Cuba: Beginnings
Before degrees, dashboards, and real estate spreadsheets, there was a family history of exile, scarcity, and stubborn hope that started on an island I didn’t grow up in but still carry everywhere.
Growing up in two countries at once
I was born in the United States, but my earliest stories weren’t about Disney or Little League. They were about blackouts in Havana, ration books, and neighbors disappearing without anyone asking why out loud. Cuba lived in our kitchen conversations, in the way the grown-ups lowered their voices when the news mentioned politics, and in the way my family talked about “over there” and “over here” like two parallel timelines.
“You don’t understand how lucky you are to be here,” was the chorus behind almost every lecture. At five years old, I didn’t. At fifteen, I started to. Somewhere between those ages, I realized that for my parents and grandparents, America wasn’t just a place. It was a decision: leave everything familiar behind in exchange for the possibility that their kids would never have to ask permission to dream.
Scarcity as a first language
When you come from a family that left everything once, you learn early that nothing is guaranteed. Scarcity isn’t just a bank balance; it’s a worldview. We ate everything on the plate. We saved plastic containers “just in case.” We fixed things until there was nothing left to tape together.
Money was either not talked about at all or talked about in the context of survival: rent, gas, groceries, sending something small back to family on the island. There was no “portfolio strategy” in our house. The strategy was: don’t fall behind, don’t waste opportunities, don’t forget where you came from.
My family didn’t have a vocabulary for financial freedom. What we had was a PhD in survival — and an intuition that education might be the one lever we could still pull.
Education as the quiet rebellion
In Cuba, information is controlled. Books disappear. Careers are chosen for you. So for my family, education in the U.S. wasn’t just a box to check. It was a way to fight back against the idea that your life is something the government assigns you.
That pressure translated into a very specific message growing up: “Study. Get a degree. That’s how you stay safe.” The problem is nobody explained how the U.S. education system actually works. FAFSA, credit transfers, accreditation — none of that was on the radar. We knew college was “good,” but not how easily student loans could become another kind of trap.
I did what first-gen kids do: tried to brute-force my way through it. I followed the scripts handed to me, chased the titles that sounded respectable, and assumed the system was built by people who knew what they were doing.
Watching other first-gen kids bump into the same walls
The more time I spent in classrooms and financial aid offices, the more I saw the same pattern repeat. Latino students taking on massive debt because nobody showed them alternatives. Parents co-signing loans they didn’t fully understand because “that’s just how it is here.” Advisors who meant well but had thirty minutes to map out the rest of your life.
It didn’t feel like a system designed for us. It felt like a maze we were expected to navigate blindfolded, and if we got lost, it was somehow our fault for not reading the fine print better.
From inherited fear to building systems of my own
There’s a straight line between those childhood stories of Cuba and the projects I’m working on now. The dashboards, the real estate deals, the community projects — they all orbit the same question:
What would it look like if people like my parents had clear maps instead of whispers? If first-gen kids didn’t have to learn everything the hard way?
Cuba: Beginnings is not about nostalgia. It’s about context. The reason I obsess over process, documentation, and making systems legible is because I grew up watching what happens when systems are weaponized instead. When rules are invisible, power always wins.
Why this story matters for everything else on this site
If you’ve clicked into my projects — the Degrees Sin Barreras initiative, the SRQ Food Bank map, the service-desk dashboards, the real estate portfolio — this essay is the “prequel.” It explains why I care so much about:
- Turning messy lived experience into repeatable playbooks.
- Building tools that help people see their options clearly.
- Making sure the next generation doesn’t have to guess how any of this works.
My family left Cuba so their kids could choose their own problems. This is the one I chose: how to turn that sacrifice into systems that stretch beyond my last name, so other families who look like mine don’t have to start from zero.