For the purpose of this autobiography, I listed the time that I spent studying to obtain my “meaningful” degree in psychology in the United States. During 1983, I attended and got credits for five subjects at St. John’s University. From 1987 to 1989 I was part of a program with a full scholarship to obtain a professional diploma in bilingual school psychology, at Fordham University. From 1989 to 1993, also at Fordham University, I fulfilled the requirements of the PhD program in psychology, all but the dissertation. It took me from 1993 to 2000 to complete my dissertation. On April 26, 2000, I defended my dissertation on a “Qualitative Study of the Acculturative Process of Immigrant Hispanic Families in Cultural Transition.” Finally, on May 20, 2000, at age sixty-two, I graduated as a doctor of psychology.
Like every other dissertation, mine included the review of literature, the results of the research done, and my own experience as part of an immigrant Hispanic family in cultural transition. Let me add a few paragraphs from the conclusion of my dissertation that summarized the knowledge and my personal experience from 1980 to 2000:
Although immigrant Hispanic families must be involved in a process of internal modification to answer the demands of the host society, they too have to insure a sense of continuity with their own home culture and tradition. Thus the family has to regain its social articulation and sense of pertinence and recognition in the mainstream culture of the host society without losing the historical connection with their own ethnic roots. Consequently, immigrant Hispanic families are within two different cultural environments, while they are working out a path from one culture to the other.
As happens with individual immigrant persons, the transition of progressive change of immigrant Hispanic families from one cultural set to the other is possible only through the cumulative interaction between the families and both cultures. Similarly, during the transition from one culture to the other, these immigrant families need to do selective adaptations over and over again, and they also need to undergo processes of differentiation in order to make healthy decisions and choices for their accommodation to the new socio-economic and cultural context.
The normal changes and stresses (as well as the reactions and disruptions in family patterns that arise as a consequence) bring about a systematic need for these families to restructure, reintegrate, and realign so as to meet the needs of its members before, during, and after the event of migration from one culture to the other. Moreover, where the stresses are extreme and the support systems of the family are insufficient, severe crisis frequently results. In addition, the lack of resolution of these transitional issues and the unresolved transitional conflicts may lead to dysfunction in the family system.
The need for restructuring is particularly important because it is within the family and/or with its support that the individual family members will develop the inner balance necessary to relate to the new culture (that demands adjustment and change) without losing their cultural identity and traditional roots.
Immigrant Hispanic families also experience a shift from an extended family in their homeland that provided a social network and emotional support to a nuclear family. Some immigrant women acquire better status through the opportunities for employment and education and consequently tend to acculturate faster than men. This specific situation also fosters the opportunity to develop greater independence and husbands become upset by their wives’ ready acceptance of their new gender roles and by the challenge to their patriarchal authority.
In addition to the conflicts arising between husband and wife, there are also intergenerational conflicts. In the process of acculturation and the learning of English, Hispanic children in the United States acquire values and attitudes that could be different from those of their parents. The differences between the family’s child-rearing practices and their children’s newly acquired set of values lead to chronic unresolved conflicts within the family. When these intergenerational differences arise, the parents experience alienation from their highly acculturated children, and the children, in turn, experience alienation from their poorly acculturated parents.
In an effort to cope with these differences, the parents attempt to restrict the process of acculturation in their children. However, such attempts could either (a) further alienate the youngsters from family interactions and the values of the parents’ culture, precipitating a rejection of the parental lifestyle and a fuller adherence to the behavior characteristics of the host culture; or (b) some become marginalized--belonging to neither group—and eventually may become outcasts.
The differential rates of acculturation across generations of family members not only have impact on the nuclear but also on the extended family members as well. For immigrant Hispanic grandparents the exposure to stressors, such as loss of country, in some cases loss of status, as well as failure to adjust to the new environment due to the lack of knowledge of the language and United States ways, result in anxiety, depression, withdrawal, despair, meaninglessness, anomie, and loss of a sense of purpose in life.
Immigrant families were unaware that migration and acculturation would be a stressful experience that could result in family conflicts. Furthermore, since the conflicts often occurred after a lapse of time (for some families as much as five years) following their arrival in the United States, most families tended not to ascribe any importance to the move itself as having contributed to their problems.
It is only when individual family members start to experience the lack of skills necessary to cope adequately with adaptation to the new culture that symptoms of maladaptive behaviors and family disorganization appear, and they begin to recognize the stressful nature of the migratory experience as well as the cumulative impact on them as members of immigrant families. However, a countless number of people manage to break away from their basic support networks, sever ties with places and people, and transplant their base, their nest, their life projects, their dreams, and their ghosts.
In conclusion, migration and acculturation can produce family disorganization and the likelihood of persistent handicaps in its members due to language barriers, lack of knowledge of rules and regulations, limited financial means, and lack of adequate reference groups. In addition, the continual interaction that immigrant families have with both environments and the short- and long-term consequences of such interactions pose a challenge for research of the nature of these dialectic and transactional influences.
Continuing with my personal story, 1991 was a very important year for all of us as a family: Pepito ended his high school studies with excellent marks. Like many other students in his senior year, Pepito received tons of mail from different colleges all over the United States with information about their philosophy, spirit, and description of the life of students there. Pepito read most of them and decided to visit only one: Williams College. After his visit, he applied for only that college, and he was accepted.
Established in 1793, Williams College is private, residential, and liberal arts, with graduate programs in the history of art and in development economics. The undergraduate enrollment is approximately 2,000 students. There are three academic divisions (humanities, sciences, and social sciences), twenty-five departments, and thirty-six majors, plus concentrations and special programs. The student to faculty ratio still is 7:1.
Going to Williams College was going to be Pepito’s first step out the home door. Both Pepe and I experienced extreme sadness when Pepito left home. I started to go into his bedroom to sit there for a while in an attempt to feel closer to him, or to go over his papers and organize them as if he were going to come home that afternoon. Like many other parents, we were suffering the so-called empty-nest syndrome. Empty-nest syndrome is the name given to a psychological condition that affects parents (most commonly women) around the time that their children leave home. Empty nest syndrome is not a term you will find in many medical textbooks, but it has become a useful label for the feelings of sadness and loss experienced.
Maybe that was the reason behind our efforts to buy our own house in North Bergen, New Jersey where my brother was living. Maybe that was also the reason behind our involvement with the Cuban American National Foundation.
North Bergen is a township in Hudson County, New Jersey. The township is also considered a suburb of New York City because about 21 percent of the township’s residents work on the island of Manhattan. The house we bought from the original owner on December 17, 1991, was constructed in 1927. It was a two-floor building with a small backyard and a semi-destroyed garage in the back. But it was our first house. After twenty years of marriage, we finally had our own roof. I never thought I was going to sell it. Just to think about it was like a sacrilege to my conscience. For years we lacked that opportunity. But there were other circumstances not anticipated that I would discuss later. From December 17, 1991, to May 26, 2006, we spent a good portion of our efforts and of our money in remaking, remodeling, and upgrading “our” home. We shaped it with our style, following our dreams.
The Cuban American National Foundation is an independent, nonprofit organization dedicated to a free and democratic Cuba. Pursuit of the foundation’s mission is guided by three underlying principles: change should be both nonviolent and meaningful, reflecting the natural will and inalienable rights of the Cuban people; change must come from within the island, not forcibly imposed from abroad; and advocating change is the responsibility of all Cubans (those on the island and in exile), governments, and organizations who share the goal of a free and democratic Cuba.
In the transitional period of late ’80s and the beginning of ’90s, the world witnessed a real miracle: a period of political and economic transformation or transition in former communist states located in parts of eastern and western Europe that moved largely without the use of force to new governments aimed at creating free-market-oriented capitalist economies with some form of parliamentary democracy. In most of the countries in eastern Europe, following the fall of communist-led governments in 1989, the Communist Party generally split into two factions: a reformist social-democratic party and a new, less reform-oriented communist party. The newly created social-democratic parties were generally larger and more powerful than the remaining communist parties; mainly in Russia, Moldova, and the Czech Republic did the Communist Party remain a significant force.
Following the spirit of the Peace Corps, the Cuban American National Foundation launched a program called Mision Marti. The Peace Corps traces its roots and mission to 1960, when then Senator John F. Kennedy challenged students at the University of Michigan to serve their country in the cause of peace by living and working in developing countries.
Pepe and I attended a dinner offered by the Cuban American National Foundation to spread out its objectives and policy. At the dinner, Pepe met one ex-political prisoner who was part of the Foundation and after the greetings Pepe shared with him our willingness to work in the Mision Marti project in the area. Soon we were in charge of putting together the program. I organized and wrote the materials for six modules of teaching, which included not only a summary of Cuban history but also socio-economic differences between capitalism and communism as well as training in the skills necessaries to organize groups, to develop group dynamics, and the knowledge necessary to understand the values, attitudes, and the causes and consequences of socio-cultural changes that had occurred in the individuals and in the family—both inside and outside Cuba. The whole program was presented in three opportunities: in the Hudson area of New Jersey, in the City of Elizabeth, New Jersey and in the Queens area of New York. Near to one hundred exiled Cubans, ranging from eighteen to sixty years old, participated in it.
That was the beginning of a period of nearly ten years dedicated to getting involved in initiatives geared to accompany the people in Cuba while they continued empowering and organizing themselves for a transition similar to those European countries that were changing their social and political conditions. For nearly five years, every week a group of ex-political prisoners met in the basement of our house to tape a one-hour radio program. The programs, sponsored by the Union de Presos Politicos of New York-New Jersey, were aired to Cuba using the frequency and waves of the station that Cuba Independiente y Democrática had in the Caribbean area. Cuba Independiente y Democrática is a political movement created by another ex-political prisoner and ex-combatant of the Cuban Revolution, Hubert Matos.
In December 1993, I began my first official job as school psychologist, working for the Elizabeth Board of Education in New Jersey. Elizabeth was an hour away from my house in North Bergen. Every morning I drove there through the New Jersey Turnpike and every afternoon, after 3:00 pm, I drove home. Twice per month I had to drive to Brooklyn to meet the supervisor of my internship, and every week I had to attend classes at Fordham regarding my internship.
This was the first time in my life that I worked as school psychologist. The role of school psychology originated in the late nineteenth century. Its origins are closely connected to those of clinical and educational psychology, the rise of psychological science, the development of psycho-educational tests, and the implementation of special education programs in response to the needs of atypical children required to attend school under state compulsory attendance laws. The major roles and functions of practicing school psychologists include psycho-educational assessment, consultation, interventions, research and evaluation, in-service education, and administration.
I carefully prepared myself to be part of the whole dynamics of the school, as well as to be prepare for the when and the how to intervene for the good of the student. Contrary to what many people believe, a school psychologist does much more than testing and interpreting test results. School psychologists work with students in early childhood and elementary and secondary schools. They collaborate with teachers, parents, and school personnel to create safe, healthy, and supportive learning environments for all students. School psychologists address students’ learning and behavioral problems, suggest improvements to classroom management strategies or parenting techniques, and evaluate students with disabilities and gifted and talented students to help determine the best way to educate them. Moreover, they improve teaching, learning, and socialization strategies based on their understanding of the psychology of learning environments. They also may evaluate the effectiveness of academic programs, prevention programs, behavior management procedures, and other services provided in the school setting.
That winter of 1993-1994 was harsh. While the copious amounts of snow were confined to the Northeast and New England, New Jersey also experienced a very cold winter featuring numerous days of snow, sleet, and ice. That winter was the second coldest in the previous thirty years, and all four months from December to March featured below-normal temperatures. I got a six-month long cold with continuous sneezing, a runny nose, and a feeling of being tired and unwell. But worse than that, I started to feel afraid to drive as soon as I heard a warning for one snow storm. After spring came I decided to send letters with my resume to all the boards of education in the area: Hoboken, Union City, Jersey City, North Bergen, and West New York. But there were no professional openings for the academic course 1994 to 1995.
I went back to Elizabeth to work and worked very hard with my driving phobia. There were hidden stresses that built gradually each time I had to drive not only to Elizabeth but also to other places. The cumulative effect of this driver stress and fear of driving caused all sorts of discomforts in my life. When I commented on the situation with the social worker of my team, she suggested driving with a peer in the car. She introduced me to one secretary who lived in Union City and every day was doing the same trip. It really helped me to overcome the stresses associated with driving in bad weather.
The year 1995 was another very important year in the life of our son, José Nestor. He obtained his bachelor’s degree with a major in political science and a minor in religion. It was a very rewarding experience visiting the campus, attending the ceremonies where he was recognized as graduating Magna Cum Laude, and listening to the comments of his teachers and friends. I said in this chapter that going to college was “Pepito’s first step out the door.” Now after graduation, Pepito moved out the door, on his own, this time to California. He wanted to work and eventually wanted to apply to study for his PhD in philosophy at Santa Cruz University. It was not easy for us, but we never did anything to hold him back. He left home with his books, his clothes, and more importantly with our blessing and our unconditional open arms to receive him back when he needed or wanted to do so.
More or less around that time, the Mexican bank where Pepe was working closed and after a period of labor insecurity he moved to work in another foreign Latin American bank. Around that time, Pepe started to experience pessimistic thoughts. In his case, the depression appeared also as anger and discouragement, as well as feelings of hopelessness and helplessness. The exact cause of his depression was not known, however I do believe that the stressful life changes or events that accompanied Pepe during his young adult age could have triggered the symptoms of depression that probably were hidden throughout the past for more than twenty years. Hidden first due to the tensions and pressures lived during the nine years after being released from prison, and second due to the stress associated with the processes of migration and acculturation experienced during the most recent years. Pepe had already changed his psychoanalytic therapist but both therapist and patient continued avoiding the possibility of using medication to handle his symptoms of anxiety and deep depression.
On August 31, 1995, I received a phone call from the supervisor of special services in Union City. He was very sharp: “Are you still interested in working as school psychologist in Union City?” “Sure,” I answered, “what do I have to do?” That phone call changed my life for the best. During eleven years I was working as school psychologist in the Union City district, I developed the most insightful perspective of my own definition as a psychologist, and I was rewarded with meaningful friendships in my last years of life. Once I said that my work in Union City helped to define my professional perspective as psychologist — a perspective that emphasizes the uniqueness of every single person and his or her own creative energy to be and to become.
Union City is a city in Hudson County, New Jersey. According to the 2000 census, Union City is the most densely populated city in the United States. Like many other cities in the United States, the population of Union City has gone through different ethnic groups: from the native Lenape to the German and Dutch immigrants. They along with the Swiss and Austrian immigrants founded the European-style lace-making industries. When you cross the Lincoln Tunnel from New York City to Union City the welcome sign reads, “Welcome to the Embroidery Capital of the United States.” Also the embroidery industry’s trademark is on the Union City Seal.
During the twentieth century Italian, Irish, and Cuban immigrants came to the city. It is said that in the late 1960s and for many years Union City was the city with the largest Cuban population in the United States after Miami. The first Cuban immigrant generations that I met in Union City proudly spoke of their contribution to the transformation of Bergenline Avenue as well as the city: “Bergenline is Bergenline thanks to the Cubans”. Union City was a country town (pueblo de campo) until we came here.” Bergenline Avenue runs through not only the entire length of Union City from north to south, but also through West New York, Guttenberg, and North Bergen, making it the main commercial strip for Northern Hudson County. Many of the households in Union City have a primary language other than English, with 80 percent of the population speaking Spanish.
When I started work for the Union City Board of Education as school psychologist, Cubans were working in the system, but Cubans were no longer a majority in the city: immigrants from Eastern Europe, the Near East, and Latin America, as well as from the Caribbean Islands contributed to give a real melting pot face to the city. According to the 2000 census, Hispanic or Latino of any race was 82.32 percent of the population of Union City. Most of these families were newcomers and/or first-generation people.
From the eleven years that I spent working for the Union City Board of Education, nine were for the Washington School. This school operates grades K-8 with the majority of students being Hispanic, making up about 96 percent of the student body. This school is eligible for state and federal financial aid via the school-wide Title I program, which plays an important role in helping fund school operations and provides assistance to low-income and at-risk students. Also, around 94 percent of the students are able to obtain lunch at no cost or at a reduced price.
Only a year and a half after one Latin American bank hired Pepe, he was left go due internal restructuring of personnel. As compensation, he received completed his year of salary as well as he was covered for the rest of that year with his health insurance. Both of us were confused and insecure about his future. Neither of us liked the idea of Pepe being at home after having spent years working in Manhattan, within the mainstream of his profession. Following the advice of his sister-in-law, Pepe registered at an office for temporary jobs. The temporary jobs office provides temporary employment services throughout banks and accounting firms seeking qualified temporary staff. Temporary positions are limited in duration — ranging from a half day to several months — and cover situations, such as special projects and events, workflow peaks, unscheduled absences, scheduled leaves or vacations, and pending recruitments.
Pepe worked in a few temp jobs, but the “temporary” issue was hurting more than benefiting him, especially for his perception that the job he was performing was uncertain and may come to an end sooner than expected. Thus, the job insecurity he was experiencing was highly threatening to his psychological well-being in addition to the prospect of losing the positive social, and psychological benefits associated with employment. During this period of working in temporary positions, Pepito reached his moment of getting married. Pepito was living in San Francisco, California, where he met Ana Rosa. She was from Tijuana, Mexico, but had done her studies and labor history in California. Being away from him for the last four years, I was very pleased that he was going to get married with someone that would love, accompany, and take care of him.
Pepito and Ana married on June 18 at a resort called Calafia in Baja California, Mexico. Calafia is a small town south of Tijuana. The Hotel Calafia was actually a mission—La Mision San Diego de Ocala—was founded in 1769 by the Jesuits and later taken over by the Franciscans (we visited the original mission on the premises). The area of Calafia is unique. It includes the hotel with its panoramic view of the ocean, many terraces cut into the cliffs, bars, discos, five restaurants, and four banquet halls. At the bottom of the cliffs is a bay called the Bahia del Descanso with a replica of a Spanish galleon called the Corona Aurea. After contributing to the marriage preparation of many couples for the past years, I felt this one was the most romantic and meaningful: with the Pacific Ocean behind, above a cliff, in a simple gazebo, surrounded by friends and family.
When we came back from the wedding, Pepe sat down with me to discuss how tense and stressed he had been feeling since he lost his permanent job and had to work as a temporary worker: insecurity and uncertainty, losing his self-confidence by going from one place to another and by doing different duties in each place. He definitively did not have strength to go back again. His pain and anxiety were so severe that — no doubt — they were interfering with his day-to-day life. I felt so sad looking at his sense of despair. I hugged him, my arms trying to do a knot around his body to show him my support, my love, to encourage him. Everything was too difficult for him. Again and again he asked himself and me, “How am I going to quit with just fifty-eight years of age?”
That period of his life was not easy for him, or for me. No doubt he was going through a breakdown of his defenses and could not go back to work. I totally supported him; he needed a break. The next day he called the temp program to end his commitment with them. When I came back from my work at Washington School, we discussed different strategies to help him get out of “the hole” where he felt he was. First of all, I asked him to visit a different psychiatrist to get a second opinion. I recommended a Cuban psychiatrist who would understand both diagnoses: post-traumatic stress disorder and major depressive disorder. We also discussed the possibility of taking medication for his depression.
According to the chemical imbalance theory, low levels of the brain chemical serotonin lead to depression and depression medication works by bringing serotonin levels back to normal. However, the truth is that researchers know very little about how antidepressants work. There is no test that can measure the amount of serotonin in the living brain—no way to even know what a low or normal level of serotonin is—let alone show that depression medication fixes these levels. Experts agree that depression involves much more than just “bad” brain chemistry. Serotonin is just one of many factors that may play a role in the disorder. Social and psychological factors also play an enormous role in depression. Researchers also agree that when depression is severe, medication can be helpful—even life saving, especially if depression is interfering with a person’s ability to function and sense of well being.
Secondly, we discussed the possible role of the weekly meeting at home with the ex-political prisoners to write and tape the radio program directed to the Cuban people in his emotional and mental status. We concluded that if those meetings were not affecting his current emotional state, they were not necessarily doing well. I called the person in charge of the program, excusing us based on the deadline to finish my dissertation.
We also discussed the possibility of attending therapy directed to learn new ways to perceive and judge the reality in a more hopeful way, and/or support groups for persons suffering from depression. Support groups allow those who share a common diagnosis to come together and share ideas, coping tips, experiences, and, most importantly, to exchange emotional support. Support groups are more than just a safety net for the patient. Pepe didn’t want to follow either suggestion. On the other hand, Pepe always had a tendency to avoid social gatherings and did not have too many friends. The fact that he was going to be alone at home while I was working really worried me.
That same summer we had plans to invite Pepito and Ana to spend a week with us in Tampa. Since the family of Pepe didn’t attend the wedding ceremony, we invited all the family to the house of Pepe’s mother to introduce Ana to the family. It was a nice event. Ana could meet Pepito’s cousins, uncles, and grandmother. Before, during, and after the event that put together the whole Marquez family of Tampa, some of them learned about Pepe’s work situation. He received poor to no empathy with his concerns. On the contrary, they advised and counseled him to poner de su parte, distraerse, no pensar tanto and no hacerse tanto caso. More or less that was the response to Pepe’s crisis by my family in New Jersey.
Again, as I stated before, I want to emphasize the extra burden that persons suffering emotional difficulties have to face. Every one of us knows someone who has been, or will be, affected by mental illness, but few people know what that means. I know that it is very normal to fear what we don’t understand; many people fear so psychological illnesses. But also, those illnesses carry a stigma (a stigma is defined as a mark or sign of disgrace). Because of the stigma experienced by people with a mental illness, as well as the poor understanding of the nature of this difficulty, the reactions of their families and friends can be more destructive than the illness itself. Mental illness has nothing to do with being weak or lacking will power. Words like chiflado, loquto, crazy, cuckoo, psycho, and wacko are just a few examples of words that keep the stigma of mental illness alive. Just as we wouldn’t mock someone for having a physical disability or a physical illness like cancer or heart disease, it is cruel to make fun of someone with a mental illness.
In September 1999, Washington School started an extended day program and I was accepted to work from 3:00 to 7:00 pm. During that time I started to run therapeutic groups for students, such as for anger management, improving self-esteem, and parenting discussions, as well as individual therapy for those students referred by their teachers and approved by their parents. With the monetary extra help, we refinanced our house and decided to use that extra money of the extended day program to finish the payments of the mortgage.
In addition, during the first semester of the academic year 1999–2000 I also received a phone call from North Bergen Board of Education asking me to do all the psychological evaluations of the Spanish-speaking and bilingual students. I scheduled those evaluations on Saturdays and I was able to work out of home.
During the fall of 2001, after an intense scrutiny, Pepe was diagnosed as disabled to work and started to receive his disability compensation. Economically we were doing better than expected. We were able to finish the payments of the mortgage of our house. So, at that moment, the so-needed house to host our family together was already paid off and really was “ours”.
During those years before my retirement, my sister Yoya came to live in the United States. When I got my American citizenship on January 22, 1987, I filled out the papers to bring her to the United States as a resident. It took us thirteen years to achieve this dream due to many political and migratory difficulties. She went to live at our home but just by herself, first in one totally conditioned and furnished first floor of the two-floor house that we owned, and later when we decided to rent that floor we asked her to move to the totally furnished and conditioned basement. During the first two years in the United States she had medical difficulties, but finally she was able to successfully complete a few courses in English as a second language and began to work as a teacher aide for the North Bergen Board of Education.
Three other major events of that period of time were that my mother-in-law came to live with us, on and off, for two large periods between October 1999 and May 2004 when she died while living in our house. That, as I will relate later, I was diagnosed with breast cancer and had a mastectomy on February 12, 2003, and that on February 2005, Pepito and Ana decided to move to Madrid where they lived for nearly a year. No doubt that all of these three situations claimed a lot of psychological energy from both of us.
Going back to my eleven years in Washington School, someone described me as a workaholic. Maybe it was true. What I accept without doubt is that I am and was totally devoted to work for the children and their families. And more importantly, that working for them constituted for me a real source of pleasure and joy. Thank God I never faced schools working like education factories in which teachers kept youngsters sitting still for standardized lessons and tests. What I experience were teachers behaving as educational guides, facilitators, and co-learners who challenged students to take an active role in improving themselves. I considered myself a very privileged person because I had the honor of working with those devoted teachers that always walked the extra mile between instruction and education. With them as examples, I can only do one thing: to be at their service, to do my best fulfilling my role so all and each one of the students, could achieve their goals and became who they were supposed to be.
The year that I reached the retirement age I didn’t want to retire. Moreover, I even dreamed to continue working while I was able to perform my work with quality and accuracy. Also not in our plans was selling the house. We envisioned spending months in North Bergen and months in Florida, near the sea and just across Cuba via the Gulf of Mexico.
When I look back at those years working as bilingual school psychologist, I could describe them not only as the last time of my working history, but as an important one because of the friendly touch that it brought to my whole life. At Washington School I had the opportunity to share my life with a professional staff which showed me what “unconditional acceptance of the student” means. The real commitment to all students never made differences between those students with learning, emotional, cognitive, neurological, or physical disabilities and those attending regular classes, never separation but integration of all members of the student body.
I want to mention two more blessings that I received at Washington School. First was the friendly acceptance by the staff of my English-speaking limitations. I never felt patronized but encouraged to express my thoughts and feelings, and follow through with my actions as a contributive member of the learning community of Washington School. I really felt in family there, not as a foreigner but as another American of Cuban background.
Secondly, in Washington School I found excellent friends who throughout the years became my special family. Out all the authors that described the key quality for maintaining friendly relationships, I want to share this thought of Karol Ladd: You can become a positive woman—no matter where you find yourself right now—simply by choosing to allow God’s power and strength to pour through you. So as we listen to others and show an interest in what is important to them, we begin to truly love and understand them and we are willing to lend and hold his or her hand. This is the type of friendship that brightens our lives; this is the attitude that helps us see God at work in our life and encourages us to see Him in the others.
This is the gift of friendship; that God allowed me to develop at Washington School. So when I had to take the decision of retiring and announced it to the staff and to my peers, all of the members of the Washington School family gave me their good wishes and love, accompanying me until the last moment, and no one questioned me but supported me.