Medium Writers Challenge
The Importance of Maintaining Space to Accelerate Culture
Respecting our cultural identities is a key factor in building meaningful relationships
As a first-generation Cuban American, I was raised in a Spanish-speaking house. My first language was Spanish. I didn’t begin learning English until I entered elementary school. Coming up in Jersey along the Hudson River wasn’t easy. Much of the area was recovering from near bankruptcy. Housing was cheap. My mom, like so many others, was able to purchase a home in a crime-riddled neighborhood for next to nothing during the late-1970s.
Our neighborhood was primarily Italian prior to us moving in. As is common when large demographic changes occur, many from the “old neighborhood” harbored some animosity towards Spanish-speaking immigrants. In Union City, one of the core communities for Cuban immigrants in the United States, a lot of slurs were thrown around and we were constantly challenged to fight. For Black and Afro-Latinos, those challenges were much more frequent. It’s not an anomaly we could ignore because it was always in our faces.
Despite all of that, it was still a fun place to live. Looking back, being surrounded by ethnically diverse friends and family, learning to cook the…
