For the love of the game: Former state champion still playing – thousands of miles away
December 13, 2017
Breakaway Barge
December 13, 2017
Christmas is a time for families to come together, and the building of memories.
For one Lafourche Parish woman there is one memory — of one Christmas in particular — that stands out over all others. This Christmas, as during all for nearly four decades, Yamiley Diaz Suarez is drawn back to the time when, as a little girl, she experienced her first Christmas in the U.S., after fleeing Fidel Castro’s Cuba with her family.
The year was 1978 and her grandparents had sold their home in New Jersey to fund the trek to freedom for Yami and her family.
”It was amazing,” she said of her first glimpse of Christmas in the U.S. “I had never seen so many lights.”
Christmas celebrations — along with other religious exercises — were strictly prohibited in Cuba, where Yami said her family and others were kept under constant surveillance. She recalls the family sneaking away in the dead of night to baptize her sister.
Yami’s first Christmas here — in Florida — was spent at the home of an aunt.
“We didn’t want to walk in her house because they had material on the floor,” she said. “It was carpet. We didn’t know what that was.”
This would only be the beginning of a series of firsts for the young Yami, she would also lay eyes on her first Christmas tree, and be told the tale of Santa Claus, complete with her mother pointing out the window and telling her that Santa was flying around delivering presents.
Yami recounted with excitement the meal they had that day: lechon asado, which is pork marinated and cooked with plantains; black beans with rice, flan for dessert, which is a sweet custard along with a rice and milk pudding called arroz leche. There were also fried green plantains called tostones.
The quantity of food was especially new to her, because in Cuba food was rationed out in a per household basis. There were no grocery stores, and that made for an eye-opening experience as well.
“The first time I went to Winn Dixie, the sliding doors shocked me. I had never seen that before,” she said, “There was so much food. I asked my mom ‘does this ever end?’”
While Yami acknowledges that she prefers the U.S. to Cuba, she does not say so without certain reservations. After her first Christmas experience, her family slowly grew apart. She called this “The price of freedom,” and further clarified, “everything has its ups and downs.”
Yami said the Americanization of her family led to everyone “doing their own things,” even though her mother, father, aunt, and grandmother worked in the same tobacco factory.
Over time, the family moved to different states, and while they speak to one another over the phone frequently, Yami rarely sees them in person now.
Yami now has a fiancé’ Jeremy Thorne, and together they are raising four children in Labadieville. The economic recession has not been easy on the couple. Prior to the recession Jeremy was a materials coordinator. After the recession he worked as a deck hand on a fishing boat. Recently he was laid off and currently is searching for employment. The steady hardships have resulted in their moving from a large home in Slidell, to a smaller home in Raceland, to their current small trailer.
The burden has fallen on Yami’s soap company, “Mystic Organics,” to make ends meet. The company frequents both the Thibodaux, and the Houma Farmer’s markets, while also selling soaps in front of her house frequently during the week.
While financial difficulties have left the family’s future uncertain, the current holiday’s plans are already in the works. A quiet dinenr is planned, perhaps a few friends will visit, and there was Friday the added surprise of snowfall.
“I’m going to be here with my little family,” Yami said.
