I have never felt such confusion, never awakened to feel like a citizen in limbo.
Mario R. Garcia. Published Monday, June 5, 2000, in the Miami Herald
There is a new Cuban American in the United States: melancholic, reflective, talking a little slower, wondering what that Anglo co-worker is thinking and trying desperately to put the Elián saga behind him.
I know. I am of them.
It is a sort of joke among Americans who know Cubans that ``all the Cubans know each other.'' Well, not quite.
Cuban Americans tend to group themselves based on such facts as ``date of arrival in the United States'' or ``degree to which one stuck to Castro at the beginning before realizing he was a bad guy'' or ``where one lived in Cuba, what club one belonged to and where one went to school.''
For the first time -- and this may be one of the blessings following Elián -- we Cuban Americans are experiencing a sense of strange solidarity.
It doesn't matter that you came on the Mariel boatlift (for Cuban Americans who arrived here first, the question to this group has been: What took you so long? Were you a Castro sympathizer?), while I may have come on a Pan Am jet in the ``early days'' (this raises my status considerably). It
matters little that you have a fancy name that denotes old money, or that you are another Pérez, González or García.
What matters most today is that we all are badly hurt by what has taken place since the rescue at sea of a little boy with a cute, photogenic face.
I grew up in Miami, arriving at the age of 14. Like many of my peers, I hit the books, became inseparable from my English dictionary, practiced speaking English with the elder American ladies next door whose lawns I mowed, and adapted to life in school, emerging a proud, patriotic American.
My new country and the pride of being a part of it did not diminish the pride I also felt for the accomplishments of my fellow Cuban Americans. I did not have to read the newspaper to check up on the strength, courage and intelligence that made us one of the most successful group of immigrants
in U.S. history. I could look at my father, who lost his business in Cuba, arrived in Miami with nothing, and a short time later had a jewelry store again -- a small one, but his own -- and was thriving again.
It is that pride that I have passed to my four children, proud first-generation Americans and hopefully will pass to my grandchildren. As I play with Brianna, 15 months old, and Max, 10 months, I try to put into perspective -- who we are and what we represent to our fellow Americans -- the
bitter feelings expressed by so many, most of whom know little about the Cuban-American experience yet are quick to point fingers and utter phrases such as ``Go back to Cuba.'' More important, I hope my grandchildren will never feel what we have felt recently, that strange feeling that everyone
considers you a bad seed, the immigrant from hell, or worse.
With those thoughts come other reflections: Where do we belong? After we have felt so welcome and secure here, what is happening?
We definitely don't belong in today's Cuba; it is not our country -- America is our country. I have never felt such confusion, never awakened to feel like a citizen in limbo.
Time and distance are wonderful remedies. The incidents of the past few weeks cannot, under any circumstance, erase the positive contributions of Cuban Americans to the United States. Most of us are law-abiding, respectful, hardworking Americans, who believe in the laws and values that make this
country the best place on Earth.
In the midst of this contemplation, perhaps the most refreshing phrase I have heard recently came from an Immigration and Naturalization Service officer upon my arrival from a trip abroad at the Atlanta airport: ``Welcome home.''
I was home. This is home. And nothing, not even a cute little boy's saga, can take that away from me or any of us.
Mario R. García is president of the García Media Group and member of the faculty of the Poynter Institute for Media Studies in St. Petersburg.
Copyright 2000 Miami Herald |