A Cuban Refugee’s Journey
to the American Dream
The Power of Education
During the few times my father still visited the park, he was under surveillance. On the way home one night, a neighborhood acquaintance walked past him and whispered, “you have a shadow.”
Gerardo M. González
My name is Gerardo González. I am a Cuban refugee who arrived in the United States shortly after Fidel Castro came to power. We fled a regime we wanted no part of, whose economics and ideology we distrusted. But in the United States my father, mother, sister, and I suffered dislocation, isolation, and fear.
Almost exactly fifty years after immigrating to the United States, in May 2012, I was asked by the Indiana University Alumni Association to lead a people-to-people cultural exchange tour to Cuba. Unlike the day I left Cuba as a terrified eleven-year-old, I was returning not only as an adult but as a leader—a widely respected American educator. I found the experience much more emotional than I could have imagined. And it led to a series of reflections about my life and conversations with my parents that inspired this memoir.
The power of education
is the story of my life
This book is part of the Well House Series, a collaboration between IU Press and the IU Office of the Bicentennial:
Indiana University Press
Office of Scholarly Publishing
Herman B Wells Library 350
1320 East 10th Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA
© 2018 by Gerardo M. González
