An American Son: A Memoir Read Online Free

disability, and their situation had become dire by the time their sixth daughter, my mother, Oriales García, was born on November 2, 1930.
    My grandfather took any work he could find. They lost their house and moved into a tiny, one-room home, which my grandmother kept clean and tidy. “Just because we’re poor,” she told her daughters, “it doesn’t mean we have to live like pigs.” She taught her daughters to help with household chores. She made their clothes, handing down dresses and shoes from one child to the next. They bore their misfortune with dignity.
    My grandfather walked with a cane, and often lost his balance. He would come home from work with scrapes on his knees from the falls he suffered on long walks to and from jobs. My mother helped my grandmother treat his injuries with herbs and other natural remedies. She was the baby in the family at the time, and was very close to both her parents. The physical pain my grandfather suffered for their sake distressed her terribly. But no one in her family ever went to bed hungry—my grandfather made sure of it, no matter what he had to endure.
    He eventually found work at a tobacco mill. It wasn’t a glamorous job, but it allowed him to do the things he most loved: read and learn. He was responsible for keeping the workers’ minds occupied so they wouldn’t become restless with the drudgery of rolling cigars. Each morning he began by reading newspapers aloud as if he were a radio news broadcaster. When he finished the papers, he read novels to them, taking care to accentuate in his speech and manner the drama and emotions of the stories. The job didn’t pay well, but it didn’t take a physical toll on him, either, and he enjoyed it. He became a skillful storyteller, and used his education to share knowledge with his illiterate but captive audience. I think he was proud of that, and never lost the skills or the desire to employ them for the entertainment and education of others.
    I imagine when he lost his job at the railroad line he must have been close to despair, though he never conceded it to me. He was a proud man then and always. How defeated he must have felt to lose everything: profession, standard of living, distinction, every aspiration he had. To fear he wouldn’t be able to feed, house or clothe his family. To see his dreams disappear overnight, never to return again. Education was considered a privilege in Cuba then; to have an education and then lose all opportunities to make good use of it must have been heartbreaking. I don’t know if I could recover from it, or bear it with the austere dignity my grandfather possessed.
    The experience taught my grandfather that anything in life can be taken from you. He never lost his spartan realism. In time, he would lose his country. And he would suffer the consequences of that, too, with dignity, though whenever he discussed the subject he would show anger and other emotions he normally restrained. He never raised his voice with his children or grandchildren unless the conversation turned to the country he had loved and lost.
    They had two more daughters, my aunts Adria and Magdalena. They were now a family of nine living in a one-room house with a dirt floor. My grandmother assumed almost all the parenting responsibilities as my grandfather spent days away from home looking for work that would put food on their table.
    My mother recalls the humiliation she and her sisters endured. Their parents gave them dolls made of Coke bottles dressed with rags, while other girls, who had “real” dolls, laughed at them. She used to sit outside aneighbor’s house, listening at the window as their daughter played the piano, and dreamed of taking piano lessons herself. The girl’s mother discovered her one afternoon, insulted her and chased her away.
    As soon as my mother and her sisters were old enough, they had to work outside their home. They handed over their paychecks to my grandmother, who used the money to