Celebrating those who Blazed the Trails Before Us

Last year, I shared the story of my cousin’s journey with IBM in Cuba and mentioned my father coming to the United States as an eleven-year-old boy. In the year that has passed, I’ve been honored to become the co-chair of the Hispanics@IBM community.?The goal of Hispanics@IBM is to provide a community within the IBM community that connects IBM’s Hispanic employees and allies across the U.S. with resources and programming to advocate for each other, accelerate Hispanic growth opportunities and ultimately help IBM excel. After accepting the role, I was asked why I would take on a personal interest ‘night job’ on top of my role leading the Technology Support Services team. The simple answer: my father. He provided me with so many opportunities that many other Hispanics haven’t had, and I want to help those who haven’t had the benefit I did.

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When my father came to the U.S. as a twelve-year-old, he was alone. Sent to Miami by his parents, under the guise of “Operation Pedro Pan”, a joint operation between the Catholic church and the CIA to help children flee Cuba. His parents didn’t know if they would ever see him, or my aunt who was sent separately to New Jersey, ever again - but what they did have was a belief about what was best for their children’s future. A belief so strong that they were willing to give up everything they knew and had.?It was clear to them that a life of freedom where religion, education and life style were a choice and hard work was rewarded would be better than a life of oppression under communism in Cuba.

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My father’s Cuban passport picture

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Thankfully, my father was eventually reunited with his grandmother, followed by his sister, and ultimately his parents a year later. While “Operation Pedro Pan” was a unique story in Cuban history, their experience once they were in the U.S. was a common one to many immigrants. They worked to learn the English language while taking on whatever jobs they could find as they began to pursue the American dream. That pursuit included my father paying for his own undergraduate degree in electrical engineering from the University of Miami, followed by an MBA he did at night while working a full-time job for Bell South (now AT&T).

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When he began working for Bell South, it was predominantly a white male-driven culture. Miami was a relatively sleepy city, far from the gateway to Latin America it is today. Miami was also representative of the struggles of racial equity going on throughout the United States in the early 60s and 70s. The prejudice was not just about equity for Black Americans, but similarly, Cubans were explicitly excluded from certain stores, restaurants, and other parts of society. In fact, some businesses would post ‘no children, no dogs, no Cubans’. The idea of diversity & inclusion we talk about now as a pillar of many companies’ core beliefs was virtually non-existent.

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Set by my grandparents, my father’s core belief was that education & hard work would ultimately pay off. He continuously battled what we would now call cultural bias - where there was an ‘expected’ norm of behavior. He constantly faced unwritten rules of corporate America that were not familiar to an immigrant who had no point of reference, no family member, or no mentor to understand what he should or shouldn’t be doing. It was an education in the school of hard knocks. Yet, time and again, he was the first Cuban to achieve so many things within Bell South, breaking through the proverbial ‘glass ceiling’.

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As he continued to ascend the corporate ladder at Bell South, he and my mother (an American of Eastern European descent) raised a family in a middle class suburb of Miami. I went to public schools with a diverse population…white, black & hispanic kids. My friend group included all of the above as well as kids who were Jewish, Catholic & other religions. To me that was ‘normal’.

Having the luxury to afford a public or private school was normal. My father being my baseball coach like other dads was normal. Having my own in-house tutor (my father) for whatever class I had a challenge with was normal. Having guidance for getting into college and somebody to pay for it (both undergraduate and graduate degrees) was normal.

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My undergraduate graduation (1997)

What I didn’t realize at the time was how my father’s story was anything but normal, and how he was the one who paved the way for me to accomplish what I have in my life. He was the one who had to fend for himself and mature instantly at 12 years old. He was the one who worked jobs while going to school to help his family afford to live. He was the one who paid for his own college because there wasn’t anyone else to do it for him. He was the one who had to overcome the inherent prejudice of virtually everything he did after coming to the United States. He was the one who deciphered the encrypted code of Corporate America. He was the one that ultimately became my first and best mentor and life coach.

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As we celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month, I am celebrating by thanking those who came before us - those who have blazed trails and succeeded despite long odds and very little support…and I encourage you to do so as well! This is also a moment for those of us who have been lucky enough to follow in someone else’s footsteps to say 'thank you' and pay it back by paying it forward, not just for our immediate family, but for others who haven’t had the same luxury. That’s the answer of why I cherish and am honored to co-chair the Hispanics@IBM community. Because I have been privileged to have personal and professional mentorship, sponsorship, and support. Privileged to work for a company that values diversity & inclusion and provides opportunities to those, like my dad before me, who may not have had it otherwise.

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3 Generations of Perera's (me, my son and my father in 2020)

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