My family originated from Spain's Canary Islands and immigrated to Venezuela in the early 1900s before settling in Cuba. They moved to seek new economic opportunities as jobs were scarce in Spain at the time. In Cuba, they worked in agriculture, cultivating tobacco, drawing on skills from Spain. While some family members remained farmers, my grandfather became a teacher in Havana. We have maintained our Spanish language and Catholic traditions. Though today's circumstances as an immigrant are different than my ancestors, I have had to adapt to succeed. As an educator, I aim to encourage students to learn about their roots and will support any struggling with this through alternative exercises or involving family. I am inspired by Sandy Hook teacher Victoria Soto,

1. My Family
Roots
Massiel Olivera
EDF2085

2. Family Origins
 My
family ancestors were from Spain, Islas
Canarias.

3. Motivation
 Theycame to the new world in search of
new ways to invest their money in the new
promising lands. By then, Spain was
involved in a war with Morocco and jobs
were not abundant at that time. They
could either join the war and stayed in
Spain with no jobs, or travel to the new
world to invest whatever knowledge and
money they had left. By the beginning of
the 1900s they finally travel to Venezuela
and after doing some arrangement,
traveled to Cuba to settle down in San
Jose de las Lajas, a small town closes to
Havana.

4. Difficulties
 Itwasn’t really difficult for them. They had
knowledge regarding cultivation of
potatoes and tobacco. Since Cuba was
already been transformed, its Indians
were tough the catholic religion and the
Spanish language. When my ancestor
arrived to Cuba they almost felt like they
were home. In fact, as of today, Cuba is
famous for the quality of its famous
tobacco Habano.

5. Family business
 My ancestors remained in the Agricultural
business. As of the women of my family, they
were very dedicated to the cousin and taking
care of the little ones. My grandfather didn’t
really continue the agricultural business. He
moved to Havana and became an
Elementary teacher along with my grandma.
 They were part of the “Campaña de
Alfabetizacion”. A movement formed by
teachers to take the education all across the
country.

6. Language
 Myancestors had always spoken Spanish
and since Spain colonized Cuba, also
there, Spanish were the first language.

7. Traditions
 My grandpa has 7 siblings that still live in
San Jose de las Lajas, so the cultivation of
tobacco still remains as the main source
of money in my family and is consider
tradition. Also Hispanic cousin is pretty
much what survived all this years.

8. Family Name
 Pérez is a surname with at least two
distinct origins: One is a Spanish surname
meaning "son of Pero, Pedro, or Peter."
The other is a Hebrew surname Peretz,
derived from Perez (son of Judah). Our
origins however came from Spain. It
hasn’t change at all as far as I could
reach.

9. Experiences
 The circumstances I face today as an
immigrant are very different from the one my
ancestors experienced when they went to
Cuba. They were the ones who set the
traditions, the language and the religion. I am
not a religious person, and I only believe in
faith but I had to adapt to new customs,
blend my traditions with the American
traditions and learn a new language in order
to succeed as my ancestors did when they
settled in Cuba

10. As an Educator
 In my case, to conduct this research wasn’t very difficult
because I keep in touch with almost every member of my
family. We like to be very united. However I think that not
everyone has the same communication with their parents
and relatives. Others can be adopted and even though
they have communication with their foster parents, to not
really know what your real roots are can be very frustrating.
In any of these cases my idea would be to encourage
these students to communicate more with their families
and I will try to get the parents involved in exercises like this
one. In cases of any student that has any trauma or any
particular situation and the student feels like this exercise is
impossible to do, I would suggest the student to do some
research in the roots of any important personality that has
influenced, in a good way, the student. The same way I feel
inspired by one young teacher who lost her life in the
tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary. As a teacher I would
make my students feel like we are all part of a big happy
family.

11. As an Educator
 Victoria Soto is my new
inspiration to become a
teacher. She was so
dedicated to her
students that she died
literally taking bullets for
them. She wanted to
change our community
and so she did when
she protected her
students until the last
moment of her life.
Victoria Soto, 27, a first-grade teacher at Sandy Hook Elementary
School in Newtown, Conn.