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Vinas Fulfill Their American Dreams
By Mike Eisenbath of the Post-Dispatch
July 3, 2000
On this day when America celebrates itself, Andres and Olga Vina will go to Busch Stadium with hopes of seeing their younger son play the national pastime for the Cardinals. And they will feel something special.
"The freedom," Andres said. "If you work hard here, you've got everything you want, like we do."
Cardinals second baseman Fernando Vina, eligible to be activated from the disabled list today, has heard all the stories about his parents' life in Cuba. He has heard about the small garage they separated into several tiny rooms for a family of four; he knows all about the poverty and hunger.
And he remembers what life was like growing up in a poor section of Sacramento, Calif., after his parents left Cuba, and how Andres and Olga had to work long hours to meet the rent on an apartment in a crime-ridden neighborhood.
So, when Vina signed his first good contract as a pro ballplayer, he knew how to go about fulfilling a dream. He moved his parents out of the old neighborhood and bought them a home in a safer community in the Sacramento area.
"Five acres, four bedrooms . . ." Andres said, his voice trailing off with silent emotion.
"It's beautiful. Swimming pool and everything," Olga said through her tears.
"That's the United States," Andres said.
The purchase of the new house was a symbol of Fernando Vina's heart, a sign of his appreciation for all Andres and Olga had been through and all they'd done for him. But it really had nothing to do the Vinas' dream. They realized that long ago.
The Cardinals traded Juan Acevedo and two minor-leaguers to the Milwaukee Brewers last winter for Vina. He was the second baseman and leadoff hitter they were lacking.
Before he went on the disabled list last month with a hamstring injury, he was batting .290 with three homers, 20 runs batted in and eight stolen bases.
He might be back on the roster today when the Cardinals begin a three-game series with the Cincinnati Reds at Busch Stadium.
"I don't know about taking it easy, but I'll be smarter with my hamstring," Vina said. "I'll play the way I know how. It's just so tough to tone my game down. That's what makes me good."
Leaving Cuba for the U.S.
Six months after Fidel Castro took control of Cuba in 1959, "we noticed something going on there," Andres said. In 1962, shortly after Andres and Olga married, they decided they couldn't live there any longer. They filed paperwork with the government to leave for the United States. At the time, Cuba allowed such a move if a Cuban citizen already had relatives living here, and Andres' brother and Olga's sister had come to the United States before the Castro-led revolution.
"You had to be very careful what you did after filing the papers," Olga said. "If they don't want you to go, you don't go."
Seven years passed before they were allowed to leave.
They had a son in 1963 and a daughter in 1964. Government representatives took an inventory of everything the Vinas possessed. "And the government said, 'If you want to go to the United States, you have to work for us first,'" Andres said.
He was given a job in a sugar-cane factory, one he couldn't turn down, and essentially worked for free for those seven years. He was given a daily quota of work that entailed cutting sugar cane with a machete in six trips through a field, each covering a distance as wide as Busch Stadium. Meet the quota, and receive three pesos, or about $3.25. Don't meet it, don't get paid. He had never used a machete before, and he cut a tendon in his hand. "I never made it," Andres said. "No one made it. It was too much for any man to do in one day. I never got paid for that work."
He worked as a mechanic and occasionally drove a taxi on the side. But there was little money. When he needed new tires on the taxi, he took some metal screws and a piece of old rubber to form huge patches.
Andres, Olga and their two young children couldn't afford a house. Even now, Olga sobs when she recalls their living arrangements.
Fernando saw the home when he went to Cuba as a member of the U.S. team for the 1989 Pan-American Games. He walked into the garage that was attached to Olga's mother's home, the one the Vinas lived in for those seven years. He saw that there was no air conditioner, no heat, just a dripping faucet for a shower, cars that barely ran. He met aunts, uncles and cousins for the first time and gave them whatever he could - things considered necessities in the United States, such as medicine and clothes.
"That was an experience," Vina said. "To go back there and see it, it made me cry to realize what they went through."
In the late 1960s, the United States arranged to send medicine to Cuba if those who had applied for visas would be allowed to leave. When the Vinas found out they would be heading for the United States in January 1969, when Olga was pregnant with Fernando, the police returned to their home and made sure everything on the 1962 inventory still was there. "If they didn't see something, they stopped you from leaving," Andres said.
The family of four with one on the way, as well as Andres' mother, left Cuba with one small suitcase. Anything they were allowed to take with them had to fit in that as they started a new life in the United States.
It was an emotional time. Andres' family, which had come from Spain, was gone. But Olga was leaving her family, including a mother she never would see again.
Crying, she said, "We talked on the phone many times, but she got sick and passed away before she could come. That was the hardest thing, leaving those people. But we were excited about starting a new life. We couldn't wait to go."
They were taken to a Cuban refugees camp in Miami, where they were given clothes, beds and food. "The best treatment," she said. "The people there opened up their hearts for us."
Three days later, they moved to Sacramento, where Andres' brother already had settled. The Vinas went there with no possessions, no money and no knowledge of the English language. Olga cried every day, wondering how they would make it with a young family in this new situation. They lived on welfare the first three years. Fernando can remember going with his mother to pick up free government cheese.
But, two months after arriving in California, Andres started working for a lumber company at $1.70 an hour - enough to pay the rent. Four years later, he got a job in maintenance at the local university while Olga worked in a factory, taking all the overtime that was offered.
"We were poor," Olga said. "We didn't have much to give the children."
Andres gave his sons his love for baseball.
"They got us what they could," said Vina, whose mom worked overtime for 18 years to afford to buy a car for each of her three children. "I knew my dad loved the game, so he always made sure I had what I needed to play baseball."
Completing the dream
In 1977, a major part of the Vinas' dream was completed. They passed an exam and took the oath to become naturalized citizens of the United States.
"That was a very emotional day for us," Andres said. "Unbelievable."
The Vinas do not want to forget their Cuban heritage. They speak Spanish in their home, and Olga cooks Cuban food.
"But a lot of people who come from Cuba are always hoping things will change back there and they will go back," Olga said. "You come here homesick. You're happy, but you don't want to be a citizen. We weren't that way. We wanted to become citizens. We appreciate so much what they have done for us in all the years."
They fly the U.S. flag in front of their house each Fourth of July. When they stand before a ballgame, no matter how many thousands of times they've heard it, they feel a shiver at the sound of "The Star-Spangled Banner."
"Goosebumps," Andres said, sighing softly. "Every day, we say, 'Thank God for the United States.'"
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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