Message in bottle brought him here. Now he spreads his message to others.
By Mayrav Saar. The Orange County Register. July 4, 2000. From Newport Beach
He'll tell them what they don't know about today.
Luis Abreu will stand before mostly U.S.-born Independence Day revelers at an annual pancake breakfast and bicycle parade, and he'll explain what it means to be free.
Before Fidel Castro came to power more than 40 years ago, Abreu was a young boy living in Cuba - playing baseball, picking up a little English and dreaming about America.
When Cuba fell to communism, the dream of America became an "obsession," he said.
In 1990, he and his wife, Miriam, found a message in a bottle on the shores off the northern coast of Cuba. It was sent by fifth-graders at Harbor Day School in Corona del Mar in an exercise meant to teach kids about ocean currents. Abreu wrote back in stilted English, and a five-year pen-pal
relationship developed.
And when in 1996 Abreu wrote that he had won the Cuban immigration lottery to come to the United States, kids at the school raised the $1,800 the couple needed for the trip to Orange County.Last year, Abreu spoke at the eighth-grade graduation of some of his pen pals. They should cherish what
they have in this country, he told them. He knows what it is like to long for freedom.
"I told them, 'Here in America, we have been blessed like no other nation in history with the sacred responsibility of bearing the torch which illuminates the path of freedom for all other nations of the world,' " he said, reading from his notes.
There was much eye-dabbing in the audience. And after the speech, Joe Bentley, a Corona del Mar father of one of the young graduates, asked if Abreu would speak at his church pancake breakfast a year away.
"I thought the church group should know his story," Bentley said.
"It really reaches at the heart of why we're all Americans - the desire to be someplace where we can live as we want to live."
Abreu said that since moving to Santa Ana, he has retained some habits from his Cuban days. He eats dinner, but not lunch, because food was limited in Cuba and he rathered his stomach grumble in the day than at night.
But mostly he has embraced his new life and marvels at how quintessentially American his story is. In the four years since he arrived, both of his sons won visas and brought their families over.
The family has welcomed the first of its clan to be born on American soil, Abreau's granddaughter, Anabelle, whom he calls "the American."
And all three Abreu men now have their commercial truck driver's licenses. Abreu and his youngest son, Richard, have jobs driving produce trucks, and his oldest son, Luis Jr., is looking for work.
"One day, maybe we can buy one truck or two," he said. "That's my idea, to be a (trucking company) owner: Abreu and Sons."
In his Fourth of July speech, Abreu plans to talk about another dream as well.
"One day I hope to be able to stand with my family at the feet of the Statue of Liberty and read the words that were a beacon of hope to me for all these years," he said. " 'Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.' " The free pancake
breakfast and kids bicycle parade begins at 8 a.m. today at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2150 Bonita Canyon Road, Newport Beach. Abreu is expected to speak at 9:15 a.m.
Copyright 1999 The Orange County Register |