By Luis Rivera, November 16, 2019 — I was eleven years old when I left Puerto Rico to come to America. My father went first with three of my siblings. There were six of us at the time, he only took his favorite ones and left me and my two brothers with our grandmother. My grandmother did not really like us because my mother went against her parents’ wishes to marry my father, but she married him anyway. Both my parents and my three siblings went. Then six months later they came for the rest of us. I was glad that I finally left my grandmother’s house but was sad because I left home. I understood that it was for the best because there weren’t any jobs at the time. We lived in Atlantic City at the time and that was a dangerous time for us because there was segregation (1955) and the Blacks did not get along with Puerto Ricans. [Latinos were segregated as well] but we passed as White. Most Latinos at the time passed as White and because of that the Black people did not like that, they thought it wasn’t fair that us immigrants got passed because of our skin tone. Anyway, at the time, my brothers and I had to travel in groups. It was dangerous to go outside alone.
Once we moved to America, I had to go to school and I hated school because I was confused because of the language barrier. They actually held me back a grade because I couldn’t read English. My brother and I were in the same class so we helped each other to learn. We had our fun with the Americans. I remember one time some White girl came to me and told to come here and I told my brother Jouse, “Hey Jo, come here,” [but I thought she said “comer” which in Spanish means to eat.] … We were disappointed when we found out she wanted us to come to her, not eat.
A few years later, my family moved to Pleasantville and we liked Pleasantville more than Atlantic City, it was safer and beautiful. I went to Pleasantville High school for my first two years. I was never good at school so I dropped out and went to the military. I was first in the Army, and they sent me to Germany to train. My time there was beautiful, they were my best years. After I finished boot camp, I served 10 years in the Coast Guard. I won a lot of medals, [my wife] has them saved somewhere. Once I finished serving I got a job in construction. At that time, I met [my wife]. A year later, I had to quit my job because to make [my wife] a US citizen, we had to get married in Ecuador. I told her that if I had to leave everything for it to happen then I’ll do it and did it.
After she got her papers, we came back to the US and I bought this house, and here we stayed until this day. We have been married now for almost 40 years now. A few years later, [my wife] told me she wanted to bring [her sister] over here so we did the paperwork and 11 years later [she] came. Two years later, [my niece] was born. I find it funny sometimes how life worked because if I were to never have left Puerto Rico, I wouldn’t be surrounded by the people I love to this day.