LINKS

It is amazing to look back seven years ago and see all the things I’ve done. 

I was in Cuba graduating from middle school and finishing my paperwork to travel to the United States of America.   I came to this country for only one reason: to meet my father.  It was a very difficult decision because I was leaving the person I love the most: my mother.  I was also leaving behind other family members that I loved.  My mother’s name is Carmen Moreno, but I call her: “Tatica” (A sweet nickname).  She is a very smart, strong and delicate person and she is the person that inspires me to be a successful engineer.  I was traveling to United States along with her, but she wasn’t allowed to travel with me. So, I decided to stay in Cuba, because I knew it was impossible for me to live without her for more than a week.  But, like I said, she is a very strong woman.  She didn’t stop until she had convinced me to come by myself, because I didn’t have a future in Cuba.  She also promised me that we were going to meet here someday.

People must think that she was crazy to encourage me to come to this country by myself; I was one of those people.  I asked myself, why she was telling me to leave the country without her.  It was a very difficult moment for my mother and I.  The fact is that she loves me so much that she sacrificed herself for me.  She knows my goals and she understood it was impossible for me to achieve those goals in Cuba. I arrived in Grand Rapids, MI one day after my fifteenth birthday.  I arrived at Miami International Airport., where I met my father. It was the summer of 2001, so I spent some time getting to know my new family (my family from my dad’s side).  I also watched a lot of American television to get use to the English. During the fall, I started attending East Kentwood High School.  That was the beginning of the new era.  I was experiencing a new school, new language; I was getting to know my father.  But, I miss my mother and relatives from Cuba.

My father sacrificed a lot of things to make me feel comfortable.  He worked a lot to give me all those things I didn’t have in Cuba, but there was something he couldn’t give me.  Every second I spent in the U.S.A it was a second I wasn’t spending with my mother.  My father worked harder to make my life easier.  He did something that few people would have done.  He spent about forty dollars a week to call my mother to keep that communication between her and me.  He is a great person.  There is a movie that came our recently title “Pursuit of Happyness”.  That is a story very similar to mine, but I didn’t end up millionaire.  Well, not yet.

My father learned how to cook for me.  He learned how to do laundry, and clean the house.  It was just my father and me.  We went through both great things and not-so-great things together.  I had to understand that it was pretty much two people living under the same roof, getting to know each other.  It was a great time that gave us more experience and made us wiser.

I had a lot going on in my mind, but I never let that interfere with my studies.  I kept going to school, learning the language and making connections with the other students.  Sometimes I would just stand in a group and laugh with them, even though I didn’t understand anything.  I saw many people dropping out of school and not taking tests serious, but that wasn’t enough to keep me away from my goals.
I knew my goals, and I wanted to make my mother, father, and other relatives proud of me. Also, I didn’t come from so far to fail.