In search of my Abuelo

[firstcoaster]

My father was born in Puerto Rico and my Mother was born in Santo Domingo, but of Puerto Rican parents. This is the story. My Abuelo, William Miranda was a teacher educated in the U.S. right after the Spanish American war. He accepted a teaching position in the D.R. in a rural setting. Part of his salary was a land grant. He became well known and respected and then became one of the desperisados, the disappeared. The family my Abuela and 3 girls and one boy were wisked away just ahead of police. They were followed to Puerto Rico and then N.Y.C.. In a matter of months my mother went from sleeping in a hammock and bathing in a river to loosing her Father and landing on another world. But for the act of a tyrant I would have been born a Dominican.

I've been reading and listening to books by bicultural writers such as Esmeralda Santiago and recently Julia Alvarez, everyone should read Julia. I love to listen to the books on tape. It's energized me and I want to bring my Abuelito out of the jungle.

We grew with the legend but not any specific facts and when the telling became specific it's almost as if a switch was turned off and the telling stopped. Abuelita danced the day the monster met his just ends but still the fear continued.

I would like to know if there have been any formal proceedings such as the Nuremburg trials, were names written down and actions taken and by whom?
For years we were cautioned about asking to many questions, the trauma was that severe.

I invite anyone to begin a dialog with me on the topic or just how it feels to be brought up in a bicultural life style. I live in St. Augustine Florida, which still has it's original castillo and the look and feel of the colonial world.

There is a line in Julia's latest book "Saving The World" in which a young man says that the most important outcome of there encounter should be is that we will "infect them with our question". As the world turns and recent headlines continue it seems we don't learn our lessons of the past but we should never stop infecting them with our questions?