Gelasia Marinas-Márquez arrived in the United States in 1980 along with her husband José, an accountant by profession and former political prisoner, and their young son Pepito. In Havana, she had been director of the Secular Institute of Diocesan Cooperators (1966-69) when the Church and its members suffered the devastating effects of the violent changes that destroyed their country of origin. Many were expelled, others imprisoned, and a large number sought asylum, welcomed in countries of Europe and Latin America, but mostly in the U.S.
In Tampa, Florida, her spirit of guiding her compatriots in exile led her to radio and to publish a selection of the programs "Pensando en ti" (1981) offering moral and spiritual guidance to families in the process of adapting to the new culture. In New York, she worked for several years in the Diocese of Brooklyn in the Catholic Education Office, also with recent immigrants. In the interim, she revalidated her university degrees, completed a master's degree in religious education and a doctorate in psychology at Fordham University. Starting in 1993, she joined the New Jersey State School System as a Bilingual School Psychologist. Since 2021, she has been broadcasting her radio program "Viviendo con Sabiduría" on Radio Paz, once again in Florida.
When I was in 6th grade, –the psychologist tells us– we had a subject called Moral and Civic Education. The teacher taught us the origin of concepts before explaining them. That's how I learned the difference between teaching and educating. That's also how I came to know the Master of Excellence of my Homeland: José de la Luz y Caballero (1800-1862), the "teacher who taught us to think" and whose key phrase was "Anyone can teach, only one who is a living Gospel can educate."
For Dr. Márquez, the ideal educational process remains that of the school at the center, between home and community, and teachers who are and act as educators and educators who are and act as teachers. The family–school–community link involves not only communication, interaction, and cooperation but also complementarity to achieve in a positive way the transmission of information and the formation of effective citizens in the community.
The exiled psychologist's first contact with the American school system was as a student in public adult programs for English as a second language. Over time, she realized that in the United States educational system there is no infallible, unique, universal, and scientifically proven method for teaching English.
According to the psychologist, English is one of the most difficult languages to learn, given the peculiarity of its spelling, pronunciation, and grammatical structures. The challenge presented to students—learning to listen, speak, read, and write—encompasses all levels of linguistics: phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics. In the process, the brain is trained to think, speak, and write in another language. An ideal bilingual education enables the student not only in English and Spanish but with a series of skills that make them a competent individual in two societies and cultures. As they say in the field: a bicultural and bilingual person is worth two.
In the chapter "Hispanic Family Minister" in her autobiography "Finding Myself" (2011), Dr. Márquez highlights the role of education in helping immigrants regain their sense of belonging. When a person enters a society that seems foreign to them, they must adopt new and appropriate behaviors to adapt and integrate into the community. The family must then create an educational and informative environment and activate communication to avoid the confusion and ambiguity that results from the natural clash of cultures. Both parents and children, and in many cases grandparents, need to maintain a sense of self-esteem and value to deal with the challenges of the new environment. In that case, the two most important support systems to help them in this transition are school and church.
It is, in fact, natural that confusion, ambiguity, and ignorance generate mutual hostility between cultures, especially among adolescents. Young immigrants experience in school the aggressiveness that exists in less sensitive communities. On the other hand, inadequate mental health initiatives in the public system do not offer students effective training to face the emotional and spiritual difficulties of society. It is for this reason that the presence of the Church is crucial, not only as spiritual and moral support but because it serves as a communication bridge between immigrant families, their community, and the rest of society.
In her doctoral thesis, "Toward an Integral Model to Accompany Hispanic Immigrant Families in Cultural Transition," Dr. Márquez draws on her personal experience and studious observation to analyze problems and offer lasting solutions.
Although Hispanic immigrant families must engage in the process of internal modification to respond to the demands of the host society, –the expert continues– they must also ensure a sense of continuity with their own culture and traditions. Thus the family gains in social articulation and sense of belonging and recognition in the host culture without losing the historical connection with their ethnic roots. Immigrant families find themselves between two different cultural environments while finding the path from one culture to another. This transition is only possible through cumulative interaction between families and both cultures.
The professional explains that "The normal changes and anxieties, as well as the reactions and interruptions in family patterns that arise, bring as a consequence the need for these families to restructure, reintegrate, and realign themselves to meet the expectations of their members, before, during, and after the migration event from one culture to another. When anxieties are extreme, families' support systems are insufficient, and severe crises result. The lack of resolution to conflicts leads to dysfunction in the family system." In a need for harmony that they don't know how to recognize, they take refuge in materialism and surround themselves with objects that ultimately contribute to their spiritual and moral deficiencies.
The psychologist concludes by saying that "The need to restructure and not lose communication is particularly important because it is within the family and with its support that family members develop the internal balance necessary to relate to the new cultural identity and traditional roots."
Gelasia Márquez's life has always revolved around change and adaptation, no longer as an immigrant, or exile, or the professional she is, but as the missionary she has always been. After an entire career guiding families like hers with her experience, remaking and modifying her life over and over again, progress is evident and comforting. More than economic, it is spiritual evolution that the immigrant with common sense truly aspires to. In the case of Dr. Márquez and her family, it is their achievement of freedom to act, to think, and to do good from the heart, without oppression or impositions.
The American public education system has not known how to confront the immigration problem and as a consequence, has caused more division than integration in its school population, by reducing everything to the racial problem. In passing, in the politicization of the system, decision-making power has been taken away from parents, teachers, counselors, and social workers. Teaching as a vocation has disappeared and instead, economic competition and instant gratification conditioning have been incentivized. In the absence of teachers, unemployed executives are trained in quick courses, who venture temporarily and unsuccessfully into classrooms, to the detriment of education.
On the other hand, the bilingual program, intended to cover differences, has never been taken seriously by administrations and rather constitutes a thorn in the side of the educational system. As a result, more doctrinaire and deficient education methods have been adopted with the consequent increase in dissatisfaction and violence among students. The former high educational standards in American education have fallen to the lowest level in their history.
In an era of extreme confusion in the face of rapid and profound changes like those facing today's society, it is of utmost importance that immigrants and their families do not act like spontaneous parachutists or bullfighters, who throw themselves into the ring without the necessary preparation for survival. The risks are greater and sometimes fatal.