He violently stamped the passport “VOID,” inches from my face. The uniformed officer said: “You can never return home again.” That is the farewell I received departing from Cuba in 1972, making me an outcast in my own homeland. I was 11 years old when we arrived in Madrid, Spain, as an exile and 14 years old when we arrived in Los Angeles, uprooting for a second time. 

I often struggled to know where I belonged. I felt split between very different worlds that were often at odds with one another, culturally as well as politically. I longed to feel a sense of belonging and wholeness, but instead I felt the “split” of being neither here nor there. Persons born and partially raised in one country who migrate to another during childhood or adolescence belong to the “hybrid” generation, called the “1.5 generation” (Portes and Rumbaut, 2014; Rumbaut, 1994), displaced from their motherland during crucial years of identity formation. They struggle with issues of loss and mourning, a yearning to belong, and cultural confusion stemming from conflicts in value systems and cultural norms between their native and adoptive homelands.  

“Persons born and partially raised in one country who migrate to another during childhood or adolescence belong to the ‘hybrid’ generation, called the ‘1.5 generation”’(Portes and Rumbaut, 2014; Rumbaut, 1994), displaced from their motherland during crucial years of identity formation.”

In Cuba, my parents divorced when I was seven months old. My mother’s pregnancy was filled with emotional and sensory turmoil stemming from marital discord and betrayal trauma. My grandparents’ home, with their love and support, became my refuge. They provided me with an oasis in times of sadness and chaos. When I was four years old, my mother remarried. My stepfather, whom I call “Pipo,” raised me. I will refer to my mother and stepfather as my parents. My sister was born when I was five years old.  

Initially my parents supported Fidel Castro’s revolution, like many young adult Cubans. But when they soon realized that Castro’s intention was to make Cuba a communist country, they made the decision to leave. They wanted to give my sister and me a better life with freedoms and opportunities. Cuba felt like a prison, where human rights and freedom of speech, press and religion were denied. Suarez-Orozco and Suarez-Orozco (2001) state that while there are many reasons for immigration, one of the primary motivations is family; that is, the motivation to provide members of their family with a better life or to help them escape the political climate of their country of origin. My parents left Cuba for both these reasons, and their decision effectively made us refugees and outcasts in our own country for three years before we even left.  

To be given permission to leave, Pipo had to work for three years as a government laborer cutting sugar cane in the fields. During that time, my sister and I were ostracized at school because the government had labeled us as “traitors” to the state. Our classmates called us “gusanas” (worms), the name that was given to anyone who opposed the communist regime. We were not allowed to “salute our flag” or participate in school activities. The loss of these privileges impacted my self-esteem and self-worth. I felt “less than” - less deserving, less of a human being, without a place to call home - before I even left home. I no longer felt like I belonged in my school, in my neighborhood, or with my friends. After three years of living in a state of intense anxiety and fear, the final days leading up to our departure were the hardest of my life. I had to say goodbye to everything I knew, to my home, my extended family, my country, and my beloved grandparents. 

“I felt ‘less than’ - less deserving, less of a human being, without a place to call home - before I even left home. I no longer felt like I belonged in my school, in my neighborhood, or with my friends.”

The transition to Spain was difficult. I found the adults in Madrid to be kind and generous, but most of the children were cruel. They made fun of my accent and the way I looked and dressed in hand-me-downs. I was different, did not belong in their group, did not fit in.  

My parents decided to come to the United States because we had family in Los Angeles. This was even more difficult than relocating to Spain. As a teenager who was a few months shy of my“Quinceanera” (fifteenth birthday celebrating the coming of age for young Latinas), I did not understand the customs and cultural norms. I felt completely lost in a strange landscape full of different smells, tastes, sights, and sounds.  Everything was foreign, most importantly the language. I refused to speak English for a year due to my embarrassment at having such a heavy accent, my being misunderstood and not wanting to be made fun of. My refusal to speak English reflected a combination of shame and oppositionality. I did not want to be here! Although I knew we could not go back to Cuba, we could go back to Spain, where I had at least started to adapt. Now, I was in a more difficult transition to an even stranger land. I did not understand the idioms, the slang, or the humor. For instance, I would misquote the common idiom “a blessing in disguise,” thinking instead that the saying was “a blessing in the sky.” Only in college did a classmate correct me. First, I did not know what a “disguise” meant, and it made more sense to me, given my Catholic background, that a blessing would come from the sky. 

My family maintained very strong ties to our Cuban culture and the family that was left behind. At home, we spoke Spanish, ate “picadillo y platanitos maduros fritos” (ground beef and fried sweet plantains), listened to “boleros,” danced the cha cha cha and salsa, and used “Vibaporru” (Vicks Vapor Rub) for anything that ailed us. We were not allowed to have sleepovers with friends (even if they were Cubans), shave our legs nor pluck out eyebrows, wear makeup, or date. These rules had more to do with how things were done in Cuba than in the new country in which we were being raised. If I had advocated for my needs and desires, I would have been seen as disrespectful and rude. I would be risking my place of belonging at home, which was now doubly dangerous in this already-dislocated new world.  

“If I had advocated for my needs and desires, I would have been seen as disrespectful and rude. I would be risking my place of belonging at home, which was now doubly dangerous in this already-dislocated new world. “

Paradoxically, even though I could not participate in the usual teenage activities, I was by necessity taking on many adult roles in my family, prescribed to me by my parents. I was the translator of the outside world, the mediator of conflicts within the family, and the caretaker of my mother’s physical and emotional health. Ten years after we arrived in Los Angeles, my mother had a heart attack. She would struggle with heart disease and diabetes for the next 25 years, undergoing two open heart surgeries, one carotid artery surgery, and 15 angioplasties. Her illnesses created severe stress and intense fear at the possibility of losing her.  

Given all these stressors, education became my refuge and the school’s library my second home. In high school as well as in college, in my attempt to integrate my identity, building on both the old and the new, I wrote papers, trying to make sense of my “in-between-ness.” I was met with ridicule and contempt as I presented a paper in front of my high school English class, titled “When you are different…” about the longing to belong. The teacher pulled me aside and said, “Don’t listen to them, they are naïve and don’t know what they are saying.” Along this journey, I have been grateful to find similarly generous and compassionate people who have validated me and understood my struggles. Their loving and trusting hearts gave me inspiration to move forward despite adversity. They became part of my “resilience team,” allowing me to feel more grounded. 

Another challenging aspect of my immigrant experience was and is my difficulty separating and individuating from my family of origin. In Cuban culture, loyalty to one’s kin is paramount; thus, my family would have experienced any movement toward differentiation as a betrayal. I knew that to become more independent and make my own decisions, I needed to move out of my parents’ home. It was not until I was 27 years old, with my Master of Social Work degree and a full-time job that I was finally able to move out with my parents’ blessing and support.  

I have discovered that integrating my identity is a life-long process that has been both challenged and enhanced by my immigration experience. As an adult, living, working, and raising my children in the host country that welcomed us, I share my parents’ nostalgia and vivid memories of my childhood. I have raised my children with Cuban traditions, which has allowed them to embrace my Cuban culture to the point of their also identifying with it.