Once upon a time Cuba was my home.  It was beautiful and pure and all mine.  All I had ever known was joy, that was until 1959 when revolution spread throughout my beloved nation.  Cuba was no longer mine, but instead branded by the fiery-hot hands of Fidel Castro. Once exquisite and full of color, my homeland was now cast exclusively in black and white.  Hundreds of thousands of people who were against the revolution were arrested. Acts of torture and executions were commonplace.  And in the spring of 1960, Castro announced that secondary schools would close and children in 6th grade and up would be sent to revolutionary youth camps in the countryside.  Many middle and upper-class Cuban parents wanted their children to escape the brutal regime of Communist Cuba. One by one my classmates mysteriously began to vanish, leaving nothing but their empty desks.  Nobody knew why. After one year of constant fear, I discovered the fate many of my friends had faced. I, like them, would be part of Operation Pedro Pan, a clandestine plan to rescue Cuban minors from Castro’s Communist indoctrination and bring them to America unaccompanied.   

Within two days I would be saying goodbye to my family in Havana and heading alone to Miami.  My mother, unsure when we would see each other again, gifted me a small golden locket, engraved with the words “Sea valiente - Be brave”.  I boarded a plane full of crying children, too young to understand why they were being separated from their families.  I was seated next to a young boy, around 7 or 8 years old, who spent the entire flight writing a letter to his mother. I watched his small bony fingers scribble the words “When are you coming to get me?” over and over onto his tear-stained stationary.  He pressed his pencil so hard against the paper that it almost began to bleed. All I could do was grasp my necklace, open my lungs, and breathe in as much Cuba as I could. I stared through the oval window until the plane was 30,000 feet up, and the world was nothing but seas and clouds.

The short flight might as well have taken me to the other side of the planet.  The plane, acting as a portal, transported me into a whole new world. A white world.  An Anglo world. A foreign world. Exiled and alone, I was stripped of everything: my identity, my family, my life.  All of it, gone. The kids descended from the plane and dispersed to different foster homes and orphanages, setting out on their new independent lives.  It was like we were babies, looking wide eyed at a vast region of uncharted territory, unable to communicate with any of its inhabitants. Spanish was all I’d ever known, but in this English land, it left me voiceless.

The foster family I was assigned to had had one goal for me, Americanization.  It was as if their hands clasped around my throat, clawing the Spanish out of my vocal chords.  English, as the only language I was allowed to speak, was placed on an American made silver spoon and force fed into my mouth.  My ethnic clothes were replaced with an arrangement of bright shapeless dresses and long bell bottom jeans.  With my curly hair straightened and styled into a slick bob, I was looking more and more like Jackie Kennedy than the true scared little Cuban girl that hid behind  the arrangement of accessories. The only indication that my reflection was no intruder was the beautiful brilliant light shining off of the dainty golden locket hanging around my thin neck.  Before I could even get settled down, my foster parents registered me into a proper English school. My shiny new white kitten heels clanked as I nervously walked into my first American class.  My small, manicured hands clung onto my beloved locket like it was the last life preserver on a sinking ship. Taking my first steps into the polished classroom, I began to drown in a sea of blonde hair and pale skin.  The sharp blue eyes of judgement aimed for my heart, tearing down my carefully constructed facade brick by brick, until nothing but a trembling little girl remained.

The teacher asked me a question, but the combination of nerves and understanding barely enough English to count to 10, rendered me speechless.  I was a deer frozen in the bright beams of a million headlights. My tango with misery entertained the cold souls of my classmates, inviting an eruption of boisterous laughter.  Heartbroken, I pushed past the onlooking teacher and sprinted to the nearest bathroom. My heels, leaving skid-marks on the blue tiled floors, beat with the fury of a thousand pounding drums.  My face transformed from the usual caramel colour into a fiery shade of iridescent red. Once the first tear fell down from my large brown eyes, the rest followed in an uncontrollable stream. The tears, as if made of acid, burned a gauging hole through my delicate bronze cheeks.  A tsunami of doubt flooded my mind with horrible thoughts. It was as though my classmates were yelling after me “You will never be good enough. You will never be loved. You will never be American.” I feared they were right. No amount of modern attire could advance my status to anything more than a far cry from normal.  My tan skin could not be whitewashed, like so many other aspects of my identity had been.

I curled up inside a locked bathroom stall and prayed to return to Cuba.  Grasping my necklace, I day-dreamt of being sung to sleep by my mother’s soothing warm voice. It was as though she was right next to me, giving me a warm embrace, and singing the soft tune.  However, reality violently shook me up, sending a harsh reminder that I was still alone and the once familiar ditty was now nothing more than a distant melody. I longed to be in a place that not only accepted my differences, but embraced them.  After deciding to flee back to Cuba, I began to prepare how to break the news to my fake parents. All of a sudden, a familiar voice echoed in my ears. “Sea valiente, mi amor. Te amo más que nada, pero tienes que mantenerte fuerte. Hagame orgullosa. - Be brave, my love.  I love you more than anything, but you have to stay strong.  Make me proud.” It was my mother’s last words before sending me off to America.  The tone of her voice alone was enough to resuscitate my lifeless body from the cold bathroom floor.  My heart overflowed with a newfound eagerness and my legs regained the strength to stand up proudly. I smoothed out my neon yellow dress, fixed my messy hair, practiced a smile in front of the mirror, and returned to the classroom battlefield.  

From that day on, my number one priority was to achieve the Cuban American Dream.  School, although still a source of struggle, seemed like a mere dispute in comparison to the nuclear war it had once been.  My English, though greatly improving, was hampered by the strong accent that twisted every sound escaping my tinted pink lips.  As I rolled my r’s, my classmates rolled their eyes. Desperate for approval, dissecting American culture became part of my daily schedule.  I would race home to see the Andy Griffith Show appear on the living room Zenith TV, studying the pronunciation of each and every syllable spoken.  I learned the songs belted by my classmates, analyzing all artists from the Beatles to the Beach Boys to the Temptations. Practicing how to act in any and every social scenario in my bedroom mirror became essential.  As my English improved and my accent slowly faded, I gained more and more acceptance. School was no longer a struggle, but an opportunity. I grinned at myself in the mirror before leaving for the last day of school, admiring my sparkling Mary Jane strap shoes paired with a precious baby pink shift dress.  Finally, I felt like a true American. Content, I headed for the door, when all of a sudden the golden chain around my neck gleamed, reflecting a rich glorious light. My new life may be in America, but I will always and forever be Cuban. Smiling, I grasped the necklace and whispered “Gracias mami - Thank you mommy.”