Surviving Castro - and Harvard, too
Despite obstacles, a refugee's drive to reach his dreams wins admirers in high places
By Johnny Diaz, Globe Staff
Miguel Arguelles' journey to Harvard began eight years ago 1,800
miles away, where he wrote that
''the sun shines brightest and drowns in tears ... where Santa
Claus has not the visa to enter and
dreams cannot escape their prison of nonexistence.''
He wrote that in his college application essay about life in Cuba,
about his dreams at age 10 of
heading to Harvard, a place his mother, a science teacher, would
idealize.
When he arrived in Miami on Feb. 15, 1995, he couldn't speak English.
He was known as ''a
Cuban ref'' - refugee - among his high school classmates, and
through high school, his English bore
a thick Spanish accent.
By graduation time, though, he became his school's valedictorian
and the first student there to head
to Harvard. His up-by-the-bootstraps transformation made him
a kind of celebrity in Miami, with
the mayor's wife leading a scholarship drive and President Bush
even acknowleging him in a speech
- in fact, encouraging him to succeed at Harvard in a speech
before hundreds of people.
Talk about pressure. Cambridge is a long way from Miami, and celebrity
doesn't cut it when you
are studying alongside Al Gore Jr., Star Wars star Natalie Portman
or a descendant of John Adams
- or when you start your college life by mopping floors and scrubbing
toilets.
Yet he has made it to the warmer weather, despite a few bumps along the way.
They include - gasp! - a few B's.
Yet after nearly finishing an academic year, in a sign of his
assimilaton, he'd rather talk about his
Harvard ballroom dancing competitions; the salsa party he swayed
and swirled at over the
weekend; the seductive yet magical qualities of creative writing;
and how he finally feels settled in at
what he calls his third home.
Impressed by the campus and by the tradition, it is the smaller things that Arguelles enjoys the most.
''I like the random talk that surfaces at anytime, anywhere with
anyone here. I feel those are the
moments when you learn the most,'' he said, his straight hair
smothered by his crimson high school
baseball cap, which matched the big red ''H'' on his sweatshirt.
As he sauntered through Harvard Yard on a cool Sunday morning,
at least four students waved or
greeted him with ''Hi Miguel.''
''Everyone here is here because they have something special. It
is an intimidating journey, but it is a
matter of not being overwhelmed. I was going to meet my dreams
and do what I always wanted to
do all my life,'' he said, reflecting on some of the challenges
he's encountered at the Ivy League
school.
Another challenge: the thermometer. When it's cold in Boston,
he discovered, it's really cold - and
the roughest winter in years wasn't a warm welcome.
''No matter how cold it was, he still stuck through it,'' said
Odeviz Soto, Arguell es' best friend in
Miami, who was on the receiving end of many late-night conversations
from Cambridge last fall.
Soto arrived in Miami from Cuba a month after Arguelles with
the same dreams of going to
Harvard, and received his acceptance letter recently from the
school.
Of Arguelles, Soto said: ''He persevered, overcame a language
barrier and worked hard to make
his dream come true. He has been an inspiration to me and many
of my peers.''
Arguelles has also found that people in the Boston area are friendly,
despite a reputation to the
contrary, particularly when it comes to minorities.
That leads us to another misconception: that he could somehow continue his straight A run.
''It was hard getting used to that. I was getting straight A's
all my life, well, since the seventh grade,''
Arguelles said during a midday chat in a Harvard cafeteria. His
grades so far have been A's and
high B's.
But that's OK, he says. ''You focus more on what you are learning. Grades become secondary.''
So does sleep.
To keep up with his homework, Arguelles says he sometimes stays
up for 48 hours, solving
problems in calculus, scrutinizing formulas for chemistry and
letting ''the writing take [him]'' in his
creative writing class.
Although he wants to become a doctor, writing, too, is part of
his plan - and the class has become
one of his favorites. Writing always has been an emotional escape,
a vehicle that allows him to
revisit memories of Cuba - and release them as well.
He is working on a novel, about a boy growing up in Cuba. In the
story, he underscores the
importance of fantasy in childhood, something he lacked in his
own. In his Harvard application
essay, he writes: ''I had to recite Communist pledges on a daily
basis, and where I was taught only
what (Fidel) Castro's dictatorship believed appropriate. ''
In that world, Arguelles writes, Castro's government molds every
child's idiosyncrasies ''to its
distorted vision.''
Growing up in Havana, Arguelles said, he and other children celebrated
''holidays dictated by the
government, the birth and death of the martyrs.''
There was no Santa Claus. No tooth fairy. No Halloween. ''I feel
that is very important about
growing up here,'' said Arguelles, now 18.
For Arguelles, growing up in the US began in February 1995, when
he, his younger brother and
their parents arrived in Miami after his paternal grandfather
secured visas for them and flew them
over from Cuba. A top math student in Cuba, Arguelles struggled
with his new language.
''It's hard to learn English in Miami because everyone speaks
Spanish,'' he said, recalling how
words like chair and beach became tongue twisters. (When he spoke,
''chair'' often sounded like
''share'').
The homesick boy survived his first year in America the same way
he has endured at Harvard - by
pouring his efforts into learning.
''I didn't see it as anything other than what I was supposed to
do,'' he said, adding that his parents,
professionals who studied in Kiev under the Soviet system, took
factory jobs when they arrived in
Miami to make ends meet. At first, the family lived in a gymnasium
until they had enough money to
rent an apartment.
While they worked and studied English at night, Arguelles avoided
watching Spanish-language
television. Instead, he paid close attention in his language
classes, and honed in on dialogue in
cartoons and sitcoms such as ''Family Matters.''
He also read a lot. He devoured Agatha Christie novels. He has
repeatedly read his all-time
favorite book, The Little Prince.
''I can identify with him,'' said Arguelles, sitting in a Harvard
cafeteria, as the thumpthump of hiphop
pounded in the distance. ''He refuses to let anything stand in
his way. He embraces the world of
dreams. This little guy pursues his dreams.''
By the end of sixth grade, Arguelles said, he was speaking English
at a comfortable level, despite
his accent, while he continued speaking Spanish at home. And
at Barbara Goleman Senior High
School just outside of Miami, he routinely took college-level
classes.
''For someone who had been in this country for such a short time,
Miguel's knowledge and grasp of
the intricacies of language was phenomenal,'' said Linda Galati,
Arguelles' high school adviser.
As Miguel excelled, so did his family. His mother, Maria Teresa
Arguelles, became a middle school
English-as-a-second-language teacher - and is getting a master's.
His father, Angel Arguelles, rose
to supervisor at a construction company. Miguel's younger brother,
Alejandro, is also
college-bound. Two years ago, the family bought a home in a middle-class
suburb just outside
Miami, where Miguel spent hours in his bedroom writing papers
on his laptop.
Then, in December 2001, Miguel received an e-mail: He had been accepted into Harvard.
''I was speechless. You realize it's in front of you, but you
don't. You stare at it. Then the crying
comes.''
News of his story caught the attention of President Bush, who
invited Arguelles and his family to a
speech in downtown Miami where he read excerpts of Arguelles'
college essay.
''It's essential that Miguel, that you not only succeed, but it's
essential that we remember the
shackles of freedom that Miguel wrote about,'' Bush said that
evening, according to a White House
transcript. ''I want to thank you for your poignancy.''
With the limelight behind him and his sights set on Cambridge,
Arguelles began his Harvard studies
last fall. He arrived a week before classes began, to clean,
scrub, mop, sweep and dust in the
dorms, to help pay for his books.
The loneliness of those first few days felt familiar. ''The hardest
part was having to leave your family
and friends all over again,'' he recalled, saying the experience
brought back memories of leaving his
Cuban home years earlier.
Walking back to his dorm on an April Sunday, as the sun - and
the Cambridge temperatures -
climbed, Arguelles broke into a smile. ''Success is when you
achieve that happiness that you seek,''
he said. ''I am living my dream.''
Johnny Diaz may be reached at jodiaz@globe.com