personal relationship with one of them. Despite the efforts of many in the community, including the media, to foster divisions between blacks and new immigrants, I have always found very little division when there is person-to-person contact. For it is not color or language that divides us, but economic status and dreams for our families that unite us.
After some time, my dad secured a job at an auto parts factory. Because they could only afford one car, my mom also got a job at the same factory doing clerical work.
I grew up in Little Havana and began my education at my neighborhood school, Shenandoah Elementary. In Cuba, I had been enrolled in a bilingual school. Morning classes were taught in English, afternoon classes in Spanish, or vice versa. Regrettably, we have a very parochial notion about language in our country—how we’re all supposed to forget whatever language we (or our ancestors) used to speak, and speak only English. When you travel the world, it’s often different; people are encouraged to learn the language not just of their country but of others as well. But we Americans expect everyone to speak English.
Shenandoah was not predominantly Cuban. My memories of recess involved a ritual: fighting with the American kids. We would go out to the school yard; the Cuban kids would form one line and the American kids would form another line. For reasons yet unknown, we would fight during the entire recess (or until someone stopped the fight). We did not need a reason. It was just simply a ritual.
Elementary school was fairly uneventful. I did well, picking up English rather quickly; in fact, most of us did. It would bother some of the American kids that we would win spelling bees. “You just got off the boat, what are you doing winning a spelling bee?” they would ask incredulously. Our parents taught us to work hard, study hard, learn English, and that in the United States everything is possible. My focus during my elementary school years, however, was baseball. I would wake up in the morning and fall asleep at night with a ball in my hand. It was my love.
IN 1967, as sixth grade was ending, I was selected to play on a baseball team that had been invited to participate in the Bronco division of the Boys’ League World Championship. Our team, made up exclusively of young Cubans, would be called Miami Cuba Libre (Free Cuba). No one had given us much of a chance to win. Because the tournaments were double elimination (if you lose two games, you are eliminated), most people thought we would be back in Miami quickly. As a result, my parents packed two sets of everything for me: a couple of pairs of underwear, a couple of t-shirts. They gave me five dollars, kissed me goodbye, and expected me to return home in two days. Much to everyone’s surprise, we were away practically the entire month of August. We had to keep calling for more underwear, and a little more money.
The games took us from Alabama to Texas. It was the first time I was truly exposed to the rest of America. Up to that point, I lived mainly in an immigrant environment, surrounded by the smells of Cuban food and listening to the beat of Cuban music. Clearly, I was dealing with kids in school who were not Cuban—even though I was apparently fighting them most of the time! Some of my non-Cuban classmates did live in the same neighborhood, but I wasn’t being invited over to Johnny’s house for meatloaf and mashed potatoes. So the baseball tour exposed me to a larger view of America. When I look back, I’m struck that it was 1967 and there I was in Birmingham, Alabama, playing baseball in close proximity to Dr. King’s march for justice and equality.
We stayed at the homes of our host teams. As a result, I learned that Americans had eggs and ham or bacon and muffins for breakfast. This was a real culture shock. In my family, breakfast consisted of just coffee with milk and Cuban toast—that’s it. What I was eating for breakfast in those homes in Alabama was what we would be lucky to have for dinner at my house. I remember laughing with my parents afterward, saying, “I love these Americans, they sure know how to eat breakfast.” Little did I know that I was putting them in an awkward spot. “Well son, we’d love to feed you that way too, but we just can’t afford it.” To this day, breakfast continues to be my favorite meal. It still consists of café con leche and Cuban toast, but it also includes eggs and ham, the best of both worlds.
Traveling with my team did a lot to expand my horizons, not just when it came to food. After playing and winning in Birmingham, we went to Kingsville, Texas, for the finals. Kingsville had a large Mexican American population that welcomed us with open arms. Because we spoke Spanish and had a strong sense of pride in our shared cultural heritage, they absolutely fell in love with us and we with them: we became “their” team. They would show up at our games, and invite us for barbecues after the game. For us, it was like, “Hey, they are just like us!”
These are the kinds of experiences that helped shape who I am today. I learned that too often people will hold opinions of others on the basis of something they have heard or read. They allow themselves to become critical of others because they sound or look different. We are all products of our own experiences in life. Regrettably, those experiences generally do not include personal exposure to other people and cultures. Traveling to Alabama and Texas did that for me, making me a better person. It also led to my future involvement in the fight for civil rights, the rights of farmworkers, and the plight of all immigrants.
By the time we reached the finals in Kingsville, our games were being broadcast in Miami in Spanish, and the local Spanish newspaper even sent a reporter to cover the finals. The games had become so popular with the local community that some estimated attendance at 10,000. Included among those attending were professional baseball scouts. We ended up undefeated, and in the process became world champions. Incidentally, in the final series game, with our team trailing 1 to 0, I hit a game-winning two-run homer.
Back home in Little Havana, our team became the rallying cry for a community desperate for some good news. On our return from Texas, thousands at Miami International Airport welcomed us. We left the airport in used Cadillac convertibles (the father of one the players ran a used car lot), and were given a ticker tape parade through Little Havana. We rode up and down Southwest Eighth Street and Flagler Street several times. During the weeks that followed, we were honored by almost every Cuban exile organization of its day, were given a key to the City of Miami, and appeared on local English language television stations. It was the Cuban community’s proudest moment during the early exile years.
This was 1967. Most of us had only been here five, six, seven years. Many in the community were still washing dishes, still struggling. There was no good news from Cuba, no prospect for a quick return, until suddenly this group of kids out of nowhere became world champions. I continued to play baseball in high school, both for the school team and for summer and evening leagues. I dreamed of playing baseball professionally; to become the Cuban Mickey Mantle. But this was very difficult for Cuban kids in my era. We had two obstacles. One was economic. Most of us had to start working at an early age in order to help our parents. The other obstacle that set back many young people during those years was drugs. It was one or the other. As I grew older and still played ball, you could begin to see a difference with the next wave of young Cuban Americans. Although younger, this group was close enough in age that we were in the same field together. Many of them went on to play college and professional baseball. Why? One reason was time. I would go to a park and see them practicing with their fathers. We were not so lucky. Our fathers were working two or three jobs and we were working too. If your father can spare the afternoon and go out with you to a park, you can continue to develop your skills. None of us had that opportunity. It was: I have to go to school and then I’m going to work. Either I dedicate myself to school and make sure that I have the grades to get into college, or I take a chance and hope to pitch in the Major Leagues someday. I chose college and law school.
We did, of course, have time for fun. My dad was very social; he loved to have people over at our house all the time. There was always some sort of gathering, a party, a barbecue on weekends. In those days, as a host, you simply couldn’t afford to supply steaks or hamburgers for everyone. Instead, guests would show up with their meal in a package and place it on
