up in Cardenas, Cuba in the 1940’s. She says her childhood was ‘simple yet beautiful.’ Some of her favorite memories are with her best girlfriends Marichu and Marti–friends from the neighborhood who she’d meet up with every day as a kid. They spent time skating in the park and bowling at the local alley. In the summers, my grandmother stayed at her cousin's house in Varadero–or as she would put it, the most beautiful beach on the planet. 

 

In the 1950’s, Cuba was under the leadership of Fulgencio Batista. While he was by no means a perfect leader, everything changed in 1959 when Fidel Castro, who had promised a number of reforms and changes, overthrew Batista’s government during the Cuban Revolution and instilled Communism throughout the Island. 

 

To put it simply, Fidel Castro did despicable things. For my grandmother, perhaps the most despicable was what he did to her beloved school, and family, in his attempt to suppress religion in Cuba. 

 

Whenever I converse with my grandmother–my Mimi– we always end up talking about her school days. Cuba had seven schools, all with the same name: “El Apostolado del Sagrado Corazón.” The Roman Catholic school was run by Carmelite nuns who were dedicated to discipline, religion, and strengthening the already tight-knit community. “I am 94 years old, and my school is something that I have never forgotten, it beats alive in me every day.” 

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Like my parents, and me, the Catholic school community was everything to my grandmother. Not long after Castro came into power, she sat at home while his people destroyed her school, and anything having to do with religion in Cuba. 

 

"When they arrived, they removed all the [religious] images from everyone's homes…At the entrance of my school, there was- I can't forget because it was beautiful- …it was an iron ornament which was a marvel. And they tore it down and sold it. They destroyed everything, my school was beautiful…It was a building, an old building, but beautiful, and they ruined everything, but well, the memories remain."

 

I don’t think my grandmother ever truly recovered from that, and I can understand. Like my mother, and my grandmother, I went to a Roman Catholic elementary and high school run by Carmelite nuns. My brothers attended Belen Jesuit Preparatory Academy. A school that originated in Cuba; the same school my grandfather went to. This of course is not a coincidence but a cultural phenomenon prevalent in Miami as a result of the roots planted in Cuba all those years ago. Believe it or not, South Miami is actually a small town for this reason. We all share the same story.

 

Mimi and her husband, Jose “Pepe” Rodriguez, decided to leave Cuba in 1962. My late grandfather left before her because the Government was quite literally hunting down anyone who had a business. My grandmother stayed in Cuba for a couple more months before she had a chance to leave. “I left my mother, my father, and my brother,” she said with tears in her eyes. “My brother was studying medicine; he was in Havana, and I never saw him again.”

 

This is not just my family’s story, it's the story of Miami. Now, more than 60 years later, I am torn. While I am only 300 miles from the Island where it all began, as a second generation American, I can’t help but feel distant from Cuba. Though, so many things remind me of how close I really am to it all.

 

Shortly after she arrived in Miami, and in a valiant attempt to provide for her family, Mimi started working toward getting her degree. She attended the University of Miami and studied hard to become a teacher. During her studies, and with 5 children at home, Pepe got very sick. Her devotion to the betterment of her family, and her commitment to her new life in the United States, can be best told by retelling the story of my grandmother’s final exam before getting her degree. She didn't want to go, because Pepe was in the hospital and was not doing well. Mimi remembers her mother telling her she could not lose the opportunity: “You need to finish.” My grandmother went to her exam but could not finish–the thought of her husband dying alone at the hospital was too much to bear. She explained her situation to the professor who, based on her excellent performance in the class, gave her a “C” on the exam despite not finishing. It was the only C she had ever received. 

 

The next morning my grandmother was a widow left to raise her five children on her own, in a new Country, that spoke a language she did not fully understand.

 

My mother, Elsa Rodriguez, was the youngest of all her siblings. She grew up as a first generation American with a mother whose nickname was “Perfecta” so I think you can see where this is going to go. My grandmother had strict religious ideals and lacked emotion so, as you can imagine, my mom officially became a rebel. She frequently fought in school, cheated on exams, and even dabbled in grand theft auto that one time she stole the principal's golf cart.

 

She was lucky, though because, everyone at church, everyone on her block, and everyone at school understood her. Including her soon to be husband, Eduardo Rodriguez who was raised by his mother and his father of the same name and whose family had arrived in Miami just a couple years after Mimi. 

 

My paternal grandfather, Eduardo Rodriguez, was born in Havana, Cuba. My grandfather’s upbringing wasn’t as enjoyable as my grandmothers. One commonality though is the essential role school played for them. For most of his life, my grandfather lived at a boarding school. He was left there by his mother who never visited him or pulled him out for summer break. My great grandmother was a cold woman, which, if you know my grandfather, is hard to believe because he is one of the warmest people I know. With that being said, I think it's fair to say he was a bit stunted by the lack of love and compassion he received from his mother as a child; he leaned on his classmates and the bonds he made at Belen Jesuit.

 

My father’s childhood was a bit different than my mother’s. My paternal grandparents’ devotion to protecting their Cuban culture stunted my father's social and educational growth. When he was younger, my father and his 5 siblings were sent to an unaccredited, Cuban elementary school in Miami, FL that had only Cuban teachers and staff. He said, “We sang the Cuban national anthem every morning and English class was taught in Spanish.” Everything changed when he was able to attend St. Brendan Highschool–a school that, to this day, has roots as deep as those planted by the students of El Apostolado del Sagrado Corazón and Belen Jesuit in Cuba.

 

Years after they first met in high school and before marriage, my mom got pregnant with her first child at 24. A baby before marriage was a big no-no for my grandmother, so when my mom, terrified and ashamed, told my grandmother she was with child, my grandmother’s response was, “Que pena.” No hug, no “it’s going to be ok,” just shame. Luckily for her, my dad’s parents showed compassion and kindness. In their house, love and family came before anything else–including religion.

 

My parents quickly married before my mother began showing–a decision that was not really a decision at all. My grandmother had suggested a hush hush ceremony with immediate family only. Luckily, my mom’s sister stepped in and made sure it was everything and more.

 

My parents learned a lot from these shared experiences, and it informed their choices when it came to raising me and my 4 siblings. As is common with generational growth, my mom, while still deeply religious, is more accepting and loving than my grandmother ever was. My dad is just as loving as his parents were–but God remains at the forefront of every decision he makes. I went to church every single Sunday of my life.

 

As I said before, it’s easy to forget how connected I am to Cuba. Even though my siblings and I consider ourselves Cuban-American, it's sometimes difficult to pinpoint exactly how much of the Cuban is really left in us. 

 

My siblings, EJ (30), Mikey (29), Gabriela (28), Nicholas (26) and I can’t relate to much of the hardship experienced by those who came before us. We weren’t born in Cuba, we didn’t experience poverty, and we never had someone come into our homes and take what was rightfully ours. With that being said, we can relate to the best parts of what it means to be Cuban–thanks to our parents who try very hard every day to make sure the Cuban within us never dies. Preserving something like that takes a lot of effort and, at times, the reality of living in the United States can make it impossible. The challenge of preserving the language, for example, was a hurdle that they only partially overcame.

 

My three older siblings only spoke Spanish for their first years of life. This quickly changed when they were enrolled in school where only English was spoken. They would come home and challenge my “American” mother by speaking English–which after all was her preferred language. Soon, they were infecting my brother and I and speaking strictly Spanish in the house became a thing of the past. To this day, my three older siblings speak fluent Spanish where my brother and I struggle to keep up. This is just one example of the inevitable watering down of our Cuban blood. One thing has remained pure and that is the sense of community that began in Cuba and has been preserved by all the generations that came after.

 

Since coming to Miami, my grandmother has craved the community she once had before she had to flee her home from the oppressive government that took everything and gave nothing. In Cuba, neighbors and classmates were literally family. “We felt very close to all the neighbors and when something happened, we were like siblings.” You can imagine that when she arrived in the United States and was searching for a place to live, she was shocked to find that all her prospective neighbors couldn’t even speak her language.  Therefore, it's no surprise to hear that the first home she settled on was a two-bedroom house with a Cuban family living next door. It wasn’t the best or biggest spot for her and her 3 children, but it felt the most like home. 

 

She remembers, “a girl came out and said to me, ‘are you coming from Cuba?’ and I heard her speaking in Spanish and said, ‘yes!’ she then asked, ‘how is it there?’ and we told her it was terrible. She brought my girls some cookies with cream. I felt elated that she spoke Spanish and I said, ‘here I stay.” I didn’t know what the house looked like inside, or whether it had furniture. I wasn’t interested in anything. I just saw that she spoke Spanish, and she was a nice, loving person.” This sense of maintaining the Cuban community was at the forefront of most, if not all, of my grandmothers’ decisions in life. Consequently, it was also at the forefront of my mother’s decisions in life, and now I wonder, how am I carrying the legacy?

 

I asked my now 94-year-old grandmother whether she feels we have preserved her culture enough to be able to call ourselves Cuban. She said, “There is a very big difference between our culture and the American culture. I could say that there is a kind of licentiousness on the part of the Americans. We were very attached to the family, very close to the family. And I am very happy to remember when all my grandchildren were small, because that reminded me a lot of Cuba. They were all together, all playing together, that they were all more or less the same age, participating in the same games. This reminded me a lot of Cuba, and I will never forget the childhood of all those children, that was a very beautiful and very important time for me”

 

Despite my botched Spanish and my privileged upbringing, I am Cuban. My community is everything to me. When I go to the grocery, the movies, or restaurants it's not uncommon for a stranger to come up to me and say, “You’re Elsa and Eddy’s daughter.” I have a roster of contacts of friends I can call with anything and everything—many of which I have known my entire life. My city is my lifeline, and it makes me who I am. I think if you ask Mimi and Abuelo they would say the same exact thing about theirs.