Many twelve-year old’s biggest problem is their grades or with their friends. In the case of Miguel Bello, he was wondering if he would ever see his family again. Miguel Bello was born in Cuba, in the year 1948. When he was twelve, the dictator Fidel Castro came into power. Castro’s first move as dictator was a total overhaul of the country. All religions were banned, all the money in the banks was now owned by the government, all land was now the governments, and the currency system was completely changed. Castro took everything from Miguel’s family; their land, their money, and their one-hundred-year-old family jewels. Overnight Miguel and his family lost everything. Miguel compared it to falling asleep in your home and waking up homeless. Miguel is already scared and has nothing, now his parents are saying that he needs to get on a plane for the USA by himself.
The reason his parents came to this decision was that they had heard and seen Castro and his army take young children and take them to be brainwashed into communists. Miguel and his family would go to the airport every day and see if there were any extra seats on a flight to the USA. One day there was only one seat left on the plane so Miguel went by himself, scared and alone, to the USA. When he arrived, he didn’t know what to do. He was in Miami International, by himself, and didn’t speak any English.
After about an hour, a nun came by and recognized him. Not by his face, but by his situation. Miguel was called a Peter Pan child. She told Miguel that she was a Cuban nun that was kicked out of Cuba when Castro came into power. She told Miguel that she had a place for him to stay with others like him. Miguel followed her and went in an old van with a couple other kids from Cuba to an abandoned air force base that the government had let the nuns use as a housing space. The Air Force Base had a townhouse complex the kids were using as a living space. Miguel lived there for four months, scared, lost, and with others like him. The complex was overfull so they tripled and quadrupled up. After the four months, the nuns told him a family in Boston had offered to adopt him, so Miguel went to Boston. The family there helped him learn English and adjust to America. Miguel never went back to Cuba and it was around eight months before his parents could join him. His parents were lucky because Cuba closed the border a week after they left. Miguel ended up going to the University of Massachusetts and had a successful career in the USA.
