Our Dreams Were Bigger Than Our Fears

A bus the yellow lighting of the gas station
Against the dark hours of
Midnight fast asleep
Silence my head slumped over
My mom's shoulder her
Voice timid and hesitant as she stumbled
Through a sentence in English
At the cash register
A Winnie the Pooh journal these are the
Things I remember when I think of when
My mom and I immigrated to America

I was almost 7 at the time, born in Havana
Cuba my papá is puro Mexicano
And we lived back and
Forth between the heat of Havana
And the concrete jungle of
Mexico City i didn't realize
It then, but, boy
Does it hit me now i realize how
Scary it must have been for them
For my mom to leave the streets of
Havana where our neighbors were our
Friends, where we gathered every
Holiday to eat
Pork and my grandma's rice and beans
To not hear the malecón and
The heartbeat of her city
Pulsing with every crash of the wave for my
Dad to leave behind his four brothers and
Sisters, the memory of his parents
The street vendors selling
The elotes con mayonesa that I would beg him
To get in the mornings before school
The best friends he'd grown
Up with everything to
Decide to start from the ground up

With a couple hundred dollars
The clothes on our
Backs, no family in the United States
And no clue of what
Was going to happen next
That's exactly what we did like
My mom said, "I don't know where I'm going
But I can't stay here" And that was enough

Why were we packing up our stuff? Why was
My grandma hugging me tighter than usual?
Where were we going? "We're going to Disney
World!" That's what my Mom told me
When we were crossing the border she packed a
Little backpack with my Winnie the Pooh
Journal and my doll, and we crossed the
Border from Mexico to the US
Seeing my Dad become an ant in
The distance as he stayed behind

Just Disney World whenever I have to
Make a decision now and I'm
Afraid, my mom always reminds me
Of that day "That day, i knew if
I thought about it
Fear would make me turn back
That's why when you're
Afraid, you force yourself to jump you
Don't think, you just jump, " she says to me

After she sat down with the immigration
Officer in a tiny office, we and a bunch of
People from other countries with
Similar hopes were placed
In rooms with tiny beds in them
A hotel full of these rooms it was me
And my mom and two other families
In a little room waiting for somebody to
Come in and let us know if
We were going to be granted
Permission to enter the US
Or be sent back some people spent days there
Some spent weeks in agonizing anxiety over
What the answer would be
Meanwhile, I was wondering when
The heck we were
Going to get to Disney we were
There only a day when we finally got
The news the room bursted with joy
Everybody around me clapping and hugging and
Screaming and crying! And me yelling
Out "Yay! We're all going to
Disney!" Little did I know
Little me and my mamá ended up on
A Greyhound bus to Miami that took
36 hours that's where I have my most
Vivid memories other stuff I vaguely
Remember and know from stories
My parents told
Me years after but I remember
Writing in my Winnie the Pooh journal
A lot on that bus ride

We got to Miami and moved
Into my grandpa's colleague's house
Who later became my godmother my
Mom was a very good architect in Cuba
But when she came to America
None of the degrees she
Earned in Cuba counted, so to make enough
To keep us fed and put me
Into school she began stacking
Shoes in Marshalls and going to
School at night to take courses in English
All while taking me to and from
School and helping me with my
Homework all by herself
Alone in a strange country i
Can't imagine how frustrating
It must have been for her to have
Worked her whole life in
Architecture and then have
It all erased when she came here

One day, as if God was listening
Two elderly Cuban
Women were conversing with her
And told her: "Oye, tu estás muy bonita para
Trabajar en Marshalls
Where are you from?" My mom told
Her the story of how she
Was Cuban and she was actually an
Architect you wouldn't believe it
But the two Cuban women said
They had a brother who worked in architecture
And needed someone who worked in Autocad
A complicated architectural computer
Program they asked
Her: "Do you know Autocad?" Internally, my
Mom was like "Autocad? What the hell is
Autocad? We use pencil and paper
Where I'm from" But to the ladies
She said: "Autocad? Of course yes
Of course i can do that" She learned how
To use the program in a week
And made enough to move us out of
My godmother's house and into an apartment

She learned fast because she literally had
To in order to survive immigrants
Have one thing in common: Hunger
I don't mean it literally
Although that's true
Too, but metaphorically the hunger to do the
Impossible because you have no choice
Because you came too damn far, because
You've known what struggling is
And you're not going to
Take an opportunity for
Granted the hunger and ability to win
Above people with better circumstances
Than you simply
Because you want it badly enough

Long story short
My papá came over from Mexico a year and a
Half later I had a little calendar in
My room counting down the
Days because he couldn't
Stand being away from us he went through
Such hardship to cross the
Mexican border and had
It harder than my mom and I did
Literally risking
His life for his family to physically make it
Here when he first came to the US
He started off washing cars in front
Of Dolphin Mall in the blistering
Miami heat but we kept moving on up
With the Latin community in Miami
Helping each other up as we did it
Slowly and slowly my parents kept working
And climbing and ended up
Forming a construction
Company together named after my sister
And I they always pushed me to
Focus on my studies because
The whole reason we came here
Was so my sister
And I could have better opportunities
In life than they did
They said: "Money comes and
Goes, but your education, lo que tienes aquí
(and they would point to my
Head while saying that)
Nobody can ever take that away from you"
They let me know that in order to go a
Good college I had to get a scholarship
So I worked as hard as
I could however plot twist!
That didn't quite go the way
We thought it would

You see, in 9th grade
A little girl who had never sung in front of
People before asked her parents if they
Could take her to Greensboro, NC
To audition for a little show
Called The X Factor
Yikes! I had never sang in front of
People before well
Did my mom know Autocad? No did I know how to
Perform on a stage on TV? No but I
Wanted it badly enough
And I learned from my family that if
You work hard enough and you
Want it badly enough
You can do the impossible

I was wrong about one thing my mamá
And papá did not leave everything behind
They brought it with them my grandma still
Makes pork and rice
And beans every holiday like she did
And my mom still feels the waves
Of the malecón in her heartbeat
Because she still feels the most at
Peace when she's by the
Sea my grandma and dad still get
Drunk and sing Luis Miguel
In the kitchen we found our
Favorite Taco spot in Miami
(I capitalized Taco because they
Are that good) and
Whenever we find another person
From our country
We freak out "¿De qué parte?"
Because we have home
In us because we brought it with us every
Cuban brought it with them and so we have
Miami mexicans brought it and so we have
The best Mexican food ever
The Italians brought it and so we have pizza
The Swedish brought it and we have
Great pop songs the list goes
On and on and so, that's why
When I hear a bigoted, racist
Man with power and influence speak with
Anger and ill-will about immigrants
I think "what a fool"

I am so proud to be Cuban-Mexican this
Country was built on immigrants people who
Were brave enough to start over how
Strong we are to leave behind
Everything we know in hopes of something
Better we are not fearless, we just
Have dreams bigger than our fears we
Jump we run we swim, we
Move mountains, we do whatever it
Takes and so next time, when anybody wants
To tell you they want to build
A "wall" on our border, remember
Behind that wall is struggle, determination
Hunger behind that wall, could be the next
Cure for cancer, the next scientist, the
Next artist, the next drummer
The next anything they work
Hard enough to become!

PS i did end up going to Disney
For the first time a year later