Assimilation: It’s a process

My 19-year-old nephew — just a month shy of moving from Havana to Miami — got a grand tour of the ritzy and lovely city of Coral Gables. He saw the big houses, the lovely tree-shaded streets, the Venetian Pool and the Biltmore Hotel, two beautiful examples of architecture and design and Miami history.

At the Biltmore, a guy saw my nephew and his parents looking at the golf course in wonder, walked over and handed them a club. Here, pretend you’re golfing, he said. Take pictures. They did. The pictures of my Cuban immigrant relatives “golfing” at the Biltmore are hilarious. They’ve made their way via e-mail to Cuba and around the country. I hope it is an omen of good luck, wealth, prosperity.

The day after the Biltmore experience, my nephew says: “I am 19 and that was the first time I’ve ever been in a hotel.”

Until recently, Cubans in Cuba were not allowed even to walk into hotels. It was a fact I knew, but did not think about until he said it.

Can you, my free American friend, believe that?

In the two weeks I just spent with my (step)sister, her husband and their son, I have enjoyed watching them, and listening to them. (Selling beef meant jail time, reusing disposable diapers is a given, they knew nothing of their famous and brave neighbor,Yoani Sanchez). It has been interesting to see all the paperwork required for assimilation. Thank goodness, my parents are helping them.

I have been amazed by their hope and strength, and have been sad for them too. They arrived in Miami with just the clothes on their backs, and a small suitcase filled with family pictures. Everything else was left behind. Forever gone. They miss their daughter and granddaughter, who are not expected to arrive until next year. Not that wholly different from Cubans who have fled their homeland for generations, but this is my first time watching it close-up. (By the time I was born, my mother had been here 10 years.)

Before I returned to Nashville, I set my nephew up with a Facebook account and my brother-in-law up with a blog. They have stories to tell. Good ones. But at the moment, I am going to let them own their stories and stay relatively silent on what I learned from them. In time, I’ll link to my brother-in-law’s blog. But, not until his daughter’s passage to freedom is secured.

Explaining the rules of American life — insurance, licenses, taxes, etc. — it’s clear we are a complicated and imperfect country. But we are, for sure, a country of people who wake up daily to promise and possibility.

And, as long as we don’t sneak a dip into the pool, we can hang at the Biltmore and pretend to play golf, if we feel like it.